Since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Americans have been promised the “Strategic Defense Initiative” (SDI) or some form of missile defense to protect America from a rogue nuclear or other type of intercontinental missile attack. From Presidents George W. Bush to Barack Obama, that promise has remained unfulfilled. Right now, President Donald Trump has an opportunity to complete that promise with a Ground-based Missile Defense (GMD) system designed to stop a missile from the Middle East, Asia, or Russia.
The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) put out a report titled “Missile Defense 2020” that argued our nations’ “missile defense has been described as an evolving effort, with no final architecture.” There are no treaties that have restricted the development of missile defense because of the efforts of Presidents Bush and Obama to resist legally binding restrictions.
The report further makes the case that “today’s capabilities have now matured from a kind of infancy, to initial defensive capabilities, to a kind of adolescence — but have far to go before they might be described as mature or robust.” As a young person, I feel like the federal government has failed me in providing for the national defense by not having a defense to the same threats that are being made today by the militant leader of North Korea.
Technology exists according to the report called “the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program.” This system is different than competing technologies like the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), designed to collide with missiles, and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system (AEGIS), designed for short and intermediate range missiles. The report indicates that as of 2016, “some 36 Ground-based Interceptors (GBIs) were deployed to silos at military bases in Alaska and California, providing a limited defense against long-range missiles from North Korea and potentially Iran.” Eight more are scheduled to go online by the end of the year.
More are needed and it does not make me feel safe that we are not pouring more resources into these defenses.
Think back to the nation-building policies of the Bush and Obama Administrations that has continued our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though President Obama promised to end the war in Afghanistan, we still have troops there with no end in site. Some Republicans like Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) have called for more troops and expanded operations. These members should focus on protecting the homeland, instead of continuing unpopular wars with no discernable goal. One can be for or against the Iraq war, but it is hard to dispute a Brown University study from September 2016 that indicated that the U.S. spent approximately $3.6 trillion from 2001 to 2016 in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria with $1.6 trillion as a baseline accounting for counterterrorism costs.
Trillions should be spent on protecting America from a missile attack, because it is possible that our current level of $821 million, down from $1 billion last year according to a report by Defense One on the recently released Trump budget. Compare those numbers – under $1 billion for missile defense while our nation has invested between $1.7 trillion and $3.6 trillion in our nation-building efforts in the Middle East. To repeat – the U.S. is investing millions in missile defense to protect the homeland while we have invested trillions in foreign wars. That does not make sense to me.
President Trump can complete the promise of President Ronald Reagan to provide missile defense to protect from nuclear missile attacks. One way to do so would be for Congress to step in and bump up the missile defense appropriations while lowering the commitment we continue to make in the war that President Obama declared over in Afghanistan. It is very important to provide a sufficient protection against ISIS and the threats they pose to the United States, yet it seems like Kim Jong Un in North Korea is threatening action that would impact Americans far more than civil wars raging in Syria and Iraq.
