Long-range ballistic missile capability has traditionally been a tough nut to crack, reserved for superpowers and the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Not only is the telemetry and rocket technology prohibitively difficult to master, but the process of building a nuclear weapon small enough to fit atop the missile is a major feat of engineering.
Unfortunately, scientific advancement is making that once daunting process easier and more available and affordable for smaller states. According to the Army’s Space Missile Defense Command, 22 countries now have ballistic missile capabilities, and it is probable that 9 of those nations have nuclear capabilities.
Rogue states like Iran and North Korea, who desperately want to be taken seriously on the world stage, are cooperating in the development of long-range ballistic missiles and are making serious inroads in developing viable nuclear weapons. North Korea’s aim is to develop weapons that can reach the American mainland, creating a constant threat of nuclear attack. Iran seeks the same, but also wants the option of making trouble in their Middle-Eastern and European neighborhood, particularly in Israel.
There are two national security realities at play here. The first is that states like Iran and North Korea will soon be able to threaten the mainland United States with nuclear weapons. The Iran deal doesn’t prevent this inevitability any more than the 1994 North Korean framework agreement prevented Pyongyang from going nuclear. The second is that the United States has the ability to neutralize those threats. For years, critics have claimed that ballistic missile defense is an unproven technology, a pie-in-the-sky concept that was nothing more than a glorified budgetary suck.
Those critics have been overtaken by reality. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have seen the potential in missile defense, and years worth of successful tests have validated that belief. The problem is in the inexplicable relocation of missile defense to the back-burner of budget priorities.
A quick primer on how missile defense works is helpful. In its infancy, missile defense systems were designed to intercept enemy missiles in three phases of flight—boost, mid-course, and terminal. In English, the Pentagon sought the ability to shoot at an incoming missile from cradle to grave—allowing troops the widest possible window to intercept.
While conceptually that plan is still in effect, the Obama administration felt it too ambitious and killed several of the systems. The result was an increased reliance on the Standard Missile (SM). Traditionally a guided ship borne missile, the SM family has expanded its mission. It’s now the backbone of America’s missile defenses.
Despite rapid proliferation of foreign missile technology, the Obama administration cut the Standard Missile 3 interceptors by $159 million. The SM-3 has been deployed since 2014 and has the imperative capability to destroy enemy ballistic missiles in space. The SM is flexible. It’s evolved to deploy from the sea or land. Most valuable to military commanders is the SM’s ability to protect large regions from short-to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats. To American troops stationed in the Middle East and Pacific, the interceptor is their best defense against aerial attack.
North Korea’s recent test launched of three ballistic missiles only underscores the importance of having an arsenal full of Standard Missile variants on alert and at the ready. Unfortunately, the cuts drop the inventory procurement total from 52 to only 35. And their proposal to cut $30 million from the SM-3 IIA would reduce inventory procurement and effectively shut down that missile’s production line.
The great irony here is that members of the Obama administration and members of Congress have called for more Aegis Ashore defense sites across the globe to host the Standard Missile. In English, it’s the rough equivalent of asking to buy more rifles when you only have a dozen bullets. These cuts would both weaken the overall vitality of our defense against long-range missiles without yielding any meaningful long-term savings. It stresses an already stretched system that is trying to cope with an explosion of missile proliferation and—in the case of the Irans and North Koreas of the world—an explosion of new missile testing.
After Saddam Hussein peppered Coalition forces with Scud missiles during the First Gulf War, President Bush famously said “Thank God for the Patriot missile.” The SM series is a more ambitious evolution of that technology, and no less important to the troops within range of adversarial ballistics.
With the defense bill nearly complete, Congress has a small window to correct the administration’s reductions. If not, and we continue hacking away at our missile defense options, we will have left both our homeland and our allies more vulnerable to attack. A course correction is needed.
John Noonan a former Air Force officer, was national security advisor to Governors Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney
