Missile Defense 101
TECHNICAL ASPECTS
The Bush Administration has proposed a “layered” missile defense that would include missiles launched from the ground and from ships, and lasers fired from aircraft and from satellites. But except for the ground based system now being tested, the technology doesn’t exist yet.
Even the ground based system is years away from being ready, despite Bush administration plans to deploy it in Alaska in 2004. In a recent test, a “kill vehicle” tracked and destroyed its target more than 140 miles about the earth. But Pentagon officials later confirmed that the kill vehicle was guided to its target by a radar beacon, making the test unrealistic. Years more of testing is required before it can be considered ready.
To make things worse, scientists believe that any missile defense system developed by the United States can be circumvented by using decoys that cannot be distinguished by the missile defense radar.
The Pentagon’s experts admit that any missile system they deploy in this decade will not reliably track primitive, “wobbly” missiles launched by rogue states. Yet those states are most often cited by the Bush Administration as the reason for building a missile defense.
Even if a missile defense system is deployed, it can never be perfect. Former Defense Secretary William Perry has pointed out, “Even the best air defense systems, under operational conditions, have not demonstrated the ability to shoot down more than 20 or 30% of the attacking force.”
It makes no sense to rely on an expensive, flawed missile defense when there are other solutions available, including deterrence, diplomacy and preemptive military action.
COST
Bush’s missile defense plan is not only the most difficult weapons system the Pentagon has ever attempted — it may be the most expensive. The latest estimate prepared by the Congressional Budget Office is that the Bush administration’s “layered” missile defense will cost between $158 billion and $238 billion. (The Bush administration has refused to put a price tag on its plans because it says it has not decided what to build.)
The United States has already spent the equivalent of $148 billion on research and development since missile defense was first proposed in the 1950s, according to the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment.
We can’t continue to throw billions down this technological rat hole without getting any results. The huge budget surplus that accumulated during the Clinton Administration has disappeared on Bush’s watch. Now Congress will have to choose among competing priorities, including education, health care, prescription drugs, and other defense needs, including pay increases for servicemen and women and upgrading weapons systems. Missile defense should not be funded at the expense of other pressing needs.
The Administration’s entire defense buildup — $48 billion requested for 2003, the biggest increase in two decades — will lead to more deficit spending because of Bush’s 2002 tax increase and the economic slowdown.
Congress will be forced to dip into the Medicare and Social Security trust funds if it wants to pay for the Bush Administration’s missile defense system. Before September 11, both Democrats and Republicans vowed they would never do that.
Americans will spend whatever is necessary to protect our national security. But spending billions on missile defense is not providing security for the United States. Even the Pentagon acknowledges we are not likely to be attacked by a ballistic missile from a rogue state. We would do more for our national security by fighting terrorism, destroying nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union, pushing negotiations between India and Pakistan, and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Every billion spent on missile defense is money that cannot be devoted to improving education, strengthening health care, reducing the debt, shoring up Social Security and Medicare, and developing a sensible nonproliferation policy.