IndraStra:
In February 2015, two of the most senior leaders in the U.S. armed services, the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Chief of Naval Operations, delivered an “8-star memo” to the Secretary of Defense which recommended the Department sponsor a ballistic missile defense (BMD) strategy assessment, due to the growing challenges associated with ballistic missile threats versus the number of available U.S. BMD systems. The next month, Representative Jim Cooper of the House Armed Service Committee called for a way to address the Service Chiefs’ concerns. Without an interagency approach, this question could be answered in the wrong way. The solution does not lie solely within the military’s management or employment of forces, but rather in the political philosophy underpinning the deployment of U.S. missile defense assets.
As one of a handful of nations with this capability, missile defense carries indisputable benefits to U.S. foreign policy. However in providing BMD to allies and partners, the U.S. must insist recipient nations take subsequent actions which help maintain the flexibility of U.S. BMD forces. Without such commitments, security cooperation using U.S. BMD assets risks placing overwhelming demands on a limited resource.
The interest in BMD stems from the growth of actors seeking ballistic and cruise missiles through smuggling or outright sales. As recently seen in Turkey and SaudiArabia, countries are finding themselves vulnerable to a new threat, even though it may come from some of the oldest versions of the Scud missile. Sufficiently armed, a rudimentary missile may still devastate large population centers, cripple infrastructure or severely impact the economy.
Missile defense improves security against these dangers while creating positive effects on foreign relations. U.S.-Israel co-development of the Arrow and David’s Sling BMD systems, plus bipartisan Congressional support for funding and manufacturing of the Iron Dome counter-rocket system, have been much-needed demonstrations of a positive U.S.-Israeli relationship. Japan’s recent broader reinterpretation of collective defense and successful co-development of the SM-3 Block IIA missile is a reflection of improving interoperability and effectiveness in the Asia-Pacific region, and the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) solidified the U.S. as a key guarantor of NATO European security against ballistic missiles launched from Southwest Asia. While missile defense appears to have a deleterious effect on U.S.-Russia diplomacy, BMD’s effect on strategic parity could be considered exaggerated. The relationship instead appears mutualistic – the antagonism over BMD benefits Putin’s economic strategy, and BMD is credited as a robust capability and valuable security cooperation measure.
Possessing a BMD capability resonates with countries which have a high risk of limited ballistic missile attack – one where the number of threat missiles actually used does not greatly exceed the resources available to defeat them. The quandary of assurance through “missile defense diplomacy” is that it is limited by force availability. Meeting new commitments means BMD forces must be augmented, transferred, or made more efficient. Augmenting consists of buying additional BMD systems such as Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) – difficult to do in the current budget environment. Augmenting also means leveraging capabilities from partner nations, or adding “left of launch” options – i.e., employing non-BMD assets to neutralize threat missiles prior to launching, which avoids using BMD interceptors. The transfer of BMD assets from another region may be acceptable during a crisis, but prolonged reassignment risks detracting credibility in meeting original commitments. Finding system efficiencies include developing ways for interceptors to defend larger areas (e.g., SM-3 Block IIA), improving the speed at which BMD systems move between locations (e.g., rapid deployment), lower response time to threats (e.g. Aegis Launch on Remote), reducing the cost to engage threat missiles through evolutionary technology (e.g. directed energy, rail gun), and increasing the number of threats defeated per interceptor (e.g. Multiple-object Kill Vehicle). However, all of these measures are internal to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and will still reach capacity eventually….
