Real Clear Politics:

Amid growing concerns about missile warfare, panelists at a breakfast hosted by RealClearPolitics on Tuesday discussed the state of U.S missile defense, threats from hostile nations and the funding trajectory of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program (GMD).

The missile defense budget, about $8.3 billion, will likely decrease next year, said Rebeccah Heinrichs, a fellow at the Hudson Institute.

“In many ways it’s easier to hit a bullet with a bullet than it is to get a program through Congress and continue the modernizations that the program needs to be all it can be,” she asserted.

In 2009, the Obama administration cut the budget for the GMD — the United States’ defense against ballistic missile threats — by half, amounting to a $1 billion reduction, Heinrichs said.

“I don’t think the homeland has actually ever been more vulnerable than it is today, and missile defense is a huge part of it,” said Gen. Charles Jacoby Jr., former commander of the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Jacoby said he does not support a solely defensive position for the program, but rather one involving “offensive and defensive, nuclear and non-nuclear, kinetic and non-kinetic” elements. But he also noted that new deterrence theories and constructs need to include defensive capability “that deny an adversary the benefit of an attack.” GMD is an essential component of that, he said.

Recent events, the panelists noted, indicate the program’s necessity.

A few days ago the North Koreans launched a satellite into space, which was seen by other nations as a front to test long-range ballistic missile capability. Such a rocket would put most of the continental U.S. in range should North Korea convert this space technology into an intercontinental weapon, Heinrichs said.

These threats continue to evolve and yet somehow surprise us, she added.

“The simple truth is we’ve spent a whole bunch of time turning all of our strategic assets on tactical problems in the Middle East and other places, keeping track of terrorists, and rightfully so,” Jacoby noted. “But we have not invested in upgrading and keeping an eye on emerging threats.”

Failure to do so results in threats to national security as well as additional spending required for the necessary rapid response, he added…

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