“To remain ahead of our competitors, we will divest ourselves of… non-core Navy missions like Aegis-ashore. Transferring shore-based Ballistic Missile Defense sites to ground forces enables Sailors to focus on their core missions at sea and frees up resources to increase our lethality.”
This week the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, proposed that the Navy divest its role in the Aegis Ashore ballistic-missile defense (BMD) mission to focus on core, Navy-specific, missions such as sea control and power projection. He is right. The Navy’s focus must remain on building enhanced lethality to compete with, deter, and if necessary, defeat our near peer adversaries China and Russia, while maintaining a keen eye on Iran, North Korea, as well as other state and non-state actors who pose a threat to the United States. The proliferating threat from China and Russia is continually evolving and expanding, routinely achieving milestone advances in anti-ship ballistic and hypersonic missile capabilities, all of which are designed with the intent to destroy and negate the defense of U.S. interests. Out of necessity, the U.S. Navy must leverage its existing finite resources to enhance sea-based midcourse and terminal phase BMD as part of Carrier Strike Groups. From inception, the Navy-operated AEGIS Ashore evolved as a capable and efficient way to meet the pressing demand of the European Phased Adaptive Approach to defend Europe from Iranian Ballistic Missiles. During the 2000s, while the US-led War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army had neither the resources, capacity nor the focus to assume this specific ballistic missile defense land-based mission. Admiral Gary Roughhead, the CNO at that time, temporarily assumed the land-based missile defense mission, which emerged as an enduring mission. Because of the proven capability of Aegis BMD Ships and the SM-3 interceptor, the US Navy, coupled with the Missile Defense Agency, retained the requisite manning, training, and material knowledge to support and operate Aegis BMD on land. The Navy willingly absorbed land-based ballistic missile defense to demonstrate its continued relevance in a period of austerity. It is beyond time for a reset and rightful mission alignment. The defense of critical assets and critical infrastructure on land from air and missile threats unequivocally belongs to the Army and it’s cadre of missile defenders. It is time for the Army’s four Army Air and Missile Defense Commands (AAMDCs) and nine Air Defense Artillery (ADA) Brigades from both the active component and National Guard to step forward and perform this critical land-based BMD mission. Army ADA has been active in the US Army since 1917 and activated as a branch in 1968.
In building a sixth fleet to stay ahead of the near peers, the Navy should instead refocus its limited assets on sea control and power projection missions or it risks continuing to degrade readiness and lethality by committing resources, ships and Sailors to the Army’s missile defense land mission. Increasing vulnerability of U.S. operating land bases across the Pacific and the gap of Missile Defense current systems to meet the current and future threats creates critical urgency. The successful intercept of an ICBM by the SM-3 BLK IIA, the establishment the underlayer for the U.S. Homeland Defense, and development-time risk associated with the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) program all create opportunities to re-align and expand Aegis Ashore under the leadership of the Army and National Guard to support U.S. Homeland Defense. The right mix of resources, necessity, opportunity, capability, and will allow restoration of the proper alignment of land-based missile defense under the Army and National Guard.
Ensuring the integrated air missile defense of Guam is an absolute critical mission for U.S. force projection to counter and deter adversary threats in the Indo-Pacific theater. Today, the Army’s Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) battery paired with a Navy AEGIS BMD destroyer provides ballistic missile defense of this U.S. Homeland Territory and the USAF, Navy and Marine bases hosted there. A continual multi-mission Navy Aegis BMD Ship assigned to conduct picket duty for the ballistic missile defense of Guam is an inefficient use of the limited ship inventory the Navy has to patrol, deter and defend the Indo Pacific. The recently demonstration of the SM3 Block IIA as an ICBM interceptor in a vertical launcher linked into a future Aegis Ashore site in Guam would relieve both the U.S. Army THAAD Battery in Guam and the U.S. Navy Aegis BMD Ship assigned to picket duty for Guam.
China’s rapid development and fielding of high-endurance platforms combined with the development of precision-guided ballistic and cruise missiles continues to push its weapons engagement zone deeper into the Pacific. Its seizure and development of non-maritime features in the South China Sea extends the current range of its land-based ballistic and cruise missile inventory. China will be able to deliver these weapons from any direction, at any time from land-based, surface ship, air, and sub-surface combatants. This reality creates a demand for 360-degree layered missile defense, anti ship strike and proven engage on remote, cross domain cyber protected Command and Control of both Guam and Hawaii. A deployed Aegis BMD baseline 10 Ship capability that on land would have increased numbers of interceptors and more power generation for bigger and better sensors, is the quickest and most complete way today to build a persistent IAMD for Guam and Hawaii.
The FY-2021 National Defense Authorization Act established the Pacific Defense Initiative (PDI) to focus resources on key military capability gaps, reassure U.S. allies and partners, and bolster the credibility of American deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Admiral Phil Davidson, U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander, advocated this approach calling a potential Aegis Ashore Guam “The backbone of the Homeland Defense System” and his “…No. 1 priority, and the most important action we can take to readily and most fully implement the National Defense Strategy.” PDI provides the critical funding mechanism that would enable the U.S. to meet the reality of China’s emerging capabilities in the near term.
From Guam to Hawaii, PDI alleviates service-centric budget tensions and over dependency on overseas contingency operations (OCO) funds, which are being drastically curtailed. Both the Missile Defense Agency and the Navy depended upon OCO funds to support Aegis Ashore for the European Phased Adaptive Approach Phase II (Aegis Ashore Romania) and European Adaptive Approach Phase III (Aegis Ashore Poland). While these funds were initially designed to support contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have since been used to offset funding shortfalls for AEGIS ashore. This path is unsustainable given the massive trillion-dollar COVID-19 relief effort and increasing bipartisan support to draw-in and control OCO funding. Funding for manning, equipping, and training for AEGIS Ashore must come from the services.
Air and Missile Defense is one of the most critical missions provided by the Army to the broader joint force. Counter-insurgency operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years, coupled with uneven poor acquisition management, have atrophied the Army’s missile defense procurement process, which continually lags behind the procurement of Navy missile defense systems. The Army was focused on an enemy that did not possess sophisticated precision weapons that would have driven a fast and effective air and missile defense acquisitions process. High demand and limited capacity has resulted in a crisis of confidence with the Army’s air and missile defense force and its missile defense acquisitions process to rapidly deploy capability and fill the 360 layered missile defense gap. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, C.Q. Brown, has recently challenged the efficacy of the Army’s air base defense, with the exception of the NCR, due to limited capacity. The Army is rightfully concerned about its tactical air and missile defense capability and capacity of its Combat Brigade Teams, its foundational maneuver force. In contrast, the Navy’s AEGIS BMD, which is driven consistently over the past two decades to be ahead of the Chinese and Russian missile and air threat to its Aircraft Carriers, successfully achieves its tactical, operational and strategic level taskings. AEGIS Ashore land capability with 360-degree missile defense weapons and sensor coverage, advanced network integration, anti-ship missiles, advanced Navy/Army long-range precision fires potential, and the current developing Army/Navy hypersonic glide strike weapon may soon be the most capable deployable Anti-access and Aerial Denial weapon in the world today. An Army manned, operated and commanded AEGIS Ashore would create unity of command and effort over core elements of island base defense over the Indo-Pacific. In addition, Army AEGIS Ashore (AAA) would give the Army new relevance and significant impact in the Indo- Pacific.
Funding the Army AEGIS Ashore system is an absolute strategic imperative. While we are mindful of the cost for technologically advanced Missile Defense, the strategic cost in terms of inaction is absolutely unacceptable. The Joint Force must develop the Joint Warfighting Concepts and associated Missile Defense Architecture to cover all of our operational gaps and seams — our adversaries are paying close attention. U.S. Army should stand tall and commit to AEGIS Ashore.
