Dear Members and Friends,
With just 37 Ground Based Interceptors (GBI) in silos in Alaska and California by the end of this year to defend all 50 States from evolving threats – to include North Korea’s growing and modernizing arsenal of mobile and underwater solid-fuel missiles, designed to defeat “left of launch” tactics and preemptive first strikes – our nation is not ahead of the threat. Maxing out at seven more GBIs by the end of next year, it is absolutely critical to reduce the number of interceptors launched at each missile, change the 1999 Missile Defense policy that limits our capability, be interoperable with our allies, combine offense with defense to include kinetic, cyber and electronic warfare and increase missile defense capacity. This would provide a better deterrent and a cheaper engagement solution that will allow the United States and its Allies to deny North Korea, Iran and others to threaten millions of lives in an ever evolving and complex world.
North Korea’s latest Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) this week, the 29th of this year, validates their continued advancement of a strategic nuclear force (Link to an article on the test launch). Breaking United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) and myriads of sanctions, how many more North Korean ballistic missile tests are the United States, Japan, South Korea and the International Community going to continue to tolerate. The only solution today, besides a pre-emptive military strike that would cause a war, is increased operationally deployed missile defense systems.
The future of missile defense in the United States is at a tipping point, in making a change to a 17 year old policy – originally driven by two rogue nations – that is cost prohibitive and has a limited engagement capability, to unleashing innovative technologies that combine air and missile defense which are globally persistent, interoperable and are cheaper to intercept than the missiles being intercepted. The next President of the United States will have the opportunity to change the way the United States and its Allies use air and missile defense systems to make the nation and the world safer than it is today.
When the next administration shapes its missile defense policy, it should increase the budget for missile defense to over two percent of the Department of Defense’s annual budget, which could be implemented in its first budget proposal for FY 2018. Regardless of who gets elected President in November, the United States will assume risk until 2020 with its current missile defense system to defend all 50 States from North Korea and Iran while it modernizes and replaces its 44 GBIs and adds persistent discrimination sensors. A good portion of the fleet of 37 GBIs this year, and the 44 GBIs next year, are the old first generation CE-1 interceptors which are not as reliable as the second generation CE-2 interceptors and even more reliable CE-2 Block-1 interceptors that recently proved significant enhancements to increase their reliability earlier this year. (Link to an article on the GBI flight test)
When the new line of the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) begin to re-tip the older first generation CE-1 interceptors in a few years from now, risk will need to be mitigated and the shot doctrine reduced by not only the deployment of the Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) in Alaska, but also the deployment of innovative commercially launched satellites with Space-based Kill Assessment (SKA) sensors and better battle management C2BMC of engagement with current missile defense interceptors with remotely with existing deployed land and sea-based sensors both regionally and strategically.
Replacing the current old CE-1 interceptors with current proven CE-2 Block-1 interceptors rather than waiting for the RKV must be considered by the next President throughout the next three years to eliminate the current gap in reliability and to increase confidence until the new RKV interceptor is tested, proven and replaces the entire fleet, it is in the best interests of U.S. national security. Operationalizing the Aegis Ashore site at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) and a TPY-2 radar already located there in Hawaii is of criticality to our National Security to mitigate the growing risk from North Korea to the 1.4 million people that live in Hawaii.
The Missile Defense Agency, along with the U.S. Air Force, using leftover funding from the STSS (Space-Based Tracking and Surveillance System), implemented and are deploying a commercially-launched satellite constellation of 20 plus mini SKA satellites with small infrared sensors that will provide kill assessment to the C2BMC command center in Colorado Springs. These spaced-based sensors help to reduce the shot doctrine of all missile defense intercepts in space by increasing assessment of intercepts, thus preventing the launch of unnecessary interceptors. This constellation of satellites, developed, produced and will be launched into orbit aboard commercial buses in 2017, cost under $100 million, a significant budgetary breakthrough for the U.S. Government, saving billions of dollars when compared the cost to put up other military constellations.
The 300 million people of the United States have the constitutional right to be defended from outside threats. It is their duty and responsibility to provide that defense for all 50 states. Over 98 percent of the DoD’s budget is on offense and less than 1.43% is on missile defense.
