The United States of America’s modern day policy on Missile Defense began under President Bill Clinton with the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 (link). This significant policy to deploy missile defenses “as soon as technologically possible” was driven by North Korea’s ballistic missile flight over Japan in August 1998. The Missile Defense act of 1999 and a long-range intercept success rate of three out of five by 2002 caused the United States to withdrawal from the restrictive 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (link) and defend itself, its allies, and deployed forces around the world from ballistic missiles launched from rouge nations. The clear intent of the Missile Defense Act of 1999 was to have a “limited” missile defense that would remain unequivocally ahead of the ballistic missile threat from North Korea.

Since deployment of the first Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) for the Missile Defense System in 2004, the United States has made considerable technological efforts to stay ahead of North Korea’s strategic ballistic missile capability in interceptor numbers, reliability and system engineering. In 2008, President Obama came into office and initiated a diplomatic reset with Russia–appeasing Russian leadership who viewed U.S. missile defense as a threat to their strategic deterrent capability. Shifting priority away from missile defense, the President reduced the planned quantity of total GBIs from 44 to 30, terminated the Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program (link to MDAA’s KEI webpage) and the Airborne Laser (link to MDAA’s Directed Energy webpage) and reduced considerable investment in the development and testing of GMD. In 2014, with the policy failure of the reset with Russia and an advancing North Korea ballistic missile program, President Obama reversed his decision, choosing to increase from 24 to 44 GBIs by the end of 2017 and proposing funding for the initial development of air platforms for boost-phase laser technology and the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV).

In addition to reducing the quantity of GBIs, reliability issues were acknowledged when the long-range interceptors were first deployed and frequent testing was undertaken to resolve and understand the issues. To compensate for these issues, a high shot doctrine was established authorizing use of multiple GBIs against a single North Korean ballistic missile. In Congressional testimonies this year, the Missile Defense Agency stated that any reliability issues have been solved and will be tested and fixed by incrementally replacing the original EKV (exoatmospheric kill vehicle) employed by GBIs with the upgraded CEII and, starting in 2020, fitting all GBIs with a Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV). However, it is likely that the current plan to reach 44 GBIs by 2017 will not be fully achieved unless additional interceptors are acquired. Until 2020, the total quantity of GBIs will naturally decrease because of attrition from obsolesce of first generation interceptors and annual testing needs (link to the current Senate version of the FY17 NDAA S.2943; Section 1661).

Today, in defense against the North Korean threat, the United States likely employs a multiple shot doctrine–for example a four-to-one shot doctrine with the 30 deployed GBIs–that enables an increased probability of intercept, giving confidence of kill against seven North Korean long-range ballistic missiles. Even with the addition of 14 GBIs, progression of North Korea’s long-range ballistic missile arsenal with the mobile KN-08–not including the potential long-range ballistic missile capabilities of Iran–will challenge U.S. efforts to stay ahead of the threat. Not until 2020, with both the increased GBI reliability and deployment of the Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) in Alaska, will there be significant relief reducing the shot doctrine and thereby increasing the capability to defend the United States. U.S. National Security has to accept risk between now and 2020 in hopes that the combined long-range ballistic missile arsenals of Iran and North Korea will not grow and deploy beyond 11 long-range ballistic missiles. Given the example of a four-to-one shot doctrine, any more than 11 long-range ballistic missiles from North Korea or Iran could exhaust the current GBI arsenal and reduce confidence of interception.

released last week from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) claim that North Korea could have produced six or more nuclear warheads within the last year and a half, increasing the country’s total stockpile to a speculated 13 to 21 warheads. This estimate is based on North Korea’s production of weapons-grade plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel and does not take into account highly enriched uranium produced at a second centrifuge plant thought to exist somewhere in the country. Last week, U.S. State Department officials claimed that North Korea had restarted domestic production of plutonium fuel-which can be extracted and reprocessed to be used for nuclear weapons-and recent reports confirmed renewed activity at the Yongbyon nuclear site, indicating continuation of plutonium reprocessing at the facility. North Korea’s behavior is in line with statements made by the country’s leadership during last month’s congress of the Workers’ Party when the Kim regime announced it would continue to strengthen its nuclear weapons capability.

The gap is widening between U.S. strategic missile defense capability and the proliferation of long-range ballistic missiles, demonstrating a serious national security problem for the United States. The evolving threat must be addressed to mitigate risk between now and 2020 by increasing the capability and quantity of current GBIs and, most importantly, changes must be made to the 17-year-old missile defense policy set by the Missile Defense Act of 1999, which has limited modern U.S. missile defense capability. A new Ballistic Missile Defense policy needs to be created that addresses increasingly numerous long-range missile threats and enables the United States to stay ahead of the proliferation of long-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic reentry vehicles and complex maneuverable missile threats.

A few risk mitigation solutions that should be considered between now and 2020:

• Increase the current GBI fleet to 60 interceptors
• Build an additional 12 silos in the three current missile fields in Fort Greely, Alaska (these missile fields are capable of holding 56 total silos)
• Take out the word “limited” in the Missile Defense Act of 1999
• Exponentially increase R&D on boost-phase solid-state laser UAV capability
• Fully develop and incorporate Prompt Global Strike, cyber and electronic warfare with Missile Defense
• Operatinalize Aegis Ashore Site in Kauai, Hawaii
• Test and prove the SM-3 Block IIA against ICBMs in the terminal-phase
• Test and prove the SM-3 Block IB and TPY-2 Radar against ICBMs in the terminal-phase
• Develop and deploy persistent global space-based discrimination and tracking sensors

For the National Security of the United States, it is exponentially more effective to remain clearly ahead of the threat so that successful deterrence and diplomacy can take place.