Defense News:
WASHINGTON — The Ballistic Missile Defense Review ordered this month by Defense Secretary James Mattis won’t wrap up until the end of the year but the Missile Defense Agency’s fiscal year 2018 budget request shows signs of flexibility ahead of the reviews findings.
MDA is requesting $7.9 billion in FY18, an increase of $379 million from the FY17 request, according to budget documents released Tuesday.
Big and small changes could be afoot as President Donald Trump considers how to shape both regional and homeland defense in his administration.
The Obama administration can take credit for the European Phased Adaptive Approach which sets up a series of radars in Europe to protect U.S. forces deployed abroad and its allies against possible ballistic missile threats from Iran. And the Ground-based Mid-course Defense System that protects the homeland from possible threats from Iran and North Korea was initially fielded during the George W. Bush administration.
While it remains to be seen what the Trump missile defense legacy will be, MDA is looking at a few capabilities that might be considered in the review while proceeding forward with major current and future missile defense programs in the works.
Nothing in the FY18 budget would “preclude moving forward” when a review comes out, Gary Pennett, MDA’s director for agency operations, said during a Pentagon budget briefing Tuesday. “We try not to preclude anything in advance of that and we did that with the thought in mind that the BMDR would potentially inform us as we go forward and so we are prepared for that.”
For example, MDA plans to fund a $5 million study to look the possibility of establishing an Atlantic radar. The study would assess “the feasibility of appropriate tracking and discrimination sensor capabilities to support the defense of the United States against emerging, long-range, ballistic missile threats from Iran,” Pennett said.
The results of the study will inform the BMDR, he added.
MDA is also preparing to ramp up radar coverage in the Pacific Ocean, according to Pennett.
A sensors analysis of alternatives conducted by the Defense Department identified a next near-term critical step to optimizing tracking and discrimination capabilities in the Pacific is to deploy a radar there, Pennett noted.
MDA is requesting $21 million for an Enhanced Homeland Defense Radar in Hawaii, Pennett said, and will conduct source selection activities in 2018 with a plan to deliver initial capability for the radar by 2023. The agency plans to award a radar contract in FY18.
Pennett added the current defense radar is effective and a new radar anticipates future threats from Iran and North Korea.
Much of the budget continues on the same path for both homeland and regional defense…
