Dear Members and Friends,
On the second day of the new year, President Barack Obama signed the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act that was approved by the United States Congress which provides 633 Billion dollars for total defense spending in 2013.
1.54% of the 2013 defense budget is going towards missile defense which includes the development, testing and deployment of missile defense capabilities here, in the United States, and around the world where our troops and allies are threatened.
This Act also includes authorization for a study that will look into an additional missile defense site in the Eastern United States to ensure equal protection for the entire country from future ballistic missile threats. These future ballistic missile threats to the United States from North Korea and Iran continue to proliferate, as demonstrated in 2012, and have become more capable of threatening the population of the United States of America. These ballistic missile threats along with the regional threats in the Middle East and Asia have to be countered and deterred peacefully.
We thank the President for signing the authorization for defense spending for Fiscal Year 2013 in these austere economic times but we think that he could and should do more for missile defense in the coming year for the sole reason that missile defense fundamentally provides peace and stability in this unpredictable changing world as well as ensures protection of the American people against this specific and growing threat.
We acknowledge that the missile defense community that spans all of the U.S. military services for Combatant Commanders placed around the world, provides defense for our allies in Asia, the Middle East and Europe and funds Israel for its development and deployment of missile defenses still remains unquestionably challenged in this new year by the escalating threats and limited resources available to contain, shape and defend from those threats.
It is certainly within the realm of reason that in the critical defense of our nation, its people and that of our troops and allies around the world that under the tremendous proliferation of ballistic missile threats that, if left unchecked, could proceed to cause major conflicts and heavy losses of lives, that 2% of our annual defense budget should be allocated towards missile defense.
It is not too much to ask as 98 percent of the annual defense budget goes towards our offense of force projection and sustainment.
It is a two percent solution.
MDAA wishes all of you a great new prosperous year.
