Dear Members and Friends,
As the differences between the houses in Congress start to become resolved on the President’s Budget request for missile defense for 2012, MDAA has submitted a one page informational summary on missile defense. The white paper called “Tax Dollar Efficiency” is below:
Core Competency
United States Congressional oversight in priorities and funding of the Administration’s 2012 10.4 Billion dollar request for Missile Defense should focus on the missile defense capability required to deter the adversary and protect the U.S. homeland, U.S. armed forces overseas and allies, particularly Israel, against a possible first barrage of ballistic missiles from Iran, North Korea and emerging threats. Strategic, regional and tactical level defenses require three completely integrated joint architecture components of sensors, shooters and fire control and must have the war fighters’ full confidence. In addition to protecting our most critical assets, operationally proven, tested, integrated and deployed missile defense systems serve as a significant deterrent to our adversaries and strengthen alliance cooperation which, in turn, invites burden sharing of costs.
Testing equals Confidence
Testing must be robust, operationally realistic and frequent across all systems to verify system performance and capability. Testing provides verifiable confidence for our nation’s war fighters and political leaders. Testing also sends a strong message to our adversaries about our missile defense capabilities. It is troubling that MDA’s 2012 test budget has again been significantly reduced, as has the number of scheduled tests. These two factors reduce our nation’s missile defense credibility at home and abroad.
Integration
We must create conditions which allow integration between different systems and across the spectrum to occur during the acquisition process and not after the systems are fielded and deployed. It does not require significant funding to require integration in the development and acquisition phase. It is, however, costly and inefficient for the war fighter and the tax payers to sub-optimize our missile defense systems because we cannot integrate the best sensor information with the best interceptor available to counter the threat. Today, most of our deployed missile defense systems lack full joint integration at the strategic, regional and tactical level. A Joint Integration Missile Defense Center of Excellence is needed for STRATCOM, JFCC-IMD and the GCCs in order to advance missile defense operations and to ensure our war fighters at the highest levels are completely knowledgeable to make the best decisions for our nation and our allies.
Do more with what you have
Increasing production capability of deployed interceptors, launch platforms and sensors to reduce known capability gaps is critically important to our nation’s war fighters. This will create stability and safety in crisis areas of the Persian Gulf, Israel and Korea as well as the homeland. Upgrading, where applicable, the sensor, processor, and interceptor systems to create more capability and more confidence for the war fighter is a very efficient use of tax dollars.
US Homeland Defense
Request equal sensor architecture in both quantity and quality to include upgrades, integration and deployment of an East Coast X Band fire control radar for full protection against ballistic missiles launched from the Middle East to the Eastern United States that mirrors the capability currently in place today for the Western United States from North Korea. Fix and test with urgency the Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicles (EKVs) on all Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs). Upgrade and test with urgency the Sea Based X Band radar. Currently, the next GBI intercept test will occur no earlier than 18 months from today. That is too long and erodes the war fighter’s confidence. If this system is not modernized in the next four years, it will be perceived as a “hollow�? force. Request a realistic hedge strategy for a 2nd shot “look-shoot-look-shoot�? capability to defend all of the Eastern U.S from an Iranian Long Range Ballistic Missile prior to 2020.
European Missile Defense
Increase the bipartisan political resolve for full support of NATO unification on the President’s European Missile Defense from increasing Russian criticism against deployment of U.S. Missile Defenses in Europe. Complete deployment of Phase 1 of the PAA and ensure funding and support are in place for the testing, development and deployment of Aegis 4.0.1/5.0, Aegis Ashore, SM3 Block 1B and Block 2A for phase 2 of the PAA. Ensure support for persistent forward based sensor integration, testing, development and deployment of ABIR platforms, STSS next generation and upgraded AN/TYP-2 with Aegis to engage and launch on remote. Add an additional U.S Army ADA Battalion and an AAMDC Flag to European Command to provide it similar missile defense capabilities as CENTCOM and PACOM. These forces will directly assist in defending Israel better as well as help protect the force and add robustness to the deployed phases of PAA.
