The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) needs to re-focus on its “seed corn” of research, test, development and evaluation (RDT&E) while facing increasing demands for procurement, according to its deputy director.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Kenneth Todorov said Thursday that procurement demands are increasing because combatant commanders want access to missile defense technology. At the same time, he said MDA is hampered by a top-line budget figure that is decreasing in a “stair-step” manner. Todorov said the mix of declining budget and increased procurement demands has resulted in an opportunity cost that causes MDA RDT&E efforts to “suffer a little bit.
“Somehow we have to get away from more and more procurement and we have to get back to more and more RDT&E,” Todorov said at a Peter Huessy breakfast series event on Capitol Hill.
MDA’s budget, since fiscal year 1985, peaked at $9.3 billion in FY ’09. MDA requested $8.1 billion for FY ’16. MDA wanted $1.3 billion for procurement in FY ’16 while requesting $6.1 billion for RDT&E.
Todorov added that MDA can’t continue to buy expensive interceptors at current quantities, though he said the agency, in the near term, needs to continue its current interceptor procurement pace. He said MDA should “double down” on the technology front, ostensibly to help reduce the cost of interceptors.
Thomas Karako, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, said Thursday MDA and its previous iterations always had an emphasis on research and development (R&D). But he said now that MDA has grown from infancy to adolescence and has developed its various systems to work pretty well, it has had to deal with procurement issues
“Procurement has become a much more substantial piece of the piece of the MDA budget,” Karako said. “That wouldn’t be a problem, except that the topline has not increased accordingly.”
Karako said a solution to this problem, other than giving MDA more money, is to make a comprehensive, Defense Department-wide decision. DoD, he said, has to move money around to make sure missile defense programs are procured at levels for current and future needs while also not reducing the RDT&E for MDA.
MDA develops the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), which is comprised of an integrated, “layered” architecture that provides multiple opportunities to destroy missiles and their warheads before they can reach targets, according to MDA. The system’s architecture includes: networked sensors (including space-based) and ground- and sea-based radars for target detection and tracking; ground- and sea-based interceptor missiles for destroying a ballistic missile and a command, control, battle management and communications network providing operational commanders with links between the sensors and interceptor missiles.