Assumptions: No One Would Dare Launch Missile At United States; Missile Defense Is Expensive
Critics Say There Is No Complete Guarantee That Missile Defense Systems Will Work
A House panel heard testimony attacking various military weapons acquisition programs, including ballistic missile defense, and some themes emerged from the statements.
The testimony was provided before the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities subcommittee. This panel doesn’t have jurisdiction over missile defense programs, military aircraft or naval vessels procurement, which are handled by other HASC subcommittees.
However, in hearings over many months, the terrorism panel has heard testimony that provides the intellectual rationales, the arguments, in favor of cutting various defense programs. Many military analysts say a Democratic White House and Congress wish to cut military spending to free money to finance domestic programs.
One assault on missile defense programs boils down to an assumption that no nation would dare launch a missile at the United States, for fear of drawing a devastating nuclear retaliatory strike from U.S. missiles.
In assessing North Korean intentions as Pyongyang prepared to launch what some analysts said was a Taepo Dong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile, one witness was dismissive.
“I don’t see [North Korea] risking their country by launching” a missile at American territory, said William D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative with the New America Foundation, a liberal think tank in Washington.
Eliminating missile defense programs would save roughly $10 billion a year, he observed, though he might be willing to settle for seeing more than two-thirds of missile defense funding abolished.
“There is no question that the over $10 billion per year devoted to ground-, sea-, and air-based forms of missile defense could be far better spent on other defense, foreign policy or domestic priorities,” according to Hartung.
While in 37 of 47 tests, missile defense systems have annihilated target missiles, Hartung argued that there is no assurance that missile defense can work.
“There has yet to be [a] realistic test that indicates that we can reliably shoot down incoming nuclear warheads launched frojm a long-range ballistic missile,”Hartung asserted.
“The elements of the missile defense budget that involve defending against” intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, “can be eliminated without harming our security in any way,” he claimed. Here, he would seem ready to jettison the operational Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system now installed in Alaska and California, currently the only missile shield against ICBMs; the planned European Missile Defense system (a variant of the GMD interceptors); the Airborne Laser that kills enemy missiles of all ranges just after they launch, when they are most vulnerable, and more. All of those programs are led by The Boeing Co. [BA].
In other words, he contends that there is no chance that any nation in the world, in the near future or later, would launch a long-range missile against the United States, its forces or its allies.
About all that Hartung would allow here is that “there is some indication that” U.S. missile defense systems designed to protect “troops or allies from mid-range missiles may prove to be more effective.”
But generally, he sees missile defense as pure waste, saying it is unneeded because no one would dare mount a nuclear missile attack on the United States.
“In addition to questions of cost and effectiveness, there is one overriding argument against throwing billions of dollars are missile defense year after year,” Hartung asserted. “It is not needed to prevent a nuclear attack on the United States,” because “even if a nation like Iran or North Korea were to develop nuclear weapons and the ability to launch them from a ballistic missile, the concept of nuclear deterrence would still operate.”
Pint-sized powers, even those wielding ICBMs with nuclear warheads, can’t intimidate the United States, and every rogue-state leader knows such an attack would invite a devastating response, Hartung asserted. Apparently, he is fully confident of the rational faculties of Kim Jung Il, the North Korean “dear leader,” and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president who said he imagines the world without the United States, adding that Israel soon shall cease to exist.
But Hartung is willing to bet that they will be deterred from any attack, a bet where the stakes are the lives and property in any given large U.S. city.
“Given these realities, it makes sense to scale back missile defense spending dramatically, to perhaps $3 billion per year to cover the costs of ongoing research and development, and for refining technologies for defending against medium-range missiles,” he said. “This would save $7 billion per year.”
He also suggested to the congressional panel that other major defense acquisition programs should be slashed, including termination of the F-22 Raptor super-stealth, supersonic cruise aircraft that is the most advanced fighter in the world, to avoid spending $4 billion-plus (Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT]); slowing down procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Lightning II, to net $3 billion to $4 billion yearly (Lockheed and others); building only two instead of a planned seven DDG 1000 advanced radar-evading destroyers to avoid spending $3.6 billion annually for five years (General Dynamics Corp. [GD] and Northrop Grumman Corp. [NOC]; and killing the Virginia Class submarine program instead of doubling production to two a year, to net more than $3 billion yearly (also GD and Northrop).
(Please see story in this issue for how Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will structure the next defense budget.)
Another critic was Bevin Alexander, adjunct professor at Longwood University in Virginia.
He argued that insurgents and terrorists win by attacking weak points of even the largest powers, stating that massed, immense armed forces are doomed to failure. At the same time, he noted that Russian forces crushed tiny Georgian military units.
“Conventional warfare for nearly four hundred years was based on movements of large formations onto battlefields where they confronted the enemy in stand-up conflict,” Alexander said. “This form of warfare is not possible today. Armies no longer can be maneuvered as large units, and they no longer can be concentrated on a battlefield. If such were to happen, the army could be annihilated by missiles and bombs delivered from afar.”
Others have noted that U.S. and coalition forces had difficulty in the invasion of Iraq in attacking and seizing some areas, until heavy armor was brought to bear.
He also said that “an attack should avoid enemy strength and strike at enemy weakness.”
Alexander also said because nuclear war is unthinkable, U.S. forces can never enter combat against Chinese or Russian forces, the near-peer competitors of the United States.
A congressman asked Alexander whether he was saying the United States therefore must completely ignore near-peer competitors.
Alexander responded, “I don’t understand the term near-peer.”
Ultimately, he said that conventional warfare no longer can be fought.
At another point, Alexander said flatly that “there is no possibility of us ever fighting a war with China,” because if one side appeared to be winning, the other side would employ an atomic bomb.
Henry Dreifus, founder and CEO of Dreifus Associates Ltd., Inc., said that the United States has not fought a conventional war since the Korean Conflict, saying other wars have been against small powers and insurgents.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the subcommittee chairman, asked whether the F-22 Raptor radar-evading aircraft is needed, while noting that North Korea and Iran have radar-guided surface-to-air missiles. How, he wondered, can U.S. air dominance be assured, so that U.S. forces needn’t worry about enemy attacks from the air?
While Smith said he is “looking for places to save money,” he added that “we still have to make that consideration” about the need for air dominance, meaning a need for the F- 22 and other conventional-warfare assets.
Alexander said the F-22 wouldn’t be effective if insurgents are fighting the United States. Rather, the F-22 would be effective if the United States is in conflict with other states employing fighter aircraft.