GMD Foes Say It Hasn’t Been Tested Against Countermeasures, But Then They Knock ABL Which Nails Missiles Despite Countermeasures
As a full-scale battle opens this year over funding for missile defense systems, disconnects have arisen in arguments advanced by those pushing to slash funds for those programs.
On the one hand, missile defense critics in Congress have assailed the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system because — even though it successfully knocked down target missiles in tests — it hasn’t yet knocked down target missiles that deploy countermeasures. In a recent test, where the target missile was to deploy countermeasures such as confusing decoys, they didn’t deploy. In other words, GMD worked successfully as intended, but the target malfunctioned. GMD currently is the only U.S. missile defense system designed to annihilate incoming enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
On the other hand, however, the same missile defense critics say that the Airborne Laser (ABL) system, which still is in development, isn’t as far developed as operational systems, and therefore its funding should be cut or the program should be killed outright. They don’t stress the fact that the ABL is intended to be the sole missile defense system that kills enemy missiles in their boost phase, just after they launch, before they have a chance to deploy countermeasures.
In other words, GMD is to be faulted because it hasn’t yet proven in a live test that it can overcome countermeasures, but the critics also fault ABL, which does overcome countermeasures by killing an enemy missile earlier in its flight.
Both the GMD and ABL programs are led by The Boeing Co. [BA].
If the GMD system in future tests does take out a target missile that deploys countermeasures, however, that still won’t satisfy some Democratic critics.
They already are raising yet another argument against GMD: the critics say that it really isn’t necessary.
Their argument runs like this:
- The North Korean regime is committed, above all, to remaining in power.
- If North Korea fires a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States, South Korea, Japan or other U.S. allies, then regime leaders — if they are sane — must be able to reason that the United States would retaliate with a massive nuclear strike that would bomb North Korea back into the stone age, wiping out the regime.
- Therefore, since any North Korean leader in his right mind wouldn’t dare fire a missile at the United States and see his regime destroyed, the United States doesn’t need a GMD missile defense system to block a North Korean attack.
Put another way, this theory bets the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans living and working in potential American target cities on the assumption that no rational North Korean would dare attack the United States.
This argument of course, rests heavily on the assumption that the ultimate North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, is in his right mind. But this reclusive ‘dear leader’ has been described by a sitting congressman, former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.), as a “whack job.” Other observers have used similar terms to assess his mental health. His former chef has said Kim forced his cabinet members to dance with nude entertainers, that Kim ordered a South Korean movie actress and her director husband to be kidnapped to make movies for the North, and that Kim ordered elaborate meals even as thousands of North Koreans starved to death. The North also has threatened to devastate South Korea with missile attacks, and has accused Seoul of plotting to invade the North. And Pyongyang has threatened retaliation against any nation that would shoot down a North Korean missile. The North also has proliferated nuclear and missile technology to other rogue nations.
Still, some missile defense critics think the North Korean leadership is sane. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said he believes Kim Jong Il and other leaders are sufficiently rational that they won’t invite a U.S. nuclear strike on the North, even as Levin adds that he wouldn’t count on the sanity of Iranian leaders to refrain from attacking the United States and thereby inviting a U.S. response.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be wiped from the map, that Israel soon shall cease to exist, and that he envisions a world without the United States. As well, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, the supreme Iranian ruler, has praised Ahmadinejad for standing up to alleged bullying by the United States and others.
Iran defies the United States as Tehran continues producing nuclear materials that Washington fears will be used to build a nuclear weapon, and Iran launched a satellite using the same basic technology that would be needed to build an ICBM. Iran also has launched missiles in a mass salvo, and has launched a missile from a submerged submarine.
Regarding the Iranian threat, however, there are many critics in the House who quarrel with the need, now, for a European Missile Defense (EMD) system to protect Europe and the United States from missiles fired by Middle Eastern nations such as Iran. EMD also is a program led by Boeing.
House critics have imposed limits on the EMD, stating that construction can’t begin until NATO approves it (NATO since then has approved), governments in the Czech Republic (radar) and Poland (interceptors in ground silos) have given approvals (done), and parliaments in those two nations have approved (pending). (Please see related story in this issue on a vote cancellation in the Czech legislature.)
As well, House critics have authored provisions requiring testing of the two-stage EMD interceptors that are a variant of the already-deployed three-stage GMD interceptors, adding about two years to the start of EMD construction.
Now, it is true that perhaps the foremost missile defense critic is leaving Congress. Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee strategic forces subcommittee, will step down to join the Obama administration as a State Department official. (Please see full story in this issue.)
But that may not lessen House Democratic moves to slash missile defense programs.
Even if Tauscher departs soon, many analysts expect deep cuts in missile defense programs such as these.
One interesting point is that some missile defense critics say Iran wouldn’t dare fire a missile at the United States, because the American military would rain down nuclear destruction on Iran.
But Iran also is supplying missiles used by terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel incessantly, and the Israeli government knows who is firing those missiles from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and where those missiles ultimately originated, in Iran. The key point here is that Israel is a nuclear-armed nation, and yet Iran isn’t dissuaded by that nuclear might from supplying missiles to terrorists attacking Israel, or from Iran itself firing missiles in past conflicts.