The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) released its budget request for fiscal year 2008 (FY 08) on Feb. 5, 2007.  While MDA tries to use real-world situations to justify the fact that missile defense receives more annually than any of the Pentagon’s other weapon systems – $10.85 billion in FY 08[i] – its arguments fall apart under anything more than a cursory examination.

For example, in July 2006, North Korea’s series of ballistic missile flight tests caused MDA officials to put the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system on alert. As it turned out, however, this may have slowed down the system’s progress[ii]: “Unfortunately, this necessary action impacted the availability of the BMDS [ballistic missile defense system] for continued spiral development, and testing and fielding because we currently do not have a capability to concurrently maintain the BMDS in full operational mode while simultaneously developing, testing or training on the system.”  What an incomplete system could have done to protect the United States against a theoretical missile attack is anyone’s guess.  Furthermore, the GMD system has no demonstrated capability to defend the United States against enemy attack under realistic operational conditions.  This situation does illustrate that the much-lauded system of “spiral development” has some kinks that still need to be worked out. 

A particularly specious justification for missile defense is used in discussing the other major rocketry event of last summer.  MDA states, “During the summer and fall of 2006 Hezbollah launched thousands of long-range rockets into northern Israel from Lebanon.  Over forty Israeli civilians were killed in the attacks and as many as 500,000 were displaced.  Thousands of buildings were damaged and up to 70 percent of businesses in northern Israel were closed during the conflict.”  While there is no doubt that Hezbollah’s rockets were devastating in their impact, it is downright misleading to claim that their usage calls for a ballistic missile defense system.  Nothing in the U.S. ballistic missile defense architecture, not now nor in the future, is planned to defend against short-range rockets.  The programs that MDA is working on are ill-suited and incapable for the job: the rockets’ flights are too short and too low to the ground for our radars to pick them up in sufficient time to respond.  Instead, this is fear-mongering by MDA to ensure a receptive audience for its systems. 

One thing that stands out are the reasons why the proposed third GMD interceptor and radar sites in Europe were warranted: “Because we must protect these radars or risk losing the ‘eyes’ of our system, we are planning to field ground-based interceptors and an associated ground-based midcourse radar site in Europe.  This achieves four goals: protecting the foreign-based radars, improving protection of the United States by providing additional and earlier intercept opportunities; extending this protection to our allies and friends; and demonstrating international support of ballistic missile defense.” This is the first time that this explanation – that a site in Europe is needed to defend other ballistic missile early warning radars already there – has been used.  Note that protecting our allies is third on the list.

MDA’s budget estimates overview includes a rather ambitious flight test schedule for the coming years.  Two intercept fight tests are planned for the GMD system in FY 07, with two more to follow in FY 08.  That we’re six months into FY 07 and haven’t had one yet does not bode well for staying on that schedule.  Flight tests for the Aegis BMD system (four in FY 07, two in FY 08) and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system (four in FY 07, two in FY 08) are equally optimistic, based on past experience.

The Kinetic Energy Intercept (KEI) system, first floated as one of the two possible boost phase intercept programs – Airborne Laser (ABL) is the other – now has three missions:  “(1) to develop a midcourse interceptor capable of replacing the current fixed Ground-based Interceptor (GBI) when the deployed GBIs become obsolete; (2) to develop this interceptor so that it could be strategically deployed as an additional midcourse capability with mobile land- or sea-based launchers; and (3) to assume the boost- and ascent-phase intercept mission within the BMDS if the Airborne Laser (ABL) fails to meet its performance objectives.”  For quite some time, MDA officials said that they would work on KEI and ABL, hold major events in 2008, and then make a decision as to which one would be their primary boost phase intercept program.  However, ABL’s planned shootdown of a target has been pushed back to 2009 and now KEI’s mission has been expanded to ensure that no matter what, the program will have the justification to continue.  Talk about covering your bases…

The BMDS architecture currently is supposed to be as such: “In the past year, we deployed five additional GBIs in Alaska and California for a total of 15.  We will have up to 24 deployed GBIs by the end of CY 2007 [calendar year] and 30 by the end of CY 2008.  We also added a third Aegis engagement cruiser, continued to convert Long Range Surveillance and Track Aegis destroyers to engagement destroyers, and fielded additional Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors.  By the end of CY 08, we expect to have 13 Aegis engagement destroyers and three engagement cruisers and 40 SM-3 interceptors.  We completed the upgrade of early warning radar at Fylingdales in the United Kingdom, which should be fully integrated into the BMDS by the end of FY 07.”  This schedule rests on the fairly naïve assumption that the programs will all proceed without any hitches, an idea that would go against the programs’ developmental history to date.  And again, no matter close to the schedule MDA manages to stay, there is no demonstrated capability by any of the missile defense systems to protect the United States against a missile attack, no matter how limited it may be. 

The Forward-Based X-Band radar (FBX-T) and the THAAD radar now have the same designator: Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance, or AN/TPY-2.  This would imply that they are the same radar.  The FBX-T was to be used for national missile defense purposes, while the THAAD radar was to be used for theater missile defense ones. It is unclear whether one radar can wear both hats successfully.

One program MDA finally gave up on was Lockheed Martin’s booster, BV+.  Originally the only boost vehicle for the GMD system, it had failure after failure, prompting officials to go to a dual-track strategy of keeping it, while also developing an alternative via the Orbital Sciences booster (OBV).  At last, MDA terminated the program: “Since 2001, we have completed four successful flight tests with the OBV booster and have conducted analysis showing that the 2-stage OBV booster provides performance that is similar to the BV+ booster.  We have therefore canceled the BV+ booster effort for GMD and reinvested the operations and support costs associated with a dual booster strategy to support other program requirements.”

And no surprise that the High Altitude Airship was cancelled “due to funding constraints.”  The system never really found a foothold amongst congressional committees and saw its funding reduced time and again.

Most worrisome is the appearance of the Space Test Bed.  This would be home to space-based interceptors, the first official space weapon system of the Bush administration.  It shows up in the budget under “Capabilities Investments,” which are defined as: “…those programs under development that will address threat maturation, uncertainty and surprise beyond the current FYDP (2008-2013), after Block 2012.  These are major program developments and options for the future such as boost phase or space programs.”  Specifically for the Space Test Bed, MDA explains: “The Space Test Bed will investigate the potential utility and technical feasibility of a space-based defensive layer to complement the BMDS.  This proof-of-concept activity will provide options to support future deployment decisions.”  Funding levels are: FY 08, $10 million; FY 09, $15 million; FY 10, $15 million; FY 11, $25 million; FY 12, $101 million; FY 13, $124 million, for a total of $290 million over the FYDP.  Compared to other Pentagon spending, this is not a huge number, but it does establish a precedent for funding the system and could be ratcheted up greatly as time goes on.  Indeed, it potentially could increase fourfold from FY 11 to FY 12.  The truly important thing is that the United States has long held that there does not need to be any discussion about weapons in space as there are officially no space weapons programs.  This program element effectively stamps out that argument. If the United States were to decide to weaponize space, we should have a long and frank discussion as to the consequences so that decision-makers can cross that threshold with their eyes open to the fallout.

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[i] Missile defense funding numbers, if taken solely from the Missile Defense Agency, are usually artificially low.  Besides MDA’s budget, one needs to include the cost of the Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS)-High, needed to detect enemy missile launches, and the Army’s Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-3 theater missile defense system.  MDA’s FY 08 budget request runs to $8.85 billion, but including SBIRS-High ($1.07 billion) and the PAC-3 ($.93 billion) and the true total is closer to $10.85 billion. See the sidebar to the article by Fred Kaplan, “It’s Time to Sharpen the Scissors: Breaking Down the $739 Billion Defense Budget,” Slate.com, Feb. 5, 2007.

[ii] This and all other quotes come from: Missile Defense Agency Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) Budget Estimates Overview, February 2007.