Baker Spring on Missile Defense Cuts
The Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring has written a web memo titled, “Obama Missile Defense Proposal: Numbers Matter,” in which he addresses the Obama administration’s proposed missile defense cuts.
We’ve mentioned the administration’s proposal to reduce ground-based midcourse defense interceptors from 44 to 30 and the president’s non-support of missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic. Spring goes further and outlines implications of the proposed cuts. An excerpt:
“The emerging Iranian ballistic missile threat appears to be discounted. The Bush Administration’s final proposal regarding the overall ballistic missile defense program divided the program into ‘blocks’ for advancing both the technology and the number of fielded systems.
“As it relates to countering the emerging long-range missile threats from rogue states, specifically North Korea and Iran, Block 1 is dedicated to defending the U.S. against North Korean missiles, and Blocks 3 and 4 are dedicated to defending the U.S. and Europe against Iranian missiles. Block 1 defines the requirement for countering long-range North Korean missiles as the 30 interceptors in Alaska and California that are retained in the Obama Administration’s program. Block 3 would have delivered 14 additional interceptors in the U.S. but for the Obama Administration’s announcement. Likewise, Block 4 would deliver the 10 GMD interceptors to Poland.”
Spring points out that the president’s proposed cuts indicate that he doesn’t consider Iran a threat and urges Congress to examine the evidence before approving cuts to missile defense.
Should we assume the president will compensate for the cuts to ensure we’re able to defend ourselves from long-range missile attacks? No, says Spring:
“This is a dangerous assumption. While future sea-based interceptors derived from the Navy’s Standard Missile-3 missile defense interceptors could be given the capability to intercept long-rang missiles, it is far from certain that the Obama Administration will take this step. What is certain, however, is that the Obama Administration is not going to support the development of even more effective space-based interceptors.”
Read the full article here.
Tags: Baker Spring, Czech Republic, Iran, North Korea, Poland