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The Department of Defense (DOD) has released its Ballistic Missile Defense Review, conducted from March 2009 through January 2010. Download the 61-page report in PDF.

In assessing the ballistic missile threat around the world, DOD found the threat to be growing. As technology improves, missiles are becoming more accurate and farther-reaching. Ballistic missile systems are also more flexible and mobile. These trends are particularly disturbing as rogue states continue developing long-range weapons and nuclear capability. Last year, Iran test-fired the long-range Sajjil-2 missile, capable of reaching Israel and Southern Europe. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) have a longer range than the Sajjil.

“There is some uncertainty about when and how this type of [ICBM] threat to the U.S. homeland will mature,” states the report, “but there is no uncertainty about the existence of regional threats. They are clear and present. The threat from short-range, medium-range, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs, MRBMs, and IRBMs) in regions where the United States deploys forces and maintains security relationships is growing at a particularly rapid pace.”

DOD’s recommended priorities for the U.S. include testing new capabilities before deployment, testing under realistic operational conditions, and adapting as threats shift.

DOD contends that the Ground-based Midcourse Defense presently protects the U.S. against ICBM attacks from Iran and North Korea. To maintain this “advantageous position” as the threat grows, DOD says the U.S. will:

“Maintain readiness and continue to develop existing operational capabilities at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

“Complete the second field of 14 silos at Fort Greely to hedge against the possibility that additional deployments become necessary.

“Deploy new sensors in Europe to improve cueing for missiles launched at the United States by Iran or other potential adversaries in the Middle East.

“Invest in further development of the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) for future land-based deployment as the ICBM threat matures.

“Increase investments in sensors and early-intercept kill systems to help defeat missile defense countermeasures.

“Pursue a number of new GMD system enhancements, develop next generation missile defense capabilities, and advance other hedging strategies including continued development and assessment of a two-stage ground-based interceptor.”

Some experts question the report’s conclusions. For example, the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring believes the threat to the homeland could well be more imminent, which leaves the U.S. vulnerable to strategic surprises and risks the lives of millions of Americans. Our solutions and strategies should be more immediate rather than future oriented.

As China continues building its intercontinental ballistic missile program, a threat against U.S. surface fleets, and the country’s modernizing efforts have resulted in an “increasingly sophisticated and proficient naval force,” according to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence. Download the 51-page report (PDF), “A Chinese Navy with Modern Characteristics.”

An excerpt:

“In response to expanding national interests and revolutionary changes in warfare brought about by long-range precision weaponry, civilian leadership in Beijing began to view the navy as an increasingly critical component of China’s national security structure. To support Beijing’s objectives regarding Taiwan, to deny an adversary access to the region during times of crisis, and to protect China’s vital sea lines of communication, naval power became the key to China’s security concerns. In the late 1990s, Beijing embarked on a program to build a modern navy in a relatively short time.”

China’s improvements fall in three areas: Anti-Surface Warfare, Naval Air Defense, Force Projection.

 
Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona wrote an op-ed for Military Space and Missile Forum magazine about FY10 missile defense spending. He says President Barack Obama’s new missile plan includes protection against shorter-range missiles. Although countries have more short- and medium-range missiles than long-range, there are missiles capable of reaching the U.S.

Franks reminds us that Iran and North Korea are bound and determined to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) capable of reaching our shores.

“And yet paradoxically, while all of these events are taking place, our Ground-Based Midcourse Defense element, the one and only system we have in place to defend the homeland of the United States from ICBMs, sustained a 35 percent cut over last year’s appropriated amount. In addition, the administration halted the number of interceptors being emplaced at 30, rather than the full 44, as had been planned.”

While the administration has shifted resources to shorter-range missiles, it fails to consider the lethality of long-range missiles. “It would take only one nuclear armed ICBM to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans.”

To read the full text of Franks’s op-ed, download it here. (PDF)

 
Last week, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of missile defense critic Philip Coyle to become the administration’s Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. (Source)

A former assistant secretary of defense and director of operational test and evaluation at the Pentagon, Coyle will advise the president on various scientific and national security issues. He called Bush-era testing on ballistic missiles “shoddy” and “thin” and disparaged the former president’s plan to deploy missile defense shields to Poland and the Czech Republic.

“In my view, Iran is not so suicidal as to attack Europe or the United States with missiles,” Coyle said. “But if you believe that Iran is bound and determined to attack Europe or America, no matter what, then I think you also have to assume that Iran would do whatever it takes to overwhelm our missile defenses, including using decoys to fool the defenses, launching stealthy warheads, and launching many missiles, not just one or two.”

Given these statements, Coyle obviously doesn’t believe Iran might have an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2015. The U.S. is developing land-based SM-3 missiles to counteract this threat, but the target date for completion is 2020, five years after Iran’s possible ICBM capabilities.

Despite these projections, Coyle believes our country’s spending on missile defense isn’t justified.

As a vocal critic of Bush’s missile defense and supporter of Obama’s way of thinking, Coyle likely will breeze through the vetting process and take his place among the president’s team of appeasement-minded advisors.

Read more at the Foundry blog.

 
Last week, Vice President Joe Biden visited Poland and the Czech Republic, the first such visit to the region by a high-level official since the President Barack Obama dropped plans to deploy missile defense shields to those countries. The Heritage Foundation’s Peter Brookes commented on the new missile defense shield plan proposed by the administration.

“In pulling the plug on the Bush missile-defense plan in Eastern Europe last month,” Brookes writes in the New York Post, “the White House came up with a new architecture based on a new evaluation of existing intelligence on the Iranian ballistic-missile threat…The Pentagon now insists Iran is moving faster on its short- and medium-range ballistic-missile programs than on its long-range ICBM effort, against which the Czech and Polish sites were aimed. (Of course, many experts think progress in one missile program supports another.)”

The new plan may protect Europe, but what about the Iranian threat to the U.S. and Israel? Land-based SM-3 missiles, designed to protect us and our ally, are in development. The target date for completion is 2020, but Iran could have an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2015.

“[T]he Obama administration thinks that if the Iranian ICBM comes online before the land-based SM-3s are developed and in place, the West Coast, Bush-era missile-defense sites give us some breathing room…Not really.”

Brookes notes that the “West Coast” system was created to protect us from North Korea, not Iran. Sites that would protect us from Iran (in Alaska and California) may not be adequate, especially since the administration reduced interceptors at those sites.

“That means there’s a gap in our defenses against an Iranian ICBM strike until the land-based SM-3s are operational, which, by the way, will almost certainly face funding and engineering-development challenges.”

Other problems with the new plan are cost, efficiency, and concerns that Russia will once again “negotiate” with the U.S. to curb development of another weapon.

“It’s…a good time to remind ourselves that the purpose of defense is to be technologically ahead of the threat, not behind it — which is where we’ll be if we’re not careful,” Brookes writes.

Read the full article at the New York Post.

 
While the Obama administration plays semantics games and underestimates Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities, Pentagon officials say the U.S. is taking Iran’s long-range missile threat seriously.

In August, the National Air and Space Intelligence Center released a report that concluded Iran would have the capability to reach the U.S. by 2015. Pentagon officials testified before the House Armed Services Committee last week that the U.S. will have the capability to shoot down Iran’s long-range missiles. Ground-based missile interceptors will be deployed to the west coast in 2010. (Source)

Under its “defense umbrella,” the U.S. will deploy Aegis interceptor-equipped navy ships to the Mediterranean to help protect Israel, Iran’s prime target.

Lawmakers who oppose Obama’s defense plans contend that Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) could threaten the U.S. and parts of western Europe. The president cut missile defense by $1.4 billion, which reduced ground-based interceptors to be deployed in Alaska and California from 44 to 30. Pentagon official Michele Flournoy said those 30 interceptors will “provide the United States with full protection of the homeland against an Iranian ICBM threat.”

Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly of the Missile Defense Agency echoed the sentiment.

The administration purports to have new intelligence showing Iran does not have a long-range missile and will not have one until 2015 at the earliest. When Bush was in office, the low end of the estimate was 2012. What if Obama is wrong?

Republican Rep. Howard McKeon, member of the House Armed Services Committee: “Let me simply say, I’m skeptical. Intelligence is a fickle business.”

Indeed, but Obama believes money and energy should be focused on shorter-range missiles, at the expense of longer-range protection. As we’ve said before, unless the administration knows something specific about Iran’s capabilities that hasn’t been reported in the media, there’s little reason to make assumptions that downplay Iran’s intentions.