Tough Talk on Missile Defense
The Obama administration is talking tough on missile defense. Michele Flournoy, under secretary of Defense for Policy, and Ashton Carter, under secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, published a piece in the Wall Street Journal, in which they stress the importance of a strong and effective missile defense program. An excerpt:
“To counter Iran’s ballistic missile program, President Obama announced a phased adaptive approach for European missile defense last September—a move unanimously welcomed by our NATO allies. The first phase begins next year with the deployment of radars and ship-based systems in southern Europe. Romania and Poland have agreed to host land-based defenses for the second and third phases.
“A similar phased adaptive approach is being applied to missile defenses in the Middle East and East Asia. While the details of the deployments and host-country arrangements will differ by region, the common thread is significant improvement in ballistic missile defense capabilities, meant to protect our deployed forces overseas and our allies and partners.”
That’s all well and good, but the Obama administration has downplayed the need for long-range missile defense. Last month, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Iran may have the capability to hit the U.S. with an intercontinental ballistic missile, with North Korea’s help, as early as 2015. In 2020, the U.S. will have a Europe-based second shot capability to defend against Iran’s ICBM. Consequently, there will be a five-year protection gap against Iran’s ICBM. Our current plan for homeland defense are interceptors in California and Alaska
“We are also making continued progress in improving our ability to defend the U.S. homeland from ballistic missile attack,” Flournoy and Carter write. “By the fall, the U.S. will have 30 deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, with eight more missile defense silos near completion.”
Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal.
