INTRODUCTION
The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the ballistic missiles that deliver them pose a major threat to the security of the United States, its allies, and friendly nations. While the end of the Cold War greatly reduced the threat of a global conflict or large-scale attack on the United States, the proliferation of WMD and ballistic missiles that can deliver them raise new threats to U.S. security interests. Over 20 countries possess or are developing nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) weapons, and more than 20 nations have theater ballistic missiles (TBMs) -- see chart on the following page. A robust Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program plays a critical role in the broader counterproliferation strategy to reduce, deter, and defend against WMD and ballistic missile threats.
The Intelligence Community has estimated that a threat to the United States from ballistic missile attack is not likely to emerge for at least another decade, but the threat to U.S. troops in the field and to allies and friends has already arrived. U.S. missile defense priorities reflect the urgency of this immediate threat and the shifting focus from global conflict to the threat of major regional conflicts involving adversaries armed with advanced conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. ballistic missile defense program has placed highest priority on Theater Missile Defense (TMD) programs to meet the threat that is here now. The second priority has been development of a National Missile Defense (NMD) program that positions the United States to field the most effective defense system possible at a time in the future when the threat warrants deployment. Third priority has been continued development of a technology base that improves the capability of both TMD and NMD systems to respond to emerging threats.
REVIEW OF BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE PROGRAMS
From August 1995 through February 1996, the Department of Defense conducted a comprehensive review of the Department's BMD program. The goal of the review was to ensure the Department fields the most effective missile defense at an affordable price in time to beat emerging ballistic missile threats. The BMD program was reviewed in light of assessments of existing and potential threats; status of each BMD program or element; changes in force projection needs since the 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR); congressional actions and FY 1996 budget actions; Joint Chiefs of Staff spending and modernization priorities; and treaty obligations. The results of the review did not alter the prioritization of BMD programs (theater missile defense, national missile defense, and technology base), but did call for some significant changes within each program area.
The program review results focused on how to meet the here-and-now threat of theater ballistic missiles and cruise missiles against U.S. forward-deployed troops and bases. As a top priority within Theater Missile Defense, the review recommended building on existing infrastructure and prior investment in order to deploy lower-tier missile defense systems as soon as possible to defend small areas or critical assets. This will strengthen, in the shortest time possible, the ability of the United States to defend against immediate threats from short- and medium-range theater ballistic and cruise missiles. Upper-tier missile defense programs provide population and wide-area defense, can better deal with longer-range theater ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and reduce the number of missiles that lower-tier systems must engage, thereby increasing overall TMD effectiveness. These systems will also be restructured by continuing development of land-based upper-tier systems, but at a slower rate and at lower overall program cost, and by accelerating efforts to develop sea-based upper-tier systems. The review also shifts the National Missile Defense program from a technology to a deployment readiness program. This positions the Department to respond more quickly to new strategic threats to the United States, should they emerge. Based on the review, the Department plans to spend about $14 billion for ballistic missile defenses over the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP).
ROLE OF BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE IN U.S. DEFENSE STRATEGY
Ballistic Missile Defense is a critical component of the broad U.S. strategy to meet ballistic missile threats to U.S. forces and allies in a theater and to the United States. BMD plays a role in each of the three components of that strategy: preventing and reducing the threat, deterring the threat, and defending against the threat. Prevention and deterrence are supported by a strong nuclear deterrent, arms control agreements such as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), threat reduction efforts such as Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR), the Missile Technology and Control Regime (MTCR) and export controls, and counterproliferation military capabilities. Missile defense programs complement and strengthen the prevention and deterrence provided by these programs. Effective missile defense systems reduce the incentives for proliferants to develop, acquire, or use ballistic missiles and WMD by reducing the chances that an attack would inflict serious damage on U.S. or allied targets. Missile defenses thus both deny the accomplishment of a belligerent's objective and decrease the incentive to acquire WMD and ballistic missile systems. Furthermore, the ability to extend protection to allies and friends can mitigate the desire of many states to acquire their own WMD as an independent deterrent against attack.
The threat of ballistic missile use in regional conflicts has grown substantially, and the potential combination of WMD with theater ballistic missiles poses serious dangers and complications to the management of regional crises and the prosecution of U.S. strategy for major regional conflicts. Ballistic missiles have been used in six regional conflicts since 1980. The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, Libyan attacks on Lampedusa Island, Operation Desert Storm, the war in Afghanistan, the Iranian attack against dissident camps, and the recent conflict in Yemen demonstrated the capability of ballistic missiles to threaten a full range of targets for political and military purposes.
In the future, an aggressor state may seek to limit U.S. freedom of action by threatening NBC-armed missile attack. Such a threat may intimidate a neighboring nation, thereby discouraging it from seeking U.S. protection or participating with the United States in the formation of a defensive coalition. Hostile states possessing theater ballistic missiles armed with WMD may be able to threaten or use these weapons in an attempt to deter or otherwise constrain U.S. ability to project military forces to meet commitments abroad and achieve national security objectives. With WMD, even small-scale theater ballistic missile threats would raise dramatically the potential costs and risks of military operations, undermine conventional superiority, and jeopardize the credibility of U.S. regional security strategy. By dealing effectively with these threats, ballistic missile defense can contribute to both prevention and successful U.S. responses to regional crises.
FORCE STRUCTURE AND CAPABILITIES
Theater Missile Defense Programs
The Department's first BMD priority is to develop, procure, and deploy TMD systems to protect forward-deployed and expeditionary elements of the U.S. armed forces, as well as its friends and allies, from TBMs. This plan envisions the time-phased acquisition of a multitier defensive capability.
The TMD program that emerged from the 1993 Bottom-Up Review consisted of three core programs: Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-3, Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and Navy Area Defense (NAD); and three potential advanced capability programs: Navy Theater Wide (NTW), Corps Surface-to-Air-Missile, or Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), and Ascent/Boost-Phase Intercept (BPI). The advanced capability programs were to be developed as funding permitted beginning in FY 1998.
As a result of the just-completed program review, the Department has made significant adjustments in the TMD program.
The revised program resulting from the review reflects a commitment to deploy, as soon as possible, TMD systems that defend against a threat that has already emerged. With these changes, the Department has increased the number of TMD systems moving toward early deployment.
TMD Cooperation with Allies and Friends
As part of broader efforts to enhance the security of U.S. and allied forces against ballistic missile strikes and to complement U.S. counterproliferation strategy, the United States is exploring opportunities for cooperation with its allies and friends in the area of TMD.
Recognition of the existence and growing threat of ballistic missile attack is increasing in the international community. The latest stage of TMD cooperation results from DoD giving high priority to a renewal of the spirit of armaments cooperation, thereby providing impetus to efforts to engage allies and friends in ballistic missile defense programs. The United States has established several working groups with allies to explore the possibility of cooperation in the area of TMD and regularly scheduled talks occur. To capitalize on the interest in TMD cooperation shown by many allies, the United States is taking an evolutionary and tailored approach to allied cooperation in order to accommodate varying national programs and plans, as well as the special capabilities of particular nations. The approach can range from bilateral or multilateral research and development, to improvements to current missile capabilities, to off-the-shelf purchases, to more robust participation such as co-development and co-production programs. Additionally, the United States is examining arrangements that would provide TBM early warning information to a number of allies.
MEADS is a practical, concrete step in achieving a TMD capability cooperatively. On February 20, 1995, transatlantic cooperation on TMD took a significant step forward with the signing of a Statement of Intent for joint development and production of the MEADS. This new program will be a joint venture by the United States, France, Germany, and Italy.
In the United States' view, cooperation in theater ballistic missile defense will help strengthen U.S. security relationships with allies, will enhance the U.S. counterproliferation strategy of discouraging acquisition and use of ballistic missiles and, should that fail, will protect against such threats.
National Missile Defense Program
The second priority of the ballistic missile defense program is National Missile Defense. The objective of the NMD program is to position the United States to respond should new strategic missile threats to U.S. territory emerge. As a result of the review, the Department is shifting emphasis from technology readiness to deployment readiness, though it is not making a decision now to deploy an NMD system.
Indeed, the Intelligence Community has concluded that no country, other than the major declared nuclear powers, will develop or otherwise acquire a ballistic missile in the next 15 years that could threaten the contiguous 48 states; only a North Korean missile in development, the Taepo Dong 2, could conceivably have sufficient range to strike portions of Alaska or the far-western Hawaiian Islands, but the likelihood of it being operational within five years is very low.
The threat from an accidental or unauthorized launch from the former Soviet Union or China is remote. The number of former Soviet Union strategic ballistic missiles, the number of bases and submarines where they are located, and the number of countries where they are based are being reduced by START and the CTR program. These dramatic reductions in the strategic missile threat to the United States also reduce the opportunities for accidental or unauthorized launch. In addition, a ballistic missile detargeted according to the 1994 Clinton-Yeltsin agreement either could not be launched accidentally or, if launched, would land in the ocean.
The NMD program is thus structured to create a foundation upon which the United States could draw if intelligence indicated that a strategic threat was emerging, in order to put a defense against that threat into the field before it emerged. The United States is not making a decision to deploy a national missile defense; deploying before the threat emerges means not deploying the most advanced technology when the threat does emerge.
Congress has provided $375 million more for NMD than the Administration requested in FY 1996. The Department will apply this $375 million during FY 1996 and FY 1997 to enhance the technological foundation for the NMD program, with two objectives: (1) to improve the performance of the national missile defense to be deployed if a threat warranting deployment emerges; and (2) to improve the timelines of response to an emerging threat -- specifically, to achieve within three years, and to preserve thereafter, the capability to deploy a limited defense of all 50 states within three years of a decision to do so.
The NMD Deployment Readiness Program
For the next three years, the NMD program will develop all the elements of a system in a balanced manner, achieving a first test of an integrated system by FY 1999. At the end of these three years, i.e., before 2000, the United States will be in a position to deploy an initial system, based on the elements tested in an integrated manner in FY 1999, within three years of a decision to do so. Thereafter, the NMD program will work to improve the performance of the system by advancing the technology of each element and adding new elements, all the while maintaining the capability to deploy the system within three years of a decision.
The elements of the baseline NMD system would be based on the existing early warning satellite system and its planned follow-on, Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Geosynchronous; Upgraded Early Warning Radars; a new Ground-Based Radar (GBR); the Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI); a Battle Management/ Command, Control, and Communications (BM/C3) system); and an In-Flight Integrated Communications System. Other elements, including other fixed radars and the Space and Missile Tracking System (or SBIRS Low Earth Orbit), part of the SBIRS program, could be part of follow-on NMD architectures.
The NMD Deployment Readiness Program will be conducted in compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Depending on its configuration, a deployed NMD system could either be compliant with the ABM Treaty as written, or might require amendment of the Treaty's provisions. The NMD system would have the purpose of defending against rogue and accidental/unauthorized threats. It would not be capable of defending against a heavy deliberate attack. Decisions about the treaty compliance of potential NMD systems would be made by the Department of Defense (on advice of the Compliance Review Group). The current program is proceeding, however, in the expectation that a deployment of 100 GBI and one GBR at Grand Forks, North Dakota, would be treaty compliant.
Technology Base
Activities in the BMD technology base are key to countering future, more difficult threats. The technology base program underpins both the TMD and NMD programs. It will allow DoD to provide block upgrades to baseline systems; to perform technology demonstrations to reduce risk and speed technology insertion; and to advance basic technologies to provide a hedge against future surprises.
The Department is continuing technology projects underway today, such as the exploration of unmanned aerial vehicle and airborne BPI concepts at about $10 million per year, and the space based laser program at about $30 million per year. There are other programs that will be funded outside of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization program, such as the Air Force airborne laser system.
Cruise Missile Defense
Most TMD sensors, BM/C3, and weapons also have some capability against cruise missiles (including the PAC-3, Navy Area TBM defense, and MEADS lower-tier systems). The Department has a number of initiatives outside of the BMD program to improve U.S. ability to detect and defeat threat cruise missiles in-theater or launched against the United States The NMD BM/C3 architecture will be designed to promote interoperability and evolution to a common BM/C3 system for ballistic and cruise missile defense.
CONCLUSION
The Administration is committed to protecting against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the ballistic missiles that deliver them. The United States has a multifaceted strategy for countering such threats, of which BMD is a critical ingredient. The overall structure of the BMD program proposed: (1) meets present and possible future ballistic missile threats, (2) will provide the best technology to meet these threats, (3) is fiscally prudent, and (4) is consistent with efforts to reduce and prevent missile threats.
