Missile defense represents a relatively small part of the total U.S. defense
budget: just over $8 billion1 out of a total 2008 defense budget
of $700 billion. This is less than one-70th of national defense spending,
and defense spending is only about 4 percent of gross domestic
product. By reasonable standards, missile defense is a modest national
security investment that pales in comparison to the consequences
of a ballistic missile attack against even one U.S. city. Instead of the
few thousand fatalities resulting from the 9/11 attack, we could lose
hundreds of thousands and suffer vastly greater physical destruction
from the detonation of a single warhead comparable to the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One need only read the obituaries published
by The New York Times in the weeks following 9/11. They make
somber reading for anyone in doubt of the human tragedy caused by
such an attack.
______
1 For detailed information about the current and projected missile
defense budget, see Missile Defense Agency Fiscal Year 2009 (FY 09)
Budget Estimates, 08-MDA-3199, January 23, 2008, at [http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/pdf/budgetfy09.pdf] (August 22, 2008).
______
Nevertheless, we are entitled to ask what we are receiving for
our investment in missile defense. As other contributors to this reader
have pointed out, the United States has had a missile defense research
program for several decades. President Ronald Reagan, in his seminal
address on March 23, 1983, challenged the scientific and technological
community to produce missile defense concepts to defend against
the growing Soviet missile threat.
In the decade following Reagan's address, the United States
invested $34 billion in missile defense research and development
that produced promising technologies, including Brilliant Pebbles,
a system of space-based interceptors that could have been deployed
in the 1990s if not for the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. One
thousand Brilliant Pebbles space-based interceptors, if produced and
deployed, would have cost an estimated $425 million in 1991 dollars
and could have intercepted and destroyed as many as 200 warheads
at a cost of about $400,000 per interceptor--a relatively modest cost
for a major deployment.
To the extent that the Reagan-era missile defense program contributed
to the collapse of the Soviet Union by demonstrating the superiority
of American technology, the result was a dramatic shrinkage
in the U.S. defense budget after the Soviet empire disintegrated. We
can never know whether the Soviet Union would have fallen apart
even without the missile defense program, but we do know that its
collapse brought freedom to hundreds of millions. How does one put
a price tag on this accomplishment as well as the fact that we avoided
a devastating nuclear war?
The cost of missile defense also involves the type of defense
capability deployed and the threat. For example, if missile defense is
confined to land-based systems, the deployment area is limited by the
fact that oceans cover more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface. A
land-based defense may not be deployable close enough to intercept
the missile at its most vulnerable point: just after launch. Furthermore,
moving fixed land-based missile defenses from one place to
another is difficult and expensive.
Although they may protect broad areas of the Earth's surface,
land-based systems are obviously not as mobile as sea-based and
space-based systems. Because of its greater operating area, a seabased
missile defense inevitably provides greater intercept opportunities.
However, only a space-based missile defense is truly global in
nature; its missile interceptors can be moved quickly to wherever they
are needed because they can maneuver easily in space.
Space-based missile defense interceptors would also give the
best return for our investment because they provide the greatest potential
for defense against ballistic missiles at the lowest cost. Another
consideration is the synergistic relationship among the various deployed
missile defense capabilities. For example, a multi-tiered missile
defense places a lesser burden on each individual layer, lowering
technical requirements and therefore the cost of each layer. If one
intercept attempt fails, another may succeed.
The cost of missile defense also depends on the threat against
which it is deployed. During the Cold War, a missile defense would
have had to destroy large numbers of Soviet warheads. The missile
defense that the United States is now deploying is not designed to
intercept even the reduced numbers of Russian missiles and warheads
or the nuclear force being deployed by China. Instead, it is configured
against a few missiles and warheads that North Korea or a nuclear
Iran might launch.
Whether the United States should build a more robust missile
defense to counter Russia and China is a strategic question that needs
to be addressed separately. If we wished to build such a defense, we
could do so, especially if we added a layer of space-based interceptors.
The decision to build such a defense would entail other costs
that could best be minimized by deploying space-based interceptors,
such as the Brilliant Pebbles.
For the moment, however, as we consider cost, it is important
to link missile defenses to nonproliferation and counterproliferation.
The numerous countries that have acquired
missiles see them as relatively
inexpensive avenues to military power.
Together with nuclear warheads,
such missiles may give a proliferant
state "more bang for the buck" than
it could get by deploying more costly
conventional forces, such as armies.
Missiles give longer-range reach to
an emerging regional power such as Iran and are often regarded as
potent "power projection" instruments. As long as the United States
lacked any missile defense, missiles were an even more attractive option.
The deployment of a robust U.S. missile defense increases the
costs to any would-be proliferant and therefore may make missiles
a less attractive option. In the absence of a U.S. missile defense, a
would-be missile possessor would have little disincentive to forego
such a capability.
For many years, the cost of missile defense was compared to the
cost of building missiles that could penetrate such a defense. Many
assumed that the construction of missile defenses would simply lead
to more sophisticated and more numerous missiles and warheads
designed to negate missile defenses. This is a flawed argument. Missile
defense has advanced to the extent that defenses can be deployed
faster than an enemy could build more and better missiles. We can
afford to deploy missile defenses beyond the capacity of adversaries
to overcome them.
As in most other fields, cost depends on the type of system and
the threat against which it is deployed. However, cost is also directly
related to the consequences of failure to protect against an event that
could have catastrophic consequences. In the final analysis, the cost
of missile defense rests on the question of whether the United States
is prepared to make a modest investment to ensure that its population
will be safe and secure or is willing instead to remain defenseless
against the possibility of an attack far more devastating than 9/11--an
attack from which the nation, or large parts of it, might never fully recover.
Discover more about America's Missile Defense capabilities and how necessary they are to the country's security in the new documentary film by the Heritage Foundation, 33 Minutes. The need for missile defense is greater now than during any other time in the nation's history.
budget: just over $8 billion1 out of a total 2008 defense budget
of $700 billion. This is less than one-70th of national defense spending,
and defense spending is only about 4 percent of gross domestic
product. By reasonable standards, missile defense is a modest national
security investment that pales in comparison to the consequences
of a ballistic missile attack against even one U.S. city. Instead of the
few thousand fatalities resulting from the 9/11 attack, we could lose
hundreds of thousands and suffer vastly greater physical destruction
from the detonation of a single warhead comparable to the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One need only read the obituaries published
by The New York Times in the weeks following 9/11. They make
somber reading for anyone in doubt of the human tragedy caused by
such an attack.
______
1 For detailed information about the current and projected missile
defense budget, see Missile Defense Agency Fiscal Year 2009 (FY 09)
Budget Estimates, 08-MDA-3199, January 23, 2008, at [http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/pdf/budgetfy09.pdf] (August 22, 2008).
______
Nevertheless, we are entitled to ask what we are receiving for
our investment in missile defense. As other contributors to this reader
have pointed out, the United States has had a missile defense research
program for several decades. President Ronald Reagan, in his seminal
address on March 23, 1983, challenged the scientific and technological
community to produce missile defense concepts to defend against
the growing Soviet missile threat.
In the decade following Reagan's address, the United States
invested $34 billion in missile defense research and development
that produced promising technologies, including Brilliant Pebbles,
a system of space-based interceptors that could have been deployed
in the 1990s if not for the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. One
thousand Brilliant Pebbles space-based interceptors, if produced and
deployed, would have cost an estimated $425 million in 1991 dollars
and could have intercepted and destroyed as many as 200 warheads
at a cost of about $400,000 per interceptor--a relatively modest cost
for a major deployment.
To the extent that the Reagan-era missile defense program contributed
to the collapse of the Soviet Union by demonstrating the superiority
of American technology, the result was a dramatic shrinkage
in the U.S. defense budget after the Soviet empire disintegrated. We
can never know whether the Soviet Union would have fallen apart
even without the missile defense program, but we do know that its
collapse brought freedom to hundreds of millions. How does one put
a price tag on this accomplishment as well as the fact that we avoided
a devastating nuclear war?
The cost of missile defense also involves the type of defense
capability deployed and the threat. For example, if missile defense is
confined to land-based systems, the deployment area is limited by the
fact that oceans cover more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface. A
land-based defense may not be deployable close enough to intercept
the missile at its most vulnerable point: just after launch. Furthermore,
moving fixed land-based missile defenses from one place to
another is difficult and expensive.
Although they may protect broad areas of the Earth's surface,
land-based systems are obviously not as mobile as sea-based and
space-based systems. Because of its greater operating area, a seabased
missile defense inevitably provides greater intercept opportunities.
However, only a space-based missile defense is truly global in
nature; its missile interceptors can be moved quickly to wherever they
are needed because they can maneuver easily in space.
Space-based missile defense interceptors would also give the
best return for our investment because they provide the greatest potential
for defense against ballistic missiles at the lowest cost. Another
consideration is the synergistic relationship among the various deployed
missile defense capabilities. For example, a multi-tiered missile
defense places a lesser burden on each individual layer, lowering
technical requirements and therefore the cost of each layer. If one
intercept attempt fails, another may succeed.
The cost of missile defense also depends on the threat against
which it is deployed. During the Cold War, a missile defense would
have had to destroy large numbers of Soviet warheads. The missile
defense that the United States is now deploying is not designed to
intercept even the reduced numbers of Russian missiles and warheads
or the nuclear force being deployed by China. Instead, it is configured
against a few missiles and warheads that North Korea or a nuclear
Iran might launch.
Whether the United States should build a more robust missile
defense to counter Russia and China is a strategic question that needs
to be addressed separately. If we wished to build such a defense, we
could do so, especially if we added a layer of space-based interceptors.
The decision to build such a defense would entail other costs
that could best be minimized by deploying space-based interceptors,
such as the Brilliant Pebbles.
For the moment, however, as we consider cost, it is important
to link missile defenses to nonproliferation and counterproliferation.
The numerous countries that have acquired
missiles see them as relatively
inexpensive avenues to military power.
Together with nuclear warheads,
such missiles may give a proliferant
state "more bang for the buck" than
it could get by deploying more costly
conventional forces, such as armies.
Missiles give longer-range reach to
an emerging regional power such as Iran and are often regarded as
potent "power projection" instruments. As long as the United States
lacked any missile defense, missiles were an even more attractive option.
The deployment of a robust U.S. missile defense increases the
costs to any would-be proliferant and therefore may make missiles
a less attractive option. In the absence of a U.S. missile defense, a
would-be missile possessor would have little disincentive to forego
such a capability.
For many years, the cost of missile defense was compared to the
cost of building missiles that could penetrate such a defense. Many
assumed that the construction of missile defenses would simply lead
to more sophisticated and more numerous missiles and warheads
designed to negate missile defenses. This is a flawed argument. Missile
defense has advanced to the extent that defenses can be deployed
faster than an enemy could build more and better missiles. We can
afford to deploy missile defenses beyond the capacity of adversaries
to overcome them.
As in most other fields, cost depends on the type of system and
the threat against which it is deployed. However, cost is also directly
related to the consequences of failure to protect against an event that
could have catastrophic consequences. In the final analysis, the cost
of missile defense rests on the question of whether the United States
is prepared to make a modest investment to ensure that its population
will be safe and secure or is willing instead to remain defenseless
against the possibility of an attack far more devastating than 9/11--an
attack from which the nation, or large parts of it, might never fully recover.
Discover more about America's Missile Defense capabilities and how necessary they are to the country's security in the new documentary film by the Heritage Foundation, 33 Minutes. The need for missile defense is greater now than during any other time in the nation's history.
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