Missile Defense Pragmatism

After doing some work on missile defense over the past few weeks, I attended a screening of Heritage’s 33 minutes film last night. The film is geared toward the general public and emphasizes just how bad a nuclear and/or EMP attack would be. Fair enough.  After the event Jamie Fly and James Carafano provided some remarks about missile defense. Two of Carafano’s major themes were that the threat has not changed and but that the program has changed (in a negative way). Those in favor of the administration's policy would obviously disagree with both but an in-depth look at the 24 September SASC hearing on the issue provided some good back and forth on the issue. 

The Iranian Missile Threat:

The administration advanced two major arguments behind the new missile defense approach: new advances in technology and changes in intelligence assessments on Iran. IC estimates now place the threat from Iranian short and medium range missiles as larger than anticipated and the timeframe for them acquiring an ICBM longer than the original 2015 estimates. Senator McCain expressed his disapproval in noting

We all know the threat’s real of Iranian ballistic missiles, real and growing. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on both exactly what has changed threat-wise and . . . why we can wait until 2020, at least 3 to 5 years later than originally planned, to field a longrange security capable

In addition to quoting former USDP Edelman who said

Maybe something really dramatic changed between January 16 and now in what the Iranians are doing with their missile securities, but I don’t think so

The answer seems to lie in a spring NIE as noted by Undersecretary Flournoy:

I want to be careful since we’re in open session, but there have been three NIEs, national intelligence estimates, to my knowledge on this issue. There was one in 2001, one in 2006 that informed the development of the program of record, the old approach, and then one that was done, that was completed in the spring, so after Secretary Gates testified, of this year, in ’09.

Unfortunately, the “open session” nature of the hearing makes it difficult to engage in a more robust discussion about whether the changes in assessments are correct. Those opposed to the assessment cited Iran’s missile launch earlier this year but VCJS Cartwright did note

From the standpoint of the space launch that the Iranians conducted and their demonstration of the ability to stage, that they are getting at the early phases of an ICBM capability. I still believe that to be the case. But they have several phases that they must go through yet that will take them measured in years rather than months to accomplish. Those phases are very visible, and that’s one of the key considerations for us to watch. Any time you start to work with reentry vehicles, any time you start to move in that direction, that is very visible activity and generally takes a nation several years to accomplish.

Lastly, all sides were quick to underscore the asterisk of any intelligence assessment. General Cartwright admitted to Senator McCain that “The intelligence, as you say, sir, has been wrong on that” with regards to the North Korea missile program. Meanwhile, Secretary Gates recognized this in his NYT op-ed by noting

One criticism of this plan is that we are relying too much on new intelligence holding that Iran is focusing more on short- and medium-range weapons and not progressing on intercontinental missiles. Having spent most of my career at the C.I.A., I am all too familiar with the pitfalls of over-reliance on intelligence assessments that can become outdated.

Those in favor of the changes would also argue, as VJCS Cartwright and USDP Flournoy did in their opening statement, that “we understand that the intelligence projections can be wrong, which makes it all the more important for us to have a flexible and adaptable missile defense system that can evolve with the threat.”

European GBI protection against the Iranian ICBM threat

At its core, the argument for the 2006 approach over the new approach is that it would bring protection against an Iranian ICBM online faster than would the new approach. Without analyzing some of the other benefits the new approach may have over the old, this argument has a bit of merit but does need to be qualified. Three of the major arguments in favor of the old European approach are:

A. Date- The date mentioned last night, 2012, appears to be inaccurate. The original system was supposed to be in place by 2015 and the SM-3 Block II-B with ICBM capabilities is slated for the 2020 timeframe. That said, in response to the question “Doesn’t that expose us for that 5-year period between 2015,” General O’Reilly noted:

Senator, once we’re given the approvals to begin the construction, yes, sir, it’s 5 years.. The issue we’ve had is the current restrictions I have require us to go through testing that will take us to 2013 before the Secretary of Defense is in a position, with the Director of the Operational Test and Evaluation Agency, to then certify that the ground-based midcourse defense system will work in a European scenario. So 2013 would be the earliest we can see programmatically where we could begin, and that actually takes you to 2018 . . . Also what is clear is that’s pure construction time. We do need the approval of the countries, and there is an extensive amount of implementing agreements also required before you can begin that. So we saw the 2017–2018 timeframe as optimistic based on the approvals necessary in order to begin.

If General O’Reilly’s timeframe assessment is correct, it appears there is a widow of a couple of years in which the United States would not have ICBM capable missile defense assets deployed in the European theater. It should also be noted that some are characterizing the SM-3 Block II-B as a “paper missile” and General Cartwright noted, “I agree with you, it is more than paper, but in that class.” which could delay the timeline for it coming online.

B. Redundancy- It is important to remember that it is not European GBIs or bust as far as protection of the U.S. homeland from ICBM’s goes. There are 30 GBI’s deployed in Alaska and California that General Cartwright testified this summer as having “Ninety-percent, plus” chance of taking down an ICBM. As such, the European GBIs would provide a layer of redundancy to provide an opportunity for two sets of shots. While redundancy can be valuable in defense planning, the critical question is cost versus degree of extra protection provided. On this question, General Cartwright noted:

Much of what you say was in the calculus of at least my perspective and the Chiefs as we worked our way through this. I’ll defer to General O’Reilly, but the addition of the ten GBIs in Poland from a mathematical standpoint— everybody worries about the ambiguity of that, but the difference in probability of success was somewhere between a .92 as it stands and using the interceptors from the United States. Adding the interceptors from Poland got us up maybe as high as .96, but probably in the .95, .94 area. That’s a major investment.

That said, many of the Senators also made reference to a CBO study from February that shows a coverage map that Senator Inhofe said would leave part of Maine vulnerable to an attack.  General Cartwright said he would get back to the Committee as he was unaware of the study. 

C. Radar—One of the large benefits of the 2006 approach was that the forward deployed in Europe could provide information to our system in Alaska and California much faster in the event of, for example, an Iranian launch. The 2006 plan included two radars in its plan: one European Midcourse Radar (EMR) in the Czech Republic and on AN/TYP-2 radar in “Southeastern Europe.” That said, the new plan does not eliminate that second radar. As Lt Gen O’Reilly explains:

The most important component of the 2006 proposed architecture to the defense of the U.S. homeland was the forward based X-band radar in Southeastern Europe . . . We remain concerned about a future Iranian ICBM threat; therefore, we are retaining the forward-based X-band radar of the 2006 proposed European missile defense architecture in our new Phased Adaptive Approach proposal.

Under Secretary Flournoy noted this radar “will significantly enhance the performance of our existing U.S.- based GBIs” and played a key role in SECDEF Gates’ decision. Proponents of the new plan would also argue their new architecture provides a more comprehensive sensor network.  As General O’Reilly explains:

The area of greatest opportunity for increased missile defense capability is our achievements in developing faster and more accurate command and control, battle management, and communications systems which combine data from a network of different sensors, especially sensors that track missiles in the early phases of their flight, rather than using a large radar in a region. For example, our successful intercept of the ailing satellite in February 2008 was based on our ability to combine data from sensors around the world and provide a highly accurate track of the satellite to an Aegis ballistic missile defense ship and launch the modified Standard Missile 3–1A prior to the ship’s radar even seeing the satellite.

In other words, possible political consequences aside (which may be handled in a follow-up post), the issue at hand for the European missile defense decision is whether the risk of not having an additional layer of ICBM coverage to increase the probability of success from .92 to .95 during the time when the GBIs would have been deployed (2017ish) until the SM-3 block II-B comes online (currently 2020) is greater than benefits of having a better ability to counter short and medium term missile threats in addition to the proposed cost, flexibility, and adaptability benefits of the new system (which arguably could be more effective at countering ICBM threats down the road due to its boost phase capabilities).  That decision is above the pay grade of most folks, but the complexity of missile defense issues means that claims to the effect that “Obama’s plan makes America more vulnerable to ICBM attacks” deserve a very large asterisk, particularly when asserted in forums where there are few experts to critically evaluate and discuss this argument, and after screening a movie focused exclusively on the threat of missile attack. Obama has not abandoned missile defense, despite plenty of voices on the left who would advise him to do just that and find another way to deal with Iran. Instead, he has come up with a different answer for what missile defense should look like. Secretary Gates put it best when he noted in the NYT:

I am often characterized as “pragmatic.” I believe this is a very pragmatic proposal. I have found since taking this post that when it comes to missile defense, some hold a view bordering on theology that regards any change of plans or any cancellation of a program as abandonment or even breaking faith.

Regardless of where one comes down in missile defense discussion, it is important to remember that missile defense is rarely, if ever, a black and white issue. It is not a question of yes or no, but rather one of how, when, and how much.