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May 30, 2008
In the Spring 2008 Ethics & International Affairs article, "Missile
Defense Malfunction," Philip
Coyle and Victoria
Samson systematically misrepresent or ignore key facts to bolster their arguments
against deploying defenses in Europe to protect our allies and forces in that
region against an emerging intermediate and long-range Iranian ballistic missile
threat. I want to set the record straight.
Coyle and Samson mock the Administration's claim that ballistic missiles and
technologies have spread since 1972 to more than 20 states by asserting most
of these countries do not pose a threat. They miss the point. According to U.S.
intelligence, access to missile technologies and systems by states openly hostile
to the United States has grown. The web of missile technology suppliers has
expanded and contributes to the spread of longer-range missiles. And as we have
seen in the rocket attacks against Israel, our adversaries willingly pass stand-off
strike weapons to non-state actors, including terrorists, whose leaders do not
appear to be deterrable.
Coyle and Samson fail to answer why Iran is making significant
investments in a program to develop medium- and intermediate-range
ballistic missiles that do not fit its regional defense requirements to
engage Israel or U.S. bases. These missiles will put all of Europe at
risk. In addition, Iran's space launch development program will allow
it an umbrella to develop technologies for long-range missiles, to
include multi-staging and advanced guidance.
Coyle and Samson cavalierly claim Iran would never launch a missile
against us or our allies, given the resulting retaliation. Massive
retaliation worked in the Cold War, but can they guarantee our security
when ballistic missiles carrying unknown payloads are in the hands of
Iranian leadership? In addition, ballistic missiles give a country a
capability to coerce or intimidate even without launching them. This
ability to heighten danger and uncertainty would restrict our diplomacy
and freedom of action. Moreover, we cannot be certain command and
control over missile systems will remain in rational hands...radical
factions may not care about retaliation.
Coyle and Samson have it both ways when they claim the operational
performance of Ground-Based Midcourse Defense has not been demonstrated
against real-world threats. Yet they give full credence to a concern
that a system in Europe would be capable of intercepting Russian ICBMs.
They also accept too readily Russian "fears" that defensive interceptors
could be converted to offensive missiles. Besides the fact that our
future activities with the European sites will be transparent to the
Russians and the host nations, this concern does not make military
sense. We already have mature mobile offensive forces on sea-based and
airborne platforms.
Mr. Coyle (out of government since January 2001) and Ms. Samson do not have
the security clearances or access to technical information that would allow
them to truly understand missile defense system performance. We have demonstrated
the effectiveness of our integrated missile defense system in our tests with
34 of 42 successful intercepts since 2001. These include six of nine successes
against long range targets, with four using warhead decoys or countermeasures.
While we expect countermeasures could be used by our adversaries, we also believe
significant numbers of missiles are deployed today without them.
With respect to countermeasures, Coyle and Samson look only at the
performance of the kill vehicle sensor. In fact, our capability against
countermeasures is significantly greater when you consider we are
employing layered defenses, a redundant network of land-based and
sea-based sensors, and advanced algorithms. Our ability to defeat
countermeasures will be greatly improved in the future as we introduce
a capability to destroy many objects with a single interceptor.
Our test record gave our leadership confidence in July 2006, when the
North Koreans launched several missiles, including a long-range Taepo
Dong II. The Defense Department and the Missile Defense Agency were
inundated with press phone calls asking what we could do to defend the
United States. The good news was that we were able to give the
President the option of activating a limited defensive system capable of
engaging a long-range ballistic missile.
Coyle and Samson cite favorably the diplomacy of former Defense
Secretary William Perry, after which the North Koreans halted ballistic
missile testing (the end of this moratorium shows how short-lived arms
control agreements can be). Ironically, they refer to Dr. Perry's
negotiations as "the most cost-effective missile defense system." That
was hardly the case. North Korea never did halt its missile development
program. What Coyle and Samson fail to mention is that, during the July
2006 crisis, Dr. Perry advocated the preemptive destruction of the North
Korean Taepo Dong launch site, certainly a more provocative,
destabilizing act. With a limited missile defense capability at the
ready, President Bush did not have to follow his advice. Missile
defense is a stabilizing factor in the world.
Finally, I want to address the canard that our European allies are not
on board with the plan to place long-range defenses in Europe. We have
concluded negotiations with the Czech Republic and are in discussions
with the Polish government. All 26 NATO nations have formally endorsed
the plan. These nations not only agreed with the United States that
"ballistic missile proliferation poses an increasing threat," they also
recognized "the substantial contribution to the protection of Allies
from long-range missile threats to be provided by planned deployment of
European based United States missile defense assets." NATO's leaders
also tasked the alliance to come up with options to integrate NATO
defenses with the U.S. system.
Year after year, test after test, we are taking the technical challenges
we face in missile defense off the table and therefore undermining long
held positions of our critics. Not only will the missile defense system
work, but it can bring stability that would not have been possible
otherwise. But if diplomacy, arms control and deterrence fail, missile
defense is the option left to protect our nation, allies and forces.
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