The National Academies reserved particular hostility for our only current hope to intercept an Iranian missile, the current ground-based midcourse system in Alaska and California. The committee outlined "six fundamental precepts of a cost-effective ballistic missile defense." Their conclusion? "The committee finds the current GMD system deficient with respect to all of these principles." The committee went on to describe the current GMD system as a "classic example" of what it termed "a ‘hobby shop' approach, with many false starts on poorly analyzed concepts."
As a result, their recommendation was to develop and deploy an entirely different interceptor (based in part on a now canceled program called the kinetic energy interceptor) that would eventually replace the current interceptors in Alaska. The panel thought so highly of these interceptors that they recommended, once the new interceptor is ready, removing the old missiles from their silos and apparently using them for target practice. ("At a later time, the more capable interceptor would be retrofitted into the silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, with the existing GBIs diverted to the targets program supporting future operational flight tests." It is also possible the MDA might use them as boosters.)
Somehow, House Republicans were able to take this scathing assessment of the Disasta' in Alaska and use it as a reason to give the Missile Defense Agency an extra $400 million to expand the current, flawed GMD program, including $100 million to start planning for placing obsolete interceptors at a third site on the East Coast. The plus-up brought total GMD spending to more than $1.3 billion this year.
I suppose it is hardly surprising that Congress would turn the recommendation of the National Academies on its head. After all, it is not unknown for members of Congress to cherry pick recommendations. And, in this case, the package presented by the National Academies would require Congress to admit that the United States has invested $34 billion in a flawed midcourse defense architecture ("fragile" was the polite term) that has been chronically mismanaged by the Department of Defense. In the current budgetary environment, that is a difficult admission to make.
It's a lot easier to just stick some more crappy interceptors in Maine and pretend everything is fine.
Second, one might question the National Academies recommendation. It is important to understand why the National Academies recommended what amounts to a complete overhaul of the ground-based midcourse system.
With the current architecture comprising interceptors in Alaska and California, it is physically possible to intercepting a missile fired from Iran at the United States. The problem, of course, is that the system doesn't work all that well. (The last two tests have been misses.) The best chance of being able to shoot down an enemy missile is to fire several -- perhaps as many as five -- interceptors at each incoming missile. With the current system, the United States has one opportunity to fire at the incoming missile.
The problem with firing a salvo of interceptors is that it is very inefficient, particularly if Iran were to launch several missiles at once or the incoming missiles were accompanied by decoys and other so-called penetration aids. The famously photoshopped image of an Iranian salvo launch, as well as some parodies, makes precisely that point. One has to give the National Academies credit for proposing a complete redesign of the current architecture -- new interceptors, radars, and a concept of operations -- to deal with the problem. For years, many of my colleagues have been arguing that the Missile Defense Agency has systematically ignored the challenge posed by countermeasures. While I am not sure I share the National Academies confidence in the ability of the United States to stay ahead in the countermeasures game -- particularly in the current era of budgetary austerity -- this is the first missile defense study to take the problem seriously.
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