What you need to know about missile defense: we're not there yet

Regrettably, the Missile defence Agency under President Obama is beginning to slow all the progress we've made in developing even more effective defences. It is adopting a spiral development strategy: We'll build a little, then test a little, then build a little and test a little. This is unwise. Every day that the fielding of state-of-the-art missile defences is delayed in this way is one more day that Americans and our allies stay vulnerable to attack.

Question: Isn't the cost of missile defence prohibitive?

There are two ways to answer this question: We can compare what we have spent with other U.S. government expenditures, or we can compare it with the probable damage costs if one ballistic missile should get through.

Since 1985, the United States has invested about $138 billion in missile defence--an average of $5.8 billion or so per year. In 2008, the Missile defence Agency invested over $8 billion, or less than 1/70th of our total spending on defence.

To put these amounts in perspective, consider that the 9/11 attacks on New York City, which did not involve a nuclear weapon, caused about $83 billion in damages. In the first 12 months following the 9/11 attack, U.S. economic activity is estimated to have fallen by as much as $225 billion. Or consider that the President plans to spend $399 billion--$1 billion per day--of the stimulus package in 2010 alone and that he approved over 8,000 earmarked pork-barrel projects in his first spending bill last March that will cost $7.6 billion. Such amounts dwarf our investment in critical missile defence systems.

The reality becomes even more worrisome when we consider that the President's $1.4 billion cuts in the Missile defence Agency budget come even as the threat grows. Russia is upgrading its missile bases and positioning short-range missiles on its border with Poland to target U.S. defensive interceptors. China now has 1,500 missiles positioned on the shore opposite Taiwan. North Korea is testing missiles and conducting underground nuclear tests. Iran is testing newly modified long-range missiles and enriching uranium. Diplomacy is not lessening these threats. In fact, it may actually play into others' hands as they try to drive wedges between the U.S. and its allies, lessen its influence in their regions, and dictate U.S. policy.

The President's cuts make even less sense given that $1.4 billion is a mere 0.04 percent of his total proposed federal budget, and the roughly $10 billion we spend on missile defence each year amounts to only 13 percent of what local, state, and federal government agencies pay for first responders. It is quite small if we compare it to the cost of an attack: A study for the Department of Energy in 2006 estimated that if just one 13-kiloton bomb hit New York City, cleanup and recovery costs could "approach the level of the entire U.S. gross domestic product in 2005...the entire output of the U.S. economy, every factory, store and business, for a full year."

Failing to protect ourselves could have consequences and costs that are immeasurably greater than the cost of missile defence.

Question: Won't we start a new arms race by insisting on missile defences?

If anything, the opposite is likely: Missile defences may actually prevent a new arms race. After years of negotiation and diplomacy, the arms race around the world has intensified, thanks primarily to the illicit proliferation of weapons and technologies by actors like Pakistan's father of nuclear weapons, A. Q. Khan, and states like Iran and North Korea that want greater regional influence and international "respect."

Since missile defences are entirely defensive, studies show that they actually have a stabilizing effect on an otherwise fragile security environment. Hostile countries will not invest in costly weapons that probably will not reach their targets. Any defences that could destroy a ballistic missile in flight, particularly before it reaches space, take away the very reason our enemies want those missiles it the first place.

China and Russia, with their large missile arsenals, understand this. That's why they are pushing the U.S. to negotiate a new treaty, the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space Treaty, which could be used to prevent us from deploying defences in space. Collegially constraining our own defences to keep others happy merely encourages them to move ahead at full speed with their own weapons programs.

Conclusion
Missile defence is not optional. It is morally, politically, economically, and technologically the right policy. It's time we demanded nothing less than America's best in missile defence.