The Pentagon’s release of the Ballistic Missile Defense Review confirmed that North Korea could be able to deploy a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of striking the United States within the next decade.
The Washington Times reports that the review expressed serious concern over North Korea’s two underground tests and its attempt to develop a long-range missile.
The Pentagon’s review also highlighted U.S. intelligence’s concerns about the Iranian nuclear program and their pursuit of “long-range ballistic missiles.” The report comes a day after Iran announced that it had launched a rocket into space, calling attention to the regime’s serious efforts to gain this dangerous technology.
The real concern is over how the United States can protect against such threats and ensure a credible deterrent to promote regional stability in the Middle East and East Asia. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has requested $8.4 billion dollars for the Missile Defense Agency. The internal structure of this budget will serve to shift the U.S. missile defense posture away from defending against long-range missile attacks and toward countering short- and medium-range missiles. This plan is further outlined in the Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report.
Despite Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the intelligence estimates that North Korea could reach the U.S. with a missile within the decade, the Pentagon plan to deploy advanced variants of the SM-3 missiles will have “some capability to knock out long-range missile warheads” and will not be ready until 2020.
Regarding the canceled deployment of interceptors in Easter Europe, the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring writes, “The plan sets up a false choice between long- and short-range defenses in terms of sequencing, when the U.S. needs to field defenses against both short-range and longer-range missiles immediately.”
President Obama’s decision to abandon plans for basing elements of the U.S. missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic is entirely a political one - in order to appease Russia. This decision is a strategic victory for the Kremlin, which is determined to have a sphere of privileged interest in its near-abroad. It represents the shameful abandonment of two of America’s closest allies in Central and Eastern Europe, and in future, America’s allies will have cause to question the integrity and credibility of American promises.
It also leaves the U.S. and Europe more vulnerable to the threat of ballistic missile attack. The Third Site installations proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic - Ground-Based Midcourse Defense interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic - were cost-effective, proven technologies which offered protection from long range missile attack to both Europe and the United States. The alternative deployments which President Obama has said he will now pursue will not satisfy those criteria.
Neither has Washington secured any great concession from Russia. There is scant evidence that Moscow intends to deliver anything credible in return for Washington’s abandonment of the Third Site, especially with regard to the growing Iranian threat. There is equally little indication that the Obama Administration’s risky policy of engagement with Iran is working either.
The decision – to concentrate resources defending against short range missiles and not field defenses against long range missile attacks – makes no sense. To be truly strategic about national and international security, the United States must defend against current and future threats. Presenting a choice between defending against short or long range missile attack is a false one. Ballistic missile threats can emerge with little advanced warning, and as Admiral Mike Mullen (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) recently stated, Iran has already amassed sufficient uranium to build an atomic bomb.
Defending against short-range missile attack is hugely important. But it can not come at the expense of protecting America and Europe from other threats. At present Europe has no capacity to defend itself against long-range missile attack while America only has limited defenses against such an attack. This undermines the concept of indivisible transatlantic security and enervates NATO’s Article V security guarantees.
This is a loss-leader for President Obama: a strategic loss, a security loss, a diplomatic loss and a major loss for America’s prestige on the world stage.