"If the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched by North Korea had been aimed at Alaska or the West Coast of the United States, our missile-defense system--on alert for weeks in anticipation of the launch--might have been able to destroy the missile," write missile defense expert Baker Spring. "But success in this endeavor wouldn't be assured--for our missile-defense system is fairly limited, particularly for countering missiles of this type," explains Spring in this morning's New York Post.

This uncertainty was not inevitable, and it can be remedied. As far back as February 1991, Stephen Hadley (now national security adviser to President Bush) proposed a comprehensive defense system against the kind of missile strike that North Korea is now threatening.

The Clinton Administration and Congress killed that plan and so now our defense is limited. "It is long past time that Congress make up for its past failings and fund a comprehensive missile-defense architecture," urges Spring.

Read An Unfinished Defense by Baker Spring

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The North Korean threat underscores the importance of a comprehensive national missile defense system, capable of defending America and her allies. This defensive option provides a middle ground between preemptively destroying a missile launch site and waiting to retaliate after the loss of life and destruction of property. The U.S. military could destroy a launch site prior to launch, but this would be difficult to justify and could lead to a large-scale military conflict. A retaliatory strike, like a preemptive strike, also carries the significant risk of a broader military conflict. But a comprehensive missile defense provides the president with a wider variety of military options in a world where both nuclear weapons and ballistic missile delivery systems are proliferating and future events are difficult to predict.

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Congress Must Expand the Nation’s “Limited Defensive Capability” Against Ballistic Missiles

In March 9 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lieutenant General Henry A. Obering, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, stated that his agency made history in 2004 by establishing a “limited defensive capability” for protecting the United States against ballistic missile attack. Congress must recognize that this defense is very thin and needs to be strengthened. It can do so by making several significant changes in the missile defense budget, such as adding funds to accelerate the concurrent testing and operation program for the long-range missile defense interceptors in Alaska and California and to improve and expand the sea-based interceptors on the Navy’s AEGIS ships. Looking to the future, Congress should direct the Agency to start serious work on placing missile defense interceptors in space.