Since early May, North
Korea has been preparing for a potential missile launch, which now
appears imminent. In response, Americans are debating how the
United States should respond to such a launch. At this point,
several facts are clear. First, the North Korean threat underscores
the importance of a comprehensive national missile defense system,
capable of defending America and her allies. Second, North Korea -
or any rogue nation which refuses to abide by the customs of
civilized society - should not be allowed to engage in threatening,
unannounced missile launches. Finally, some have suggested the
United States should launch a preemptive strike at the North Korean
missile launch pad. This course of action may indeed be justifiable
if it was determined that the launch was threatening-if, for
example, a nuclear warhead was placed on the missile.
Short of such an explicit
threat, the U.S. should take the middle ground by engaging its
missile defense system. Within seconds of a North Korean launch,
American sensors could analyze the missile's trajectory and
determine whether purpose-most likely either a satellite deployment
or an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). If the launch
appears to be of an ICBM, the United States should use its missile
defense system to destroy the missile.
According to news reports,
the Department of Defense has already put the nation's
developmental missile defense system in operational status in
response to the North Korean preparations. This is a wise response
because the military must be prepared to defend any threat to the
lives and property of Americans posed by North Korea's prospective
missile launch, whether that threat comes in the form of an
intentional attack or as a consequence of an errant flight.
Likewise, the U.S. will need to fulfill its treaty obligations to
its allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea if North
Korea's actions threaten their sovereignty or vital interests. In
order to enhance its defensive options, the U.S. needs to intensify
its efforts in building a missile defense system.
The 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, although not
impossible, to justify. Moreover, a preemptive strike could lead to
a large-scale military conflict. Nevertheless, if the Bush
Administration could convincingly demonstrate that North Korea had
mated its missile to a nuclear warhead and was, therefore,
intending to launch a purposeful attack, then the preemptive option
would be warranted and necessary. A retaliatory response, on the
other hand, accepts the potential loss of life and property and
assumes, perhaps inaccurately, that a North Korean action warrants
retaliation. Arguing that the U.S. should undertake military
retaliation in response to destruction resulting from what is later
shown to be an errant missile test is problematic. A retaliatory
strike, like a preemptive strike, also carries the significant risk
of a broader military conflict.
A Very
Limited Defense
Congress and the American
people, however, need to understand that the missile defense
system, particularly for countering long-range missiles of the sort
North Korea is reportedly prepared to launch, represents a very
limited capability. First, the missile defense system is still in
development, and it has an embedded operational capability because
the system has to be built in order to test it. Second, there are
only eleven ground-based interceptors-nine fielded in Alaska and
two in California-capable of intercepting long-range missiles.
According the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, Lt. General
Henry A. Obering, in his March 9, 2006, testimony before the
Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services
Committee, the Navy is seeking to field up to 20 Standard Missile-3
(SM-3) interceptors on four Aegis ships by the end of this year.
These missiles, however, are currently designed to counter
medium-range missiles. These interceptors are backed by a variety
of sensors and radar to detect and track missiles in flight and a
command and control network for operating the system.
Given the very limited
capabilities of this defense, the ability of the system to
intercept and destroy a North Korean missile in flight does not
provide an assured defense, even under circumstances favorable to
the defense. If the North Korean missile is a long-range missile
headed toward Alaska or the West Coast, the ground-based
interceptors in Alaska and California are capable of performing an
intercept. If the long-range missile is launched toward U.S. ally
Australia, the ground-based interceptors are not well positioned to
perform an intercept. If the missile turns out to be a medium-range
missile and is launched over the ocean-for example, in the
direction of the U.S. territory of Guam or U.S. ally Japan-the SM-3
missile has the theoretical capable of performing an intercept. The
actual capability depends on the location of the ship carrying SM-3
interceptors at the time of the North Korean missile launch, and so
it is impossible to state precisely the likelihood of success.
Nevertheless, an intercept attempt is appropriate when it is likely
that the unimpeded launch is threatening to the U.S. or jeopardizes
the supreme interests of a U.S. ally.
The
Abandoned Global Protection against Limited Strikes Plan
Congress and the American
people may understandably be uncomfortable with the limited missile
defense capabilities available today. Today's missile defense
capabilities could be much stronger. On February 12, 1991, the
Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization,
Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, and the Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International Security Policy, Stephen J. Hadley (now National
Security Advisor to President Bush), provided a briefing to the
press and public on the Global Protection Against Limited Strikes
(GPALS) missile defense plan. The plan was based on the analysis of
the trends in the development and deployment of ballistic missiles
throughout the world at that time. In hindsight the basis of the
plan is justified by North Korea's ballistic missile capabilities
today. At least a portion of the significant elements of the GPALS
missile defense architecture would be operational today if Congress
and the Clinton administration had not abandoned the plan in
1991.
GPALS would have been
capable of defending against up to 200 individual missile reentry
vehicles. The architecture would have included a family of
defensive interceptors for countering short- and medium-range
missiles, ground-based missile defenses for countering long-range
ballistic missiles launched at U.S. territory in far larger numbers
than the 11 available today, as well as being operational, a
broader and more robust sensor network and command and control
system and a constellation of space-based interceptors called
Brilliant Pebbles. The Brilliant Pebbles interceptors would have
provided a defense against most short-range and all long-range
ballistic missiles. Further, the constellation would have had the
theoretical capability of countering long-range missiles launched
from anywhere in the world against any target in the world. The
actual capability ultimately depended on the numbers and deployment
pattern of the interceptors. Taken as a whole, this architecture
would have also allowed multiple shots at the kind of missile North
Korea is prepared to test. The acquisition cost of GPALS system was
estimated in 1991 to be approximately $41 billion in 1988
dollars.
Even if the full numbers
of each element of the GPALS architecture were not deployed today,
it would still cover the full scope of potential targets of a North
Korea missile attack, including U.S. territory and the territory of
U.S. friends and allies. This includes a missile carrying
countermeasures and decoys designed to overwhelm the defense. The
confidence level in countering a single missile would be far higher
than it is today.
Conclusion
A defensive option against
missile attack is essential to a balanced U.S. military posture in
facing the kind of threat posed by North Korea today. It 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. The
other military options available to the president, specifically the
preemptive and retaliatory options, are currently robust. The
defensive option, however, continues to lag.
If the North Koreans
launch a threatening ICBM, the president should act in defense of
the country and shoot it down. Moreover, it is long past time for
this Congress to take the steps that its predecessor and the
Clinton administration should have taken in the early 1990s and put
a missile defense architecture similar to GPALS in place. North
Korea has provided a reason why this is necessary.
Baker
Spring is F.M. Kirby Research
Fellow in National Security Policy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison
Center for Foreign Policy at The Heritage
Foundation.