Former Representative Bob Barr’s (R–GA) criticism of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) anti-aircraft and missile program is understandable but misplaced. Representative Barr, quite reasonably, points to the Obama Administration’s plan to continue spending money on this cooperative program with Germany and Italy despite an announcement early last year that it is moving to exit it. What he fails to appreciate is that the Administration’s earlier decision to exit the program was itself misguided. MEADS is important and advantageous for several reasons. First, MEADS successfully completed its design review …
During the NATO meeting in Chicago, the alliance will declare that it has an interim operational capability to defend itself against ballistic missile attacks. This is a major step forward for NATO and U.S. leadership within the alliance. The declaration marks the achievement of the first phase in the Obama Administration’s European Phased Adaptive Approach missile defense plan. This interim capability is based on the Aegis missile defense system and its accompanying Standard missile defense interceptor called the Block IA, which is deployed on U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers. This …
According to press reports, the House Armed Services Committee has preserved a provision in its draft of annual defense legislation that would place ballistic missile defense interceptors on the East Coast to defend U.S. territory more effectively against ballistic missile attacks, including short-range missiles carrying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads that could be launched from ships. This is a wise step, because ballistic missile technology is proliferating, as made evident by ongoing missile development programs in Iran and North Korea. In a recent study, The Heritage Foundation made a similar recommendation. …
In about five years, the United States will not have a single active engineer with actual nuclear weapons testing experience, defined as “a key hand in the design of a warhead that’s in the existing stockpile and who was responsible for that particular design when it was tested back in the early 1990s,” according to Thomas D’Agostino, the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. This could have significant negative consequences for the future of U.S. national security. D’Agostino maintains that “In my tenure in this job and however long …
India’s successful test of the Agni-V, a nuclear-capable long-range missile, is a major step forward for New Delhi in attaining nuclear deterrence against regional rival China. The lack of U.S. condemnation of India’s latest missile test demonstrates that the U.S. is comfortable with Indian progress in the nuclear and missile fields and appreciates India’s need to meet the emerging strategic challenge posed by rising China. The Agni-V has extended India’s missile reach to about 3,100 miles, marking a major achievement in its missile development program. Until this week, Indian missiles …
According to a March 29 article in the Journal of Turkish Weekly, 54 percent of Turkish survey respondents favor Turkey developing its own nuclear weapons in response to an Iranian nuclear threat. The alternative provided to the respondents was for Turkey to rely on NATO’s security umbrella. Just 8 percent of the respondents favor the latter option. The survey was conducted by the Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies. This survey’s results bolster a key conclusion in a 2010 report released by The Heritage Foundation. It followed the conduct …
It is a fundamental trust the American people put in a President that he will do all within his power to defend them against foreign military threats. This trust is no less applicable to threats posed by ballistic missiles. President Obama, however, apparently thinks very little of his responsibility to honor this trust. In an unguarded comment to outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Seoul, South Korea, on March 26, President Obama made it clear that he will exhibit more “flexibility” in accommodating Russian objections to the U.S. expanding its …
The defense commitments in Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) budget proposal, “The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise,” are a step in the right direction. The budget makes a down payment on the defense the United States needs, moving toward rebuilding a defense posture that has been strained by 10 years of war. The proposal is consistent with the principle that national defense is the federal government’s most important priority, whereas President Obama’s budget will make defense the lowest priority by later this decade. Under the Budget Control Act of 2011, …
Representative Edward Markey (D–MA) has grave misconceptions regarding contributions that nuclear weapons make to the U.S. and allied national security. On Wednesday, he introduced a bill that would cut $100 billion in nuclear weapons programs. This bill is co-sponsored by 34 other Representatives. Not only would such cuts be disastrous for the already under-funded U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure; they would also call into question U.S. commitment to extended deterrence and viability of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. In addition, the proposed cuts would …
In the New Strategic Arm Reductions Treaty (New START), the United States agreed to a weak verification regime. An indication of this is that U.S. negotiators agreed to degrade the telemetry regime in the original START from verification to a transparency measure. Under New START, each party is required to exchange telemetry from up to five launches. It appears that U.S. negotiators in the Bilateral Consultative Commission, the treaty’s implementation body, have given into Russian demands yet again as both parties agreed this week to exchange telemetry from only one …
