Guarding against Miscalculation

Dear Members and Friends,

This week, President Obama spoke on the topic of North Korea in an interview with NBC. In this conversation, the President brought up the importance of missile defense in respect to its ability to guard against any miscalculation and to help contain North Korea’s anticipated provocative action over the next several weeks. The President’s remarks are as follows:

“But, you know, we have to make sure that we are dealing with every contingency out there. And that’s why I’ve repositioned missile defense systems to guard against any miscalculation on their part.”

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” “This is the same kind of pattern that we saw his father engage in, and his grandfather before that. Since I came into office, the one thing I was clear about was, we’re not going to reward this kind of provocative behavior. You don’t get to bang your – your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way.”

President Obama further stated that he would “anticipate” that “North Korea will probably make more provocative moves over the next several weeks, but our hope is we can contain it and we can move into a different phase, in which they try to work through diplomatically some of these issues so they can get back on a path where they’re actually feeding their people.”

The United States missile defense platforms in the Pacific are in place, but as this mission continues it will require more inventory and more capacity. Missile defense is an invaluable tool for President Obama that allows him to prevent conflict, contain provocation, and guard against miscalculation. The President of the United States, with missile defense, plays a vital and global role in making our world safer.

President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for missile defense last week. The President’s request calls for 1.739 percent of the entire $526.6 Billion defense budget to be spent on providing inventory and capacity for our nation’s missile defense systems. This percentage is down from the 1.831 percent of the $530.5 Billion Fiscal Year 2013 defense budget spent on missile defense last year.

Yesterday, Representative Michael Turner sent a highly critical letter to the President of the United States in regards to his policies, positions, and actions on missile defense.

“At a time when our missile defense system is the only defense that we have to the threat from North Korea, and the emerging threats from Iran, I am greatly concerned that your missile defense strategy is languishing, resulting in increased risk to the United States, increased cost to the taxpayer and needless alienation of our allies. Our enemies around the world have sought nuclear weapons and missile technology, yet your Administration has consistently reduced missile defense funding, abandoned previous Bush Administration strategies that sought to respond to these emerging threats and has compromised the implementation of missile defense programs, while seeking elusive Russian approval of the right of the United States to defend itself.”
- Representative Michael Turner, April 17, 2013

A link to this letter is enclosed below.

Letter from Representative Michael Turner to President Obama:http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/data/images/repturnerlettertopresidentonmissiledefense-apr172013(2).pdf

Our world and nation, today and for the foreseeable future, need to prevent conflicts and need at least two percent of our defense budget in order to provide the capacity and inventory of missile defense across the world and for our nation to ensure peace from nations that continue to proliferate ballistic missiles and nuclear missiles.

The President cannot have this critical defense without the necessary spending it requires let alone reducing it from a year ago.

In Place to Defeat It All

Dear Members and Friends,

The ideal destruction and interception of a launched North Korean nuclear ballistic missile or missiles by current deployed United States missile defense systems is to take place in space with the precise use of kinetic energy from an intercepting vehicle at a high speed on a nuclear warhead traveling in space. Over 80 percent of a ballistic missile’s flight is in space which provides extensive time for multiple opportunities to intercept it. Identifying, tracking, and discriminating the warhead, over the course of its flight, is of absolute criticalness to the successful intercept of the ballistic missile.

In the due diligence of the U.S. Military to plan and prepare to defend against the worst case scenario of a launch of one or more of North Korea’s ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads, the United States has deployed a robust layered missile defense system to defeat and destroy these nuclear ballistic missiles in space with high confidence. The current deployed U.S. Missile Defense assets are as follows:

* The United States Defense Support Program constellation of satellites and its new GEO-1 satellite, in geosynchronous orbit, can instantly identify and track any and all ballistic missile launches anywhere on North Korean territory in any weather condition day or night and determine within seconds where those missiles are precisely targeted.

* The United States forward based AN/TPY-2 X-Band radars in Northern Japan and Guam in collaboration with its THAAD firing battery as well as an additional AN/TPY-2 X-Band radar to be deployed in Southern Japan, as announced by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on March 15, have the demonstrated proven capability to track, in the highest definition and fidelity of X-Band wavelengths, multiples of incoming ballistic missile warheads and provide exact tracking for firing solutions to each and every incoming warhead for precision interception during the warhead’s trajectory through space and in the upper atmosphere as it renters. These forward based X-Band radars provide exact queuing as well as extending the battle space and range for the deployed United States and Japanese Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) ships loaded with SM-3 Block IA interceptors in the region.

* There are 17 United States Aegis BMD ships deployed in the Pacific today and four Japanese Kongo Aegis BMD ships. Each of these ships have a minimum of 90 vertical launch tubes to hold SM-3 Block IA interceptors and each have an AN/SPY-1 phased array radar that can independently and collectively track and produce a firing solution to intercept incoming ballistic missiles that fly within hundreds of miles around each ship. These Aegis BMD Ships have the capability to form a picket fence of connected sensors across the Pacific Ocean and can provide additional cueing for U.S. Homeland Defense as well as Allied Defense.

* The Aegis BMD ships, to include their AN/SPY-1 radars and SM-3 Block IA interceptors have had 24 successful intercept tests with the last being February 12th of this year. Some of these successful tests used the tracking information from the X-Band radars including the successful intercept of the falling satellite in February 20, 2008 to extend their ranges and battle space.

* The THAAD Battery in Guam has the proven capability to intercept ballistic missiles in lower space and in the Earth’s upper atmosphere as the warhead goes through reentry. The THAAD firing battery has six reusable launchers that can fire eight interceptors per launcher. THAAD with its X-Band radar and firing control system can defend an exponential greater area than a single Aegis BMD ship. THAAD has a successful test record of 10 for 10 since 2003 with the last successful intercept in October 25, 2012 in Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

* There is a constellation of two United States low earth orbit satellites called the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) that have provided tracking and firing solutions for both the Aegis BMD system and the THAAD system. This system was last successfully tested in February 12, 2013 with the successful Aegis SM-3 Block IA interceptor and in October 25, 2012 with the THAAD successful intercept test which included the Aegis and Patriot 3 missile defense systems.

* The Sea Based X-Band radar (SBX) now deployed in the Pacific Ocean, is the most powerful radar in the world today in regards to tracking and the discrimination of ballistic missiles and their warheads to provide firing solutions. The SBX has a range of thousands of miles and will provides the best sensing information of North Korean incoming ballistic missiles and their warheads for Hawaii, United States territories in the Pacific, and parts of United States mainland. The SBX provides this information primarily to the 26 Ground Based Interceptors (GBI) deployed in Alaska and the 4 GBIs in California but can also provide this information to the Aegis BMD ships in the region to enhance and extend their battle space.

* The Upgraded Early Warning Radars in Shemya, Alaska in the far western Aleutian Islands, at Clear Air Force Station of Anderson, Alaska, and at Beale Air Force Base in California can provide tracking information to support firing information to those30 GBIs in Alaska and California in the defense of the North American Continent from North Korea.

* The 30 GBIs are a combination of first generation and second generation kill vehicles. These GBIs can shoot multiple times at the same incoming ballistic missile over the course of that ballistic missiles flight in space thus increasing its reliability. The first generation GBIs have had eight successful intercepts out of 15 tests. The last successful GBI test took place in December 5, 2008. The second generation GBI has not yet had a successful intercept test and had a successful non intercept test early this year on January 26th.

It is abundantly clear that the United States military has a robust layered missile defense capability and capacity in place today with high confidence to destroy and deny nuclear North Korean ballistic missiles in flight.

It is also abundantly clear that more capacity and more missile defense testing will need to be done by the United States and its allies to remain confident with high reliability against and ahead of the North Korean and Iranian ballistic missile threats.

It is with outstanding respect and great appreciation to the past 30 years of the resolve by the United States of America in its development and deployment of missile defense, from President Ronald Reagan to President Barack Obama, to have a system that is in place today assuring with high confidence that we can defend our country and allies from a limited nuclear ballistic missile attack.

United States Deploys THAAD Into Guam

Dear Members and Friends,

Our nation’s newest and most comprehensive missile defense system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is being deployed to the island of Guam in protection of the American territory’s citizens and all of the United States military forces deployed on there from North Korea’s ballistic missile threat as announced today by the Department of Defense. This best in the world capability is able to detect, target, discriminate, and destroy, with kinetic energy, multiple incoming ballistic missiles during their downward flight phase in lower space as well as in the upper atmosphere. Additionally, the heat and friction of reentry into the earth’s atmosphere is used to further discriminate incoming debris and missile warheads for successful THAAD intercepts.

THAAD relies on its own X-Band Radar to detect and target with its own interceptors similar to those forward based X band radars deployed today that protect the United States, Israel, Turkey, Europe, and Japan. The THAAD system fills the gap of interceptor battle space between the higher Aegis ship based interceptors that operate in space and the lower Patriot land-based systems operating in the lower atmosphere for regional ballistic missile threats. THAAD remains the most successfully tested Missile Defense system since 2003, with a 10 for 10 intercept flight record. The system’s last intercept test was October 24,2012, in the Kwajalein Island in the Pacific where it shot down ballistic missiles alongside the Patriot and Aegis Ship BMD systems. It is also of note that in April of 2008, THAAD was put in an operational status in Hawaii while still in development for a North Korean long range ballistic missile test.

This capability protects and enhances one of our military’s largest staging areas, located in Guam, to project and deploy forces including strategic aircraft throughout the Pacific region. Protecting Guam from ballistic missile threats would further deter North Korea’s rational or irrational decision of launching ballistic missiles as well as maintain their fear of offensive retaliation. It is a necessary strategic move by the United States to assure our allies in this region, specifically South Korea and Japan, that we have our best capabilities deployed so that they do not need to take pre-emptive or reactive action against North Korea.

We give great credit and sincere appreciation to our President, Department of Defense, Pacific Combatant Commander, and to the Commander of the U.S. Army’s 94th AAMDC for making the decision to deploy the Alpha Four THAAD Battery, out of Fort Bliss, Texas, forward into Guam and making our world, nation, our men and women of our armed forces, and our citizens of the American territory Guam safer. This decision to deploy THAAD will help prevent conflict and a potential war with North Korea.

Our government is doing the right thing for the right reasons at the right time.

We Got This Covered

Dear Members and Friends,

In the protection of Hawaii and the United States mainland, the Sea-Based X-Band radar (SBX) has been deployed from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii into the Pacific Ocean. The SBX is the world’s most capable X-Band Radar that is able to track 10s of thousands of small objects in space while following a ballistic missile in its moving cloud of debris to exactly pinpoint the re-entry vehicle or warhead of a ballistic missile amongst the countermeasures and decoys.

Simplistically put, the SBX, off the cost of California, could track the seam stich on a rotating baseball, pitched at Yankee Stadium, in New York, that is traveling 15,000 mph per hour and give you the exact spot and place to swing the bat and make contact with the ball, at the plate, before the ball’s arrival for a home run every time that you went to bat no matter what speed or type of pitch is thrown. It is an incredible capability that can exponentially increase the reliability of our 30 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California that are protecting Hawaii and the United States homeland from a North Korean long range ballistic missile.

The SBX has been deployed out to the Pacific Ocean during previous North Korean ballistic missile tests and was the critical sensor in the 2008 successful intercept of a falling toxic satellite by a Ballistic Missile Defense Aegis ship, the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), and SM3-Block IA interceptor. A decision was made by our government and the previous Missile Defense Agency Director to put the SBX in partial mothball status at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii as it was previously planned to be in permanent placement at Adak, Alaska on the Aleutian Islands in order to provide increased capability for the protection of the United States homeland close a polar orbit flight that would be required to reach the United States mainland from North Korea. The SBX costs around 70 million dollars a year to operate and maintain and is an asset of the United States Navy but managed and crewed by the Missile Defense Agency.

It is of great appreciation and acknowledgement that we give to the Department of Defense, the Pacific Combatant Commander, and the Missile Defense Agency as they move forward with the deployment of the SBX in protection of our nation and its people from North Korea.
In addition to the SBX being deployed yesterday, the United States 7th Fleet, out of Yokosuka, Japan, which has five Aegis BMD ships attached to its overall fleet, has moved the USS John S. McCain Aegis BMD Destroyer out to sea for added protection against North Korea. The destroyer will provide both sensing and tracking data of incoming ballistic missiles as well as having the capability on board to intercept short and medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea. The United States five Aegis BMD ships which includes the most modern BMD ship in the Navy, the USS Shiloh, a cruiser, join four Japanese Aegis BMD Kongo Class ships and three South Korea KDX ships in the ballistic missile defense of this region.

It is a true honor to have visited and recognized the men and women of the USS John S. McCain, the USS Fitzgerald, the USS Curtis Wilbur and its crew in Yokosuka, as well as the USS Shiloh at sea in the East China Sea this past year deployed in the waters protecting our allies, our troops, and the United States of America. MDAA was also honored to be on the SBX as it finished its construction in Brownsville, Texas and again a few times with its crew in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

For, in the end, it is the men and women of our joint missile defense force that make these great engineering capabilities and platforms perform the work to preserve peace and protect our lives. They indeed are the unheralded ones that represent the tip of the spear for the entire missile defense community and our nation protecting all of us and our allies in these critical times of uncertainty against a nuclear country and the leader of North Korea

Lights Out! Knock Out!

Against the black sky and shimmering stars close after a tropical sunset outside of Hawaiian waters, the sky lite up as a ballistic target missile was knocked out by the U.S. Navy.

A few hundred miles off the northwestern coast of Kauai, DDG 70, the Lake Erie Aegis BMD Cruiser launched the new Standard Missile 1B out of one of its vertical launch tubes and successfully destroyed and intercepted a Scud like non-separating short range ballistic missile target a few minutes after the ship acquired the launch off Kauai. With the recently certified new 4.0.1 processor and the AN/SPY-1 Radar on board, Lake Erie tracked and produced fire control solutions providing the information to the SM3 1B missile, in the tube before it launched and continued to provide it updates until the kill vehicle separated from the third stage of the missile. The new kill vehicle that has an additional sensor and is powered by a new divert rocket motor, successfully applied these two new technologies in an intercept making this interceptor class significantly more capable then it’s predecessor, the SM3 1A . The SM3 1A are deployed throughout our Navy and in the Japanese Navy today. Having two sensors and a more efficient rocket motor enables the SM3 1B missile much more confidence in separating targets, and discriminating them to exactly locate and terminate the targeted re-entry vehicle.

This new capability will handle more sophisticated threat missiles, and will be fully relied upon for the protection of Europe, in the second phase of the EPAA, where 24 of them will be in the Aegis Ashore site in Romania and multiple others on United States Aegis BMD ships patrolling European waters by 2015. In addition, these new missiles on Aegis BMD ships with 4.0.1 processors will be highly sought after and required by the 5th and 7th U.S. Navy Fleets as well as the United States Combatant Commanders of CENTCOM and PACOM to defend and protect their area of responsibilities.

This first successful test demonstration of the SM3 1B missile was a deliberate scenario that provided the foundation requirements of a simple threat acquired, tracked and terminated all by one platform, the USS Lake Erie and its crew. This test scenario could also be viewed as a realistic demonstration depicting a North Korean short range ballistic missile heading towards South Korea and the use of a U.S. BMD Aegis ship from the 7th fleet deployed in the Sea of Japan defending South Korea and the U.S. forward based troops located there. There are two more upcoming sophisticated and more complex tests scheduled this year to further demonstrate its capability. The previous test on the SM3 1B missile did not see the engagement of the kill vehicle on the target and as a result did not apply the use of the new sensor and rocket motor in intercepting the target as this successful test has clearly demonstrated.

U.S. Congress law requires that these and any new missiles cannot be deployed until required testing and certification is complete. There are a total of five successful tests required for the SM3 1B missile to be initially certified, all scheduled this year. Three of them are flight intercepts of which one is now complete and the remaining two are ground tests. The earlier generation of SM3 1A missiles will have to be relied upon as the U.S. Navy needs them in all of their Fleets until the successful initial certification of the SM3 1B is complete.

This success continues to show that the U.S. leads in technology and Aegis Missile Defense is more advanced than the of the rest of the world and provides a capability to stay in front of the proliferation of ballistic missiles that we are witnessing into today’s world.

We greatly appreciate the engineers, scientists and all of the individuals both in government and industry that have worked on the development of this test, as well as the Captain and crew of the USS Lake Erie as they have brought this technology to fruition. Before they sailed last week, MDAA had the pleasure to honor FC1 Joseph Fields and FC 3 Kyle Gerlofs representing their ship, the USS Lake Erie and recognized their excellence of the SPY Band Radar and BMD applications that was used for this successful test.

This intercept success of the SM3 1B marks a significant momentum shift of the next generation interceptor for our Navy and for the protection of Europe.

Respectfully and Malahola from Kauai,

Riki Ellison
Chairman & Founder
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

North Korean Failure

 

North Korea officially launched their three stage long-range missile yesterday at 7:39am, 6:39pm eastern daylight time in the United States.

NK Missile Launch: Clinton Expects ‘Appropriate Action’ From Security Council

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. will push for “appropriate action” by the U.N. Security Council should North Korea launch a long-range rocket, but the last time Pyongyang defied the world body in this way, the council struggled to come up with a strong response.

Defenses brace for N. Korean rocket launch

The United States and its allies are deploying missile defenses on land and sea so they can, if necessary, shoot down a multistage rocket thatNorth Korea says it will launch within a few days.

Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: Can Putin and Obama Make a Deal on Missile Defense?

Speaking at the Euro-Atlantic Security Conference in Moscow last Friday, outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia and NATO could still reach an agreement on missile defense, but time is running out and opportunities for compromise are becoming fewer as the U.S. missile defense plans near implementation. Can Putin and Obama make a deal on missile defense? Would Obama go for a written statement of guarantees sought by Russia? Would Putin accept this as a compromise?

U.S. seeks to ease Russia missile worries

MOSCOW, April 4 (UPI) – A missile defense shield planned for Europe by the United States could be a point of cooperation, not confrontation, with Moscow, an envoy said.