The pace and scale of recent ballistic missile proliferation has exceeded earlier intelligence estimates and suggests these challenges may grow at a faster pace than previously expected." That appraisal by the Quadrennial Defense Review Report of 30 September 2001 echoed earlier assessments that had led President Ronald Reagan to initiate the strategic defense initiative, quickly labeled "Star Wars" by the press.
Immediately after President Reagan's decision, each of the three military departments—Air Force, Army, and Navy—proposed that it take the lead in providing both national and theater ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems based on its respective area of expertise: aircraft, ground launchers, or ships. In addition, satellite-based intercept systems (employing soft-and hard-kill techniques), as well as unmanned aerial vehicles for warning and intercept, came to the fore in the competition for BMD candidates.
Each service's advocacy was motivated by both a sincere belief that its was the best approach, based on years of experience with specific platforms, and the awareness that new missions meant more funding, more billets, and more flag or general officers. The latter were important factors in an era of shrinking defense budgets in the pre-11 September 2001 environment.
At the risk of sounding like a parochial navalist, the sea-based BMD concept offers several major advantages over air- and land-based systems. For example:
- Ships are mobile, and a theater BMD system could be moved into the area of danger.
- Ships forward deployed might be in better positions than land-based systems to intercept ballistic missiles in their more vulnerable boost phase.
- If existing Aegis cruisers and possibly destroyers could be modified for the BMD role, building on their AN/SPY-1 radars and Standard SM-2 missiles, a BMD system could be deployed more rapidly.
The United States first initiated significant BMD efforts in the mid-1950s, and in the late 1960s decided to develop and deploy such a defensive system. Called Sentinel and then Safeguard, this was a land-based intercept system. At the same time, the Soviet Union was undertaking a massive BMD program, with installations being observed around Moscow and Leningrad.
In response to Soviet efforts, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara directed the production and deployment of the Poseidon submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which he called "the most effective alternative" available to the United States against an expanded Soviet ballistic missile or BMD force. At the same time, the Navy initiated industry studies of a sea-based anti-ballistic missile intercept system, called SABMIS.
Navy strategic planners, led by Rear Admiral George H. Miller, pushed for SABMIS, citing its numerous advantages over other ballistic missile defense concepts. A key advantage was that intercepts would take place at sea rather than over populated U.S. and Canadian territory as with land-based systems, and SABMIS would not increase the number of strategic targets in the United States that the Soviets would seek to destroy in a nuclear exchange. Coupled with a terminal BMD system, SABMIS would provide a "look-shoot-look-shoot" capability. And—as today—a sea-based system could provide for the defense of allied countries and U.S. ground forces overseas, which could not be protected by a system in the United States (including Alaska).
Working with industry, the Navy developed a nominal SABMIS ship (Figure 1). The relatively large platform would carry approximately 66 nuclear-tipped interceptor missiles. Smaller alternatives also were considered, based on Maritime Administration designs—C4-S-68A (19,230 tons) and C4-S-1Q (22,620 tons). Also considered was nuclear propulsion; according to some sources at the time, that was seen as a possible means to obtain backing from Admiral H. G. Rickover, head of Navy nuclear propulsion and, at the time, very influential with Congress.
In 1967, Navy strategic planners were talking about a force of 6 to perhaps as many as 40 SABMIS ships. Costs were difficult to calculate because of questions related to research and development, the feasibility of adopting SLBM and ground-based interceptor technology, radar and computer requirements, and the number of ships to be built.
Two years later, when the Department of Defense advocated the ground-based Sentinel missile defense system, Representative William R. Anderson, former commanding officer of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), said that four SABMIS ships could provide the same coverage as Sentinel. The estimated cost of Sentinel in 1969 was $5 billion; the cost of four SABMIS ships was estimated at about $2 billion, although eight ships probably would be required to keep four ships on station, i.e., a cost of $4 billion. With their missiles and ten years of operation—data not available for Safeguard—Anderson estimated the eight ships would cost less than $8 billion.
In 1969, President Richard M. Nixon reoriented the national missile-defense system to defend land-based ICBMs and renamed it Safeguard. Funding for SABMIS ended, although a number of flag officers (including Admiral Miller) continued to lobby for sea basing, and the scientific community increasingly was supporting sea basing for U.S. offensive and defensive weapons. But open advocacy by active-duty officers ended when Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas H. Moorer declared:
As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I have fully supported the President's program from the outset. I have officially stated that SABMIS could not be considered as a substitute for Safeguard, but rather would, if approved, be complementary to this system in providing a "defense in depth." SABMIS is only in the conceptual stage—it is not in advanced development, and therefore is not ready for deployment.
Apparently, Admiral Moorer was wrong. And Safeguard was not ready for deployment. Writing in Reader's Digest, Representative Anderson declared: "SABMIS is based on current technologies, and could be operational within the same time span as, and perhaps even sooner than, Safeguard." Building on existing SLBM technology, and adopting some Safeguard technologies, SABMIS would have gone to sea "significantly" earlier than Safeguard could be available, according to Admiral Miller.
Three months after Admiral Moorer's statement, the Senate narrowly approved Safeguard deployment with Vice President Spiro T. Agnew casting the tie-breaking vote. Six years later, on 1 October 1975, the Safeguard installation at Grand Forks, North Dakota, became operational.
The next day, the House of Representatives voted to close the Safeguard site because new Soviet SLBM and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) multiple warheads easily would overwhelm Safeguard. In addition, Safeguard's vulnerability to direct attack was increasing, and technical problems, such as radar blinding by electromagnetic pulse from exploding nuclear warheads, made the system unreliable and even threatened to damage the Minuteman ICBMs it was intended to protect.
On 18 November 1975, the Senate voted to terminate Safeguard. In February 1976, the Safeguard system was closed—it had been operational for 133 days. (Some Safeguard radars were incorporated into the North American Air Defense Command's warning and assessment network.)
Today, the Navy again is proposing a sea-based ballistic missile intercept system. During the 35 years since SABMIS was proposed, missile defense requirements, technology, and operating concepts have changed radically. A modern BMD ship, for example, could be smaller (and more capable) than SABMIS because of greatly improved radars (i.e., AN/SPY-1 series), improved missile technology (i.e., Standard SM-3), datalinks to off-board sensors, and far more capable, commercial-off-the-shelf computers than previously were available.
Sea basing offers substantial advantages over land-based and air-based BMD systems: the mobility and flexibility of ships, the possible use of Aegis ships now in series production, and other factors—some obviously classified—demand that objective consideration be given to developing ballistic missile defense . . . from the sea.