In December 2001, the Department of Defense effectively canceled the Navy Area theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD) program. This once promised to defend military forces and other critical assets against the threat posed by short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. At the time, the end of this program was perceived widely as a calamity for Navy missile defense and a setback for the Bush administration's vision of national missile defense.
A few months later, however, the clamor has subsided and the Navy Area program seems largely forgotten. When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested that Navy Area was "not in line with the new defense strategy," it appeared to pass unnoticed. When Pentagon acquisition chief Edward "Pete" Aldridge announced he was effectively scrapping a replacement for Navy Area in favor of modifying two existing Navy systems, there was barely a murmur. Perhaps excitement over the success of Sea-Based Midcourse Defense (formerly Navy Theater-Wide) and the Navy's potential role in national missile defense have diverted attention, but the obvious short-falls of the substitute system proposed by Under Secretary Aldridge should have attracted more comment. Sea-Based Midcourse Defense and a potential Navy role in national missile defense are important, but supporting "access"—the mission Navy Area was intended to fulfill—remains critical and the suitability of the successor system ought to be considered carefully.
The Navy Area program did not die because of a reduction in the requirement or the emergence of a superior replacement system; it died because it violated acquisition reform language. "Nunn-McCurdy" as it is known, causes the Secretary of Defense to declare to Congress a "cost breach" when the unit cost increases more than 15%. When the overrun exceeds 25%, the Secretary of Defense must certify the program to Congress. This certification states that the program is essential to national security, there are no alternatives, new estimates of program acquisition unit costs are reasonable, and the management structure is adequate. When Under Secretary Aldridge (acting for Secretary Rumsfeld) refused to certify the Navy Area program for the latter two reasons, the program died.
The Navy and the Missile Defense Agency now are defining what capability will replace this program. It is troubling that the study group was directed to took at alternative technical solutions when the program ostensibly was cancelled for cost overruns and concern over management. Since neither system performance nor the operational requirements was challenged, it would appear that a more appropriate focus might have been to investigate ways to bring the existing program into line fiscally and managerially.
In view of the recent success of Sea-Based Midcourse Defense, it is reasonable to ask why not simply skip a generation and leap ahead to a more capable system. Indeed, this has been suggested several times in the press. Sea-Based Midcourse certainly is very capable and promises to engage faster, longer-range missiles throughout most of the missiles' trajectories. However impressive, it is not necessarily more capable. Sea-Based Midcourse and Navy Area were intended not as evolutionary but complimentary capabilities, targeted at different threats and tasked to conduct different missions.
Sea-Based Midcourse is designed to engage missiles outside the atmosphere in the ascent, midcourse, and descent phases. Particularly when engaging in the ascent phase it will provide a much larger defended footprint than is possible with terminal phase defenses. But to understand the importance of a lower-tier component, it is necessary to consider what Sea-Based Midcourse Defense and the interceptor missile, the SM-3, cannot do. This capability currently is limited to an exoatmospheric intercept, which means that a ballistic missile that does not reach space, because of its range or trajectory, would not be engageable. This means that shorter-ranged missiles such as the Iraqi al Samoud, Iranian Mushak and Nazeat, Indian Prithvi, Chinese CSS-8, or the widely exported Russian SS-21 would not be engageable by Sea-Based Midcourse.
Press reports on ballistic missile technology proliferation emphasize the increasing range and sophistication of the world's missile inventory. The Shahab (Iran), Ghauri (Pakistan), Agni (India), and No Dong and Taipo Dong (North Korea) are mentioned routinely. While the threat posed by these missiles is real, particularly when the missiles are armed with weapons of mass destruction, they comprise only one component of the diverse ballistic missile threat.
The Navy-Marine Corps team mainly plays away games. Expeditionary maneuver warfare promises to project power well within the arc of short-ranged ballistic missiles. A 1,000-kilometer-ranged missile will not be required, as naval forces will come right to the doorstep and kick down the door. The access provided by the Navy and Marine Corps is essential for an increasingly U.S.-based Army and Air Force to flow into the theater of operations. The ballistic missile threat that confronts this country today includes not only small numbers of relatively sophisticated, longer-ranged weapons but dozens or even hundreds of their shorter-ranged cousins. Any lower-tier system would have to be deployed in sufficient numbers to provide a credible defense against the waves of missiles that will attempt to deny access to U.S. forces.
Navy Area was intended as a tactical missile defense system and was inexorably linked to the mission of "assured access." In this context, access includes the abilities to enter and operate in the immediate battle space and to employ in-theater infrastructure such as third-party ports and airfields. After observing Iraq's plight in the Persian Gulf War, it is doubtful a potential adversary would permit the United States a similar prolonged undisturbed period to assemble its forces. Various area-denial strategies surely will be employed, including the threat or use of ballistic missiles. Without a quickly deployable and credible defense, our allies could be threatened and the decision on whether to admit U.S. forces could be altered.
Recently, Under Secretary Aldridge proposed a solution to meet the requirement for sea-based terminal-phase defense by modifying the Standard Missile 3 used by Sea-Based Midcourse and a long-ranged antiaircraft missile, the Standard Missile 2 Block IV, to engage short- and medium-ranged ballistic missiles. In theory, both could provide some level of terminal-phase defense. Both suffer, however, significant technical and operational drawbacks. Deploying these two missiles would be a satisfactory stopgap measure, but if this is intended as something more permanent, the impact on the Navy's long-term ability to support access operations throughout the world will be impacted severely.
This solution, proposed in early May of this year, is an interim answer at best, because it compromises too much of the capability promised by Navy Area and fails to deliver an operational capability that can be credibly pitted against existing and near-term threats. No reduction in capability is acceptable. A Navy terminal-phase system must defend a similar or larger footprint than Navy Area against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, particularly those that do not exit the atmosphere. It also must be deployed in sufficient quantity to achieve an significant level of defense against large numbers of ballistic missiles and should not compromise the mobility and flexibility that accompanied Navy area. It is not clear that a replacement consisting of modified theater assets, Sea-Based Midcourse, and a few SM-2 Block IV missiles will meet these requirements.
In August 2001, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers stated that "A robust, sea-based lower-tier TBMD capability, found in the Navy Area TBMD program is critical to reducing operational risk to the war fighter." Nothing has changed, and the niche Navy Area was intended to fill will remain empty if a successor is chosen that compromises on the requirements. The end result could be worse if decision makers rationalize away the requirement entirely. It is time for the Navy and the Defense Department recognize the unique contribution that a Navy terminal-phase capability would bring to joint operations and insist that fielding such a system be made a top priority.
Commander James is a retired surface warfare officer and has written extensively on ballistic missile defense issues. He currently works for Titan Systems Corporation.