Over the weekend North Korea conducted its six, and most powerful, nuclear test to date. Reports indicate that the impoverished nation is preparing to launch yet another Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), this time potentially on a standard trajectory. A highly provocative move without regard to overflight of neighboring countries airspace. North Korea’s accelerated nuclear and ballistic missile developments have many in Washington showing more bipartisan interest in missile defense playing a significant role in defending the American homeland.
However, over the past three decades, the path toward a truly robust homeland missile defense system has been precarious. Political support over five presidential administrations wavered, while historical funding for the Missile Defense Agency averaged less than 2% of the overall defense budget. As Washington considers its options for addressing a threat which has evolved more rapidly than expected, it should carefully consider lessons learned from decades of less than adequate support for homeland missile defense. The Trump administration must avoid the mistake of his predecessors and fully commit to investment in expanded missile defense capabilities
The Reagan Administration
In the early 1980’s, fear that the Soviet Union had achieved a nuclear first strike capability led the Joint Chiefs of Staff to recommend developing plans for ballistic missile defense capabilities. On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan delivered an address to the nation outlining an ambitious new plan for ballistic missile defense called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). During the speech, President Reagan called for a defensive capability that would render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” In 1984, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was established to begin Research and Development (R&D) efforts to create several programs such as Brilliant Pebbles, a non-nuclear, space-based, boost phase anti-missile system. Ultimately, many of the most ambitious SDI technologies were set aside due to political pressure and U.S. obligations to limit testing and development of BMD technology. While the Reagan Administration argued that it could test and develop BMD systems under a “broad interpretation” of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty many in Congress, led by Senator Sam Nunn, argued such an interpretation violated the spirit of the treaty.
The Bush 41 Administration
During the January 29th, 1991, State of the Union Address, President George H.W. Bush citing the success of the Patriot missile defense system during the Gulf War, mandated the “SDI program be refocused on providing protection from limited ballistic missile strikes, whatever their source.” This directive led to the development of Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS), aimed at stopping small ballistic missile attacks on America and thwarting limited strikes against U.S. troops with the use of theater ballistic missiles. GPALS represented a new Post-Cold War mentality in the United States that focused more on limited theater ballistic missile strikes rather than a large-scale Soviet ICBM strike.
The Clinton Administration
The GPALS concept would ultimately be canceled in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. Rather than taking a global approach to a range of ballistic missile threats, President Clinton’s 1993 Bottom-Up Review concluded that, while the threat from “Third World” countries could not be excluded, the missile threat from Russia and China had diminished. Secretary of Defense Les Aspen ultimately recommended that “a robust theater missile defense effort plus a limited national missile defense technology program is the best and most cost- effective approach” for the overall U.S. ballistic missile defense program.
