Will President Biden make the same mistake on missile defense as President Obama?

Joe Biden appears to be the next president. That’s what the preponderance of poll data indicates, and that’s what history tells us: No first-term president who experiences an economic recession in the two years leading up to election day has succeeded in win a second term in over 100 years.

So military planners and contractors are weighing how a Biden administration might change the vector of American defense. Biden says he won’t cut military spending, but there will certainly be a shift in which defense agendas will be emphasized. Missile defense is a mission that will be closely scrutinized for change.

The defense of US forces deployed abroad against missile attacks is not controversial. However, the defense of the American homeland from missile attacks has been controversial for two generations, even before Ronald Reagan proposed his failed strategic defense initiative in 1983.

In general, Republicans have favored strong homeland defense because they do not trust treaties to protect the nation from nuclear war. Democrats have argued that if the United States builds defenses, it will prompt Russia and China to purchase more long-range warheads to overcome defenses, which could lead to an arms race.

Since trying to protect the nation from hundreds of incoming nuclear warheads would be nearly impossible, Democrats argued, it makes more sense to seek a stable nuclear balance based on each side’s assured ability to retaliate after being attacked. The threat of retaliation is said to deter Russia and China from nuclear aggression.

The latter view prevailed during the first round of nuclear arms control negotiations in the 1970s and led to an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty largely banning active homeland defenses. The ABM Treaty remained in effect for 30 years, during which time the United States and Russia reduced long-range nuclear arsenals to a small fraction of their size during the height of the Cold War.

But then North Korea entered the scene.

Policymakers from both parties thought they understood the Russians and could count on Moscow to do nothing crazy in a crisis. They weren’t so sure about North Korea.

So when a bipartisan panel warned in 1998 that North Korea, and perhaps the equally unpredictable regime in Iran, might soon have long-range nuclear missiles, support for the homeland’s missile defense began. to develop.

The trick was to fashion a defense that could counter the limited nuclear attacks launched by Pyongyang or Tehran without questioning the effectiveness of Russian or Chinese deterrents. Congress passed a law in 1999 committing the government to build a modest homeland defense against small-scale nuclear attacks “whether accidental, unauthorized or deliberate.”

When President George W. Bush took office in 2001, he declared that the United States should withdraw from the ABM Treaty to deal with the growing nuclear threat posed by rogue states such as North Korea, and he has launched a series of programs aimed at tracking down and intercepting such threats. The best-known of these programs, called Ground-based Midcourse Defense, is today the United States’ only active defense against long-range ballistic missiles.

When President Obama took office in 2009, however, he brought with him a team of policymakers who were ambivalent at best about the value of national missile defenses. In addition to concerns about the potentially destabilizing effects of building defenses and the high cost of trying to ‘shoot a bullet’ (to use critics’ favorite phrase), some of these decision makers have been thinking of warnings. regarding North Korean and Iranian nuclear efforts. were exaggerated.

Obama, who dreamed of a nuclear-free world, accepted this advice. He proceeded to kill most of the defensive efforts started by his predecessor. First, he limited the number of interceptors in the mid-term system to 30, instead of the planned 44. Second, he canceled a “multiple kill vehicle” program that would have allowed each interceptor to be deadlier.

Third, it ended programs aimed at intercepting hostile missiles in the initial pushing phase of their trajectories, such as the airborne laser. Fourth, it slowed down and eventually abandoned an effort to orbit sensors capable of tracking hostile missile warheads as they traversed space toward the United States. , opting instead for a regional defense focused on shorter-range threats.

To put it succinctly, Obama has drained his efforts to defend the homeland from nuclear attack. The ground-based mid-term defense survived, but even this one received minimal funding and went on for years without being tested.

Sadly, the worrying news about North Korea has turned out to be true. Obama’s policy of “strategic patience” towards Pyongyang has not slowed down the North Korean advance towards the acquisition of intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads (the last missile of this type was displayed during a parade in the United States). last week).

The Obama team was forced to rebuild parts of what they had canceled. In 2013, the planned number of interceptors in the mid-term system was restored to 44, and this number was subsequently increased to 64. In 2015, the administration awarded a new contract for an interceptor to several vehicles killed. . The Trump administration continued and expanded these efforts as the threat posed by North Korea to the United States’ homeland increased.

The United States’ missile defense efforts are still modest, consuming only 1% of the Pentagon’s budget, even when national and regional defenses are combined. The big question today is whether a President Biden would keep efforts on track or once again reduce investment in homeland defense.

There appears to be broad support in Congress for the refurbishment and modernization of the mid-term ground defense, parts of which are showing their age. As the only operational system capable of intercepting hostile nuclear warheads as they approach US territory, it provides important protection against the collapse of deterrence in a crisis.

The mid-term system costs only a few hours of federal spending per year. But there are now fears that North Korea will develop weapons that could overwhelm that system by the end of the decade. This led to proposals for a new generation interceptor.

Additionally, Russia and China are developing hypersonic weapons that combine the speed of ballistic missiles with the maneuverability of airborne systems. Tracking and targeting these weapons will require space-based sensors as well as advanced interception technology.

Joe Biden probably hasn’t given much thought to these emerging threats, but the need for decisions may come upon him soon. The federal budget is riddled with debt and the pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic is not in sight. But such challenges are paltry compared to the consequences of even a few nuclear warheads hitting American soil, so I hope he doesn’t repeat the missteps of the Obama years.