Deploying Missile Defense: Major

Operational Challenges

by M. Elaine Bunn

Strategic Forum

By October 2004, the United States will

have begun initial deployment of a

missile defense capability—albeit a

modest, limited, and not completely proven

one—to defend the homeland against a

limited ballistic missile attack.

The gradual phase-in of ballistic missile

defense deployments will mark an important

change in the policy context of the missile

defense issue. Past debate focused on

whether missile defenses should be deployed

and whether they would work. These issues

will now share the limelight with another

pressing question: how would missile defenses actually be used? Operating a missile

defense system presents seven challenges: 

■ to whom weapons release authority should

be delegated

■ how limited missile defense assets should

be allocated

■ what roles the President and Secretary of

Defense should play during intercept operations

■ how strike options should be coordinated

with defenses

■ which U.S. command should be responsible

for conducting missile defense operations

■ how testing and operational requirements

should best be balanced

■ what arrangements are needed to notify

Russia when the United States launches missile

defense interceptors, to reduce possible miscalculation by Moscow.

To manage the transition to defense,

policy guidance to address these challenges

will have to be somewhat flexible; it will

likely evolve over time, based on the evolution of the system as well as operational

experience and future testing using varied

assumptions and scenarios.

If all goes according to plan, by the end of

2004, the United States will deploy eight groundbased midcourse defense (GMD) interceptors1 in

Alaska and California, along with land-, sea-,

and space-based sensors and the command and

control systems to support the interceptors. By

the end of 2005, 12 more GMD interceptors will

be added, along with additional sensors and

interceptor missiles on Navy ships.

The initial deployments of 2004–2005 are

only the first step on the path to the Bush

administration goal of an integrated, global

missile defense2 to protect the United States, its

friends and allies, and deployed forces against

limited attacks by ballistic missiles of all ranges

(short-, medium-, intermediate-, and longrange) in all phases of flight (boost,

midcourse, and terminal).3

The main concern driving this goal is not

the ballistic missiles of major powers such as

Russia but the proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles—

particularly for rogue states such as North

Korea and Iran. The program, however, is not

tied to country-specific threats; instead, it takes

a capabilities-based approach that “focuses

more on how an adversary might fight than

who the adversary might be and where a war

might occur.”4 This means, as the director of

the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) observed:

We have to consider a wide range of missile

threats posed by a long list of potential

adversaries. And those threats are constantly changing and unpredictable....A

capability-based approach relies on continuing and comprehensive assessments of the

threat, available technology, and what can

be built to do an acceptable job, and does

not accommodate a hard requirement that

may not be appropriate.5

Thus, there is no final architecture. Under

the current plan, the missile defense program

will proceed in 2-year block increments of

spiral development.6

For the most part, the Bush administration

has been careful not to oversell the initial defensive capabilities so that expectations do not

exceed reality. Officials have characterized the

first deployments as “very basic” and a “nascent

defensive system.”7 Secretary of Defense Donald

Rumsfeld called it a “capability with a small

‘c’” (to distinguish it from a formal initial

operational capability) that “will probably, one

would hope, improve as you go along.”8 The

director of MDA said in March 2004:

I must emphasize that what we do in 2004

and 2005 is only the starting point—the

beginning—and it involves very basic

capability. Our strategy is to build on this

beginning to make the BMD [ballistic missile defense] system increasingly more effective and reliable against current threats and

hedge against changing future threats.9

During a program that spans 4 administrations and 11 Congresses, there has been

much public debate about the rationale,

geopolitical ramifications, technological maturity, priority, and costs of missile defense.

Echoing earlier debates, critics of the Bush

administration plan have questioned the justification of the deployment. They note that

terrorists and rogue states are unlikely to use

ballistic missiles as the delivery means for

WMD and argue that money is better spent

combating more immediate threats, such as

covert delivery of WMD or safeguarding

No. 209

August 2004

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

Key Points

No. 209, August 2004 Strategic Forum 1
Russian nuclear materials. They also have

questioned the maturity of the technology, its

ability to deal with countermeasures, and the

adequacy of testing10—and charge that the

timing is driven by political considerations to

deploy before the 2004 Presidential elections.

Advocates, on the other hand, have

praised the administration decision to deploy,

calling it a prudent step in addressing a growing missile threat. As Senator Joseph Lieberman

(D–CT) argued:

Our first priority must be fighting terrorism,

but the threat we face from ballistic missiles—whether from rogue states or accidental launches—is real and current. For

that reason, I support the administration’s

decision, because some kind of missile

defense system—even a rudimentary

one—is better than no system at all. But

the administration’s plan is so limited at

this point that it should not lull anyone into

a false sense of security.11

Looming Challenges

The gradual phase-in of the first increment

of BMD deployments over the next 18 months

will mark an important change in the policy

context surrounding the missile defense issue. In

prior years, the questions that tended to drive

debates about missile defense were generally

(though not wholly) focused on whether missile

defenses should be deployed and on technology

and resources—that is, are missile defenses

technically feasible? Could they be spoofed or

overcome with countervailing responses?

While by no means passé, these concerns

will now share the limelight with another

pressing question: how would missile defenses

actually be used? Looking ahead, one can see a

number of challenges associated with operating

a BMD system in both day-to-day settings and

in moments of crisis when the system would be

employed to intercept incoming attacks.12

The majority of operational issues surrounding missile defense deployments can be

clustered under seven categories of questions.

Although each of these questions will be relevant

from the day that missile defenses achieve an

initial deployed capability, fully satisfactory

answers are still some time away. Just as there

will be spiral development of the technical

capabilities, so there is likely to be spiral development of the guidance related to the operational concerns outlined below. The challenge

facing defense planners is to ensure that as

missile defense capabilities evolve, both senior

decisionmakers and military commanders can

become more familiar with the system and its

various operational challenges through exercises

and wargames, so that all potential players

would know what to expect in a crisis, when

actual use looms as a potential outcome.13

Release Authority

Who will have weapons release authority?

Flight time for ballistic missiles is short—

from a few minutes for short-range missiles,

to 20 to 30 minutes for missiles of intercontinental range. The timeline for decisions on

launching interceptors to destroy incoming

missiles is significantly shorter than the time

of flight of the missile, given fly-out times for

interceptors. Because timelines are short, the

authority to release (launch) defensive

weapons likely will need to be delegated to the

military combatant commander, at least, if

not to lower levels of command.

In principle, such predelegation should

not be an insurmountable problem. Weapons

release for BMD is a different situation from

nuclear weapons release, which only the President can decide to employ. Planned missile

defenses are nonnuclear and use no sort of

explosion to destroy missiles. The destruction is

carried out by a kinetic kill vehicle, which

rams into the missile/warhead and destroys it

with the force of impact (“hit to kill”); in the

future, lasers might be used. While defenses are

a strategic capability, the consequences of

using nonnuclear, kinetic hit-to-kill missile

defense interceptors by mistake are not nearly

as great as for nuclear weapons. Operator

regrets have more to do with having wasted a

valuable asset in limited supply.

Allocating Defense Assets

How should limited defense assets be

allocated? The President has made clear that

the goal is to defend the entire United States, its

deployed forces, and friends and allies. But

given limited defense, at least in the initial

stages of deployments, what criteria would be

employed for allocating a limited number of

interceptors? The most obvious criterion would

be maximizing population saved, but it is not

the only one imaginable. Other possible priorities include defending missile defense assets (to

maintain the capability to save population);14

protecting the ability of Government to continue functioning; or protecting other essential

military capabilities. While it is reasonable to

assume that the President’s highest priority for

limited defensive assets would be to save as

many people as possible, that priority needs to

be communicated to those operating the system

and deciding which enemy missiles to target

and how many interceptors to allocate to them.

For the next several years, at least, there

will be a limited number of interceptors deployed. There may be intelligence uncertainty

about the number of long-range missiles an

adversary has (for example, the number of

North Korean Taepo Dong 2 missiles). To have

a high defensive probability of kill, U.S. defenders would like to put multiple interceptors

against each threat object. If the sensors deployed at that time are not yet capable to allow

operators to assess results in between shots—

so-called shoot, look, shoot tactics—our defenders may calculate that they will have to

salvo multiple interceptors. Under such circumstances, having 20 interceptors is unlikely

to translate into being able to defend against

20 missiles; it may mean high confidence of

defense against only a handful.

Thus, defenders might run into some

tough choices, driven in part by the size of the

U.S. defensive magazine versus the adversary’s

offensive magazine. For example, if we have

fewer interceptors than would be needed to be

confident of intercepting everything in the

adversary’s magazine, the decision might be not

to engage missiles headed to open ocean areas.

In an even more excruciating choice, if there

were several missiles bound for U.S. territory and

not enough interceptors to defend against all of

them, operators might have to choose to defend

one area of the United States and not another—

presumably a choice based on population saved.

2 Strategic Forum No. 209, August 2004

M. Elaine Bunn directs the Future Strategic Concepts Program in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at

the National Defense University. Comments may be addressed to Ms. Bunn at bunne@ndu.edu.

given limited defense,

what criteria would be

employed for allocating

a limited number of

interceptors?
Another nettlesome question for the defender is this: do you shoot against what has

been launched or hold some interceptors in

reserve for what may be coming later? The

dilemma is that the defender would want

neither for the rogue state adversary to have

missiles remaining when the United States has

used all its interceptors nor to have a nuclear

detonation on U.S. soil and still have unused

interceptor missiles in the ground. The latter

consideration would argue for shooting at what

is in the air and allocating sufficient interceptors to have high confidence of destroying

them, without holding back interceptors for

what may be coming later. Of course, BMD is

not the only capability the United States would

have in such a messy strategic situation. Attack

operations against an adversary that is launching ballistic missiles are another option.

There may be agonizing trade-offs about

what to defend when there are limited defense

interceptors. The difficulty of the issue, and the

question of whether it is an issue at all, will

vary over time as the United States moves from

a nascent operational capability to a more

robust missile defense system. The answer to

the allocation question depends on the U.S.

interceptor magazine versus a rogue state

adversary’s ballistic missile magazine; both will

presumably grow in the future, but it is unclear

at what rate either will grow. Additional defensive inventory solves a lot of these dilemmas

but raises the question of how much is enough.

Even more complex prioritization issues

will arise when there are systems (such as Aegis

interceptors, or later, boost-phase intercept

systems) that can defend either the U.S. homeland or the territory of allies and friends. If

there is not enough defense capability to go

around, does the U.S. homeland take priority?

What role will allied leaders have in deciding

what is to be defended and how? Their roles

may depend upon what contribution these

allies can make—that is, whether they have

U.S. defensive interceptors or radars deployed

on their territory or have their own defensive

systems to contribute to layered defense. In any

event, these issues will need to be discussed

with allies in peacetime, before a crisis develops

in which BMD might be employed.

Roles for the President

What are appropriate roles for the President and Secretary of Defense regarding missile

defense use? As Commander in Chief, the

President always calls the shots but is not

necessarily the trigger puller. Under the stress of

battle, when the defenders are calculating what

shots they have left and how best to use them,

there will not be time for Presidential secondguessing. One can assume that our BMD operators will carry out the Commander’s intent—

the President’s guidance—to defend

populations as best they can. Ideally, the President will have given or approved guidance

during peacetime planning and reviewed and

revised it in the buildup to crisis.

What, then, does the President need? In a

word: information. It is natural to expect that

any President would want to have accurate,

real-time information about the ongoing

missile defense battle as and when defenses are

actually employed. The Commander in Chief

may also want to have the opportunity to

change previous guidance at any time in light

of changing circumstances (for example, as

interceptor stocks get low, about what risk to

take, or what does not get defended)—because

in the U.S. system, the buck stops with the

President, no matter whose finger is on the

trigger. While there probably would not be time

to implement a change in guidance in the

midst of an engagement (without losing shot

opportunities and reducing the likelihood of

successfully intercepting enemy missiles), there

would be time in some scenarios (where

launches are spread over hours or days) to be

responsive to revisions in guidance.

Finally, in any scenario involving ballistic

missiles being shot at the United States, the

President would be concerned about much

more than just the missile defense battle and

would need real-time information for other

decisions. These could include authorizing

offensive strikes—either nuclear strikes, which

only the President can authorize, or nonnuclear strikes against strategic targets. Other

decisions might be required on ensuring that

consequence management and mitigation

efforts are under way in case there are missile

impacts on U.S. territory15 (or forces and allies); informing the American public (post- or

even mid-crisis); and communicating with

international leaders—allied and other—

during the crisis. The President (and other

senior leaders) will need an information display to provide situational awareness, including the missile defense battle, for these nonBMD purposes. An information display that

characterizes the adversary’s capabilities and

actions, as well as ongoing U.S actions and

future options, should always be at hand for

the President and advisers, such as the Secretary of Defense and combatant commanders, to

provide a common strategic picture.

Strike Options

How should offensive strike options be

coordinated with defenses? Missile defense is

only one of a number of strategic capabilities.

Missile defense affects, and is affected by, decisions on offensive strikes, both nuclear (which

is always a Presidential decision) and nonnuclear strikes against strategic targets. So it is

important to think through the relationship

between offenses and defenses and integrate

planning for both.

In a crisis involving the threat or fact of

ballistic missile attack, offensive actions could

well affect the missile defense battle. If offensive

strikes eliminate part of an adversary’s ballistic

missile inventory (either before or during conflict) and there is sufficient battle damage

assessment capability to determine that they

have been destroyed, then the defender can

dynamically change the number of interceptors

allocated to the remaining missiles to have a

higher confidence of intercepting them.

Missile defenses could also affect decisions on offensive options. For instance, a U.S.

counteroffensive action could vary, depending

on whether the intercept is successful or the

enemy missile actually reaches its target. If a

WMD-armed missile actually hit the United

States and many Americans were killed, the

U.S. offensive response would no doubt be

overwhelming and devastating. Some would

argue that if a rogue state even attempted to

hit the United States with a WMD-armed missile, the response must be overwhelming both

to assure allies and to deter the next rogue

state that might consider attacking the United

States. However, if BMD successfully intercepted the enemy attack, the President may

No. 209, August 2004 Strategic Forum 3

the President would be

concerned about much

more than just the missile

defense battle and would

need real-time information

for other decisions
4 Strategic Forum No. 209, August 2004

have greater latitude in choosing a response

that does not threaten large numbers of casualties (for instance, regime change in but not

extensive destruction of the rogue state and its

population, which might be seen as unwitting

hostages of an authoritarian regime).

Missile defense could also affect decisions

regarding preemptive strikes in a building

crisis. Some argue that having missile defenses

may allow a preemptive strike against a rogue

state’s missiles, even if the United States were

not sure it could get them all, if there is confidence that BMD can intercept the remainder—

the use of which may be prompted by the preemptive strike. On the other hand, if the United

States is confident that it could handle the first

enemy missile launches with defenses, there is

less need to make what may be tough decisions

about preemptive strikes on the adversary’s

missiles, with the potential for attendant collateral damage and international opprobrium.

Many of the offense-defense issues above

will vary over time, as the United States goes

from the initial deployment of rudimentary

missile defenses to more capable ones and as

strike capabilities (nuclear and nonnuclear)

evolve. Continuing exercises/wargames, analysis, and planning will be required to think

through a variety of scenarios and how offenses

and defenses interact in each.

Military Command

Which military command will be responsible for BMD operations? The issue of which

Department of Defense (DOD) organization is in

charge of missile defense will change as the

program transitions from research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) only to an

operational capability with continuing RDT&E.

For two decades, the MDA and its predecessors,

the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and

the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization,

have been the focal point for all things related to

BMD. While other organizations had roles, MDA

was the primary office of responsibility and the

public face of missile defense. But MDA is a

research, development, and acquisition organization, not an operational one. The transition to

a deployed capability dictated the need for an

operational military organization—a combatant command—to be in charge.

While our unified command structure

divides the world into well-defined regional

areas of responsibility, long-range missiles do

not necessarily remain within those boundaries—nor do the sensors, interceptors, and

communications infrastructure of a multilayered missile defense system. Because the BMD

program is a global system of layered defenses,

with defensive assets not confined to a single

region of the world, the task of planning,

integrating, and coordinating global missile

defenses was assigned to a global

commander—the new U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM).16 Because the STRATCOM

portfolio also includes global strike (both

nuclear and nonnuclear), it is in an ideal

position to address the offense-defense integration issues discussed above.

STRATCOM is responsible for defining the

concept of operations for global missile defense, developing rules of engagement to be

approved by senior civilian decisionmakers,

and working with regional combatant commands as well as the Army, Navy, and Air Force

to develop and refine tactics, techniques, and

procedures to counter a ballistic missile attack. 

While STRATCOM has been given the

responsibility for planning, integrating, and

coordinating global missile defense, it has

emphasized that it does not seek to replace

regional combatant commanders or usurp

their authority. For example, defensive assets

located in North America would be under the

operational control of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), and those in the Pacific

region would be under the operational control

of Pacific Command (PACOM). Former

STRATCOM commander Admiral James Ellis

has said, “We don’t view ourselves as the

trigger puller in this process.”17

Thus, in the near term at least, the

execution of defense engagements will remain

largely decentralized. For the immediate

future, when there will be only Patriot shortrange interceptors (deployed in forward theaters) and GMD interceptors in the United

States—each located in the theater that the

system would protect—having the regional

combatant command as the execution authority will work well. However, a layered missile

defense system—which is intended to engage

threat missiles of various ranges in various

phases of its flight, using different types of

interceptors that operate across many time

zones and many geographic regions—may

require even greater operational integration.

Regional combatant commands often cite

the need for unity of command when it comes

to having the trigger for assets in their theaters.

However, that time-honored principle could cut

a different way with regard to missile defense: it

might suggest having one command responsible for defending against a missile during its

entire flight, sometimes with defensive assets in

different regions, with multiple shot opportunities at different points in the flight of the missile. When there are multiple types of defensive

elements, including those that could engage

the threat missile in boost or ascent phase, a

single global commander might execute more

effectively all the types of defenses that could

defend the United States or another theater.

Testing and Operations

How should test bed and operational

capability requirements be balanced? In 2001,

DOD planned to deploy a test bed (facilities to

allow for the more complete and stressing

BMD testing) in the 2004 timeframe for development purposes, which would also have some

incidental operational capability. The President’s December 2002 deployment decision

changed the focus to an initial operational

capability that could also be used as a test bed.

Critics argue that there has been inadequate

testing and that what has been done is not

operationally realistic. Administration officials

maintain that given the geographic scope of

the defensive system, realistic testing will be

impossible until the initial deployment is in

place (initial deployment will also serve as a

test bed for continuing tests and evaluation).

As the MDA director put it, “How do you realistically test an enormous and complex system,

one that covers eight time zones and engages

enemy warheads in space? The answer is that

we have to build it as we would configure it for

operations in order to test it.”18

A number of elements deployed in the

coming months will serve both operational

and testing purposes. The deployed assets will

serve two masters: the research and development community—represented by MDA and

if BMD successfully intercepted the enemy attack,

the President may have

greater latitude in choosing a response that does

not threaten large numbers of casualties
its contractors, who are trying to improve the

capability through spiral development—and

the operational user community—Strategic

Command, regional combatant commands

such as NORTHCOM and PACOM, and their

service components—who will be expected to

maintain a 365-day-a-year, 24-hour-a-day

capability to defend the country. When and

under whose authority would deployed BMD

assets be allowed to be used in research, development, and testing so that the initial capabilities could be improved, and when would

those assets be manned by scientists and

contractors? When would they be under the

control of the military (for example, the Army

National Guard, which would man the GMD

interceptor system, the Navy for Aegis, or the

Air Force for some sensors)?

Varying the readiness levels depending on

an assessment of the world situation may allow

for using some elements for testing when it is

judged that readiness can be at a lower level,

and returning to a focus on maximum operational readiness at times of greater potential

threat. However, this approach would require

strategic warning to put the system on maximum readiness. Another approach is to have

sufficient redundancy in components, software,

and procedures to allow concurrent testing and

operational status, but such redundancy comes

at a financial cost. Some combination of these

two approaches is likely to be required to allow

for maximum operational readiness and the

simultaneous testing needed to improve the

system through spiral development.

Confidence-Building

Is there a necessary role for confidencebuilding measures? With deployment comes

the possibility of using missile defense interceptors against rogue state attacks. If the United

States uses its GMD interceptors or sea-based

Aegis interceptors, Russia’s early warning

satellites and radars may detect the launch 

(if the deteriorating Russian early warning

system is working at the time). The booster for

a GMD interceptor may appear to Russian early

warning systems as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Might Russia see missiles

(albeit defensive missiles) being fired, misinterpret it as an attack—and respond in kind?

One might argue that because the launch

sites for GMD interceptors in Alaska and California are different from those in Wyoming,

Montana, and North Dakota (where U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles are deployed), the

Russian early warning system could surely

distinguish the launch point and know that

missile defense interceptors were not from

ICBM silos. Another assumption might be that

the Russian early warning system would see the

rogue state launch and therefore recognize the

U.S. launch as an attempt to intercept it. However, this line of reasoning places unwarranted

confidence in the Russian early warning system

of radars and satellites, which has deteriorated

drastically over the last decade. One expert

assesses that the “system appears to be capable

of detecting a massive attack, but cannot be

relied upon to detect individual launches” and

cannot cover all possible launch areas.19

The argument could also be made that

the Russian system would be able to identify

the missile (by comparing it to system characteristics in its database) and determine it was

not an ICBM or a submarine-launched ballistic

missile. However, in 1995, the Russian early

warning system mistook a Norwegian sounding

rocket for a missile attack by U.S. submarines

in the Barents Sea and activated President Boris

Yeltsin’s nuclear briefcase to authorize the

launch of a nuclear strike.20 In this case, the

command and control system worked; Russians

realized they were not under attack, and no

response was initiated. (An investigation found

that a prelaunch notification message issued by

the Norwegians was not properly delivered to

Russian early warning forces.)

Given the possibility for Russian misidentification of a GMD or Aegis interceptor launch,

it is worth considering how the United States

might handle notifying Russia of its launches

of interceptor missiles in a crisis involving

rogue states. Mechanisms exist that might be

used, if a decision is made to do so.21 There is a

hotline between Washington and Moscow for

use by Presidents in a crisis; however, notification may need to be more routine, automatic,

and at a lower level than the President. There is

a 1971 U.S.-Russian agreement for advance

notification of test launches of offensive missiles and space launches to be made by the

Nuclear Risk Reduction Center at the U.S.

Department of State and Russian Ministry of

Defense. In December 2000, U.S. and Russian

officials signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a Pre- and Post-Launch Notification System (PLNS) for launches of ballistic

missiles and space launch vehicles. It also

contains a provision that may be particularly

applicable to BMD launches: “Once the PLNS is

in full operation, the Parties shall consider the

possibility of, and need for, exchanging information on missiles that intercept objects not

located on the Earth’s surface.” PLNS notifications are to be made under the 1998 U.S.-

Russian agreement for a Joint Data Exchange

Center in Moscow, in which the United States

and Russia would share information from their

early warning systems; however, progress toward standing up the center has been slow,

primarily because of Russian red tape.

One of these mechanisms might handle

notification of emergency launches of missile

defense interceptors, but no decision to do so has

been made. The U.S. Government should assess

existing procedures and possibilities and identify

the right mechanism (or package of measures)

for notifying Russia that missile defenses are

being used. In the future, if China gets an early

warning system that could detect the launches,

it might also be included in notifications in

rogue state crises. For Russia currently and

China in the future, the likelihood is low that

either country would mistake a missile defense

interceptor launch for an attack and respond

with its own strike. Since the consequences

would be high if they did so, finding a mechanism or package of measures to reduce that risk

is worthwhile. Such notification of major powers

who might miscalculate does not have to be a

hard problem to solve; it just needs to be addressed and sorted out in advance.

The autumn of 2004 marks a historic

transition point in the evolution of the U.S.

missile defense program. The operational and

employment policy issues raised by the new

defense system are complex in their detail and

potentially significant in their impact, especially in crisis situations. All of these issues will

attract greater public and congressional attention in the months ahead as the country adjusts to the reality of defenses. Policy guidance

on most of these issues will be needed and

should be finalized quickly if it has not been

already, recognizing that the guidance will

evolve over time. Ideally, it would include:

■ delegation of weapons release authority to

combatant commanders or below, given the short

timelines involved

■ criteria for allocating limited defensive

assets, with maximizing population saved as the

highest priority

■ information and displays needed by the

President and other senior leaders about the missile

No. 209, August 2004 Strategic Forum 5
defense battle to have the opportunity to give further

guidance if time allows, as well as for other decisions they must make

■ integrated planning and coordination of

offensive strike options and defenses

■ designation of combatant command responsibilities related to integrated missile defense

■ a means for balancing operational capability requirements with the testing needed to improve

the system, whether by establishing varying readiness levels, by having redundant assets for testing,

or some combination of both

■ a mechanism (below the Presidential level of

the hotline) for notifying Russia when the United

States launches missile defense interceptors in a

crisis to prevent an unlikely but highly consequential miscalculation by Russia.

One thing is certain: the debate over

missile defense will not end in 2004. Just as

the beginning of deployments will end deliberations over whether to deploy missile defense, it will likely stir a new debate over how

much to deploy. The capabilities-based, evolutionary approach to the current missile defense program, and the resulting lack of a

final architecture, means that major decisions

remain for the future about how many more

interceptors, how many more types of systems,

in what locations—in short, about how much

defense is enough. While the answer to that

question depends on how adversary capabilities evolve, it also depends on judgment calls

about how effective missile defenses—one of

a number of strategic capabilities—need to

be, and where defenses rank as a priority.

Beyond the operational challenges of initial

deployed capability, these are the key issues

that loom just over the horizon.

Notes1

Ronald T. Kadish, testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee Hearing on the Fiscal

Year 2005 Missile Defense Budget, April 21, 2004; accessed at

<http://appropriations.senate.gov/hearmarkups/record.cfm?id=22

0637>. The exact numbers of what is to be deployed and when

have changed over the last several years and may change again, so

this article cites the latest numbers available at the time of

publication. 2

In previous administrations, separate efforts focused on

intercept of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (under

the rubric of theater missile defense, or TMD) and on intercept of

intercontinental ballistic missiles (known as national missile

defense, or NMD). That distinction has been abolished by the

current administration. The TMD/NMD distinctions were

important under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,

which placed limits on NMD but not TMD. Thus, there were

efforts in the 1990s to delineate the distinction between NMD and

TMD programs in negotiations with the Russians. The initial

deployments in 2004 and 2005 integrate both land- and seabased sensors and interceptors—something that was prohibited

by the ABM Treaty. (The ABM Treaty included a provision for

withdrawal after a 6-month notification period; the Bush

administration announced its intention to withdraw on December 13, 2001, and the United States was no longer bound by the

treaty as of June 13, 2002.) Prior to withdrawal from the ABM

Treaty, there had been no work to solve the technological

problems of passing radar data from Navy ships to the groundbased mid-course system, since TMD systems such as Aegis were

firewalled from national missile defense. 3

For a primer on ballistic missile defenses, see the Missile

Defense Agency missile defense system booklet; accessed at

<http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/pdf/bmdsbook.pdf>.

For the Bush administration missile defense policy, see the

prepared statement of J.D. Crouch II, Assistant Secretary of

Defense (International Security Policy), before the Senate Armed

Services Committee, March 18, 2003; accessed at <http://

armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2003/March/Crouch.pdf>. 4

Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, DC:

Department of Defense, September 30, 2001), 13–14; accessed at

<http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr2001.pdf>. 5

Ronald T. Kadish, prepared statement, “Missile Defense

Program and Fiscal Year 2005 Budget,” Senate Armed Services

Committee, March 11, 2004; accessed at <http://armedservices.senate.gov/statemnt/2004/March/Kadish.pdf>. 6

Spiral development is an evolutionary process for developing and acquiring systems with constant interaction among

users, testers, and developers to improve fielded capabilities. 7

James O. Ellis, statement before the House Armed

Services Committee, March 13, 2003; accessed at <http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/lrs/docs/test03-03-13Ellis.doc>. 8

Donald H. Rumsfeld, news briefing, December 17, 2002;

accessed at <http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/

t12172002_t1217sd.html>. 9

Kadish, Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense

Subcommittee testimony. 10 See General Accounting Office, “Missile Defense: Additional Knowledge Needed in Developing System for Intercepting

Long Range Weapons” (August 2003); Philip Coyle, “Is Missile

Defense on Target?” Arms Control Today 33, no. 8 (October

2003); letter to the President signed by 49 retired generals and

admirals, April 4, 2004; accessed at <www.wagingpeace.org/

articles/2004/03/26_generals_admirals_postponement.htm>;

and the Union of Concerned Scientists/Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, “Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the

Operational Effectiveness of the Planned U.S. National Missile

Defense System” (April 2000); accessed at <http://www.ucsusa.

org/global_security/missile_defense/page.cfm?pageID=581>. 11 Quoted in Malina Brown, “Plan to Begin Fielding

Missile Defense Shield Sparks Mixed Response,” Inside Missile

Defense, January 8, 2003.

12 Some of these issues were highlighted in a computersimulated wargame conducted by the Missile Defense Agency as

an exercise for reporters at the Joint National Integration Center

in Colorado Springs, CO, on March 16, 2004. See James Glanz,

“Missiles Incoming, and You’re President,” The New York Times,

March 17, 2004; Bradley Graham, “Simulated Attacks Repelled

In Antimissile War Game: U.S. Almost Exhausted Arsenal of

Interceptors,” The Washington Post, March 17, 2004, 3; and

Thomas Duffy, “War Game Gives Glimpse of Future National

Missile Defense System. Scenario: A Nuclear Attack on America,”

Inside Missile Defense, March 18, 2004; and William B. Scott,

“North America’s Under Attack,” Aviation Week & Space

Technology, April 5, 2004, 71. 13 Regarding strategic level guidance, Ellis said before the

House Armed Services Committee that a senior military and

civilian leadership exercise was completed in November 2003 to

help formulate key national policy guidance and that

“[i]nterim proposed ground-based mid-course defense employment policy guidelines for Initial Defensive Operations are

currently under final review.” 14 A consideration in whether to “defend the defenses” is

how many interceptors remain. For example, if it is the first

bullet used, one is likely to choose to defend radars and other

interceptors, so they can be used to protect populations against

further attacks. If it is the last bullet, it would likely be used to

defend the maximum population, not the defense system. 15 The only information on target/impact areas will come

from DOD sensors—information that would need to be shared

with the Department of Homeland Security, governors, and

mayors so that they could take actions to mitigate damage. Given

some warning time (even 20 minutes), they might be able to

shelter some of the population if there are plans in place to do

so; they could at least alert first responders. 16 The most recent changes to the Unified Command Plan

transformed Strategic Command. First, in October 2002, the

President directed the merger of U.S. Strategic Command and

U.S. Space Command so that Strategic Command had responsibility for both nuclear deterrence and space operations. In

January 2003, the President assigned to STRATCOM the responsibility for four previously unassigned mission areas: global strike;

global missile defense; DOD information operations; and

command, control, computers, communications, intelligence,

surveillance, and reconnaissance. 17 Jeremy Feiler, “Pentagon Integrates Missile Defense

Command and Control Systems,” Inside Missile Defense,

March 5, 2003. 18 Kadish, prepared statement, Senate Armed Services

Committee hearing. 19 Pavel Podvig, “History and the Current Status of the

Russian Early Warning System,” Science and Global Security 10

(2002), 21–60; accessed at <http://www.russianforces.org/

podvig/pdf/Podvig-History%20and%20the%20Current%20Status%20of%20the%20Russian%20Early-Warning%20System.pdf>. 20 David Markov, “The Russians and Their Nukes,” Air

Force Magazine Online 80, no. 2 (February 1997); accessed at

<http://www.afa.org/magazine/feb1997/0297russi.asp>. 21 Agreements and treaties discussed in this paragraph can

be found at <http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/bureau_

ac/treaties_ac.html>.

6 Strategic Forum No. 209, August 2004

The Strategic Forum series presents original research by

members of the National Defense University as well as

other scholars and specialists in national security affairs

from this country and abroad. The opinions, conclusions,

and recommendations expressed or implied within are

those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect

the views of the Department of Defense or any other

agency of the Federal Government.

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