As discussed in my February 11 Newsmax article, President Trump’s Iron Dome is needed and viable. Needed because of the growing, already dangerous threat to America from ballistic missile attack; and Viable because we knew over three decades ago how to accomplish such protection.
This knowledge, based on limited Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) efforts because the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty constrained us to deploying a single (originally two, but amended to one) ground-based site ... and it banned testing, developing and deploying all other basing modes.
And then even that limited research on several important system concepts was blocked or sharply limited in January 1993 by the then-incoming Clinton administration and its congressional allies. Most important, in my view, was scuttling of all space-based defense efforts, particularly for the Brilliant Pebbles system concept employing then-cutting-edge high technology.
And even though that important effort was arbitrarily canceled when Defense Secretary Les Aspin "took the stars out of Star Wars" in January 1993, its associated sensor capability was "space-qualified" by the 1994 Clementine mission that returned to the moon for the first time in over two decades and mapped the entire lunar surface in 1.8 million frames of data in 13 spectral bands.
Among that data trove was our first evidence of "frozen" water in the lunar polar regions.
The Clementine team received awards from NASA and the National Academy of Sciences. And associated Brilliant Pebbles rocket technology was also demonstrated in 1992.
A replica was hung in the Lunar Alcove of the National Air and Space Museum next to the Lunar Lander.
Since we withdrew from the ABM Treaty and all basing concepts are now permitted, that space-based defense concept should be revived and developed with today’s much more advanced technology. And air-based defenses can and should be quickly developed and deployed, as argued in my last article.
Development, testing and deployment of our sea-based ballistic missile defense (BMD) concept were permitted as an ABM Treaty-Compliant "Theater Missile Defense (TMD)." And since President George W. Bush withdrew from the ABM Treaty, it is well understood that the Aegis BMD system provides a globally capable defense capability ... at sea and also in a land-based mode.
This desirable Aegis BMD history was entirely anticipated ... actually advocated three decades ago by a 1995 Heritage Foundation Missile Defense Study Team that I was privileged to lead. That team consisted of very senior technical and political authorities, and was favorably considered by many.
See our linked report, titled DEFENDING AMERICA: A Near- and Long-Term Plan to Deploy Missile Defenses, for a listing of that study team and their recommended gameplan that is still a sound, but only partially implemented gameplan that should be completed.
One has to wonder why, therefore, progress has been so slow. Answer: Inhibiting "bureaucratic and political" impedance, not technology.
A review of the successful evolution of the Aegis BMD is perhaps instructive in advancing future space-based defense development advances, in spite of its frustratingly slow progress thus far.
In the first place, there was considerable resistance among senior naval authorities when I sought their support. Fortunately, there was one very supportive Navy voice, then-Director of Naval Warfare, Vice Adm. J.D. Williams — who persuaded the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Frank Kelso, to take my (SDI) money and actively support Aegis BMD development activities.
Thankfully, Adm. Kelso supported us in spite of contrary advice from most other admirals in the Pentagon, who were concerned about the Navy becoming "tethered" to defending important land-based assets rather than supporting at-sea fleet operations.
Then, Adm. Williams assigned a former Aegis captain, Rodney Rempt, to lead the SDI Aegis BMD R&D effort ... to develop a theater missile defense (TMD) system, consistent with the ABM Treaty constraints, of course. Both were critically important to developing an operational BMD capability around the world, despite considerable bureaucratic opposition.
Of course, Adm. Williams and then-Capt. Rempt both understood the system could be given a defensive capability against longer-range ballistic missiles. That fact was clearly demonstrated in 2008, when the USS Lake Erie guided missile cruiser was selected to shoot down a dangerous dying satellite in Operation Burnt Frost, while operating several hundred kilometers northwest of Hawaii.
That capability is now widely recognized ... and demonstrated elsewhere, but it could not have reached that stage without a sometimes frustratingly slow path through a bureaucratic/political swamp that inhibited progress.
Indeed, the Aegis BMD development would not have survived without timely help from numerous partnering efforts, including from our allies, especially in the Western Pacific and Europe/NATO. Most notably at a critical stage, Japan contributed over a billion dollars to the combined Aegis BMD development effort ... and the Japanese now operate several missile defense-capable ships.
Moreover, Aegis Ashore sites now aid the defense of our NATO allies and key locations in the Pacific. And they could help provide a viable U.S. homeland defense from several key locations.
So ... the Heritage Missile Defense Study Team vision of a "global defense" is being realized ... at least by the "from the sea" portion. And it is long past time that the "powers that be" deliver on the "then from space" vision.
To partially quote one of my favorite leaders, Sir Winston Churchill, who notably is reported to have opined "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing ... after exhausting the alternatives."
Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, a PhD engineer with a broad defense and national security career, was President Ronald Reagan’s Chief Defense and Space Negotiator with the Soviet Union and Strategic Defense Initiator Director during the George H.W. Bush administration. Read Ambassador Cooper’s Reports here.