The New York Analysis of Policy and Budget examines America’s lack of an adequate anti-missile shield, and the imminent threats of an attack.
The potential of a nuclear missile strike against the United States is a rapidly increasing probability. For decades, the means to defend against that threat have been short-circuited by presidents and politicians who reflexively oppose adequate defense spending
Reuters reports that North Korean sources claim that they are accelerating their capability to launch nuclear strikes. Some experts believe the North Koreans may be able to hit the United States. “This includes developing a ‘pre-emptive first strike capability’ and an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), said Choe Myong Nam, deputy ambassador at the North Korean mission to the United Nations in Geneva.”
Unfortunately, despite decades of urging, America has only a limited capability to defend itself against a missile strike.
Thirty-four years ago, President Reagan first announced his “Strategic Defense Initiative,” (SDI) designed to provide an anti-ballistic (ABM) missile shield to protect the U.S. from nuclear attack. Some historians believe the announcement was at least one factor in the Soviet leadership’s realization that they could not win the Cold War. The move was resoundingly criticized by left-wing politicians and pundits, who pejoratively labelled the concept “Star Wars.”
SDI was never built, and even less capable systems were only marginally deployed. President Clinton cancelled a follow-up program known as “Brilliant Pebbles” and Barack Obama, first as a U.S. Senator, then as President, did everything possible to defund and even reduce various elements of ABM defenses. in 2007, then-Senator Obama advocated cutting the anti-ballistic missile program budget by a greater amount than its entire allocated budget.
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Two incidents stand out: Obama’s reversal of U.S. agreements with Eastern European nations to deploy ABM facilities, and his infamous “whisper” caught on an open microphone to Russian leader Medvedev, in which Obama promised that he would further cut U.S. missile defenses after his re-election.
President Obama proclaimed on Sept. 17, 2009, that he was unilaterally stopping the plan. The date he announced this was the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. The President’s decision infuriated Warsaw’s leaders, who had to expend significant political capital to gain approval from their voters. The resulting loss of Eastern Europe’s trust in the White House directly led to the Czech Republic’s withdrawal from related agreements.
It is ironic that the media, which has incorrectly criticized President Trump’s attempt to get NATO members to pay their fair share of defense spending as being the alliance, made very little mention of President Obama’s betrayal of agreements with U.S. allies in Eastern Europe.
Moscow continues to develop its ABM capability. Russian media widely covered the combat-ready status of a new ABM facility in Kaliningrad in late 2011. The Russia and India Report publicationrevealed in 2016 that “Russia plans to overhaul its missile defence system and is developing a state-of-the-art anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defence shield… Colonel Andrei Cheburin, speaking on January 23, said Russia’s anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system was being completely overhauled over the past few years. ‘I think that in the near future our country will have a truly ultramodern missile defence system,’ he concluded…In autumn of 2012, Russia’s defence authorities stated that the functional ABM system, the A-135 Amur, was being given a major upgrade. Colonel General (Retired) Viktor Yesin, then chief of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, told RIA Novosti that the missiles were being replaced with new ones with an improved design. All the other elements of the system, including the detection and tracking components, were also being revamped. The missiles would use launch silos currently mothballed, he added.”
The report concludes tomorrow