[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E136-E138]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 U.S. NEEDS SPACE BASED MISSILE DEFENSE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. MARILYN N. MUSGRAVE

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 10, 2004

  Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Speaker, today I submit the following article from 
Vital Speeches into the Congressional Record. ``U.S. Needs Space-Based 
Missile Defense'' is a speech given by my highly respected predecessor, 
Representative Bob Schaffer.

                  [From Vital Speeches, Oct. 15, 2003]

                U.S. Needs Spaced-Based Missile Defense


    address by bob schaffer, former u.s. congressman from colorado, 
    delivered to the council for national policy, colorado springs, 
                      colorado, september 26, 2003

       Thank you, Ambassador Cooper. Good afternoon ladies and 
     gentlemen. I have been a long-time admirer of Ambassador Hank 
     Cooper since before I went to Congress in 1996. As a Member 
     of Congress, I relied on the Ambassador's judgment and vision 
     for guidance when considering questions of America's defense 
     against those who would threaten our liberty.
       The district I represented, up until January of this year, 
     in Congress was essentially the entire eastern half of 
     Colorado--very rural. Consequently, the committees to which I 
     was assigned in Congress had to do with agriculture, natural 
     resources and education. I served on no committees that had 
     direct involvement with national defense, foreign affairs or 
     military preparedness.
       But as one who represented a constituency of broad 
     interests, I endeavored to learn as much as I could about 
     national defense. And the more I learned about the very real 
     threat America faces with respect to long-range missile 
     attack, the more I became convinced that there are not enough 
     leaders in Congress paying attention to this vital national 
     security concern.
       As Ambassador Cooper mentioned, my interest led me around 
     the world meeting with parliamentarians and defense leaders 
     of other nations. I made eight trips to Russia, as many to 
     Ukraine, and others to Asia, Central Asia, and Europe.
       Since September 11th, America has been focused on combating 
     terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. We have been 
     reorienting our national defense to address the weakness 
     exploited by the terrorists who killed Americans on American 
     soil, and toward protecting Americans abroad from similar 
     potential attacks. This, of course, is necessary and exactly 
     what we should be doing.
       America is not focused enough on conventional threats.
       Let me explain my concern for national security through an 
     analogy of home security. As homeowners, we put the toughest 
     lock, where, on the front door, right? Well, the burglars 
     have figured out how to get in through the windows. In 
     response,we are now fortifying our windows, doubling them up, 
     and locking down the smaller points of access. This maks 
     perfect sense.
       However, my friends, we are leaving the front door wide 
     open to conventional attack from potential threats far more 
     sophisticated and direct than the terrorists of rogue 
     nations. We can't forget that countries like China still 
     maintain arsenals of long-range ballistic missiles targeted 
     at American cities like the one we're in right now. From 
     their current launch sites, these missiles are just a half-
     an-hour away from their American targets. Once launched, we 
     have no defense against them.
       Good leadership is essential.
       As a suggestion, I was asked to speak on what it will take 
     for us to build the effective defenses we need, to defend us 
     from the increasing threat and proliferation of ballistic 
     missiles of all types, whether short-range, intermediate-
     range, and long-range, capable of attacking our homes and 
     cities.
       Two words will do. Good leadership.
       In one way, the current Bush administration has displayed 
     good leadership in its missile defense program. It has 
     exerted the will to deploy a missile defense as seen in its 
     decisions to withdraw from the 1972 ABM Treaty, deploy a 
     National Missile Defense system, and increase funding.
       As a result of President Bush's leadership, the 1972 ABM 
     Treaty resides in the dustbin of history. As a result of 
     President Bush's leadership, the United States stands on the 
     verge of deploying a National Missile Defense system, which 
     is expected to reach initial operation in the next few years.
       It may be helpful to review some highlights of the National 
     Missile Defense program, if only to point how Americans not 
     only have the desire to defend themselves from ballistic 
     missile attack, they also have the commitment and ability to 
     build a defense.
       Highlights include how:
       In early September Northrop Grumman submitted a bid to 
     compete for the Missile Defense Agency's Targets and 
     Countermeasures prime integration program, valued at more 
     than $1 billion for an initial four-year program. The Bush 
     administration takes the issue of mid-course-phase decoys and 
     countermeasures seriously.
       In August this year, progress was reported on the 
     construction of a $900 million sea-based X-band radar, which 
     will be home ported at Adak, Alaska, in the Aleutian Islands 
     superceding earlier plans to build a ground-based Xband radar 
     on Shemya Island, also in the Aleutians.
       This sea-based X-band radar will be self-propelled, using a 
     semi-submersible oilrig being modified at shipyards in 
     Brownsville and Corpus Christi. The radar will weigh 50,000 
     tons and be 390 feet long and 250 feet high. Scheduled to 
     begin operation in 2005, this sea-based X band radar will 
     hand off ballistic missile tracking information to 
     interceptors located at For Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg 
     Air Force Base.
       Also in August, Orbital Sciences Corporation test launched 
     from Vandenberg a prototype of the three-stage booster to be 
     used in the ground-based interceptor for our National Missile 
     Defense system.
       President Bush's plan calls for deploying by 2004, four 
     ground-based interceptors at Vandenberg, and six groundbased 
     interceptors at Fort Greely, increasing the number of ground-
     based interceptors deployed at Fort Greely to a total of 20 
     by the end of 2005.
       Contracts have been let for pouring concrete for the 
     missile silos at Fort Greely, and

[[Page E137]]

     for refurbishing existing missile silos at Vandenberg Air 
     Force Base. In June 2002, for example, it was reported how a 
     contract for $325 million was issued to build six underground 
     missile silos at Fort Greely.
       These are significant steps to our deployment of a National 
     Missile Defense. The deployment of X-band radar, development 
     of a booster for the ground-based interceptor, testing of the 
     kinetic kill vehicle, and fielding of interceptors are coming 
     together.
       Intelligent design.
       But good leadership involves more than the will to deploy a 
     defense. While the will to deploy a missile defense is a key 
     ingredient, an ingredient missing from the preceding Clinton 
     administration, which believed in the ABM Treaty as the 
     cornerstone of arms control, good leadership also needs to 
     point the way of how to build an effective defense.
       Building an effective defense requires more than spending 
     money. It requires an intelligent design.
       Speaking of money, Congress and the Bush administration 
     have recognized the importance of funding missile defense.
       For example, in June of this year the House Appropriations 
     Committee approved a budget of about $8.9 billion for missile 
     defense, an increase of about $1.3 billion. Real money is 
     being spent.
       Congress has shown increasing willingness to fund a missile 
     defense, and for good reason. Not only has the threat of 
     ballistic missile attack increased from China's buildup of 
     ballistic missiles of all types, but the proliferation of 
     ballistic missiles continues to increase.
       The proliferation of ballistic missiles poses a grave 
     threat internationally. India and Pakistan look at each other 
     in terms of increasing numbers of ballistic missiles, some of 
     which are presumably armed with nuclear weapons.
       Japan is losing any sense of complacency over the 
     increasing ballistic missile threat it faces as it was 
     reported in June how North Korea has fielded between 160 
     and 170 intermediate-range Nodong missiles that can reach 
     nearly all of Japan.
        In June it was also reported how Japan, in response to 
     this hostile buildup of ballistic missiles by North Korea, 
     requested an additional $1.2 billion for the next fiscal year 
     to deploy a two layer missile defense system, consisting of 
     PAC-3 missiles produced under license, and upgrading its four 
     Aegis destroyers to deploy the SM-3 interceptor.
        From our experience in Iraq we know that the PAC-3 missile 
     works very well, both as an interceptor of short-range 
     ballistic missiles and of aircraft, using hit-to-kill 
     technology based on radar guidance. PAC-3 performed with a 
     high probability of intercept, unlike the earlier improved 
     PAC-2, which although successful from a strategic viewpoint 
     in the 1991 Gulf War, was essentially jury-rigged for its 
     mission of intercepting Scuds.
        The Navy's SM-3 ballistic missile interceptor has proved 
     itself positively, achieving three interceptions out of four 
     attempts. The four interception test in June 2003, while 
     unsuccessful, demonstrated the ability of naval ships to 
     share target cuing information as the firing of the SM-3 from 
     the U.S.S. Lake Erie was reportedly cued from another ship 
     up-range.
        The test failure of the SM-3 evidently occurred when one 
     of the cells of its solid fuel Divert and Attitude Control 
     System failed to ignite--a problem of quality control rather 
     than the underlying technology.
        The United States has over twenty years of experience in 
     testing hit-to-kill technology for missile defense, achieving 
     its first successful interception of an ICBM target in the 
     June 1984 Homing Overlay Experiment.
        The time has come to deploy hit-to-kill technology in an 
     effective defense.
        But building an effective missile defense requires an 
     intelligent design. It requires the same elements of good 
     strategy that have always formed an essential part of 
     military victory, whether victory through a policy of peace 
     through strength, or a policy of determination to achieve 
     victory and lasting peace.
        An effective defense requires good position.
        No small part of military strategy is devoted to the 
     maneuver and positioning of troops. Good position, good 
     location, holding the high ground, whether the top of a hill 
     or a mountain top, being able to look down and fire at an 
     approaching enemy, is a key element of military strategy.
        For this reason U.S. military strategy emphasizes air 
     superiority, the high ground of combined air, land, and sea 
     operations. There is also the high ground of space, which 
     U.S. military forces recognize as vital to the operation of 
     our intelligence, communications, reconnaissance, and 
     navigation systems, which rely heavily on satellites.
        Building an effective missile defense also requires good 
     position. But this position isn't found on the ground, it is 
     found in space where the ballistic missile operates.
        Building an effective missile defense requires a strategy 
     that deploys a missile defense in the high ground of space. 
     Good leadership would deploy a missile defense in space. Good 
     leadership would point the way to space.
        Both the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980's and 
     early 1990's and Project Defender of the later 1950's and 
     early 1960's pointed the way to space, recognizing the 
     inherent advantages of deploying a missile defense in space.
        The earlier Project Argus nuclear test shots in 1958 and 
     Starfish 1962 also pointed to space. Dr. Nicholas 
     Christofilos from Lawrence Livermore realized space provides 
     a position with global coverage against ballistic missile 
     threats.
        The strategic advantages of deploying a missile defense in 
     space are considerable.
        Global coverage, the capability for boost-phase 
     interception, the use of robotics minimizing operational 
     costs, and the potential of high-energy lasers and particle 
     beams led these earlier missile defense programs to emphasize 
     the development of defenses based in space.
        Even the Clinton administration was aware of the 
     advantages that accrue from deployment of a missile defense 
     in space, as seen in its decision to complete the termination 
     of the Brilliant Pebbles program for deploying a space-based 
     interceptor defense, and attempt to terminate the Space Based 
     Laser.
        Believing in the ABM Treaty as the cornerstone of arms 
     control, the Clinton administration was not interested in 
     building effective defenses.
        While Brilliant Pebbles had been approved fro acquisition 
     in 1991, it was subsequently opposed by key Democrats in 
     Congress, who sought a technological regression, unwilling to 
     change the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction embodied in 
     the ABM Treaty.
        Technological leadership and space superiority.
        Building an effective missile defense requires the United 
     States to deploy its kinetic kill interceptors in space like 
     Brilliant Pebbles, not in the underground concrete missile 
     silos.
        An intelligent design would utilize the advantages that 
     deployment in space offers in providing global coverage, 
     boost-phase interception, the use of robotics, minimal 
     operational costs, and the ability to use high-energy lasers 
     for boost phase interception and active discrimination of 
     decoys.
       There is a third ingredient for building an effective 
     missile defense. This ingredient is technological leadership, 
     including the ability to manage programs involving technology 
     to produce timely results.
       Good leadership needs to manage the effort to build a 
     missile defense effectively, to produce timely results rather 
     than create an endless cycle of studies, delays, testing, and 
     indecision.
       In the past the United States has exhibited bursts of 
     technological leadership, including President Reagan's 
     Strategic Defense Initiative, which supported a vast program 
     of research and development for missile defense technology.
       We need to remember those times and examples of technology 
     leadership to build an effective missile defense.
       Good leadership involves more than creating program 
     momentum by funding a single program with more dollars. It 
     includes the ability to manage technology, and lead a 
     fundamentally strong program to completion and success.
       It includes the ability to concurrently manage technology 
     development programs with acquisition, to allow for 
     improvements in current acquisition and the development of 
     second- and third-generation defenses.
       It includes the ability to concurrently manage a variety of 
     technology programs, pursuing at the same time different 
     avenues of basing and technology, recognizing the wealth of 
     ideas and technology developed under the Strategic Defense 
     Initiative, giving the United States the ability to construct 
     a missile defense in multiple layers.
       It includes the ability to match an intelligent design for 
     building an effective missile defense with the pursuit of 
     technology, seeking a technological momentum designed to 
     defeat the ballistic missile.
       It includes an understanding of how the strategy of 
     ``Mutual Assured Destruction'' which was behind the ABM 
     Treaty was designed to restrain the use and development of 
     new technology.
       Notably, space not only offers a position of advantage for 
     deploying a missile defense, it stimulates the development of 
     new technology.
       Technological leadership includes the ability to resolve 
     problems.
       Highlights of where technological leadership has been 
     lacking in the current program for building a missile 
     defense, include:
       The termination in 2001 of the Navy Area Wide defense 
     program, which would have provided Aegis cruisers and 
     destroyers with a defense against short-range ballistic 
     missiles and aircraft like PAC-3.
       While the proposed SM-2 Block VIA interceptor for Navy Area 
     Wide would have relied on a blast fragmentation warhead 
     rather than hit-to-kill, differentiating it from PAC-3, its 
     program termination may be viewed with disappointment.
       The termination in 2001 and 2002 of the Space Based Laser 
     program, which would have provided a very effective boost 
     phase defense against ballistic missiles of all types, short, 
     intermediate, and long-range.
       Notably, the Space Based Laser program successfully 
     demonstrated its end-to-end beam generation and training back 
     in 1997. From the point on, the program's next step was to 
     test a scalable high-energy laser in space.
       Presumably, the termination of the Space Based Laser 
     program came as a result of opposition in the Senate to the 
     deployment of missile defenses in space.
       Apparently lacking in the current administration was an 
     understanding of the advantages of technological readiness of 
     the Space Based Laser, unwilling to overcome apparent 
     political opposition at a time when most Americans support 
     missile defenses.
       Technolgocial leadership also includes the ability to 
     communicate the advantages of

[[Page E138]]

     technology, as well as the ability to develop it.
       While the current adminsitration has demonstrated its 
     commitment to fund a missile defense and support the 
     deployment of a ground-based defense, and has withdrawn from 
     the ABM Treaty, it has yet to support a design to build an 
     effective defense, much less insist on technological 
     leadership.
       America's current plans include a virtual technological 
     regression in any planning for a space-based interceptor 
     defense, unwilling or unable to use past technology developed 
     for Brilliant Pebbles.
       Unwilling or unable to use Brilliant Pebbles technology for 
     space-based interceptors, the current administration and the 
     Congress have been unwilling or unable to employ 
     technological advances that have occurred in:
       The increasing use of robotics, including autonomous 
     operation and data fusing and joint decision making between 
     independently operating robots, which NASA has developed for 
     missions on Mars.
       The development and increasing use of photonic or fiber 
     optics for sensors, communications, and computer processing, 
     which provide a means to defend against electromagnetic 
     pulse.
       The development of three-dimensional computer chips, 
     allowing for the integration of different processes, whether 
     computer processing communications, processing of sensor 
     data, and active response within the same chip.
       These advances in photonics and computer chips, combined 
     with continuing advances in nanotechnology, including Micro 
     Electro Mechanical Systems or MEMS, could potentially allow 
     for the development of kinetic kill vehicles smaller than 
     Brilliant Pebbles, which were essentially based on late 
     1980's technology.
       Instead of building kinetic kill vehicles that weigh in the 
     tens of kilograms, the United States could potentially be 
     building kinetic kill vehicles that weigh under a 
     kilogram, perhaps in the tens of grams, approaching the 
     theoretical limits for kinetic kill vehicles suggested by 
     Lowell Wood at Lawrence Livermore when he proposed the 
     idea of Genius Sand as an advance generation Brilliant 
     Pebble.
       America's defense planners seem to have a striking aversion 
     to the development of advanced technology systems, especially 
     those taking advantage of deployment in space, as seen not 
     only in its termination of the Space Based Laser, but its 
     very low level of funding for the development of a system of 
     space-based relay mirrors that could utilize a high-energy 
     laser to strike at targets around the world.
       This system of relay mirrors, suggested in the Strategic 
     Defense Initiative as a way to take advantage of high energy 
     laser technology that was ground-based or air-based, is being 
     funded at a level of around $1 million when it should be 
     funded at the billion-dollar level.
       The state of U.S. technological leadership is also seen by 
     Pentagon planning to deploy a system of optical communication 
     satellites, in other words, satellites using laser 
     communications, which would provide much needed bandwidth and 
     high security. These had been proposed in the early 1980's 
     and the Air Force had performed some early demonstrations.
       More than twenty years after this exciting concept was 
     proposed, the Pentagon is finally planning to spend hundreds 
     of millions of dollars to develop a satellite laser 
     communications system. This comes after the European Union 
     successfully demonstrated the use of laser communications 
     with its Artemis satellite.
       I was asked to speak about what it will take for us to 
     build the effective defenses we need. Good leadership is the 
     answer.
       Three key ingredients to good leadership include not only 
     the will to build a defense, but an intelligent design and 
     technological leadership.
       Over the past three years, our country has clearly 
     demonstrated its will to build a missile defense; I strongly 
     suggest to you that we still need an intelligent design and 
     technological leadership to build an effective defense.

                          ____________________