Serious limitations make boost-phase missile interception impractical

enemy missiles and employing a “shoot-look-shoot” strategy, which allows multiple successive shots at the target if necessary.  The recommended GMD improvements could be implemented within the current $45 billion budget requested by DOD for fiscal years 2010 through 2016 provided other unnecessary missile defense programs are eliminated.

The first three phases of the “Phased Adaptive Approach,” under way in Europe since 2009, deploy improved interceptors and radars to protect U.S. forces and NATO allies against an Iranian attack.

These phases, if properly implemented, should provide an effective defense of Europe, the report says. If the report’s recommended improvements are made to the U.S. GMD, however, then the final phase of the program in Europe — aimed at preventing long-range missiles launched in Iran from reaching the United States — should be canceled because it would be unnecessary for European defense and less than optimal for U.S. protection.

The United States should stop all efforts to develop a costly space-based sensor system known as the Precision Tracking and Surveillance System, the report says.  The current Space-Based Infrared System, combined with the proposed suite of X-Band radars and interceptor sensors, will provide information that is just as reliable at a much lower cost.  The Missile Defense Agency should also reinstitute aggressive research and development to improve abilities to identify actual warheads amid potential countermeasures.

The Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. military should continue improving non-boost systems critical for theater missile defense plans such as the Aegis ship-based interceptors, Terminal High-Altitude Defense, and Patriot-based missile defense.  These technologies can also provide adequate protection for our Asian allies.

“For too long, the U.S. has been committed to expensive missile defense strategies without sufficient consideration of the costs and real utility,” said L. David Montague, committee co-chair and retired president of the missile system division at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space. 

“As the primary agency in charge, the Missile Defense Agency must strengthen its system analysis and engineering capabilities so that it can better evaluate new initiatives before significant funding is committed.”

Our recommended approach should provide the most effective missile defense capabilities — particularly for homeland defense — while taking into account the surrounding operational, technical, and cost issues,” said Walter Slocombe, former undersecretary of defense for policy and the other co-chair of the study.

— Read more in Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives ( National Academies Press, 2012)