Defending the Need for Robust American Missile Defense

On Monday, North Korea test-fired five short-range missiles off its coastline. The odd behavior had even Moscow scratching its head. "It was not the most suitable time to do this now, when all efforts are made to restart six-way talks on Korea's nuclear option," a Foreign Ministry official remarked to the Itar-Tass News Agency.

North Korea would prefer to forgo the six-party talks and is pushing for the prestige of bilateral discussions with the United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed the missile launches as unimportant. In Belfast at the time, Clinton said during a news conference: "Our goals remain the same. We intend to work toward a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. Our consultation with our partners and allies continues unabated. It is unaffected by the behavior of North Korea."

After her trip to Northern Ireland, the secretary of state flew to Moscow. On Tuesday, Clinton met with President Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue.

During the meeting, she was quick to stress that the White House was serious about resetting the U.S.-Russian relationship. The Russians let it be known they had no intention of backing sanctions against Iran for that nation's developing nuclear program. Russia believes it's more important to maintain a meaningful dialogue with Iran -- and that threats and sanctions would only prove counterproductive.

Well, so much for the hopes that the Obama administration had scored a tit-for-tat bargain to drop President George Bush's promise of a European missile defense plan in exchange for Russian help with the Iranian issue.

Currently, nine nations are confirmed -- or strongly suspected -- members of the nuclear club: the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Pakistan, Israel, India, and North Korea. Iran is determined to join the club. Not all of these countries are friends of ours.

Nuclear proliferation around the world continues to grow. The threat of a ballistic missile attack in the United States is also mounting. As more nations join the club, the ability to keep tabs on nuclear weaponry weakens. Terrorist organizations and rogue nations are willing to pay top dollar for weapons of mass destruction and the missiles capable of delivering them.

According to the Heritage Foundation, it would take only 33 minutes for a ballistic missile, fired from anywhere on the globe, to reach the United States. And we as a nation have developed no strategy or plan to protect ourselves against any jihadist who dreams of perpetrating an even greater disaster than 9/11. A terrorist organization wouldn't have to obtain a terribly large nuclear weapon nor would the nuke need to strike the ground to cause grave damage.

Even a small nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere would emit an electromagnetic pulse -- a quick, powerful blast of electromagnetic energy that ranges across a significant portion of the electromagnetic spectrum -- that could easily destroy the entire electrical grid in this country.

Computers and communication systems, electrical power plants, even battery-operated devices would be rendered useless. The result would be complete and utter chaos.

Today's missile defenses have come a long way from President Ronald Reagan's early Star Wars plan. The multifaceted approach involves a variety of interceptor devices that are capable of hitting and disabling a nuclear missile from its launch phase to within 30 seconds of impact.

Satellites, airborne lasers, kinetic energy interceptors, radars, and ground and Aegis-based missiles all play a role in the defense strategy. Today's technology has evolved to the point that not only can a bullet hit a bullet in mid-flight; a bullet can be aimed at -- and hit -- the serial numbers on that flying bullet.

Areas of the missile defense system still require further testing, but it is very real, very viable, and very, very necessary. But it takes dollars to keep testing and developing the technology necessary to maintain this intricate, multilayered defense program. America and our allies need missile defense desperately.

This only makes it all the more perplexing that President Obama wants to cut $1.4 billion, about 15 percent, from missile defense programs -- and that he has decided to drop the idea of a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

Perhaps the award of the Nobel Peace Prize will so impress our enemies that we will have no further need of protection from weapons of mass destruction.

Contact Robin Beres at (804) 649-6305 or .