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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 09/04
Boost–Phase Intercept: Billions Spent, Little Return
Victoria Samson
Center for Defense Information
July 2003
Abstract
The American Physical Society’s July 16 study on boost-phase intercept missile defense programs provides an exhaustive and objective analysis of the science and technology behind the programs. However, it lacks one key element: the cost of boost-phase intercept.
With the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)’s insistence upon referring to its work on missile defense programs in terms of calendar–oriented blocks — Block 2004, Block 2006, and so forth — it is difficult to fully understand what is being done and, perhaps more importantly, what is being spent on an annual basis. Complicating this further is that several of the programs have been renamed or shunted back and forth between various Pentagon offices as part of the MDA’s reorganization.
But a careful examination of MDA documents shows the following dollar amounts for boostphase spending: $1.9 billion in FY 04 alone and a projected $21.4 billion from FY 04 through FY 09. These numbers are for an estimated overall system architecture. MDA usually breaks down its spending on boost phase by technology types, an accounting which yields deceptively low totals. For the United States to have a reliable boost–phase intercept capability, new radars are needed, as is a new missile tracking system (the recently–christened Space Tracking and Surveillance System, formerly known as the Space–Based Infrared System–Low). And the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system, while being slotted by the MDA into its midcourse missile defense layer, actually is being tested in its ascent–phase defense capacity and therefore could justifiably be included in a discussion of total boost–phase spending.
Sugarcoating technological liabilities or using overly–optimistic assessments of the progress of missile defense programs accomplishes nothing. Given the valid questions raised by the American Physical Society study regarding the effectiveness of boost phase intercept as a working part of a larger missile defense system, it perhaps is time for the MDA to rethink its budgeting priorities.
