Letters to the Editor

DAVID KROSS

Columbia

Even more missile defense

I am gratified that Stanley Orman and Maj. Gen. Eugene Fox now agree that the testing of the airborne laser, scheduled for summer 2009, should be fully funded — as the House appropriators have done and as I advocated in my original Op-Ed column on missile defense, rather than having the funds deleted, as the House Armed Services Committee preferred (“Still more on missile defense,” Letters, Thursday).

For some unfathomable reason, they then conclude that the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and its supporters are somehow reluctant to test the technologies we have developed to defend the people of the United States and our allies and friends overseas. Since the beginning of the Bush administration, the MDA has put together a robust test program, second to none, that is designed to “build and field a militarily useful capability in an urgent manner,” coupled with a C2BMC — command, control, battle management and communications — infrastructure to enable combatant commanders, that is, war fighters, to have the necessary technology to defend America. In that period, they have successfully concluded nearly 30 hit-to-kill intercepts as well as dozens of additional successful tests involving radars, sensors and interceptors. Over the past year, we have successfully concluded 35 major tests, including successful flight tests in 14 of 15 events. In a 90-day period last summer, we successfully intercepted missiles in the lower and upper atmosphere and in space with four different missile-defense systems. The planned future test schedule is the most robust in the history of missile defense in this country.

One indication of the value of the currently proposed missile-defense technologies is whether our sister nations around the world are joining this effort. Japan, Denmark, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, Poland, the Czech Republic, a number of Gulf states and Australia, to mention the most prominent, are beginning the process of deploying missile-defense systems to protect their people from emerging ballistic-missile threats.

Radars in Greenland and England have been completed; Japanese investment in Aegis cruisers has accelerated to more than $1 billion annually; Germany and Italy are investing $1 billion annually in the Medium Extended Air Defense (MEADS) programs; and Australia has just announced its intention to purchase Aegis-based interceptors. Mr. Orman and Gen. Fox appear now to believe in test, test and more test. I believe in test, deploy and defend. So do the American people and our friends around the world.

PETER HUESSY

President

GeoStrategic Analysis

Potomac