CBO estimate of long-term missile defense costs
Allen Thomson
[The CBO document mentioned appears to be
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/76xx/doc7671/10-18-LongTermDefense.pdf ,
"Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Summary Update
forFiscal Year 2007"
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35466&dcn=todaysnews
CBO: Missile defense spending to peak in 2016 at $15 billion
By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire
[EXCERPT]
Current plans indicate that annual spending on the missile defense
system will peak in 2016 at about $15 billion, according to a recent
analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
The government has spent billions on a missile shield designed to
protect the United States and its allies from the threat of ballistic
missiles, but the program has yet to create an operational defense,
critics say.
Missile defense programs have a mixed record in testing; in September,
a target missile in an intercept drill had to be destroyed shortly
after launching.
The most advanced components of the system "may" rather than "should"
have some defensive capability against a limited attack, Defense
Department Operational Test and Evaluation Director David Duma stated
in January.
Defense officials, though, have continued to express their belief in
the system's ability to bring down an ICBM. Asked in June how much
faith he put in the system, Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen.
Henry Obering said, "In my mind it's a much higher confidence than what
has been described by our critics."
Funding for the program remains robust and the budget office expects it
to reach its highest level in 2016 as a number of defense systems move
through the procurement phase and begin to be deployed. Annual costs
would then decline to about $8 billion in 2024, the office expects.
The peak comes roughly three years later than the date projected by
budget analysts in a 2005 report, due to delays a number of major
projects. The budget office analysis does not detail the nature of
those delays.
In preparing its report, the Congressional Budget Office examined
current Pentagon plans for missile defenses as well as policy
statements from the White House. Virginia Samson, a missile defense
analyst with the Center for Defense Information, called the analysis a
valuable peek into the future of U.S. missile defenses.
The Missile Defense Agency faces different reporting requirements than
other military agencies regarding its budget requests and details of
its programs remain relatively murky, Samson said. "I think it's one of
the better things that we have," she said of the budget projections
released last month.
The funding for the missile defense program has been set by Congress at
$9.4 billion for fiscal 2007. The analysis by the budget office,
however, does not provide precise yearly estimates going forward, nor
does it provide a precise breakdown of estimated funding for each
missile defense program.
Due to the spiral nature of the missile defense development -- programs
are rolled out even as they continue to be developed to create an
interim defense capability -- requirements for program details are
loosened for missile defense, Samson said. "For whatever reason missile
defense is thought to be in such a special category that it can do that
type of thing," she said.
That makes projecting costs years in advance very difficult, Samson
said. "It just makes oversight very hard."
The president's fiscal 2007 budget request and the Defense Department's
Future Years Defense Program report propose funding averaging $10
billion annually for continued research and development of an overall
missile defense system through 2024.
Another $500 million annually would go toward systems designed to
intercept missiles toward their end of their flights, such as Patriot
Advanced Capability 3 missile interceptors.
The projected spending would fund research, development and testing of
antimissile systems designed to counter ballistic missiles in all
phases of flight -- shortly after they are launched, in midflight and
as they re-enter the atmosphere.
According to the CBO analysis, an expanded deployment of the U.S.
Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system will be completed in 2013, but
the government will continue to purchase additional missile
interceptors through 2017. Total cost for work on the system through
2017 is estimated at $18 billion.
The office also expects the Defense Department to develop and deploy "a
constellation of space-based infrared sensor satellites." Such
satellites would be able to detect and track ballistic missiles in
flight beginning shortly after their launch. That data would then be
relayed back to interceptors launched to destroy the warheads.
The Defense Department's initial plans include a constellation of 24 to
27 satellites, but the budget office interprets current plans as
calling for the launch of a five-satellite group in 2014. In 2017, more
satellites would be launched, bringing the total up to nine, according
to the budget office, which anticipates the total cost for the two
groups to be $7 billion.
For terminal-phase defenses, including the PAC-3 short-range missile
defense systems, Medium Extended Air-Defense System and the Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense system, the budget office researchers
estimate annual funding of about $2 billion a year through 2024.
The Pentagon is also expected to spend $500 million in fiscal 2008 for
the Space Test Bed to support research for boost-phase interceptors in
space, according to budget office researchers.
Information on the Space Test Bed is thin, but the fact that the
Missile Defense Agency is going to seek funding as soon as 2008 to
place weapon-related items in space is significant, Samson said. As to
what exactly the plans entail, "we can only hazard a guess at this
point," she said.
[snip]
BernardZ
thom...@flash.net says...
> The government has spent billions on a missile shield designed to
> protect the United States and its allies from the threat of ballistic
> missiles, but the program has yet to create an operational defense,
> critics say.
>
What we really need is a definition of what this system has to do, then
we can talk about whether it does or does not create an operational
defense.
--
Making a website is not so easy but filling it up with suitable material
is extremely difficult.
Observations of Bernard - No 107
Allen Thomson
> What we really need is a definition of what this system has to do, then
> we can talk about whether it does or does not create an operational
> defense.
The earlier (~2001) version was that we needed "capabilities-based"
rather than the earlier "threat-based" planning. I.e., we couldn't be
certain what specific threats a missile defense system would face, so
we needed to develop generic capabilities, improve them as time went on
through a process of "spiral development" and hope that, should a real
threat emerge, our capabilities of the time would be adequate, or at
least provide a head-start on development of an appropriate
threat-specific defense.
Since no specific threat has yet emerged, that's where we are.