New Threats: Pentagon Revs Up Missile Defense – Scout

With missile threats dominating the headlines, missile defense, modernization and posture continue to anchor strategic funding for the United States in recent budget requests.

With missile threats dominating the headlines, missile defense, modernization and posture continue to anchor strategic funding for the United States in recent budget requests.

Citing recent geopolitical and missile operations by Russia, China and North Korea, Rob Soofer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy, alerted Congress to a Pentagon comprehensive Nuclear Posture Review that is expected to be completed by the end of this calendar year during his testimony earlier this month before the House Armed Services Strategic Force Subcommittee on the presidents budget request for fiscal year 2018.

That review comes at a time of renewed interest for strategic missile operations.

Frank Klotz, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told lawmakers at the same hearing, Our [fiscal] 2018 budget request accounts for the significant tempo of operations at NNSA that in many ways has reached a level unseen since the Cold War.

The request, he notes, adds more than $3 billion across the Future Years Defense Plan relative to the previous years' request to continue improving the health of the DoD nuclear enterprise.It includes funding to repair and replace infrastructure at national laboratories and production plants and improves workspace for the scientific, engineering and professional workforce, he says.

The request includes; $10.2 billion for weapons activity appropriation, a 10.8 percent increase over 2017; $1.8 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation, about the same as the previous years about $1.5 billion or a 4.2 percent increase over 2017, for the Naval reactors program; and $418 million for federal salaries and expenses, or an 8.1 percent compared to 2017.

Klotz points out the NNSA budget request is nearly $1 billion over the fiscal 2017 omnibus level, enabling the agency to tackle infrastructure recapitalization projects, such as the uranium processing facility at Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The Pentagon expects nuclear recapitalization costs to total $230 billion to $290 billion over more than two decades, Soofer sys.

Navy Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, director of Navy Strategic Systems Programs, says the funding will help with long-term sustainment of the triads sea-based leg, including the life-extension efforts will sustain the D-Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile system, which the U.S needs to last until the 2040s.

The budget request also includes about $7.9 billion in 2018 to continue to develop reliable, increasingly capable and state-of-the-art defenses against ballistic missile threats for the nation, deployed forces, allies and international partners, Gary Pennett, Missile Defense director of operation, told reporters.

The amount includes $1.5 billion in fiscal]2018 for the ground-based midcourse defense program, or GMD.

Thirty-six ground-based interceptors, or GBIs, are in place today, and the agency is on track to expand the fleet to 44 by the end of 2017, Pennett says.

The 2018 request for Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) is $1.7 billion and, Pennett says, includes sustaining the deployed SM-3 fleet.

MDA will buy 34 SM-3 Block IB missiles for deployment on land at the Aegis Ashore site in Romania and later in Poland, and at sea on Aegis BMD ships, according to the budget. This will bring the total number of SM-3 Block IB missiles to 287 by the end of 2018, Pennett says.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, element gives the BMD system a globally transportable, rapidly deployable ability to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles inside or outside the atmosphere during their final, or terminal, phase of flight, keeping enemy weapons from reaching the ground, he says.

A THAAD battery consists of a truck-mounted launcher, eight interceptors per launcher, the worlds largest air-transportable X-band radar, and fire control.

Pennett says the THAAD budget request is $797 million and that in 2018 MDA will support seven THAAD batteries.

"This budget procures 34 THAAD interceptors in [fiscal] 2017, bringing the total to 349 by the end of [fiscal] 2018," he says.

The budget request of $147 million in fiscal 2018 for Israeli programs continues MDA's longstanding support of U.S.-Israeli cooperative BMD programs, Pennett says, including procurement of the Iron Dome weapon system and the co-development of the David's Sling upper-tier interceptor and Arrow weapon system improvements.

MDA is requesting $259 million for the multi-object kill vehicle, and has accelerated its risk-reduction and product-development phases to achieve a demonstrated capability in 2025, he says.

For hypersonic defense, MDA requests $75 million, he says.

The agency is requesting $54-million to continue developing and scaling a low-power laser demonstrator, he says, as well as $52-million request for space efforts will fund space tracking and surveillance system, or STSS, satellite operations and sustainment.

"STSS consists of two satellites operating in low-earth orbit and provides risk-reduction data for a potential operational BMDS tracking and surveillance constellation," Pennett says. "This FY '18 request will also complete on-orbit deployment of the space-based kill assessment sensor network."

----Michael Fabey -- Scout Warrior Senior Contributor

---- Michael Fabey can be reached atFabeyships@aol.com

--- Fabey is the author of an upcoming Scribner book "Crashback" - The Power Clash Between the US & China

---For Information on Fabey's Book Crashback - CLICK HERE

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New Threats: Pentagon Revs Up Missile Defense - Scout