Boost-Phase Boost
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
We’re all on the way to being a little safer this morning with the news that the Defense Department has awarded an eight-year, $4.5 billion contract to Northrop Grumman for the development and testing of a missile defense that is designed to intercept and destroy enemy missiles in their boost phase. It seems we’ve come a long way from the days when such dreams were being belittled on the left.
Missile defense mavens have known for decades that the boost phase — the three to five minutes just after the missile is launched — is the key to the most useful and effective missile defense. Yesterday’s announcement from the Pentagon explained why: “The boosting missile, still under power from its rocket motor(s), is vulnerable due to its slower speed, large cross-section and still-attached fuel tanks. Also, if a missile is successfully attacked during the boost phase, it can be destroyed prior to release of any decoys and/or countermeasures. Finally, in the event of a successful intercept, the missile and its payload of weapons of mass destruction — nuclear, chemical or biological — may fall back on the country from which it was launched.”
This idea of killing the missile over enemy ground, before it reaches America, is consistent with the Bush doctrine of going after the terrorists themselves on enemy ground, before they reach America. The best defense, of course, is removing the enemy regimes like those in Iran and North Korea that are building nuclear missiles to threaten America with. That approach has the advantage, in addition to protecting America, of freeing the people trapped under the boot of those tyrannical regimes.
But until those regime changes are achieved — and even after, to protect against accidental launches — a boost phase intercept is an essential ingredient in assuring American security. The shame is that it will take eight years from yesterday. Had the Clinton administration not put an anachronistic ABM treaty ahead of American security eight years ago, we might all be breathing easier today, with a boost-phase missile defense shield deployed rather than just on the drawing boards.
