Democrats in Congress -- Easy Missile Defense First

The United States has been working on a system to protect itself from strategic missile attack since 1984. The “Star Wars” system of Ronald Reagan played a key part in bankrupting the Soviet Union and went through various concepts. In the Nineties after Desert Storm Theater Missile Defense (TMD) which is designed to provide point defense of targets became the focus. The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, now the Missile Defense Agency, continued work on what was then National Missile Defense (NMD) and now is called Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. Government Executive is reporting that the Democrats in the House are talking about cutting back funding from the Midcourse Defense System and shifting it to “proven missile defenses”. This would be PATRIOT, THAAD and the Navy’s sea-based long range system used to shoot down the wayward Air Force satellite last year. Interestingly the Democrats have been running down these systems effectiveness for the last twenty years. The only issue with the TMD systems is that they need to be deployed near their targets and cannot necessarily deal with long range threats. The GBMDS relies on missiles in Alaska with a variety of sensor sites across the world. This may be a preview of attempts to cut back on total MDA funding.