Trump must make missile defense great again

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BizPac Review.

by Edward Woodson

President Ronald Reagan proposal to defend the nation from the threat of nuclear missile attack has seen a remarkable advance in technology and effectiveness.  But it has not, at times, been an easy road.

Despite growing threats from a nuclear North Korea with a madman at its helm, the Obama administration hobbled America’s missile defense program with Euro-centric budget priorities and, at the end of their reign, imposed new budgetary schemes that will further slow progress in this critical and needed area of America’s national defense.  President Trump must restore missile defense as a national priority and make critical changes to the program to ensure America is defended.

Like most stories, there is good news and bad news in America’s missile defense program.  While we have seen technological great progress, much of it hampered by the Obama White House which cut investment and shipped many of our ground-based midcourse defense systems to Europe.  The lack of support for this critical infrastructure of America’s defense is not surprising considering that as a State Senator, Barack Obama said, “I don’t agree with a missile defense system.”

Obama’s budget increased spending year after year doubling our national debt but he took an axe to missile defense.  In 2013, he proposed cutting over a billion dollars a year from the program despite knowledge that Iran and North Korea were aggressively pursuing nuclear missile capabilities.  The missile defense program is now further threatened by a left over Obama mandate to impose “disaggregation,” bureaucratic speak for a new procurement scheme that will hurt the program.

Disaggregation is the term used by government bureaucrats to describe how they obtain critical pieces of a program.  Rather than selecting the best system at the best price, the Department of Defense is attempting to bring many of the core components and competencies of missile defense “in-house” and break apart the current system among different companies—companies that are just developing expertise in this field.  Such a move will further slow progress exponentially while the need for missile defense grows at an even faster rate.

The thought of bureaucrats putting together components of America’s strategic defense together in-house is the equivalent the government tearing apart a working car and putting the pieces together in a Washington office before driving it.  It makes no sense.

Despite Obama’s misguided priorities, progress in technology continued to advance.  In late May, the United States “successfully intercepted” an intercontinental ballistic missile launched 4,200 miles away during the first test of its ground-based intercept system.  That is great news for Hawaii, which is the American territory most exposed to the actions of the mad-man in Pyongyang.

President Trump, like President Reagan before him, must make missile defense a national priority.  The time has come to end the bureaucratic roadblocks put in place by the previous White House.  The “disaggregation” concept should be junked.  Breaking up the only system currently able to protect the US mainland and trusting that the government can put Humpty Dumpty back together again is lunacy. Doing so will make our nation less safe, not more safe.

What could be more important that protecting the homeland from attack?

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