Trent's Blog
Ground-Based Interceptors Work
Posted By: Rep. Trent Franks on October 15, 2007
Filed Under: Missile Defense European Missile Defense Site Defense
Human Events
For decades, people have derided even the theory of Ballistic Missile Defense. Never, they said, would we be able to hit a bullet with a bullet and shoot down a missile flying through space, carrying a nuclear weapon to destroy an American city. But there’s bad news for the naysayers: ground-based interceptors work. And if we deploy them, instead of delaying them, our children and grandchildren will not be defenseless against an attack by rogue nations or terrorists.
This GBI capability was recently demonstrated in the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) successful completion of a flight test involving the intercept of a threat-representative missile launched from Kodiak, Alaska. The missile was successfully destroyed by a long-range Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The GBI is designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack by intercepting an enemy missile in its midcourse phase of flight more than 100 miles above the earth.
The exercise was designed to evaluate the performance of several elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System in an operationally realistic setting. Mission objectives included demonstrating the ability of the Upgraded Early Warning Radar at Beale Air Force Base, California, to acquire, track and report on objects. The test also evaluated the performance of the interceptor missile’s rocket motor system and exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, which is the component that collides directly with a target warhead in space to perform a “hit to kill” intercept using only the force of the collision to totally destroy the target warhead.
This successful and timely test must be fully appreciated as Congress prepares to go to conference negotiations on the Department of Defense appropriations bill to fund GBIs to be deployed in the United States as well as in Europe. Twenty GBIs are currently fielded in Alaska and California. Ten more are proposed to be fielded in Poland. This European Interceptor Site is designed to address long-range missile threats from the Middle East. The European site will be integrated into the global BMDS.
Earlier this Summer, House Appropriators cut $ 97.2 million out of GBI funding, which is inconsistent with House Armed Services Committee (HASC) official support for "near-term" programs, and is directly conflicting with the legislation passed in last year's NDAA advocating DOD focus on near-term capabilities.
The Ground-base Midcourse Defense (GMD) Block 2004/2006 effort is on track to complete the fielding of 24 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) by the end of this year, and a total deployment of 30 GBIs by the end of 2008.
Aside from GMD in the United States, the European Site was also unfunded due to a 'lack in testing' and unfinished negotiations with host countries. Now that MDA and our warfighters have once again proven the current system works, and as our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic move closer to completing negotiations with the United States, Congress must fully fund GMD as the only fielded defensive capability that could defeat an incoming long-range ballistic missile possibly bearing a weapon of mass destruction.
The 20th century danger of a nuclear-armed and aggressive Soviet Union has evolved into the 21st century threats of jihadist terrorism, rogue nations, and state sponsors of terrorism actively fielding weapons to terrorist actors committed to the destruction of the West; and these continue to pose one of the greatest threats to peace that has ever faced the human family.
Paradoxically, missile defense is not only the last line of defense against a launched nuclear missile: it is our first line of defense against proliferation because it devalues such weapons as offensive military assets. Nations like Iran have far less motivation to develop and proliferate weapons for which its enemies already possess an effective defense, and thereby these weapons become less likely to fall into the hands of would-be terrorists who would create the unthinkable scenario of a nuclear weapon being detonated in an American city.
Congress must be unambiguous on issues affecting national security. Support for GMD and its testing program sends a clear message of not only our commitment to a strong defense against the growing ballistic missile threat, but ultimately our unyielding determination to protect, defend, and preserve the cause of human freedom.
Successful Talks with Allies and a Challenge to Russia
Posted By: Rep. Trent Franks on October 8, 2007
Filed Under: Defense European Missile Defense Site Iran Missile Defense
Space News
While meeting with these officials and later giving the keynote address at an international missile defense conference in Maastricht, I focused upon two important themes. One was the threat from a common enemy of the West and Europe and the cooperative defense that the interceptors and radar will provide. The other theme was the influence of Russia in these decisions.
Iran is the world's largest financier and enabler of terrorism. Guided by religious fanaticism and a fundamental hatred for everything freedom embodies, Iran is determined to refashion the Middle East in its own radical image. The intelligence community has reported that Iran has tested current variations of medium-range ballistic missiles with ranges capable of threatening Eastern Europe, Israel, and allied bases in the Persian Gulf; and it could well have long-range missiles before 2015. I just returned from Israel, and their intelligence predicts that Iran could have nuclear weapons capability in far less time.
The American government has determined that to meet this threat we must cooperatively deploy a European missile interceptor site with 10 interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic. This is the optimal location to protect the majority of Europe against intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles as well as to protect the United States from intercontinental missiles launched from the Middle East.
As a member on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee and an active participant in the missile defense debate, I have run into two types of opposition to missile defense in general and the European Site and the defense of space specifically. Some in Congress claim that missile defense technology is not worth the money or investment. Thankfully, this group is small given that there is empirical evidence (including hardware and dozens of successful tests) that the physics and technology behind missile defense, which only two decades ago was considered purely theoretical, has in fact become a tangible reality. Other opponents argue that our ground based interceptors (GBI) have not been tested thoroughly and that negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic have not been finalized.
Although I could find points that I agree with in the second camp, I’m convinced that their lack of urgency could carry devastating consequences. Our predictive time tables have often been wrong in the past. In 1998 the intelligence community said North Korea was years away from developing long range missiles, and then on August 31 of that same year, North Korea launched a Taepodong-1 missile that landed between Japan and Hawaii. If the test had been successful, the North Koreans would have demonstrated an ability to hurl a 200 kilo warhead onto the shores of western United States. We must be prepared before the threat is upon us.
The second theme I addressed was broached by European leadership even more often than the first— and that is, Russia’s influence over the deployment of the European Site. Russia has repeatedly demonstrated a desire to exert a certain amount of control over many nations in Europe. However, after my visits to the Czech Republic and Poland, my convictions are stronger than ever that the European site is an opportunity for the Czech and Polish leaders to make independent decisions and not be coerced by any country's saber rattling.
This system will be defensive in nature only, carrying no explosives and posing absolutely no threat to Russia, which has fiercely labeled the European defense initiative an act of military aggression. On the contrary, I often reiterated in my discussions that the site would not even have the capability to defend against a Russian Federation strategic offensive— Russia’s missile arsenal could easily overwhelm it.
The United States has kept the Russian Federation informed of its plans to deploy the European interceptor and radar sites. Its mission is to defend hundreds of thousands of innocent lives against ballistic missiles from the Middle East. Despite this, Russia continues to resist its deployment.
Consequently, in my speech I communicated both a message and a challenge for Russia. My message is simply that, indeed, the Cold War is over. This saber rattling is counterproductive and not helpful to these constructive efforts to increase our collective security.
Thus, I offered the following challenge to the leaders and people of Russia:
There was a time in history when America and Russia's predecessor, the Soviet Union, had a massive arms race and built thousands of missiles and nuclear warheads that have cast a foreboding shadow of fear across humanity ever since.
But times have changed. Missile defense systems like the one to be potentially deployed in Europe are not only the last line of defense against a missile attack; they are the first line of defense against proliferation. The fact that it is now technologically possible to build systems capable of defending our citizens against an attack from the Middle East diminishes not only the military and strategic value of nuclear missiles, but ultimately, their very purpose for existence.
So to Russia: Let us have another race, and let it be one of cooperation or of competition, as Russia chooses. Let us together turn Mutually Assured Destruction into Mutually Assured Survival.
In an age of nuclear capability and radical Jihadist terrorism, whose proponents are committed to the destruction of the Western World, every nation devoted to the cause of freedom stands at a critical juncture in which our collective determination to defeat that enemy will determine our success in meeting future threats.
We possess an unprecedented technological capability that has taken years of scientific genius, engineering prowess, and tenacity within the industrial community and relevant fields.
Granted, these systems have been produced at the expense of billions of dollars and precious time; and there may be a day when as leaders we must apologize to the American people and the citizens of allied nations for building an expensive missile defense system that we did not use. I can face that gratefully.
However, history will grant us no acquittal if we fail to protect our children and future generations from a nuclear blast or any other missile attack, when we had the technological capability at our fingertips, but failed to pursue and build an effective global missile defense system.
Poland and the Czech Republic must be encouraged to remain resolute and stand firmly for the cause of ultimate peace and human freedom.
Empower Parents to Choose What is Best for Their Children
Posted By: Rep. Trent Franks on June 13, 2007
Filed Under: Children Education Children's Hope Act
Townhall.com
As Congress moves to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), it is incumbent upon us to recognize and address the fatal flaws in our educational system.
When the Pilgrims left Holland to sail for the shores of the New World, it was no longer under the impetus of seeking religious freedom. Rather, while they had fled to Holland to escape religious persecution in England, they realized shortly thereafter the negative influence Holland's corrupt youth were bringing to bear upon their children. They recognized that as parents they were endowed with the solemn responsibility of laying the foundation that would determine the destinies of their children. And it was this understanding that compelled them to sacrifice every human comfort to ensure that the hearts and minds of their children were inculcated with "the just fear of God and love for fellow man."
Today, American parents face a similar dilemma, knowing that the spiritual, social, and academic principles instilled into the minds of our children will set the paradigm for America's future. Will we trust a government-run bureaucracy or the parents to determine those principles? I believe we must empower parents to choose the schools or educational opportunities they deem best for their children.
I was in the middle of this debate as it first sparked when I authored the Arizona Scholarship Tax Credit legislation in 1997. This incredibly successful dollar-for-dollar tax credit program has helped provide over 142,000 scholarships for children in its 9 year history. Last year alone, Arizona experienced an 11 percent increase in the number of donations to School Tuition Organizations. And since the inception of the Scholarship Tax Credit program, Arizona has become the leading state proponent for parental empowerment in education. Its program--both individual and corporate scholarship tax credits, more charter schools per capita than any other state, and open public school enrollment--have achieved inarguable success.
The Department of Education reports that about four million children are currently attending chronically failing schools, or, schools that have failed to achieve minimal state standards for six consecutive years. To address this educational crisis, the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act stipulates that children attending a failing school can transfer to a higher-achieving school within the same district.
However, this provision fails to take two things into consideration. First, there are far more children attending failing schools than there are seats available at better-performing schools. For instance, in Los Angeles, approximately 2 in every 1,000 children attending a failing school have actually transferred, and nationwide this figure is about 1%. And second, many families who find themselves stuck in underachieving schools often do not have the financial flexibility to move to a better-achieving district or pay for a high-priced private school. In these situations, effective school-choice legislation gives low income families the same educational options as wealthy families.
Ironically, the leading voices in Congress opposing school choice legislation consistently choose to send their children to expensive, elite private schools. Yet they publicly oppose policies that would empower parents to make the same choice and secure a better educational environment for their children.
To that end, this week I have introduced the Children's Hope Act, which encourages states to enact their own state scholarship tax credits of $250 or more, by allowing residents of those states to receive an additional $100 federal tax credit. This legislation would require education investment organizations distribute at least half of their scholarships to low income children. This would allow taxpayers to voluntarily empower families and individuals with an opportunity to truly improve their child’s life and make a difference in their community.
The core principle of a free market society is that competition produces a higher quality product. Our education establishment is not exempt from this economic truth. On the contrary, studies show that not only do scholarship tax credits enjoy great popular support, but that those children who apply and receive them consistently show improved academic performance, while students who apply and fail to receive them do not. And, as might be expected, the effect of school choice competition on public schools has repeatedly resulted in improved public school performance.
Arizona is proof of what is possible when families are empowered to make their own educational choices. As we consider the most viable policies to incorporate in the NCLB, there has never been a better time for legislators to empower mothers and fathers (who love their children more than anyone else in the world) to make the educational choices they deem best.
Indefensible
Posted By: Rep. Trent Franks on May 14, 2007
Filed Under: Missile Defense Defense European Missile Defense Site
National Review Online
Last week in the House Armed Services Committee, I voted for the National Defense Authorization Act. While H.R. 1585 meets many of the needs of our valiant men and women in uniform, I remain very concerned about the severe funding cuts it would make in critical missile-defense programs. I offered three amendments that would restore necessary funding for those programs including one that would restore the entire amount they slashed. However, the Democrats resolutely rejected them and even used procedural tactics to block a vote on an amendment our ranking member Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.) offered stating that the sense of Congress is to develop and deploy a layered and robust missile-defense system capable of intercepting missiles in boost, midcourse, and terminal phases of flight.
Congress is obligated to ensure that the Department of Defense develops and deploys defensive capabilities that protect the American people, our war fighters, and our allies who want to work with us. Iran is expected to have missiles capable of reaching the U.S. homeland in less than eight years, North Korea continues to defiantly test long-range missiles, and proliferation throughout the Middle East is rampant. Despite these threats, H.R. 1585 cuts almost $800 million in funding that would help close the gaps in our missile defense system.
It is necessary that our system is fully capable of intercepting missiles. This legislation fails to recognize the need to robustly fund systems that defend against missiles in their boost phase of flight in order to interdict an enemy’s missile before it releases its warhead and while it is on enemy territory. We must support programs that have already proven to be successful, but we must also continually modernize our systems to meet the developing threats.
Moreover, this bill heavily emphasizes the need to engage NATO in discussions regarding the deployment of a missile-defense system and in particular the development of a European interceptor site. I agree that it is important to engage U.S. allies in our mission to develop a strong missile defense. We begin formal negotiations on the European site this month with our friends in Poland and the Czech Republic. We already have bilateral agreements with the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, Japan, and are working closely with Israel; however, the concentration on NATO in this bill is more than troubling. The responsibility of Congress is to legislate in a way that defends the U.S. first and foremost. I was reminded of this fact by a letter recently sent to me from the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mary Beth Long, which stated, “The Department of Defense knows of no U.S. weapons systems or other U.S. actions that relate to the defense of the U.S. homeland that are or would be referred to the North Atlantic Council (NAC) for NATO approval...” This Congress must not seek international favor at the expense of U.S. sovereignty and security.
While there may be disagreement between Democrats and Republicans regarding the circumstances under which our offensive military capabilities should be utilized, building a defense against looming threats should be a bipartisan effort. In this age when we know all too well that U.S. enemies are willing to terrorize innocent people by using themselves and their children as living bombs, it is foolish to think they will be deterred by the promise of overwhelming offensive retaliation, should they strike an American city with a missile. We must not be caught off guard when the price in lives is so high.
In last November’s elections the American people entrusted the Democrats with the responsibility to provide adequate resources to defend the nation. This defense bill, in its current form, does not fully meet this responsibility. The full House must address its deficiencies.
Missile Defense is Needed
Posted By: Rep. Trent Franks on May 2, 2007
Filed Under: Missile Defense Defense Iran North Korea
The Washington Times
Congress must fully support the proposal of placing a missile interceptor site in Europe. The United States, with over 90,000 U.S. troops deployed in Europe, and our allies currently do not have a robust defense against Tehran's probably upgraded long-range ballistic missiles which can now reach most of Europe.
In April, Iran's Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr said: "No place is safe for America since we have long-range missiles. Iran is capable of firing tens of thousands of missiles against U.S. interests on a daily basis. With its long-range missiles, Iran can also threaten Israel which backs the U.S." It is widely believed that Iran could have the capability to launch missiles that could reach the continental United States by 2015.
To defend against this threat the president has proposed that a third missile defense site in Europe be deployed in the Czech Republic and Poland. America is currently in negotiations with these countries to reach a final agreement on the nature and scope of such defenses. We have already concluded agreements with England, Greenland and Denmark to upgrade existing radars as part of the missile defense deployed now in Alaska and California against North Korean missile threats.
Both North Korea and Iran have stunned the world community with their missile capabilities. In 1998, North Korea launched a rocket that landed between Japan and Hawaii. If the test had been successful, the North Koreans would have demonstrated an ability to hurl a 200-kilo warhead onto the western United States. The North Koreans have cooperated with the Iranians in building and testing missiles, most recently delivering to the Iranians new technology that extends the range of Tehran's missiles to slightly over 2,100 miles.
We also know that North Korea has exploded a nuclear device and that Iran is seeking the ability to enrich uranium to produce the nuclear fuel for nuclear weapons. This threat requires that we build a common defense for Europe and the United States against such missile strikes. If we do not, we inevitably doom ourselves to be threatened and coerced by Iran. It could, in fact, result in major policy shifts harmful to U.S. interests and could embolden Iran's radical leadership to take actions against U.S. allies. Additionally, Iran's attending control and influence over oil supplies could seriously erode the strength of U.S. economic and national security.
NATO has agreed to the deployment of short- and medium-range missile defenses, including Patriot missile batteries. The work with NATO has been going on since 2002 and was initiated at a summit in Prague, Czech Republic. At the 2006 Riga summit, NATO proposed missile defense architecture of long-range interceptors and sensors as well as theater defenses required to defend against shorter-range threats to NATO.
Despite the aforementioned, some of my colleagues in this Congress intend to seriously limit funding for the roughly $300 million for the Third Site in Europe contained in the Defense authorization budget request submitted to Congress in February. Their ostensible rationale is two-fold: (1) NATO as a whole has not explicitly endorsed the third site deployment; and (2) the Russians object that the deployment will upset the "strategic balance."
These objections are fallacious and spurious. NATO deployments of all kinds, whether missile defenses, strategic aircraft or tanks, are produced by member countries, sometimes in cooperation with each other, and are then deployed as part of each individual country's military forces and made available to NATO. With the exception of Advanced Warming Aircraft and some cargo planes, which have previously been purchased as military units owned by NATO, countries within the alliance do not give other member nations a veto over their security decisions.
Objections from the Russian government can also be soundly put to rest. The United States has kept the Russian Federation informed of its plans to deploy the European Interceptor Site, which will be an unarmed, defensive system, and which provides no capability to defend against the Russian Federation's strategic offensive force. The interceptors carry no explosive warhead and rely solely on kinetic energy to intercept and destroy on impact an incoming warhead. The United States and NATO have also proposed to the Russian government an entire series of cooperative measures that could be jointly pursued in the area of missile defenses, including concepts, operations, training, exercises and joint deployments, as well as onsite inspections of the missile defense deployment.
In short, the third site funding proposals must not be slowed down because some members of Congress do not have the intestinal fortitude to deploy a layered and robust missile defense. The Third Site compliments existing defenses with a necessary layer of defense. It provides protection against nuclear blackmail by the rogue regime in Tehran. It protects our allies and our deployed military forces overseas. It adds to our security and the security of our allies. It is the duty of this Congress to fully fund the missile defense budget in general and specifically as it relates to the Third Site.
