Newly inaugurated U.S. President Barack Obama should approve a plan to expand the role of the U.S. armed services in ballistic missile defense.

Obama so far has been silent regarding the proper role of the services in ballistic missile defense. However, as missile defense systems mature, they should be put into the hands of the military services that will operate them.

This includes the transfer of procurement funding for these systems. This already has happened in great measure with the transfer of the Raytheon Patriot PAC-3 terminal interceptor system from the Missile Defense Agency to the U.S. Army. A similar effort to do the same with the transfer of the AEGIS-based midcourse and terminal defense systems to the U.S. Navy should be accelerated.

On the other hand, the MDA should retain responsibility for the development and testing of new systems and for ensuring that the disparate elements of the broader missile system, including sensors and interceptors, can be tied together into an integrated whole through the command-and-control network that will cut across service lines.

Regarding the development and fielding of space-based elements, Obama has stated he will not "weaponize" space, but the ballistic missiles he has pledged to counter are space weapons. Since they fly through space, it should not surprise him that the most effective and cost-effective defenses against them will be space-based. Missile defense needs to go to space because that is where the missiles are during their flights.

According to an authoritative report from the Independent Working Group, a constellation of 1,000 space-based hit-to-kill interceptors, along with replacements, would cost less than $20 billion to build, launch, operate and maintain over a 20-year period. This constellation alone would constitute a global, layered missile defense capability, although it should be augmented with land-based, sea-based and air-based elements. In fact, this broader approach is consistent with an acquisition strategy that properly balances near-term and longer-term technologies for missile defense. Ambassador J.D. Crouch and his associates explain this balanced acquisition strategy in their report, "Missile Defense & National Security: The Need to Sustain a Balanced Approach," published by the National Institute for Public Policy as Information Series Report No. 0087 on Oct. 20, 2008.

The missile defense program is designed to defend U.S. troops stationed abroad and U.S. allies as well as America's population and territory.

(Baker Spring is F.M. Kirby research fellow in national security policy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies; Peter Brookes is senior fellow for national security affairs in the Davis Institute; and James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is assistant director of the Davis Institute and senior research fellow for national security and homeland security in the Allison Center at The Heritage Foundation.)

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