American Maggie

President Barack Obama recently announced a shift in U.S. plans for a missile-defense “third site” in Europe. This probably sounds like “inside the Beltway” stuff, but it isn’t.  A comprehensive, multi-layered missile defense should be a priority for every American. 

Carol A. Taber, president of Family Security Matters, recently discussed the concerns of American women.  As a former publisher of national women’s magazines, the sort read by nearly 100 million women annually, she knows what women want.

Taber says our concerns tend to occur in concentric circles, with all priorities spreading out from the same center: our family.  That, of course, includes parents, spouse, and children.  Next comes our neighborhood (including schools and friends), then our community, then our state or region, and so on.

Assuming that this theory holds true for most women, it’s puzzling that some otherwise savvy ladies have a knee-jerk opposition to a program called “missile defense.”

 For one thing, such opposition runs counter to public opinion.  A poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation in May reveals that 88 percent of the respondents believe that the federal government should field a system for countering ballistic missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction.  They happen to also believe (mistakenly) that we already have what we need to defeat a range of threats.

The threat from ballistic missile attack is real.  So is the possibility that such missiles could be armed with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.  That could cause damage far beyond the scale of even 9/11.  Many may be surprised to know that in only 33 minutes or fewer, an enemy ballistic missile launched from the other side of the world could hit the United States.  Today’s fledgling system doesn’t protect every state or all of our cities.

Missile defense is exactly that: a purely defensive system that only protects Americans (as well as troops overseas and allies, too).  Missile defense cannot kill anyone.  Indeed, as Lt. General (Ret.) Trey Obering has said, missile defense is similar to an insurance policy for the protection of all Americans.  Except, of course, it’s a much better investment.

Missile defense is better than insurance.  If, say, you get into a car accident, only then does your insurance help you.  But with missile defense, having a system in place would prevent an enemy attack from ever reaching Washington, New York, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, or Los Angeles.

Regrettably, the Missile Defense Agency under President Obama is beginning to slow all the progress we’ve made in developing ever more effective defenses.  It’s adopting a spiral development strategy where we build a little, test a little, build a little and test a little more.  This only drags out how long it takes to build complete systems and makes the whole process more expensive.  Worse, every day that the fielding of state-of-the-art missile defenses is delayed in this way is one more day that Americans stay vulnerable.

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Mackenzie Eaglen is the Research Fellow for National Security Studies, in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

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