ABL Redux?

When the Obama administration sent its fiscal year 2010 defense budget request to Congress three years ago, it did not include money to continue development of the Airborne Laser program, citing costs, technological problems and a concern for the system's long-term operational role.

The Defense Department shipped the ABL -- a Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft that carried a chemical laser and a production price tag of $1 billion to $1.5 billion per copy -- from the Missile Defense Agency to the office of the director of defense research and engineering.

Now the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, led by Chairman Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), wants DOD to take another look at ABL and its possible use in a real-world event. In the subcommittee's mark of the FY-13 defense authorization bill, released today, the panel states:

The committee directs the Director, Missile Defense Agency to provide a report to the congressional defense committee by July 31, 2012, on the costs involved with returning the Airborne Laser aircraft to an operational readiness status to continue technology development and testing, and to be ready to deploy in an operational contingency, if needed, to respond to rapidly developing threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

When he went to Capitol Hill to defend the president's budget, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained why he didn't think the ABL would work. In testimony before the strategic forces subcommittee -- chaired at the time by then-Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) -- on May 13, 2009, Gates said:

For example, the operational concept of the Airborne Laser would have required that the aircraft orbit, let's say the target was Iran, would have required an orbit almost entirely within the borders of Iran. This is probably a little problematic.

At the same hearing, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said he felt the ABL "has been a flawed concept for years."

As for a possible North Korean scenario involving the ABL, the intelligence community told Congress earlier this year that's not very likely. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 16, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said:

The Intelligence Community assesses Pyongyang views its nuclear capabilities as intended for deterrence, international prestige, and coercive diplomacy. We judge that North Korea would consider using nuclear weapons only under narrow circumstances. We also assess, albeit with low confidence, Pyongyang probably would not attempt to use nuclear weapons against U.S. forces or territory, unless it perceived its regime to be on the verge of military defeat and risked an irretrievable loss of control.