While the Pentagon eliminated the Kinetic Energy Interceptor and Airborne Laser programs in fiscal year 2009, some House lawmakers don't want to let the notion of boost-phase missile defense go.
According to language included in the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee's portion of the fiscal year 2014 defense authorization bill, which was approved last week, the panel "notes that such an absence means the United States is currently not pursuing one of the three central layers of missile defense architecture."
The authorizers cite the National Academy of Sciences' findings in a 2012 report comparing boost-phase missile defense with other alternatives, "which concludes, by relying on its own 'notional data,' that boost-phase defense 'could be technically possible in some instances but operationally and economically impractical for almost all missions.'"
The thing is, that National Academies report recommended the Pentagon should halt investments in boost-phase missile defense systems and implement a new "evolutionary approach" to the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. As InsideDefense.com reported at the time:
The report, called for by Congress in 2008, states that boost-phase missile defense "is not practical or cost effective under real-world conditions for the foreseeable future" because intercept must take place before a threat booster reaches a threatening velocity. The authors stress that their study is focused solely on technical issues, not policy.
"Because of the short burn times of even long-range ballistic missile boosters, the interceptor launch platform cannot for its own survivability be so close to the territory of an adversary as to be vulnerable to the adversary's perimeter defense, but it must be close enough to the boost trajectory so that the interceptor can reach the threat missile before it reaches its desired velocity," the report states.
But that hasn't deterred lawmakers who still believe in the technology, despite the challenges.
"The committee is aware of the significant advantages, and the difficulties of intercepting a threat ballistic missile in the boost phase, including those articulated by the National Academy of Sciences report," the subcommittee legislative language approved last week states. The panel is calling on the head of the Missile Defense Agency "to provide a report to the the congressional defense committees by October 15, 2013, that assess the findings of the National Academy of Sciences study and the options that the director believes the Missile Defense Agency should consider in an analysis of alternatives or other study that could inform a boost phase missile defense program as part of the budget request for fiscal year 2015."