By Dr. Terry Simmons
Special Contributor, In Homeland Security
I recently attended the Atlantic Council of the United States’ Missile Defense Conference held in Washington D.C. for the fourth consecutive year. As a member of the Atlantic Council, it is always my privilege to be invited to hear a very distinguished group of keynote speakers and authoritative panelists. This year was no exception.
As a faculty member at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis departments of Political Science and IUPUI School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), it has been a continuing honor to be invited to many significant events presented by the Atlantic Council.
This year’s conference, sponsored by Raytheon, was replete with national and international defense practitioners, academic luminaries, and military commanders actively participating in this critical national security mission of the United States as well as the NATO Alliance. The international press was well represented and offered splendid international perspectives in this critical aspect of international security and diplomatic relations during the extensive Question and Answers periods following each segment of the conference.
Of particular interest to me, as a professor of international studies, international relations, terrorism-counter terrorism studies , American foreign policy and Soviet-Russian foreign policy, is the current state of international political affairs in context of the current ongoing struggle between the United States-NATO and the Russian Federation in regards to Ukraine and aspiring FSU satellite countries to EU membership.
As resurgent Russia attempts to re-establish its Near Abroad and resurrect its former political and economic influence in the FSU political space, its geopolitical aggression in Georgian South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and now Crimea and eastern Ukraine, are being interpreted as a new attempt by Vladimir Putin to re-assert traditional Russian imperialism. Missile defense is where this renewed geopolitical competition between East and West is most critical for all rational actors and the stability of the international political community.
The various keynote speakers and informative panels were well represented in the most comprehensive modality by the former Commanders of the Missile Defense Agency, the Retrospective discussion of the history, mission, progress and failures of the MDA. That discussion was culminated in the “What’s Next” segment that summarized the important points of continuity as well as new directions of the MDA itself.
Ronald T. Radish, Henry A. Obering, and Patrick O’Reilly, the last directors of the MDA, highlighted their respective experiences and career positions as heads of the Missile Defense Agency. All three, Lt. Generals from the U.S. Air Force and finally, the United States Army, described the challenges and hit to kill ratios that served as the benchmark measurement of success and failure at the MDA. As an outgrowth of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or “Star Wars”), that ratio has increased steadily through the years to make the MDA an unqualified success story.
In strategic and foreign policy terms, this American-led NATO success story has helped to stabilize international geopolitical relations since the end of the Cold War with the Phased Adaptive Array (PAA) layered missile response strategy to prevent rogue unauthorized launches from Iran and North Korea. Constant efforts to integrate the strategic anti-ballistic missile forces of the Russian Federation have been stymied by Russian concerns of American strategic intentions. With the current foreign policy difficulties presented by renewed Cold War type reintroduction of tensions between Russia and the American-led NATO alliance, the Russian Federation has moved further away from such potential strategic cooperation.
The current state of international relations is once more in flux as the United States and NATO have now begun to harden their strategic assets posture and defensive fighting doctrine, as clearly delineated by the new MDA Commander and Vice Chairman , US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James A. Winnefield Jr., in response to the Russian Federation as Vladimir Putin has disengaged from NATO confidence building measures with the West and is, once again, pursuing an independent course in his conduct of Russian foreign policy. Perhaps this strategically difficult dilemma will be transitory and a more viable opportunity in the future of Russian-American relations will present itself in the mid term.
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