Writing as an empirical observer over a number of years and disclaiming expertise, this commentator continues to manifest concern as to the rather patently obvious Congressional, and occasionally Administration, limited interest in missile defense generally, offshore missile defense more particularly.

The latest, but undoubtedly not the last, such manifestation appears in H.R. 3222, now pending in a conference committee between the United States Senate and House of Representatives, the Department of Defense (“DOD”) Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (“Act”). An important threshold point raises its untimely head: The 2008 Fiscal Year runs from October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008. Congress obviously should have legislated the Act and sent it to the President for signature well before October 1. However, repeatedly over the years, regardless of which political party has a Congressional majority, Congress, unlike a successful private business, cannot get its act together so as to appropriate on a timely basis.

So much for Congressional ineptitude as to timing. The Act, which would appropriate $459.3 billion, contains a number of items as to which the George W. Bush Administration (which pragmatically means the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget) considers the funding inadequate, excessive and/or misplaced. In this brief Commentary we look at only two, both relating to missile defense.

The Act would reduce money available for missile defense. More specifically, the Act would shave $ 85 million off the appropriation for United States missile defenses in Europe, particularly for construction at what is referred to as the European Third Site, as though there were no threat of a guided missile launched by Iran against the United States.

The Senate version of the Act would appropriate $75 million for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) and unmanned aircraft for domestic border security, including $20 million to boost the production rate of the SM-3 interceptor to four per month and another $45 million long-lead production of an additional 15 SM-3s. The remaining $10 million could go to the Aegis Signal Processor and Open Architecture software. Probably unwisely, money would come from another section of the defense budget but perhaps it reflects a (somewhat limited) interest in defense against missiles and offshore missiles.

Conversely, the Bush Administration opposes some major additions to United States Navy shipbuilding, including the construction of a $ 470 million so-called Virginia Class submarine (the latest in submarine evolution). Among various tactics for improving the strategy of defense against offshore missiles, an adequacy of submarines seems too obvious to debate. The Administration opposition to this $ 470 billion item appears to be based upon the contention that the money more meaningfully could be used elsewhere. That argument generically varies from validity to diversion. In this case it appears very much to be diversion.

The Act, of course, is immensely complicated. It implicates not only missile defense but also transfer authority within the Military Establishment, major reductions in appropriations sought for dozens of military functions and for nonmilitary activities (training of allies, humanitarian aid, drug interdiction, defense intelligence, so forth). Suffice it to say, in this brief Commentary, that missile defense generally, and offshore missile defense more specifically, are key stratagems for our national self-defense in this age of easy global terrorist access. They should be treated as such.

For more discussion of submarines in the context of missile defense, note unnumbered paragraphs 6-9 of our July 25, 2007 Commentary, which follows.

Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq. is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation. (Although a graduate of The Infantry Officers School and The Judge Advocate General’s School, he claims no especial expertise.)

Offshore Missile Defense: Where are the Submarines?

By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq.

July 25, 2007

Expertise in Congress occasionally manifests itself from an unlikely source. One of the unduly lesser heralded, but remarkably brilliant and versatile, Members of Congress is Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD). Who else in Congress is an experienced working farmer, a college and university lecturer on diverse subjects, a Ph.D. in human physiology - and a self-made man, working his way out of relative poverty!

Representative Bartlett also has become an authority on national defense. By sheer, if irrelevant, coincidence, his two predecessors from the 6^th Maryland Congressional District also developed some military expertise. (The 6th comprises bits of Baltimore and Montgomery Counties and all of more rural and small-town Western Maryland; hence, it amalgamates a touch of suburban Baltimore and Washington.)

If coincidences are interesting, consider the following. Bartlett’s immediate predecessor was Beverly Butcher Byron (served 14 years, 1979 - 1993), who, from lovely wife and mother, in her widowhood was elected to succeed her husband, Goodloe Edgar Byron (1971 - 1978), who had died only in his forties. (Goodloe and I were in law school together, graduated from The Infantry Officers School and The Army Judge Advocate General’s School together.) Goodloe and Beverly were conservative Democrats. Yet another coincidence: Goodloe’s father (1939 - 1941) and widowed mother (1939 - 1941) held the seat. J. Glenn Beall (1943 - 1953) and his son, J. Glenn Beall, Jr. (1969 - 1971), held the seat, each later elected United States Senator.

So much for familial and other coincidence.

Now Ranking Minority Member of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces, Representative Bartlett has developed an exceptional military and defense-needs knowledge. Not surprisingly, he is among the (unfortunately, too few) Members of Congress who advocate greater submarine construction.

The House of Representatives, if belatedly, has moved in the submarine-construction direction, the so-called “Virginia-Class” submarine. However, apparently only about one Virginia-Class submarine is to be launched each year - down from four or more of the then ultramodern “Los Angeles-Class” submarines during the 1980s. To amateurs the exact statistics are immaterial. The point is that we are becoming - probably already have become - deficient in submarine capability.

China, perhaps not unexpectedly, is reported to be building submarines faster than we are. However, one need not hypothesize about likely future military problems with China. Rather, one can think about dire possibilities closer to home. Whether the source or a source would be China is irrelevant.

At best the situation is unclear, and not especially reassuring, as to the state of our defense against offshore missiles. It doesn’t take much imagination, and no knowledge of ballistics, to realize that a powerful, modern submarine, undetected offshore, could launch devastating missiles against civilian targets along our Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific Coasts - cities, towns, roads, bridges, so forth.

If we are to defend ourselves against offshore missiles, nuclear and otherwise, launched by offshore submarines, we obviously need our own submarines to pinpoint and disable or destroy those terrorist submarines lurking in the sea. We also need submarines to assist the United States Coast Guard in monitoring of commercial shipping and private vessels which may launch offshore missiles. The Coast Guard also needs substantially more Congressional appropriations but that is a subject beyond that of this commentary.