Senator Mazie Hirono
is Wrong and Needs a Lesson on Missile Defense: Homeland Defense Radar System Will
Not Protect Hawaii From a Nuclear Attack
by Lynda Williams
After more than a year
of meetings with Neighborhood Boards and local Native Hawaiian groups, the
Missile Defense Agency (MDA) effectively cancelled the proposed Homeland
Defense Radar for Hawaii (HDR-H) by not funding it in the 2021 Pentagon budget,
the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA. In addition to facing fierce
local protest, MDA cancelled the 2 billion-dollar HDR-H discrimination radar system
because the technology is obsolete. Rather than constructing more limited land-based
radar systems, the Pentagon is planning to move missile surveillance into space
with a Space Based Sensor Layer.
So why is Senator
Mazie Hirono fighting so desperately to keep the HDR-H project alive? Hirono, a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that marks up its own version of
the NDAA claims that “HDR-H is part of our country’s critical, layered defense.
As the United States continues to confront a range of strategic threats in the
Indo-Asia-Pacific region, it is imperative that all Americans are protected by
our ballistic missile defense system.”
These claims made in a Star Advertiser article are false on many grounds.
First and foremost, “layered
defense,” the MDA strategy to defend the homeland and allies from nuclear
missile attack using multiple stages of missile defense, has never been tested
in real world scenarios. There is no guarantee that layered missile defense can
protect anyone from a nuclear attack but since many of the layers are based in
Hawaii, it actually makes Hawaii a greater target.
During first ‘boost
phase’ when a missile is launched from enemy territory, the first layer of
defense would be to destroy the missile near launch with drone bombs but this
technology does not yet exist. Secondly, in the ‘midcourse phase,’ Ground Based
Midcourse (GMD) long range interceptors launched from Alaska or California would
attempt to destroy the nuclear missiles in space. If these two attempts fail,
as the missile approaches its target in its “terminal phase,” medium range SM3-Block
2 interceptors launched from Aegis warships or Aegis ashore systems like the
one stationed at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) would be deployed. The
Aegis SM3-Block 2 interceptor was designed for short and intermediate range
targets, not intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBM) so the MDA is
currently trying to extend their reach ICBMs in their midcourse phase. They are
currently planning to test the extended SM3 in Hawaii in 2020 to intercept an
ICBM launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. SM3
interceptors are cheaper than GMD interceptors.
The final layer of
defense would be to use Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD)
interceptors, also stationed at PRMF and used to intercept missiles just before
they hit their targets. Radar systems like the troubled Sea based X Band Radar
stationed in Hawaii and the proposed HDR-H radars are tasked with tracking the
missiles but they have limited range and that is why the Pentagon wants to
replace ground based radars with a space based sensor layer. Furthermore, layered
missile defense can’t defend against hypersonic (at least five times faster
than sound) missiles currently being developed by China and Russia (and the US)
in response to US deployment of missile defense systems. The layered missile
defense strategy and HDR-H - all of which has cost US taxpayers more than a
hundred billion dollars are already obsolete and cannot keep Hawaii safe from
nuclear attack.
Senator Hirono doesn’t
seem to understand why HDR-H is a bad investment. She is unrelenting in her
lobbying effort: “Securing full funding authorization for HDR-H
was my top priority in the NDAA this year because it will help keep Hawaii safe
from external threats. I will continue to advocate for its inclusion in the
final, approved package.”
In this time of grave
economic uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and as unprecedented
protests around the country are demanding that the government redirect spending
from the police and military to more urgent social needs such as healthcare,
education, and the environment, Congress must cut this wasteful, unessential,
and dangerous weapon system from the NDAA. We must pursue diplomatic strategies
for resolving conflict in the Pacific.
I would be very happy
to give Senator Hirono a private lesson on why we must cancel HDR-H.
Sincerely,
Lynda
Please sign and share our petition to CANCEL THE HDRH! Thanks!
Lynda Williams is a
Physicist & Science Educator with the Global Network Against Weapons and
Nuclear Power in Space (space4peace.org)
