With Shrinking Defense Dollars Missile System Should be Scrapped

The release of the President’s budget this week showed a shrinking Defense budget.  This economic reality has once again sparked a conversation about the controversial and expensive Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).  Originally conceived as the replacement to the Patriot missile system, MEADS is being jointly built by the United States, Italy, and Germany with the Americans shouldering more than 50 percent of the cost.  Even though the Army doesn’t want the project, there was an additional $800 million allocated for the project through 2013 ($400 million in President Obama’s latest budget).  Taxpayer groups have expressed their opposition to funding the program over the past years.  Now, according to the Washington Business Journal (WBJ), “Defense officials are expressing doubts about the department’s ability to meet its obligations to help fund an international missile defense system, despite President Barack Obama’s support of the program in the fiscal 2013 budget proposal.”

MEADS is expensive. Total development will cost $2.8 billion and full production will cost more than $25 billion.  A March 9, 2010 Washington Post article notes that “the Army says MEADS has become too expensive, is taking too long to produce and is difficult to manage because any changes in the program require German and Italian approval. ‘The system will not meet U.S. requirements or address the current and emerging threat without extensive and costly modifications,’ an internal Army staff memo concluded last month in recommending the cancellation of MEADS.”

On November 8, 2011, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) contacted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Medium Extended Air Defense System Management Agency (NAMEADSMA), the Army, and MEADS International to find out about an impending test…  Despite a supposed successful testing the only entity to respond to TPA was NAMEADSMA which responded with unsatisfactory answers (see previous blog posting here).

New, and some not so new, economic realities require a reevaluation of MEADS.  We are all familiar with the economic problems in the United States, including a shrinking defense budget and deficits as far as the eye can see.  Another fiscal pressure point for MEADS may be Italy’s debt rating downgrade late last year. It may be just a matter of time before Italy runs out of money for the program.

Adding more evidence that is time to move on from MEADS, the WBJ also noted that, “Despite full funding for the 2013 obligation, questions remain about whether the U.S. will be able to pay its share in 2012.” Acting undersecretary Frank Kendall noted in the same WBJ article that, “‘Our hands are a bit tied in terms of how we can execute 2012,’ Kendall said. ‘In keeping faith with our allies, we did request the money in 2013, but the restriction that we have is going to make it very, very hard for us to execute that.’”

Funding a program that the Department of Defense has little confidence that it can execute is not good for taxpayers or the defense of the country.