A Third Continental Missile Interceptor Site?

Benjamin Giltner

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Recently, the House of Representatives approved a bill for the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with the bill allocating a total of $895 billion in discretionary funds. Congress announced this staggering amount amid the Congressional Budget Office’s report that the U.S. is expected to reach a $1.9 trillion budget deficit by the end of 2024. It’s clear that something needs to change with federal spending, and making changes to defense spending is an obvious way at achieving this goal. In this NDAA, the House of Armed Services Committee One of the programs mentioned in this defense budget proposal is the creation of a third continental missile interceptor site. Not only should policymakers look to drop this proposed third continental missile interceptor site on America’s east coast, but they should cut a majority of America’s continental missile interceptor system—the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System (GMD), the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD).

Theoretically, continental missile defense systems should defend the U.S. from ballistic missile attacks. However, they fail on this account. These defense systems tend make a security competition between two countries more unstable. In this case, a defensive weapon actually increases offensive capabilities. A country’s ability to retaliate is the best form of deterrence, especially when it comes to nuclear weapons. Continental missile interceptors reduce this ability to retaliate. Robert Jervis explained this conundrum, stating that a country “would be able to alter the status quo” if it were to protect its military capabilities and population from a retaliatory attack. In other words, the side with continental missile defense capabilities does not fear retaliation if it were to strike first. During the Cold War, for instance, the Soviets feared that the development of the Reagan Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative would give America a first-strike advantage.