August 28, 2018—On Legacies of John McCain

“Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principals, to the people on whom you rely and who rely on you.” ~ John S. McCain, III — Sailor, Representative, Senator, Patriot, American . . .

A few weeks ago, President Trump signed the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 (NDAA 2019) making it the “Law-of-the-Land.” His colleagues justifiably honored this patriot for his long life of service to the nation, not just his time on Capitol Hill. And I have my own reasons for applauding that tribute.

I first heard of John McCain from Fred Fuld, the father of my first son-in-law, who served with Admiral John S. McCain, Senator McCain’s grandfather, in World War II. Senator McCain then was still a young congressman from Arizona, shortly afterward to throw his hat in the ring to run successfully for the Senate in 1987 — and Fred thought he would one day be President. Close, but not quite …

I was then President Reagan’s Ambassador and Chief Negotiator in our Geneva Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union, defending his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) against all comers. Senator McCain began visiting us as a junior senator, and in short order made a name for himself as a serious but sometimes contrary man to be respected, even while displaying a memorable sense of humor.

As SDI Director during the George H.W. Bush administration, I dealt more directly with him. He was supportive of President Reagan’s important program, but demanded full explanations — a trait that eventually made him well known to all, including as a “maverick.”

My most extensive discussion with him was shortly after President Clinton’s inauguration, on the plane with numerous others attending the annual Wehrkunde Conference in Munich, now known as the Munich Security Conference. Some of us were still hopefully weighing the possibilities of cooperating with the Russians after the end of the Cold War. As I recall, he was supportive, but warned accurately that powerful interests, especially in the congress, ran counter to my hopes of ending the restraints of the ABM Treaty that blocked our efforts to build cost-effective defenses.

As he anticipated, the Clinton administration shortly thereafter abandoned the Reagan-Bush-41 agenda that sought to work jointly with Russia to build a global defense against ballistic missiles to defend the World Community, as Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin proposed in his January 1992 speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He even offered that we should exploit Russian technology in doing so, and I as SDI Director sponsored some important initiatives fitting that pattern by bringing some Russian scientists/engineers to the United States and supporting their work.

See the Washington Post headline below that indicated we were making progress in the latter days of the Bush-41 administration.

Yeltsin basically said “yes” to President Reagan’s position I had defended for five years in Geneva — and as SDI Director in my intermittent discussions with the Russians, our negotiators and others in Washington and among our allies who then welcomed pursuing this same agenda. The Russians accepted our positions reducing offensive nuclear arms while agreeing to build ballistic missile defenses, our position that they had rejected from the beginning of our talks in 1985,

But the Clinton administration regrettably almost immediately declared its allegiance to ABM Treaty that for two decades had prohibited any serious defense of the American People. (The Soviets had cheated on the conditions of that Treaty, as was their practice for years involving all their arms control agreements. And now Russia is following that Soviet tradition.)

In effect, the Clinton administration turned back the clock and its Pentagon leaders again made its underpinning assumption that mutual vulnerability (Mutual Assured Destruction — MAD) was the “cornerstone of strategic stability” … making it a virtue to keep the American people completely vulnerable to nuclear-armed ballistic missile attack.

On out flight to Munich, I was still hopeful that we might succeed in keeping key R&D activities going in the Clinton era — but was soon to be disappointed.

Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) was then Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), on which Senator McCain was a junior member. I had gone through Senator Nunn’s riveting rebukes during a SASC hearing the previous summer and expected continuing opposition even after I had complied in sharply cutting the Brilliant Pebbles program to a pure R&D effort laying the groundwork for eventually building a Space Based Interceptor (SBI) system. And I expedited as much as possible the Army’s development of a limited ground based interceptor (GBI) system.

But I had not expected the debilitating attacks on all ballistic missile defense (BMD) activities I left behind—perhaps because of a political legacy of the imagery of Senator Ted Kennedy’s “Star Wars” label used to suggest that our efforts to build BMD systems, particularly those based in space, were only a Reagan fantasy. That bias shortly would become evident as Defense Secretary Les Aspin “took the stars out of Star Wars” as he memorably said.

He previously was Senator Nunn’s counterpart as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC). I knew them both from their regular visits to Geneva and from my discussions with both while serving as SDI Director. Indeed, of the two, I thought Aspin was the more honest and supportive of pursuing the possibility of building effective defenses, including those based in space. From my discussions with him as HASC Chairman and in his regular visits to Geneva, I thought he was certainly most receptive to examining seriously the possibility of a viable Brilliant Pebbles effort.

But as Secretary of Defense, he almost immediately directed the dismantlement of all the BMD programs he inherited. For example, the Army was directed to return unopened industry’s proposals to begin a fully-approved Demonstration and Validation (DemVal) program to develop plans to build a GBI homeland defense system.

Of course, the R&D efforts for space based defenses were totally gutted and even for our theater missile defense (TMD) systems were sharply curtailed. Even the basic R&D on key technologies important to eventually building more effective defenses was essentially eliminated.

So Senator McCain’s unwelcome warning to me a quarter century ago was shortly thereafter to be proven to be accurate. During the subsequent years in the Clinton, Bush-43 and Obama years, in my few meetings with Senator McCain, he was supportive of our development efforts for our GBI homeland defense and TMD systems, especially the Aegis BMD systems that were opposed during those years by many in all three administrations.

Our friends in Congress, especially the other Senator from Arizona who became the Senate’s second ranking Republican, Jon Kyl, kept Aegis BMD alive and well. In my view, it is the most effective BMD system we now have, operating on about 35 Aegis Cruisers and Destroyers around the world. Moreover, several Aegis Ashore BMD sites are in place or being built to employ the components of the Aegis BMD system on land.

But nothing perceptible has been done to help revive the most important product of President Reagan’s SDI era — Brilliant Pebbles. Until recently.

So, you can see why I think the John S. McCain NDAA-2019 is most welcome, because it for the first time since those discussions with Senator McCain offers a way back from the wrong turn imposed by the Clinton administration, again to make Ronald Reagan’s SDI vision a real possibility. Click here for my previous discussion of this important development, titled in celebration “It’s the Law of the Land!”

I trust Senator McCain approved the inclusion of the authorizing language of the act that bears his name. In any case, it ends the pessimism he expressed on that flight to Munich a quarter century ago.

Most related press accounts are now focused on what funds will be appropriated cover the authorized “Law of the Land” named for Senator McCain. I understand that important funding will be embodied in the Appropriations Act now pending congressional passage and the President’s signature — and I trust the NDAA-2019 will be fully funded, if not with additional appropriated funds.

This initiative can take advantage of technological advances over the past quarter century that enable today’s engineers to build even more cost-effective ballistic missile defenses. For example, a very important article in the August 24 Aviation Week Daily Digest article made very clear that developments of the private sector, in my opinion, make the most cost-effective pathway to truly cost-effective defenses — a modern Brilliant Pebbles system that can be deployed in five or so years. I hope that congress and the Trump administration make it happen. See my following Newsmax article that was triggered by this important Aviation Week article, focused on important advances of the private sector.

Modernize Our Defenses by Going Back to the Future

By Henry F. Cooper, Newsmax, Friday, 24 August 2018 02:56 PM Current | Bio | Archive https://www.newsmax.com/henryfcooper/ndaa-sdi-reagan/2018/08/24/id/878635/

This morning’s Aviation Week Daily Digest led with an article that dovetails with my advocacy for reviving the most important system concept that was produced by President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that I was privileged to lead a quarter of a century ago. Its title essentially says it all, “Small Satellites Take on Big Missions.”

This important article begins by noting that, between 2012 and 2017, over 1000 small satellites (“smallsats”) were launched into orbit primarily for Earth observation applications. And the viability of such smallsats for other purposes is growing. For example, that introduction noted that the Federal Communications Commission has approved the deployment of 5264 small satellites from four companies to provide broadband communications from low earth orbit. And proposals from eight other companies are pending for other applications—many with business applications.

A number of conclusions might be drawn from these brief observations and the article itself, which is well worth reading. But, in my opinion, one of the most important is that the ballistic missile defense (BMD) “powers that be” should again recognize such advances made in the private sector can and should be incorporated in a space-based system like the “Brilliant Pebbles” space-based interceptor (SBI) system — that exploited commercial off-the-shelf technology (COTS).

I have repeatedly advocated this approach, including in my August 2^nd Newsmax article that keyed on the continuing threat from North Korea, while our negotiations with Kim Jong Un continue, even as the House approved National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 (NDAA 2109) directed the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to “establish a boost phase intercept program using kinetic interceptors, initiate development of a missile defense tracking and discrimination space sensor layer, and continue efforts to develop high power directed energy for missile defense applications.”

And as previously discussed, the finally approved NDAA-2019 directed (thanks to an initiative by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas) that the Pentagon provide a plan for building a SBI system.

I again emphasize that we understood how to do this 30 years ago, but have been blocked by political, not technical impedance.

My March 1992 SDI Report to Congress illustrated (in Figure 6 from page 20) shows that if we had deployed 1000 Brilliant Pebbles, they long ago could have provided over a hundred opportunities to intercept North Korean ballistic missiles beginning in their boost phase and throughout their further flight until after they begin their reentry into the atmosphere over the United States.

Indeed, had we deployed Brilliant Pebbles once we were free from the ABM Treaty in 2002, North Korea (and Iran) might have been discouraged from developing nuclear armed ballistic missiles that pose the current threat. And we would have a much more effective global BMD system today.

The Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) approved the estimated cost for developing, deploying and operating for 20 years that Brilliant Pebbles constellation: $10-billion dollars in 1988 dollars — or about $20 billion today.

Today the cost of such a constellation should be substantially less, given the advances in COTS technology (and reduced satellite launch costs) that make possible the applications summarized in this morning’s Aviation Week Daily Digest article. Even a larger more capable constellation could be built for less.

Is it any wonder that the first four directors of what is today called the Missile Defense Agency had long considered Brilliant Pebbles to the most important concept to result from President Reagan’s SDI?

Three of us former SDI Directors (the fourth was deceased) and the Program Manager of the “Brilliant Pebbles” Task Force that led that important effort on November 29, 2016 have urged that President Trump revive “Brilliant Pebbles” and fulfill President Reagan’s SDI Vision. Hear! Hear!

Congress has done its part in the NDAA 2019. Hopefully, a modern Brilliant Pebbles initiative will be included in the pending Missile Defense Review, even while its important role in President Trump’s Space Force also is being considered!

Stay tuned!

I would further emphasize the fact that Brilliant Pebbles went beyond the Pentagon’s advancing technology to exploit the advances of the “profit motivated” private sector. Click here for the Aviation Week article aptly entitled “Small Satellites Take On Big Missions,” and remember that the Brilliant Pebbles strategy followed the same course of exploiting commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology.

Moreover, many probably do not recall that the entire Brilliant Pebbles suite of sensors and associated command computers was space qualified on the Clementine mission formulated on my SDI watch in conjunction with NASA to return to orbit the Moon for the first time in a quarter century.

These essential components were scavenged from the Brilliant Pebbles hardware at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and LLNL scientists and engineers were responsible for their essential role in the Clementine mission. (The other key Brilliant Pebbles components, miniature rockets to propel the Pebbles, were also space qualified about the same time in the early 1990s.)

The space craft was developed and the overall mission was managed by the Naval Research Laboratory. The entire mission cost the taxpayers $80 million and obtained 1.8 million frames of data in multiple spectral bands — more data than the entire Apollo program costing orders of magnitude more.

Most notably, Clementine first identified ice in the polar regions — later verified by additional NASA missions, an important resource to support future missions now being considered to return to the Moon on the way to Mars. Click here and here for additional information and photos framed from some of that important sensor data.

Reports that water (ice) was recently discovered in the Moon’s polar regions were not only wrong, they illustrate how soon we forget what was done a quarter century ago.

And now we can do better.

Bottom Lines.

The President wants a Space Force, and Defense Secretary Mattis has announced that he now supports it after previously writing his opposition — and surely others in the Defense Department will follow.

Moreover, the John S. McCain NDAA-2019 mandates that the Pentagon provide a plan for such a SBI system within the next year. That would provide welcome closure with my discussions with him a quarter century ago.

By working constructively toward such operational capabilities, the Pentagon can “kick start” President Trump’s Space Force — and by the end of his second term help dominate space as is his stated objective.

Stay tuned for Pentagon reports to congress on the Missile Defense Review and the game plan for a Space Force.

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