Defense Budget and Military Readiness © by Richard T. Kusiolek (all rights reserved)

As reported by news sources, President Donald Trump wants lawmakers to give the Pentagon an additional $4 billion for “urgent” missile defense improvements against North Korea and nearly $2 billion more to increase troop levels in Afghanistan by 3,500 and repair damaged naval ships. In a letter sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) on Monday, President Trump seeks US House of Representatives to pass budget amendments to give the Department of Defense $10billion that consist of $4 billion for “defense enhancements to counter the threat from North Korea.”. - plus, an additional $4 billion for “urgent” missile defense improvements against North Korea and nearly $2 billion more to increase troop levels in Afghanistan by 3,500 and repair damaged naval ships .

Boeing - Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system

In October 2017, the 44th and final Boeing interceptor in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system was installed with Raytheon ‘s new Ground-based Interceptor (GBI) Global Security. Org’s website state that the “deployed GBI would be a dormant missile that would remain in the underground launch silo until launch. Launches would occur only in defense of the United States from a ballistic missile attack. There would be no flight testing of the missiles at the NMD deployment site. The technical status of each missile would be monitored and any required maintenance conducted at a contractor's offsite production facility. Interceptors in storage would be used to replace missiles requiring repair or selectively removed for reliability testing. Each missile would contain approximately 12,595 kilograms (27,766 pounds) of solid propellant. The exo-atmospheric kill vehicle would contain approximately 9 to 14 kilograms (20 to 30 pounds) of liquid propellant. These liquid propellants would consist of monomethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. An 08 September 2014 report [DODIG-2014-111] by the DOD Inspector General found that Boeing Defense, Space and Security of St. Louis and Raytheon Missile Systems of Tucson, Arizona were not ensuring that software development processes and testing were sufficient, which could result in reliability issues. Boeing and Raytheon did not ensure all quality assurance and technical requirements for mission-critical assemblies flowed down to the supply chain and were verified. Therefore, it is uncertain that all supplier products will meet system, performance, and reliability requirements. In November 2014 Boeing and Raytheon said they had corrected software and other quality assurance issues with a critical Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) that were identified in the September report by the Defense Department’s internal investigative arm.”

Raytheon -EKV

Raytheon’s EKV is designed to destroy incoming ballistic missile threats by colliding with them, a concept often described as "hit to kill." The EKV has an advanced multi-color sensor used to detect and discriminate incoming warheads from other objects. The EKV also has its own propulsion, communications link, discrimination algorithms, guidance and control system, and computers to support target selection and intercept. “Deployed and operational today, the EKV has had eight successful intercepts throughout the life of the program. Raytheon's sea-based X-band radar (SBX) and AN/TPY-2 radar. Both play critical roles in supporting the GMD system. A world leader in kill vehicle design and production, Raytheon is simultaneously managing four kill vehicle programs – the EKV, SM-3® interceptor, Redesigned Kill Vehicle and Multi-Object Kill Vehicle. The Raytheon kill vehicle family has a combined record of more than 40 successful space intercepts.”

Lockheed Martin - THAAD

The US DoD is set to purchase 15 Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptors that have kinetic warheads that intercept missile threats. Also 50 additional Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors that set on mobile platforms. “The missile system to intercept intermediate-range ballistic missiles both inside and outside the atmosphere. THAAD interceptors have a range of about 200 kilometers and use “hit-to-kill” technology to destroy missiles in their terminal phase of flight. THAAD is a 30yr old technology design, tested and fielded by Lockheed Martin. Japan has agreed to make the purchasing of USA military equipment a top priority. If North Korea again fires its ICBM over Japan, it will be destroyed by more THAAD mobile launchers

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BUDGET

In an interview on Air Force One’s flight to Asia, President Trump initially asked for $9.9 billion for missile defense for the fiscal year 2018, which was lower than the previous year. “We’re going to be increasing our budget by many billions of dollars because of North Korea and other reasons having to do with the anti-missile…Our troops will fight to win,” Trump said. “From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.” Also for the US Navy, over $700 million will be spent to repair the USS John S McCain and the USS Fitzgerald, two Navy ships that were damaged in fatal collisions at sea.

Homeland Security will be enhanced with $1.6 billion to build a wall along the US’s southern border with Mexico.

According to the DEA, “Most of the illicit drugs come into the United States across the vast 2,000-mile land border between the US and Mexico, called the Southwestern border or SWB. Drug cartels in Mexico utilize drug mules, tunnels, boats, vehicles, trains, aircrafts, donkeys, and couriers to get illegal drugs into America. Mexican drug cartels make an estimated $19-$29 billion a year on drug sales in the United States. Conflicts between drug cartels over territory as well as the attempts to stop drug trafficking by law enforcement officials often results in violence, and this has caused over 55,000 deaths since the proclaimed Mexican Drug War began in 2006.” Major entry point will be increasable California as the Governor J Brown signed legislation that California is now a Sanctuary State and the Federal DEA cannot be notified of the arrest of illegals of drugs, weapons, or cases of rape and violence

So far US Defense budget is at $700 billion but will go up. Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) who is slowly dying from non-curable brain cancer is still the chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committees, and he “welcome the President’s amendment to his initial defense budget request and look forward to giving it the serious consideration it deserves. The timely submission of this budget amendment means that the NDAA conferees will be able to consider this request in time to incorporate the additional funding into the final agreement.” Was part of a written Press Release by Senator McCain’s media staffers.

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