{"id":38200,"date":"2018-06-23T13:53:22","date_gmt":"2018-06-23T13:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/06\/23\/as-threats-mount-us-navy-grapples-with-costly-ballistic-missile-defense-mission\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:02:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:02:53","slug":"as-threats-mount-us-navy-grapples-with-costly-ballistic-missile-defense-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2018\/06\/23\/as-threats-mount-us-navy-grapples-with-costly-ballistic-missile-defense-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"As threats mount, US Navy grapples with costly ballistic missile defense mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2015 Tensions on the Korean Peninsula<\/a> were at an all-time high. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

North Korea was preparing to launch seven ballistic missiles, aiming for major advances in its long-range strike capabilities. The Japanese government was furious, and intelligence was warning that the North Korean government was preparing a nuclear test. Military strikes or even war, it seemed, was a distinct possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And war it might have been if the U.S. hadn\u2019t already been bogged down with 140,000 troops deployed to Iraq<\/a> in a war that was spinning out of control in the wake of the bombing of a holy Shia mosque in Samarra at the hands of Sunni militants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Bush administration staring a massive policy disaster in the face, the country wasn\u2019t going to stomach even the potential for a major conflict with North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So instead the Bush administration turned to the Navy. During the July 2006 crisis, a budding capability in the fleet\u2019s surface force was brought to bear in a real-world threat environment for everyone to see. Sea-based ballistic missile defense was still in its infancy \u2015 the destroyer Curtis Wilbur had performed the world\u2019s first ballistic missile defense patrol in 2004. But with North Korea\u2019s tests looming, newly upgraded destroyers were dispatched to patrol the Sea of Japan, waiting for then-North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to make his move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seemed, at the time, like a major victory for the surface fleet. In the nation\u2019s time of need, with air and ground forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, Aegis destroyers built to employ Cold War-era technologies designed to defeat the Soviet air threat had landed on a new mission that would justify the lavish expense of maintaining the world\u2019s most advanced fleet for years to come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But today, the world is different. <\/p>\n\n\n\t