The case for defense

WASILLA — Last Friday, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman teamed up with the pro-Alaska think tank Commonwealth North to present ‘Breakfast with a Champion’ at the Menard Center in Wasilla.

The guest speaker was Riki Ellison, who played middle linebacker in the NFL for 10 years, winning three Super Bowl Champions with the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s, but very little of the content of his speech had to do with football glory. It instead focused on what’s become his passion in his football afterlife — advocacy for U.S. missile defense systems.

It’s no wonder then that Ellison, who founded the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance in 2002, makes regular visits to Alaska, where a vast majority of missile defense interceptors are located.

Ellison was introduced by Mead Treadwell, President of Commonwealth North and a former Alaska Lt. Gov.

Treadwell was reminded of a conversation he’d had long ago with the late Sen. Ted Stevens, wherein the question came up as to why the nation’s missile defenses were headquartered in North Dakota, and not a more strategic place like Alaska.

Stevens was no small part of the move to relocate the core of missile defense to Alaska in the midst of the Cold War, and today, Ellison said, the 40 interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska are capable of taking down any ballistic missile coming from North Korea.

“Those interceptors are vital for the security of the United States and today, we might see a cohesive peace treaty and the end of the Korean War,” Ellison said. “There’s no possible way our president wouldn’t meet with (North Korean President Kim Jong-Un) if he didn’t have complete confidence in those 40 interceptors in Alaska. We have complete confidence that anything that comes from North Korea as an ICBM, we can defeat it here.”

Ellison said Alaska’ missile defense system is also equipped to thwart any attacks from Iran, as well.

“The Iran deal, whether you think it’s good or bad… our missile defense in Alaska can defeat anything Iran has,” Ellison said. “What we have created with our missile defense has created stability in the world — peace in the world.”

When Ellison was a rookie linebacker with the 49ers, President Ronald Reagan was busy pushing for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that was somewhat derisively called “Star Wars”. Ellison that those assumptions critical of the effort were misguided.

“The concept everybody had was that it was lasers, that is was Star Wars, but actually, today there is no space-based missile defense, no lasers,” Ellison said. “(The SDI) revolution brought us the kinetic energy process of metal hitting metal at 17,000 mph. It’s all algorithms, basic arithmetic.”

Ellison said that in recent fighting, Yemen has fired 500 missiles into Saudi Arabia and Saudi interceptors have taken down more than 300 of them, and that Israel has had similar success thwarting rockets from Syria.

“It works, there’s no doubt about it,” Ellison said.

That being said, the future of that stability, peace safety and American dominance in the realm of missile defense is in serious jeopardy, Ellison said, due to an emerging technological breakthrough known as hypersonic missiles.

“On hypersonic, China is 10 years ahead, 10 times more invested and they’re testing to create a missile system that’s not ballistic,” Ellison said. “Hypersonic missiles are like skipping a flat stone on water with maneuvering capability at 20 times the speed of sound.”

A defensive player on the football field, Ellison said U.S. policy has become too focused on offensive tactics at the expense of a strong defense.

“When it comes to close combat fighting, nobody can touch us,” Ellison said. “So what Russia and China have done is create technology that will never get them into close contact. They’re changing the game. Space, air, sea, cyber — all of that together is different from what we’ve seen from past threats.”

Ellison said Fort Greely figures to continue to expand its missile defense capability, but, that it should also be diversified to include defense sites in Adak and Kodiak.

“It’s just like Ted Stevens said, North Dakota can’t defend Alaska or Hawaii,” Ellison said. “Where’s the defense of our $1 billion radar?... Thank God for Ted Stevens, thank God for Alaska, because it’s gotten us to the possibility of peace for the first time in Korea.”