(My internet connection went down four hours ago. Sorry for the paucity of posts this afternoon.)
With [tag]North Korea[/tag] raising the possibility of some provocative missile tests, the United States has responded by turning our “missile defense system” on.
Amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, the [tag]United States[/tag] has moved its ground-based [tag]interceptor[/tag] [tag]missile defense[/tag] [tag]system[/tag] from test mode to operational, a U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a Washington Times report that the Pentagon has activated the system, which has been in the developmental stage for years. “It’s good to be ready,” the official said.
Well, it is good to be ready, but the minor detail the [tag]Pentagon[/tag] official neglected to mention is that no one knows if this defense system is capable of striking literally anything.
I saw one far-right blog today that went intto full-boast mode. Under the headline, “Thank God for Ronald Reagan & SDI,” the site said the Pentagon’s decision to turn on the missile defense system is proof that “liberals were on the wrong side of history.” The post went on to say, “If not for Ronald Reagan, and his vision and leadership, we would now be at the mercy of that lunatic in North Korea.”
Look, I’d be delighted if there was some kind of shield that could intercept missiles. We don’t. Critics of this system aren’t “on the wrong side of history”; just the opposite — we’re the ones paying attention to whether the darn thing actually works. And when the system has been put to the test, it almost always fails.
Operational tests are where the entire missile-defense program has run aground. The last successful intercept-test took place in October 2002. Since then (and before, as well), failures have ranged from complex (it missed the target) to jaw-droppingly basic (the rocket carrying the interceptor wouldn’t launch). In a February 2003 report, the Pentagon’s own testing director wrote that individual elements of the program — much less the entire system — had “yet to demonstrate significant operational capability.” Nothing has changed since then. (Tests were soon after suspended, to allow major redesigns; they are scheduled to resume late this year or early next.)
There are many, many reasons to be skeptical that this system, or any part of it, will ever work, no matter how many more billions of dollars are poured into it.
If the United States ever does deploy a system, a not terribly clever foe — the leaders of North Korea, Iran, or wherever — could evade it in two easy ways. They could fire two missiles at each target (no missile-defense test has ever been conducted against multiple targets, nor are any such tests scheduled). Or instead of firing a missile from a launch site whose location is known (thus making it easy for us to track the missile’s flight path to the target), they could load a missile on a barge, take it much closer to the target’s coastline, and fire it at such a short range that it doesn’t have to arc high into outer space; it could fly underneath the missile-defense system’s radar. (These techniques, by the way, are well-known and have been much discussed; the bad guys don’t need me to tell them how to do it.)
Anyone counting on this system protecting us is making assumptions the facts don’t support. We’re talking about an technological endeavor that requires an unprecedented coordination of space-based sensors, signal-analysis computers, interceptor agility and enough sheer thrust to lift a 10-ton object to about 20 times the speed of sound in less than a minute. So far, no one has been able to pull it off very well — and they may never be able to.
Before anyone thanks God for Reagan and declares themselves safe from the lunatic in North Korea, it’s something to consider.