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An in-depth look at the Nationa Missile Defense System Page 3 |
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Warning Flags
Pentagon plans and projections are not reliable. There is, as yet, no working missile defense system, and no one can say exactly what it will take (or cost) to build one. A great deal of guesswork goes into the best-informed projections. Also, NMD will change with changes in the military and political situation. For example, President Bush has already said NMD should protect America's allies and that would require the addition of so-called Theater Missile Defenses in the form of ship-launched interceptors and/or Air-Borne Lasers. Finally, none of the cost estimates presented here include the $10.8 billion for SBIRS HIGH and LOW or the estimated $44 billion already spent on NMD since the 1980s. It's All in the Timing
Ironically, the heaviest pressure isn't coming from NMD's opponents. It's the old "Star Wars" crowd that is giving program managers fits right now. NMD's loudest supporters include people who never gave up the dream of building "Star Wars." They are constantly lobbying for rapid deployment of an expanded NMD, loaded up with "bells and whistles" ÐÐ regardless of the technical and budgetary problems program managers must deal with in the real world. If you truly want NMD to work, let actual events like test results and technical breakthroughs set the pace, not somebody's politically driven schedule, program managers keep saying. “The technologies we are using in our elements our sensors, interceptors, and BM/C3 are not what make this a high-risk program. Rather, it is our short development schedule that compels us to work with so much risk," Lt. General Ronald T. Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told a House committee last fall. The Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Philip E. Coyle, was even more blunt. While “the NMD program has demonstrated considerable progress during the past two years," Coyle told the House that day, “deployment means the fielding of an operational system with some military utility which is effective under realistic combat conditions, against realistic threats and countermeasures. Such a capability is yet to be shown to be practical for NMD. “NMD acquisition and construction schedules need to be linked to capability achievements demonstrated in a robust test program, not to schedule per se," Coyle said. He then laid out dozens of difficulties the program must overcome: schedules that are "slipping at a rate of 20 months every three years," and core technologies that haven’t demonstrated their ability to work ÐÐ including whether X-Band radars and EKVs can distinguish decoys from real warheads, and whether interceptors can locate incoming missiles under realistic flight conditions. Kadish made an eloquent statement to the House members,
part plea, part counsel:
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