The long-running US missile defense debacle

[Stalin]

Guess who will be the main beneficiary of this rework of an ancient scam

"..National missile defense is the longest-running scam in the history of the Department of Defense. And what the Trump administration has now done is to revive an old, discredited idea, pump it full of new expectations, and market it as an instant fix to America’s vulnerability to ballistic missiles. This, of course, is nonsense.

Trump claims it’s only going to cost $175 billion, and it’ll be all done by the end of his term. Which is insane. You probably won’t even get the architecture of the system settled by the end of his administration.

Missile defense is an old idea that has been proven not to work, and it’s not for lack of effort. Ever since we deployed the first missile interceptors in 1962, we have spent over $531 billion on various failed missile-defense schemes. None have worked.

All we have to show for these decades of effort are 44 interceptors in Alaska and California that are so bad that the Department of Defense just awarded Lockheed Martin an $18 billion contract to build a brand-new replacement system. So none of this has worked.

Trump claims that Reagan didn’t have the missile-defense technology, but we now have “super technology.” That is simply not true. While there have been improvements in computers and miniaturization and lethality of kill vehicles, these are comparatively incremental considering the challenge that a defensive system faces. As the American Physical Society report concluded earlier this year, any conceivable missile defense system can be easily overwhelmed by an enemy firing a salvo of missiles instead of just one. And by deploying rudimentary countermeasures that can spoof the system’s sensors. And if you can’t see the warhead, you can’t hit it.

So I wouldn’t expect anything to come out of this program except for hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts

The 15-minute interview: Joe Cirincione on Golden Dome and the long-running US missile defense debacle

An interview with Joe Cirincione, a longtime national security and nuclear policy analyst, about the Trump administration's Golden Dome project and a US national missile defense program that Cirincione calls "the longest-running scam in the history of the Department of Defense."

thebulletin.org

comrade stalin
mosocw

 

[mark francis]

Guess who will be the main beneficiary of this rework of an ancient scam

"..National missile defense is the longest-running scam in the history of the Department of Defense. And what the Trump administration has now done is to revive an old, discredited idea, pump it full of new expectations, and market it as an instant fix to America’s vulnerability to ballistic missiles. This, of course, is nonsense.

Trump claims it’s only going to cost $175 billion, and it’ll be all done by the end of his term. Which is insane. You probably won’t even get the architecture of the system settled by the end of his administration.

Missile defense is an old idea that has been proven not to work, and it’s not for lack of effort. Ever since we deployed the first missile interceptors in 1962, we have spent over $531 billion on various failed missile-defense schemes. None have worked.

All we have to show for these decades of effort are 44 interceptors in Alaska and California that are so bad that the Department of Defense just awarded Lockheed Martin an $18 billion contract to build a brand-new replacement system. So none of this has worked.

Trump claims that Reagan didn’t have the missile-defense technology, but we now have “super technology.” That is simply not true. While there have been improvements in computers and miniaturization and lethality of kill vehicles, these are comparatively incremental considering the challenge that a defensive system faces. As the American Physical Society report concluded earlier this year, any conceivable missile defense system can be easily overwhelmed by an enemy firing a salvo of missiles instead of just one. And by deploying rudimentary countermeasures that can spoof the system’s sensors. And if you can’t see the warhead, you can’t hit it.

So I wouldn’t expect anything to come out of this program except for hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts

The 15-minute interview: Joe Cirincione on Golden Dome and the long-running US missile defense debacle

An interview with Joe Cirincione, a longtime national security and nuclear policy analyst, about the Trump administration's Golden Dome project and a US national missile defense program that Cirincione calls "the longest-running scam in the history of the Department of Defense."

thebulletin.org

comrade stalin
mosocw

Missile defense systems have been working well in nations defending themselves from heathen barbarian warlords firing large missiles at civilian populations.