Last month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a scathing report: the system to defend the U.S. from ballistic missiles doesn't work, and probably never will. But it gets worse. Congress then voted to expand the broken system, allocating money for a new, sub-par missile defense site. How did this happen?
It's the latest iteration of federally-funded cognitive dissonance that has been going on for years. In theory, the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) systemwhich is overseen by the Missile Defense Agency should be capable of launching missile interceptors, each tipped with a "kill vehicle" that detaches, detects and destroys the incoming threat. In the real world, ground-based missile defense has failed all three of its flight tests since 2010.
Yet, the United States keeps building it. Thus far, 30 interceptor missiles have been deployed at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The Pentagon says it plans to deploy another 14 interceptors in Alaska by 2017. However, additional flight testing intended to demonstrate the system's capabilities and limitations is not scheduled to be completed until at least 2022.
After reviewing a report from the Department of Defense, which proposed an accelerated testing schedule, the Government Accountability Office, which acts as the investigative arm of Congress, concluded:
Since 2003, we have found this approach of concurrently manufacturing, deploying, and testing interceptors is high risk because tests may uncover issues requiring costly design changes and retrofit programs....
It is unlikely that DOD can successfully accelerate the pace of GMD's testing given its testing track record and the increasing complexity of planned tests
In addition, the report provided insufficient information to assess whether accelerating GMD's testing pace is prudent because it did not address the potential full cost, benefits, and risks of accelerating testing.
Translation: It's broken, the Defense Department has no clear idea how to fix it and throwing more money at this problem will only dig us in deeper. The GAO has calculated that, by 2017, the GMD system will cost taxpayers more than $40 billion.
And now Congress wants to break ground on a third site on or near the East Coastthe military equivalent of a bridge to nowhere.
Hello? Is This Thing On?
What makes this worseyes, there's always a "worse"is that the GAO was not the first, but the third government agency in recent years to conclude that GMD was in need of a complete overhaul. In 2012, The National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council published a 260-page study, saying that the Missile Defense Agency's efforts "have spawned an almost 'hobby shop' approach, with many false starts on poorly analyzed concepts." The Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation issued a report in February 2014, raising doubts about the "robustness" of the technology.
In fact, a researcher at the National Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation reviewed previous editions of that Pentagon report and culled together the following quotes:
2011: "To date, GMD has demonstrated a limited capability against a simple threat."
2010: "To date, GMD has demonstrated a limited capability against a simple threat."
2009: "To date, GMD has demonstrated a limited capability against a simple threat."
2008: "While GMD has demonstrated a capability against a simple foreign threat, GMD flight testing to date will not support a high level of confidence in its limited capabilities."
2007: "To date, GMD demonstrated a limited capability against a simple foreign threat. GMD flight testing to date is not sufficient to provide a high level of statistical confidence in its limited capabilities."
2006: "The program still needs additional flight test data under stressing conditions to validate models and simulations and to increase confidence in the models, simulations, and assessment of system capability."
How bad is this? It's so bad that an independent review panel commissioned by the government once recommended reducing GMD flight testsbecause the inevitable failures would undermine its deterrent value against foreign attacks.
And those GMD interceptor missiles already deployed in California and Alaska? They don't work, but the National Academy of Sciences has a spiffy idea on how to recycle them: remove them from their silos and use them as practice targets when the Missile Defense Agency finally figures out a better system.
