In some of my earlier diaries, I have taken a look at the history of national missile defense programs, the Bush administration’s fixation on the concept, and the numerous ways that this administration has incorrectly approached the problem. I also took a look at what I described as the, “Myth of Success.”
It appears it is time to revisit the topic.
The U.S. military shot down a target ballistic missile over the Pacific Friday in the widest test of its emerging antimissile shield in 18 months, the Defense Department announced.
The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.
[…]
In the exercise, a target missile was launched from Kodiak, Alaska. And for the first time, the ground-based interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. Previous launches have been from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Here we go again…
The first thing to note here, is that these tests are the furthest thing from a realistic test of the National Missile Defense system than we could possibly have. They are highly structured events, with every aspect of the test having been predetermined and preprogrammed. We have no reason to think this test was any different.
To get an idea about what we are talking about, let us take a look back at some of the previously “successful” tests of this system. From the Union of Concerned Scientists:
IFT-6: July 14, 2001
After several months of delays, the fourth test of the ground-based NMD resulted in a successful intercept of a mock warhead 144 miles into outer space after two straight failures in similar tests. One 5.5-foot decoy balloon was used in the test, which again involved a ballistic missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and a kill vehicle launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
On July 27, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization acknowledged that the mock warhead, as in previous tests, carried a beacon or “transponder,” that allowed a radar on Hawaii to determine its location. This information was then used to calculate a predicted intercept point and launch the interceptor toward this point. Defense officials emphasized that the beacon is a surrogate for an early warning radar in the tests, and will no longer be used once the existing early warning radar at Beale, California (near Sacramento) is upgraded next year.
This artificiality appears to be on par with others in the tests so far; in particular, the defense is told in advance what the signature of the mock kill vehicle and balloon decoy will be to allow the radars and kill vehicle to distinguish one from the other
Today’s test was the first use of the Beale, California early warning system, and the stories now being released would have you believe that the results imply a full complete success. Unfortunately, using the Beale site to track the incoming missile does little to remove the other glaring problems inherent in the program.
From the Union of Concerned Scientists report on the program:
First, the test conditions have not been varied: The test geometries and closing speed and angle have been nearly identical. The tests have occurred at the same time of day, even though the infrared signal of an object in space depends strongly on whether it is in sunlight or in shadow. And in each test the target cluster included the same or similar objects.
Second, the system’s ability to discriminate the warhead from other elements in the target cluster has not been realistically tested: The mock warhead and balloons have had very different radar and infrared signatures.
More important, the defense was provided with detailed a priori information about the characteristics and expected appearance of all the objects in the test. The radars that will be part of the Block 2004 system will not be able to discriminate warheads from other objects (decoys or debris), so discrimination will rely on the kill vehicle alone. Yet no tests in which the kill vehicle relies on its sensor to discriminate the warhead have been conducted, and none are planned through 2007.
The basic goal of these intercept tests has, according to the MDA, been to demonstrate hit to kill. But hit to kill was first demonstrated more than 20 years ago; the goal here should be to demonstrate hit to kill under conditions relevant to intercepting long-range missiles.
[…]
The new Pacific test bed, coupled with the new three-stage interceptor, will allow the MDA to conduct tests under more realistic conditions.
However, the test bed alone will not address the lack of realism in flight testing, nor is it needed to address the key realism issues: testing without a priori information, under unscripted conditions, and against realistic countermeasures. The MDA flight test program through September 2007 will not include countermeasures that the Pentagon’s director of operational testing and evaluation has identified as simple for the enemy to implement.
In fact, the MDA has no current plans to conduct tests under unscripted conditions, nor is it clear that such operationally realistic testing will ever be conducted.
It should be noted that no details of the test have yet been released, and odds are this will not be done without significant pressure from outside organizations. We have up until this point however, received no indication that this test was any more realistic. In fact, the military made it quite clear that this was never their intention:
Although an intercept is possible, the main goal is “to collect data on overall system performance and interceptor sensor technology,” said Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.
In the 10 full-fledged flight intercept tests to date, only five have shot down target missiles. Still, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency, has said he is confident the shield would have worked against a U.S.-bound North Korean missile if a decision had been made to shoot it down.
In these two paragraphs is the most dangerous part of these tests: The illusion of safety. The myth of success.
While those actually working on the program will be the first to admit that these tests are more about research than realism, the military leadership and civilian politicans who fuel the program’s funding are more than happy to translate relatively commonplace occurances into a PR campaign. They have crafted a security blanket for the American people, but underneath, as with everything else crafted by this administration, the emperor is naked and undefended. This is the reality of our National Missile Defense system.
But don’t take my word for it, believe those who have worked with such systems:
Philip Coyle, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester under President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2001 and a leading critic of the Missile Defense Agency, said reviewing such data normally takes weeks.
“So it seems odd that the MDA is declaring success so soon,” he said in a telephone interview with Reuters. “It makes you wonder how serious they are about the primary purpose of the test.”
That is the other main truth about this program: True security and success is not the goal of this administration. The National Missile Defense system is more about maintaining the arms race of the Cold War than it is about maintaining the security of the American people. This is the neoconservative ideology in action. This is how they keep the fear alive, and this is how they keep their power.
So please, I ask that we take a step back from the spectacle of exploding missiles, and begin to ask serious questions of this administration: After hundreds of billions of dollars, what has this program given us beyond the false hope of possibly shooting down a missile that will more than likely never come? How can we justify spending $10 billon a year on this program, while our ports lay undefended? How can this administration sleep at night?
I’ve had enough of George Bush’s “success stories.”
(Originally posted at Deny My Freedom and cross posted at My Left Wing and Daily Kos)
