Abnormal Interests

It's hard to find hard numbers but the total cost of the "National Missile Defense System" will be in the $100 billion and $1 trillion range by the year 2030 range (assuming 1999 dollars. That's a big range, but small change compared to the cost of privatizing Social Security. The Pentagon will not give a total number. $10.2 B is in the FY 2005 budget. The Department of Defense's glossy budget summary does not even mention the missile defense system. But, the "Analytical Perspective" does mention it: only 8.5B for FY 2006 and rates it "Moderately Effective." This is a 17% decrease from this fiscal year and abouit the same as FY 2004.

Reviewing the whole analysis is important.

"Missile Defense ($8.6 billion in 2004). Rating: Moderately Effective. This program consists of various systems and capabilities developed by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and military services. This program acquires and operates active defenses against short, medium, and long-range missiles in a global, multi-layered defensive system. The assessment found that: a) the Department of Defense has aggressively worked to fund operations and support costs fully, and has been successful in coordinating service and MDA budget responsibilities; b) the Department continues to fund only two years deployment costs per each ‘block’ of missile defense deployments,even if significant portions of those deployments require four to five years of funding to fully implement. This policy continues to put at risk the completion of approved missile defense deployments; and c) MDA did not meet its testing goals in 2004 for the Ground Based Mid-Course Defense system, the main element of its first operational deployment.

Yes, it does say that it is only funding two years of deployment costs even if it takes four to five years. Do you think anything is being hidden here? I do. At least they acknowledge that they "did not meet ... testing goals in 2004." And now 2005 is off to a great start too. Remember the December 19, 2004 failure was also in FY 2005.

It's time to stop this program as anything more than a low to mid level research program. Let's not give anymore money to it until there is scientific consensus that the thing will ever work. And instead, we should rejoin the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Scott Ritter, remember him, he's one of the guys that was correct about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has a good article on the National Missile Defense system in the January 4, 2005 Christian Science Monitor. It begins like this.

On Christmas Eve 2004, the Russian Strategic Missile Force test fired an advanced SS-27 Topol-M road-mobile intercontinental ballistic Missile (ICBM). This test probably invalidated the entire premise and technology used in the National Missile Defense (NMD) system currently being developed and deployed by the Bush administration, and at the same time called into question the validity of the administration's entire approach to arms control and disarmament.

And then it turns negative. He notes, among other things that Patriot Missile System failed miserably in the 1991 war. Apparently, it was somewhat better in the current Iraq war but among its many problems was that it couldn't tell a SCUD from an American plane or helicopter. Ritter describes a new Russian system that would require a top down redesign of Star Wars. The current system just wouldn't work against the Russian SS-27's. How long will it that for Korea or Iran to get this technology of these missiles? I don't know but it will be sooner rather than later is we don't rejoin the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.