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BMD Focus: Optimistic realism -- Part 1
Washington (UPI) Sep 27, 2007 Is U.S. ballistic-missile defense making giant strides or is it becalmed? Are the prospects of shooting down incoming ballistic missiles negligible or are they impressively high? The answers aren't always clear-cut, which is why champions of the program and its critics can often draw radically different conclusions from the same data. The Sept. 23 issue of Defense News reported an upbeat assessment on the program that Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, gave five days earlier to a gathering of European Union diplomats in Washington to boost the argument for deploying 10 Ground-based Midcourse Interceptors, or GBIs, at a new base to be constructed in Poland over the next few years to protect Western Europe and the United States from the threat of possible future Iranian missile attacks. "This technology does work, and we have proven it now time and time again over the past several years," Defense News quoted Obering as saying in his Sept. 18 speech to the European Institute. Obering correctly said the MDA had achieved 28 successful missile-interceptions in 36 tests over the past eight years. Since 2005, he said, the percentage had been even more impressive -- a stunning 21 interceptions in 22 tests. Defense News, however, cited the Arms Control Association as being skeptical of those numbers, while not disputing their accuracy. The ACA pointed out that while the 21 out of 22 figure is accurate, it combines interception tests against short- and intermediate-range target missiles, as well as much larger and faster intercontinental ballistic missiles. Wade Boese, the Arms Control Association's research director, told Defense News the figures for ICBM, or "strategic" missile interceptions, were only six hits in 11 attempts since 1999 and one hit in three tests since 2002. Defense News also noted many members of Congress have also expressed skepticism the tests carried out so far were carried out under ideal conditions, and that hitting incoming enemy missiles would be much harder. However, it should be noted that for all the vast funds that the Bush administration and successive Congresses, including the current Democrat-controlled one, have poured into BMD development and deployment, the current program of placing GBIs in Alaska is not meant to protect the United States against attack by Russia's formidable Strategic Missile Forces. The thousands of warheads that Russia could fire, including many on multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles, or MIRVs, would certainly overwhelm even the most expensive and ambitious BMD system that the United States could build. However, the current U.S. program is explicitly not designed to protect the United States against any full-scale Russian nuclear ICBM attack. It is designed to protect the nation against an attack by some so-called rogue nation such as Iran or North Korea, which might only be able to fire a single ICBM and at the most no more than 10 or a dozen against the United States or Western Europe. And when that is realized, the plan to deploy only 10 GBIs in Central Europe or a couple of dozen or 30, perhaps, eventually, in Alaska, makes a lot more sense. (Next: The strategy of missile defense) Related Links Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com All about missiles at SpaceWar.com Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com
BMD Watch: Alaska 'home' ready for SBX 
Washington (UPI) Sep 25, 2007 The home port facilities for the giant Sea-Based X-Band Radar that is a crucial component of the U.S. Ground-based Mid-course Interceptor, or GBI, system in Alaska took a major leap forward last week. The Boeing Co. said last Thursday that the mooring system for the SBX had been completed at the giant tracking radar's home port in Alaska. The SBX will get a test workout very soon. The Kodiak Daily Mirror newspaper in Alaska reported Tuesday that the Kodiak Launch Complex is preparing for another GBI test as early as this Friday. |
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