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CDI Library > The Defense Monitor > 2000 >
NMD
On September 8, Philip Coyle, Director of the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, testified about the status of the National Missile Defense (NMD) program before the National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee. Near the end of his opening statement, Mr. Coyle enumerated the capabilities and breadth of activities associated with deployment of an effective NMD system points that any administration ought to fully understand before making a commitment to field NMD. "Deployment means the fielding of an operational system with some military utility, which is effective under realistic combat conditions against realistic threats and countermeasures, possibly without adequate prior knowledge of the target cluster composition, timing, trajectory or direction, and one operated by military personnel at all times of the day or night and in all weather." In other words, to be considered a successful development, NMD must demonstrate that it can reliably perform hit-to-kill collisions [NMD has hit a target only once in three attempts to date], reliably perform hit-to-kill as an integrated weapons system [employing its designed interceptor- booster, radars, sensors, communications, and battle management suite], and reliably perform hit-to-kill against realistic targets employing realistic countermeasures.
As Mr. Coyle observed immediately after giving his definition of deployment, "Such a capability
has yet to be shown practicable for NMD."
For more details and analysis, visit CDI's National Missile Defense page.
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