“[Missile defense] turned a major corner this past year.”
Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency, March 20, 2006

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Summary.
The multi-faceted missile defense program, currently the Pentagon’s golden child, has effectively avoided any and all tough questions.  Over $92 billion has been spent on missile defense systems since the Ronald Reagan administration, to little avail.  While the architecture still has not been finalized, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) envisions a system of systems, including ground-, sea-, and air-based interceptor weapons supported by a satellite system and new X-band radars for missile tracking, and a high-speed computer-based command and control system to link all the pieces together.  Unfortunately, the interceptor programs have to yet to prove that they are ready for actual operations, the satellite project is severely over budget and behind schedule, the X-band radars are not yet fully deployed, and the computer network to control the mega-system has been found to have faulty security making it vulnerable to hacking.

Overview.
President George W. Bush announced in December 2002 that, within two years, the United States would have deployed an initial missile defense system that could defend against a limited ICBM attack.  With that pressure from above, MDA focused its efforts on the fielding of interceptors in silos in Alaska and California under the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.  As of this writing, 13 interceptors have been emplaced in missile silos.  As well, MDA is working on a sea-based interceptor that is carried on the U.S. Navy’s Aegis ship, a sea-based X-band radar that is slowly floating to its home port in Alaska, a giant command and control module based out of Colorado, a satellite network that could track enemy missiles as they approach the U.S. homeland, and systems that are geared toward providing defense against shorter-range ballistic missiles (Theater High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, and the Patriot Advanced Capability PAC-3 system).  In the long run, MDA is building a modified Boeing 747 airplane that would carry lasers in its nose and kinetic kill vehicles for launch from various interceptor platforms that theoretically could obliterate multiple targets during a single interceptor launch.

MDA has been entrusted with a great deal of responsibility.  It has not lived up to it. In the past two months, no less than seven reports have been released that were critical of various aspects of the overall Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS).  Two reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), two from the Defense Department’s own Inspector General’s office, and reports by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Congressional Budgetary Office (CBO), and the Pentagon’s Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) all raise doubts about the feasibility of missile defense.  As a group, they offer a damning indictment of the missile defense system that supposedly offers the United States an initial defensive capability.

Seven Reports: In their own words.

1. Missile Defense Agency Fields Initial Capability but Falls Short of Original Goals (GAO-06-327), Government Accountability Office, March 15, 2006:  Spiral development “allowed the GMD program to concurrently mature technology, complete design activities, and produce and field assets before end-to-end testing of the system – all at the expense of cost, quantity, and performance goals.” Furthermore, “Compared to its original goals set in 2003, MDA fielded 10 fewer GMD interceptors than planned, two fewer radars, 11 fewer Aegis BMD missiles, and six fewer Aegis ships... According to MDA’s own audits, the interceptor’s design requirements were unclear and sometimes incomplete, design changes were poorly controlled, and the interceptor’s design resulted in uncertain reliability and service life.” Plus, the GMD interceptor was not tested to see if it could withstand the harsh environment of space through which it must pass on its way to hitting an enemy ballistic missile.

2. Assessments of Selected Major Weapons Programs (GAO 06-391, Government Accountability Office, March 31, 2006:  “Programs consistently move forward with unrealistic cost and schedule estimates, use immature technologies in launching product development, and fail to solidify design and manufacturing processes at appropriate points in development.”

3. Select Controls for the Information Security of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense Communications Network (D-2006-53), Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, Feb. 24, 2006:  The IG’s office noted that the security documents in place for the system “did not properly reflect current operations;” furthermore, MDA officials “had not fully implemented information assurance controls required to protect the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of the information in the [GMD] communications network.” Because of this, “MDA officials may not be able to reduce the risk and extent of harm resulting from misuse or unauthorized access to or modification of information of the GCN [GMD Communications Network] and ensure the continuity of the system in the event of a disruption.” The IG’s office was so alarmed at the absence of network security practices that a draft version of its report recommended that until fixes were in place, “MDA and contractor officials should immediately cease operation of the system.” While this recommendation did not make it into the final draft, it signifies the gravity of MDA’s lack of planning.

4. System Engineering Planning for the Ballistic Missile Defense System (D-2006-60), Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, March 2, 2006:  “The Missile Defense Agency had not completed a systems engineering plan or planned fully for system sustainment. Therefore, the Missile Defense Agency is at risk of not successfully developing an integrated ballistic missile defense system.”

5. Kinetic Energy Kill for Ballistic Missile Defense: A Status Overview, Congressional Research Service, Jan. 18, 2006:  “The data on the U.S. flight test effort to develop a national missile defense (NMD) system is mixed and ambiguous. There is no recognizable pattern to explain this record nor is there conclusive evidence of a learning curve over more than two decades of developmental testing.”

6. Director Operational Test & Evaluation FY 2005 Report, January 2006: “Flight tests still lack operational realism.  This will remain the case over the next year.”

7. The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans and Alternatives: Detailed Update for Fiscal Year 2006, Congressional Budgetary Office, January 2006:  “[I]f, however, costs grow as they have historically, pursuing the programs included in CBO’s missile defense projection will cost an additional $3 billion a year, on average, peaking at about $19 billion in 2013.”

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