The laser jet is on the skids… The missile test at sea was even better than you thought… The satellites still aren’t working… And there’s a complete wack-job sitting on the Defense Science Board.
I picked up more juicy tidbits about the missile defense program in the last three posts over at Arms Control Wonk than I had seen anywhere else in the last three months.
First off, the laser jet. That’d be the Airborne Laser, the modified 747 that’s supposed to use a chemical-powered ray gun to zap enemy missiles before they get too far off of the ground. Begun in 1996, the Airborne Laser’s $1 billion budget has grown to $7.3 billion. Flight tests, originally planned for 2002, then for 2005, are now scheduled for 2008. And then there’s growing consensus in the military community that SUV-sized vats of toxic chemicals aren’t really the best way to produce laser light. So, finally, some White House budget analysts are suggested that the program get axed, Arms Control Wonk guest-blogger Victoria Samson notes.
Another chronically late, ever-more-bloated program, the Space Tracking and Surveillance System, may also be heading for cuts, Victoria says.
Thats an incredibly important part of the missile defense infrastructure, as the decades-old Defense Support Program satellites, originally designed to see a swarm of Soviet ICBMs coming over the horizon, are nowhere near sensitive enough to provide an adequate early warning of missile launches…
So how serious is this administration at getting missile defense to work if its willing to take out the needed eyes in the sky for it to function at all? And how credible are assertions that missile defense has, at this very moment, achieved any sort of operational status if this major hole in its infrastructure exists today, tomorrow, and forever more?
But never mind all that, says Defense Science Board chair William Schneider, who became (in)famous in arms control circles a few years back for his suggestion that missile interceptors go nuclear. He’s now asserting that, despite the, um, uneven test record, “that members of Congress need to include missile defense programs in their tactical planning when determining defense budgets,” Victoria writes.
This would imply that missile defense programs have done such a stellar job in their developmental and operational testing that you can just order up, say, 100 PAC-3 interceptors and be certain that theyll show up, be ready for deployment, and earn your complete and utter trust in their efficacy. Just like an aircraft carrier or any other regular cog in the American fighting machine.
And this guy is on the science board? Sheesh!
Anyway, there is some good news, ACW guest-blogger Michael Katz-Hyman notes. The Sea-Based Midcourse Intercept program — by far the most succesful part of the whole missile defense effort — continues to improve. Usually, in these tests, the interceptor just tries to hit an incoming missile. Which isn’t fully realistic, because a warhead will usually separate off from the missile’s main booster. But in its last test, on November 17th, the Sea-Based system hit a separating missile. And that’s progress.
Yeah, we can hit a maneuvering MiG-21 with a missile, but it’s just too hard to hit a missile of the same size or larger, even if it’s on a ballistic trajectory, so it’s really easy to predict it’s path, even if it’s not maneuvering. What kind of moron believes that? Oh wait, we have a whole major political party full of idiots who recite that mantra all the time.
But that party is really going to stick it to the defense contractors now, isn’t it? They’re calling for these programs to be cancelled. Oooh, that’ll show them. Never mind the fact they earned profit on every single dime they spent developing this useless batch of junk. Naturally we’re not going to hold anyone responsible for wasting all your tax money. After all, what they were asked to do was impossible from the beginning, right?
Kiss your money good bye. You’re too stupid to keep it anyway.
Who is the idiot calling for cancellation of ABL project? I wish I could break his neck for such a stupid act. There are plenty other things to cut, such as some claiming about too much C-130s.
This is the ideal situation for the defense contractors. One political party claims it’s not possible, giving them a technical out, and the other has staked a big chunk of political capital on its being possible. With that group being in power, that all but guarantees unending funding and a standing army of apologists. It is absolutely obscene!
As a military intelligence officer involved in some strange activities back in the 80s, I got deeply involved in the early days of the old Army ATBM program and its progenythe Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, which is the father of the current effort. Now, I’m no rocket scientistliterallybut I had the opportunity to deal closely with some very eminent scientists in Huntsville, DC and other high-tech havens. I am a good listener, however, especially when I have to generate detailed, highly classified reports for very senior people.
I’ll never forget one world-class guy telling me to picture trying to hit a bullet with a bullet; he felt it couldn’t be done, esp. not in an environment where even 99% success wasn’t good enough. I’ve seen nothing in the ensuing years to contravene what he said. Physics is physics, despite all of the wishing and hoping from various politicians and the generals in the amen chorus.
This effort has turned into the proverbial money pit. Think of the mega-billions that have been spent over the years and think of how they could have been otherwise spent. For example, on the Clinton Administration initiative to have DOE scientists work with the Russians to locate and neutralize nasty old tactical nukes. Lots of those, many of which are unaccounted for. Let’s not forget that the Bush Administration has strangled this promising effort. Think of our porous borders and our woefully weak port security posture.
At a time when most security experts agree that the most likely nuclear attack will manifest itself in the form of a “suitcase” bomb introduced via old-fashioned shipping/smuggling activities, we are preoccupied with wizardry masquerading as science.
“A bullet with a bullet” that pure bs! How many bullets do you know of have sensors and guidance avionics? Physics is physics, and bs is bs.
Has anyone considered that Soviet reaction to SDI? Feasability issues aside, my take is that they were seriously concerned. Let us not forget that the ABM Treaty had given them a strategic advantage– they had at least one, probably two, working ABM systems whereas the US was struggling to manage one. (SA-5s were tracked intercepting targets in ICBM flight profiles according to a contemporary article at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/sep-oct/barlow.htm which of course was in addition to the ABM system guarding Moscow.)
Is it a tax sink now? Of course! But we need to remember that war is an extention of politics, and while the North Korean government has IRBMs to rattle in their silos it is politically expedient for the US to have ABM defenses capable of handling a small scale attack on Japan or our Western holdings.
And then there’s China.