When North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in a New Year\u2019s address that his country was on the verge of testing a missile that could one day reach the United States, Washington retorted that it was ready to stop it.
What Carter didn\u2019t say on either occasion was that the United States might not be able to intercept such a missile at all. In fact, experts say, Washington\u2019s defenses against such an attack are extremely limited despite decades of research and $180 billion spent since the 1980s.
\u201cThe Aegis system is not designed for that,\u201d Reif said. \u201cNor is THAAD. GMD would only have a chance if it\u2019s fired at the United States.\u201d
Dr. Laura Grego, a missile defense expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said GMD had shown mixed results in tests so far.
\u201cThe GMD system has not had a great number of intercept tests, but of the 17, nine of them have been unsuccessful, and the record is not improving over time,\u201d she said.
\u201cThese tests have been under simplified conditions, not those the system would face in real life. In fact, later this year will be the system\u2019s first test against an ICBM range target. The Pentagon\u2019s highest testing official has assessed that the system has not yet demonstrated operationally relevant capability.\u201d
Grego said \u201cyou could hardly design a more challenging task\u201d than hitting a small, fast-moving target such as an ICBM.
\u201cGetting this to work reliably is an enormous engineering challenge,\u201d she said. \u201cRemember, the adversary always gets a vote, and may choose to attack in the most difficult conditions, and you\u2019ll want to have tested your system under as many of them as possible \u2014 bad weather, when parts of your system is under maintenance, different times of day, etc.\u201d
Grego said U. S. administrations felt pressure to reassure the public, giving them an incentive to exaggerate their capabilities.
\u201cIn fact, I think this has gotten in the way of building a system that works better, or at least has been tested better,\u201d she said. \u201cBuilding a system that has such a challenging mission, and one that works well, requires the greatest rigor and accountability. The process that we got was much more like building a system in a hurry that looks like it works rather than really works\u00a0\u2014 a scarecrow, if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n