New York Times Editorial - The missile defense mirage

New York Times Editorial - The missile defense mirage
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 31, 2006


In a rare moment of candor this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that he's not sure if the U.S. missile defense system is ready to work. When asked if the shield could protect the United States from a North Korean missile attack, Rumsfeld said he'd need to see a full test of the system "end to end" before he could answer.

Rumsfeld, we suspect, may have been trying to lower expectations as the Pentagon prepares for its first significant test of the troubled system in 18 months. But his comments should invite a serious discussion on Capitol Hill about what the United States is getting for the nearly $9 billion it is spending this year to develop ballistic-missile defenses and the $9 billion it is likely to spend next year.

The once highly public debate over missile defense has gone quiet since President George W. Bush pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and - as missile defense hawks like to point out - the Russians did not counter with a new arms race.

But talk to Russian and Chinese officials about why they are so relaxed and they will tell you that they don't believe the technology is anywhere close to working. (As it turns out, the Pentagon is right when it says each failed interception is a learning experience.) Just in case, Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, told Rumsfeld when they met this week that he'd like more "transparency" about the program, a fine idea for all.

Rumsfeld got his job in good part by raising alarms about the ballistic missile threat. The 1998 bipartisan commission he headed warned that Iran and North Korea could deploy missiles capable of hitting the United States within five years.

Eight years later, there is no question that both countries are eager to belatedly live up to that prediction. The issue is how fast they're getting there and whether the Pentagon's rush to put interceptors into the ground, rather than spend more time at the drawing board, makes sense. North Korea's most recent test of a long-range missile was, thankfully, a total fizzle.

Stopping a ballistic missile in midflight is a very hard thing to do. So is switching technologies or killing off a bad system when you've already sunk billions into hardware. What's needed here is an honest assessment of whether the current system has any chance of working and how much more will have to be spent before it does.

As the Pentagon prepared to launch a target missile from Alaska and an interceptor from California this week, defense contractors and Pentagon officials were insisting that the goal was not to shoot anything down, just to make sure the "kill vehicle" could find what it was looking for. No matter how that turns out, we're hoping that Rumsfeld's sudden candor about the program starts to catch on.