National Missile Defense Technology Still Falls Short by Lt. General Robert Gard The United States has been attempting to develop a workable national missile defense capability since 1944, prompted initially by German V-2 ballistic missile attacks in Europe during World War II. The most recent initiative is the ground-based midcourse defense system, referred to as […]
America’s Massive Missile Defense Mistake
This week, The National Interest published an op-ed by Lt. General (USA, Ret.) Robert Gard and Phil Coyle on the implications for U.S. missile defense of the successful test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system last Sunday. The authors argue that one successful test of the GMD system every five years and one-half years should not justify the deployment of more flawed interceptors.
The National Interest Publishes an Op-ed on Missile Defense by Lt. General Robert Gard and Phil Coyle
America’s Massive Missile Defense Mistake by Lt. General Robert Gard and Phil Coyle On June 22, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system successfully intercepted and destroyed a target missile in a test over the Pacific Ocean. The Obama administration has said that a successful test would trigger the addition of fourteen more long-range missile defense […]
OCO, WARTHOGS, GTRI, AND SSBNX: Making Sense of the Alphabet Soup & Nickname Game that is the NDAA
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation will host a press call with Lt. General Robert Gard and John Isaacs to outline key provisions of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as it moves to the House floor.
The Defense That Does not Defend: More problems for national missile defense
I have a new article up over a the mothership on the latest setback for the Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. Here’s how it starts:
America’s troubled national ballistic missile defense system just found more trouble.
For the first time, the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Dr. Michael Gilmore, has determined that this system, known as Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), may be too flawed to save.
In his Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 report to Congress, Dr. Gilmore states that the design of the two types of “kill vehicles” that sit atop our 30 long-range interceptors in Alaska and California are of questionable “robustness” and that the Pentagon should consider redesigning them. Translation: the system as currently configured – which has cost the American taxpayer roughly $40 billion – can’t be relied upon to perform its intended mission of protecting the U.S. homeland against even rudimentary long-range missiles launched from North Korea or Iran.
Dr. Gilmore’s report is but the latest in a long list of setbacks for the GMD system, all of which cast serious doubts over the wisdom of the Pentagon’s plan to spend $1 billion to deploy 14 additional ground based interceptors in Alaska with the existing flawed kill vehicles – to say nothing about building a third site for the system in the eastern half of the country, as proposed by some Republicans in Congress.
Click here to read the whole piece.
