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You are here: Home / Press Room / Could the U.S. actually shoot down a North Korean missile?

November 29, 2017

Could the U.S. actually shoot down a North Korean missile?

Senior Science Fellow Phil Coyle was interviewed by PBS NewsHour about U.S. missile defense.

…But Philip Coyle, a senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, gives the program an “F.” The failure rate of missile tests is more like 60 percent since 2002, he said. “It’s not effective, not only because the success rate has been so poor in flight-intercept tests, but because those tests are scripted for success.”

Coyle said the Pentagon doesn’t want to see its tests fail, which would make the system look bad. “I would hate to think what the success rate would be if they weren’t scripted for success,” he said. Read more

Posted in: Center in the News, Press Room

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