“If the president of the United States devises policy dealing with North Korea based on a system he believes will protect the U.S. from a missile attack from North Korea, he is operating on false information,” said Philip Coyle, who was an assistant secretary of defense and director of operational test and evaluation at the Pentagon from 1994 to 2001.
Moreover, missile defense skeptics have long argued that any missile shield, even it does work, could be easily overwhelmed if an adversary simply builds and fires more missiles. In fact, Coyle said, countries such as China would use it as an incentive to greatly expand their missile arsenals in response.
“What any enemy does in response to that is just build more and more offensive missiles, exactly the opposite of what we would want,” he said.
