10nfl1-Nukes-Cover
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| Missile defense fails BECAUSE OF EXTENSIVE DELAYS, THE BMD IS UNTESTED AND NOT RELIABLE E. Fox & S. Orman, Orman & Associates, Bethesda, Spr. ΚΌ06, Ballistic missile defense a review of development problems Journal of Social, Political, & Economic Studies, p. 9-10 The present authors are certainly not the first to draw attention to the limited amount of verification that now seems acceptable before anew system is deployed. Bradley Graham, in a major review of missile defense plans, noted in September 2004 that several key components have fallen years behind schedule and that flight tests, plagued by delays, have yet to advance beyond elementary, highly scripted events. Yet, in spite of these obvious problems, when during early 2005 the House and Senate Armed Services Committees prepared their input to the 2006 Defense Authorization Act, they generally supported the Pentagon's missile defense work, merely noting that questions remained about testing plans. The lawmakers seemed to have forgotten their demands of only a year earlier. When approving a B budget for MDA for the 2005 authorization, they had demanded that defense officials come up with a clear test plan and stick to it. The possibility remains that, given all the advanced plans being pursued within MDA to try to enhance the initial ground-based system into one with global capabilities, insufficient funds remain to undertake a vigorous testing program. If costs are indeed a factor in this prioritization, then the balance is wrong. As explained earlier, it is essential to know the capabilities and limitations of the initial system if sensible enhancements are to be added. Furthermore, without significantly more testing, it is not possible to produce the reliability data upon which military users of the system normally depend to design their tactics. Download 1.23 Mb. Share with your friends:
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