Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Liars? (Missile "Defense" Deployment Edition)

DefenseTech bangs its head against the wall as it contemplates the enormous waste of money that is the Bush administration's "deployment" of a not-working missile defense system:

Defense Tech: FAITH-BASED MISSILE DEFENSE: President Bush put a whole lot of stock in "faith-based" initiatives to solve domestic problems... taking the same approach to military matters. Yesterday, President Bush campaigned at a Boeing plant, promoting his missile defense system.... "We say to those tyrants who believe they can blackmail America and the free world, 'You fire, we're going to shoot it down,'" he said. But... [t]he anti-missile system's effectiveness is a matter of faith... the Defense Department scrapped some of the $10 billion per year program's most important tests....

"Thomas P. Christie, director of the Pentagon's office of Operational Test and Evaluation, said a shortage of testing data would likely make it difficult for him to assess the system's effectiveness ahead of any deployment this year," the Washington Post noted earlier this year. "He expressed concern about the small number and relatively simple nature of flight tests, noting they have used the same course each time and have relied on surrogates and prototypes for key elements still under development."

Slate's Fred Kaplan translates:

In the past six years of flight tests, here is what the Pentagon's missile-defense agency has demonstrated: A missile can hit another missile in mid-air as long as a) the operators know exactly where the target missile has come from and where it's going; b) the target missile is flying at a slower-than-normal speed; c) it's transmitting a special beam that exaggerates its radar signature, thus making it easier to track; d) only one target missile has been launched; and e) the "attack" happens in daylight.

...The situation isn't likely to change any time soon. The next stages of the Pentagon's missile defense plan call for building defenses that can catch enemy rockets before they take off. But in a study last year, the American Physical Society said that couldn't be done with current or near-term American anti-missile technology. So it's no surprise that when the Defense Department tried to show off its anti-missile training program to reporters earlier this year, the wargame had to be rigged in order for the good guys to win.

He is then joined in the head-banging by former Pentagon testing chief Phillip Coyle:

Defense Tech: EX-PENTAGON BIG RIPS ANTI-MISSILES: On Thursday, July 22, 2004, the first ground-based missile interceptor was installed in a silo at Fort Greely, Alaska. In their press release on GMD [Ground-based Midcourse Defense] deployment, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency hailed it as "the end of an era where we have not been able to defend our country against long-range ballistic missile attacks." Is this true?.... [C[an this system defend us now?...

[W]hat if we didn't see North Korea preparing an ICBM? Suppose the launch surprised us? Would our missile defenses protect us then? The answer is still No. This is because if we didn't see it, our missile defenses wouldn't work either, since they depend on our seeing it first with satellites.... Not that our missile defenses have demonstrated realistic operational capability with existing satellites; they haven't. And the intended, future satellite systems, the Space-Based Infra-Red System-High [SBIRS] and the Space Tracking and Surveillance System, are years behind schedule and billions over budget.... President Bush has... deployed a system that doesn't work and hasn't been adequately tested. All of the MDA flight intercept tests so far have been more tightly scripted than a modern political convention.

In these tests, the target launch time, the flight trajectory, the point of impact, what the target looks like, and the make-up of other objects in the target cluster have all been known in advance to guide the interceptor. No enemy would cooperate by providing all that information in advance. And if that weren't enough, the target reentry vehicle has carried a radar beacon, showing the interceptor, "Here I am." That's not something a real enemy would do either.... What's surprising is that some [of these tests] have failed, including the most recent test in December 2002. Just a week later President Bush announced his decision to deploy the ground-based midcourse missile defense system in Alaska!... This is like deploying a new military jet fighter with no wings, no tail and no landing gear. And without testing it to see if it could work [first].

Fafblog!, by contrast, is once again the only commentator to react to the Bush administration's latest actions in an appropriate manner:

Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.: So on Tuesday George Bush said his plan for a missile defense shield showed he was living in the future. So far into the future he doesn't have to worry about terrorists anymore.

"I think those who oppose this ballistic missile system really don't understand the threats of the 21st century," he said. "They're living in the past. We're living in the future. We're going to do what's necessary to protect this country."

Namby-pamby suspiciously-French-lookin' Democrat John Kerry is plannin' to take money AWAY from this incredibly important overpriced boondoggle and send it towards expanding the military! Clearly John Kerry is not living in the future! He is stranded way back in the present, when we still needed "troop strength" and "special forces" to hunt down "terrorists"!

George Bush is more interested in the threats of tomorrow, which oddly enough look strangely like the threats of 1980: thousands of intercontinental missiles comin' across the sea from commie nations, possibly such as North Korea and France. Our only defense against them? A missile shield that will one day, in the future, fail only about eighty to ninety percent of the time!

Again Giblets is not impressed! Giblets is living even farther into the future, in a time when terrorism and pinko-tyranny are both irrelevant! Giblets demands that we spend 1.8 trillion dollars on an array of massive space lasers pointed outward to defend Earth against the onslaught of immense insectoid invaders who will strike from beyond the asteroid belt! Giblets will not allow the tyrant Bug Emperor to lay its death spores in our atmosphere - and the whiney pleas of those stuck formulating "today's" foreign policy to secure the former Soviet nuclear stockpile will not get in his way!

Once more Giblets outdoes George Bush at every turn! Whose vision is grander? Who not only bypasses today's wars to fight what we think are tomorrow's, but gives tomorrow a pass for sometime next week? The answer is clear: Giblets!