Missile Defense

Experts from the independent Arms Control Association (ACA) welcomed reports that the Barack Obama administration has decided to shelve the controversial George W. Bush administration proposal to install an untested, ground-based missile interceptor system in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter an as-yet undeveloped Iranian long-range missile threat. The Obama administration has signaled it will instead pursue alternative basing modes and concentrate on better-proven missile interceptor technologies. (Continue)

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) last month successfully tested the tracking components of the Airborne Laser (ABL) system, the agency announced June 15. The tests, which took place June 6 and June 13, mark the first time the ABL system successfully detected and tracked a missile in the boost phase. These tests come amid a series of decisions reducing or eliminating the funding for some missile defense programs. (Continue)

The fiscal year 2010 Department of Defense budget request, released in May, provides additional detail on the Obama administration's refocusing of U.S. missile defense efforts. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates outlined the reorientation at an April 6 press conference. (See ACT, May 2009.) The revised approach emphasizes terminal-phase missile defense programs over midcourse and boost-phase ones. The following table compares major missile defense programs in the fiscal year 2010 request with requests and appropriations from fiscal year 2009. (Continue)

A March Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress found that the U.S. ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) has been subject to cost overruns and vague accounting and failed to achieve any of its six testing objectives for fiscal year 2008, which ended Sept. 30. Nevertheless, several system elements, including 24 upgraded ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) interceptors, are being deployed before being fully tested. (Continue)