The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences recently released a declassified version of its report on missile defense that is extremely critical of the missile defense system (Ground-Based Mid-Course Defense or GMD) deployed in Alaska and California at great cost and enormous controversy.
The quotations below are verbatim and accurate but are taken out of a much longer report that evaluates many missile defense systems and gives a thumbs up to some versions and a thumbs down to others.
Existing GMD has limited effectiveness:
“The GMD interceptors, architecture, and doctrine have shortcomings that limit their effectiveness against even modestly improved threats and threats from countries other than North Korea.” (p.S-9 of Summary)
To make GMD work, an entirely new smaller, two-stage interceptor with new kill vehicles is needed:
Chapter 5 recommends an evolutionary path from the present GMD system to a system having substantially greater capability and a lower cost than a simple expansion of the present GMD system . . . The evolutionary approach would employ smaller, lower cost, faster burning, twostage interceptors building on development work by MDA under the KEI program carrying heavier more capable kill vehicles (KVs). (p.S-13 of Summary)
GMD still has not solved the problem of telling missile warheads from decoys and countermeasures:
“The midcourse discrimination problem must be addressed far more seriously if reasonable confidence is to be achieved.” (p.S-8 of Summary)
GMD is an example of a program that lacks serious cost benefit analysis or systems analysis and engineering:
“Finally, there has been little evidence either of serious cost-benefit analysis or of systems analysis and engineering before embarking on new initiatives within MDA. In the committee’s view, past systems proposed for U.S. boost-phase defense as well as the current GMD system architecture are classic examples. The concept of spiral development in no way justifies not defining the objectives and requirements for the desired end state. MDA’s efforts have spawned an almost “hobby shop” approach, with many false starts on poorly analyzed concepts.” (p.S-8 of Summary)
GMD interceptors are 30-50% too expensive:
“For example, analysis of successful programs with missiles of comparable complexity—that is, with the comparison costs at a similar point of development maturity and at 2010 dollars—suggests that the current GMD interceptors are approximately 30 to 50 percent more expensive than they should be at this point in the program.” (p.S-8 of Summary)
Source: “Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives,” National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, unclassified report issued in September 2012
https://download.nap.edu/chapterlist.php?record_id=13189&type=pdf_chapter&free=1
COMMITTEE ON AN ASSESSMENT OF CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS FOR U.S. BOOST-PHASE MISSILE DEFENSE IN COMPARISON TO OTHER ALTERNATIVES
L. DAVID MONTAGUE, Menlo Park, California, Co-Chair
WALTER B. SLOCOMBE, Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered, Co-Chair
DAVID K. BARTON, Hanover, New Hampshire
MELVIN H. EISMAN, RAND Corporation
DAVID L. FRIED, Royal Oaks, California
ALEC D. GALLIMORE, University of Michigan
EUGENE HABIGER, Gen, USAF (Ret.), University of Georgia
HARVEY L. LYNCH, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University (retired)
KENNETH C. MALLEY, VADM, USN (Ret.), Edgewater, Maryland
C. WENDELL MEAD, AGRI, Incorporated
DANIEL L. MONTGOMERY, BG, USA (Ret.), Strategic Defense Solutions
C. KUMAR PATEL, Pranalytica, Incorporated
JONATHAN D. POLLACK, Brookings Institution
DAVID M. VAN WIE, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University
DAVID R. VAUGHAN, RAND Corporation
DEAN WILKENING, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
