Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
Forty Billion Dollars is a heck of a lot of money. It seems like an even larger number when you realize that just one defense program spent that large sum, and it has arguably been a disaster. I am talking about the highly political missile defense system program. You have probably heard about that program. It is supposed to stop any wild-eyed dictators from successfully sending any ICBM’s into our air space. It may just be an amazingly expensive pipe dream!
“Within minutes, the interceptor’s three boosters had burned out and fallen away, and the kill vehicle was hurtling through space at 4 miles per second. It was supposed to crash into the mock enemy warhead and obliterate it.
It missed.
At a cost of about $200 million, the mission had failed.
Eleven months later, when the U.S. Missile Defense Agency staged a repeat of the test, it failed, too.
The next attempted intercept, launched from Vandenberg on July 5, 2013, also ended in failure.
The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from “rogue states” such as North Korea and Iran. But a decade after it was declared operational, and after $40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied on, even in carefully scripted tests that are much less challenging than an actual attack would be, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found
The Missile Defense Agency has conducted 16 tests of the system’s ability to intercept a mock enemy warhead. It has failed in eight of them, government records show.” LA Times
I think one of the most amazing facts in this story is that these tests issues are much easier than the problems an actual attack might present. So would an actual attack produce results even worse than 50%? Not only has the GMD failed one half of the time, it may be getting worse as the years and money drag on. According to many experts the GMD system was put into operation even before it had been proven to be successful.
“Despite years of tinkering and vows to fix technical shortcomings, the system’s performance has gotten worse, not better, since testing began in 1999. Of the eight tests held since GMD became operational in 2004, five have been failures. The last successful intercept was on Dec. 5, 2008. Another test is planned at Vandenberg, on the Santa Barbara County coast, later this month.
The GMD system was rushed into the field after President George W. Bush, in 2002, ordered a crash effort to deploy “an initial set of missile defense capabilities.” The hurried deployment has compromised its effectiveness in myriad ways.
“The system is not reliable,” said a recently retired senior military official who served under Presidents Obama and Bush. “We took a system that was still in development — it was a prototype — and it was declared to be ‘operational’ for political reasons.” LA Times
Not only is this system an expensive boondoggle to hand produce, it costs at least $200 million dollars just to set up one of the elaborate tests that have proven to be ineffective. What could this country have done with Forty Billion dollars in the last decade alone? How many roads, bridges, high-speed rail advances could have been made with that kind of capital?
Of course, politicians of many stripes have bought into the system, even with its repeated failures. These same politicians balk at paying for unemployment compensation, or for food stamps or the many infrastructure and social programs that this country desperately needs, but they have no problem forking over Forty Billion to save us from rogue states that don’t even have the capability to hit us with offensive missiles.
When will we as a country take control of the military industrial complex( MIC) that keeps siphoning large dollars from legitimate defense programs and much-needed domestic spending? Can we possibly gain control of the MIC without getting money out of our political elections? Can we gain control over the defense industry when they have such control over the politicians approving these huge sums of money for unproven systems?
While many experts have called for an end to or a reduction in this expensive enterprise, many politicians are trying to expand the scope and cost of the GMD program. “Despite GMD’s problems, influential members of Congress have protected its funding and are pushing to add silos and interceptors in the Eastern U.S. at a potential cost of billions of dollars.
Boeing Co. manages the system for the Pentagon. Raytheon Co. manufactures the kill vehicles. Thousands of jobs in five states, mostly in Alabama and Arizona, depend directly or indirectly on the program.
The Obama administration, after signaling that it would keep the number of interceptors at the current 30, now supports expanding the system. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has called for deploying 14 new interceptors at Ft. Greely by late 2017.
Missile Defense Agency officials declined to be interviewed for this article. A spokesman, Richard Lehner, said in a statement that the agency was working “to conduct component testing and refurbishment of the interceptors currently deployed to … improve their reliability.” ” LA Times
It is obvious that the military industrial complex has control of many in Congress and in the White House. Therefore, it may be an uphill battle to try to stop the program. However, if we do not try to at least force the program to prove its worth, how will we ever find the funds to heal our nation’s workforce and infrastructure?
If you had the call, what would you do with the money? Should the GMD program be halted or reduced? Can we ever gain control over the military industrial complex? If so, how?
“The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.”
Unfortunately the only deterrent is retaliation. That worked for fifty years with the Soviets. The US can annihilate North Korea with one nuclear aircraft carrier, Iran with another. Perhaps the US should simply say that it will wipe out any country that attacks it. Forget the diplomatic mumbo jumbo dance. Stand up in the United Nations and single out each threat and tell them what will happen.
Chuck ~
“Arms races beget arms races. Anyone seen the new Sukhoi Su-35s? Demonstration at the Paris Air Show. And why is this demonstration being done in the first place? They are for sale.”
Here in San Diego and across the country a yearly display of “does size really matter” takes place. When our 3 children were young, being a veteran household, we dutifully took them to see mock dog fights, runway strafing, combat maneuvers, etc, etc, etc, because we believed we were being patriotic. This lasted a few years until I finally realized we weren’t supporting the troops by being at these shows but were being manipulated by manufacturers of these weapons.
Dwight Eisenhower’s prescient warning of the rise of the MIC has been been mostly ignored by us all and we will reap the whirlwind.
The requirement to hit a 15,000 mph bullet in flight from a thousand miles away, and from a standing start, is laughable at best.
There is technology in the works that makes the whole thing a joke. The political ramifications are that it just opens up another arms race. The paranoid potential enemy starts to think, “If they are building this to protect themselves, they must be planning to attack us.”
A PATRIOT missile shooting down a short to intermediate range missile like the Scud is one thing. An ICBM is quite another. Then, to catch it before it can deploy a MIRV payload takes it to an exponentially more difficult level.
I have for sale a fly killing machine that is guaranteed to work. A block of wood and a large wooden mallet. Place the fly on the block of wood and strike with the mallet. Guaranteed to work 100% of the time.
Arms races beget arms races. Anyone seen the new Sukhoi Su-35s? Demonstration at the Paris Air Show. And why is this demonstration being done in the first place? They are for sale.
I think the Bear of Russia is getting restless . . .
or the 0.1 of the 1%
Those bogies were capable of carrying nukes.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/13/us/u-s-russia-military-flights/
I heard on the radio that Russian jets were turned away from our coastline recently when our Air Force intercepted them. They got within 250 miles of Alaska and 50 miles from the CA coast. Testing our boundaries and defenses, as they loved to do under the USSR.
Where do we go to get a refund?
The best way to reduce the anger of foreign “terrorists” against the US would be to stop taking their oil and other valuable resources and to indict US war criminals. But then that would not enrich war profiteers or the politicians they bribe.
A laser system sounds very interesting.
We all just want something that works, not just sounds good in a committee.
” These same politicians balk at paying for unemployment compensation,”
Don’t your get it? That is the unemployment program. It is the highest qualifying unemployment program in the world. You have to have a masters or phd in rocket science to quality. And there is a required work component to it as well.
It is practically a model for responsible safety net programs. Everyone in the program is highly motivated, reports to their assignment and some even take courses to improve their employment chances.
Pure genius. Keeping people motivated, keeping skills in tact and keeping families together. Does it get any better?
I worked in the defense business and knew many people who did. I know lots of stories. rafflaw actually missed the best part, but then again, this isn’t his area.
Hitting a bullet with a bullet, as it were, is a difficult technical problem. The military-industrial complex games the system to keep the profits rolling. The interceptor software is already programmed with the speed and trajectory of the incoming fake warhead. And even then we miss many of the targets.
All an enemy has to do is flood the sky with fake projectiles, because our systems will not be able to distinguish between fakes and the few real ones. And when I say “flood,” I mean they just have to MIRV each missile to contain five or more objects.
Lasers will eventually be the solution because they have almost zero travel time, recovery time is low, and there is an infinite supply of smiting thangs, but the power requirements are large.
We just had another missile test, but no details were given as to the tomfoolery required to make it work.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/22/us-usa-military-boeing-idUSKBN0EX11Y20140622
I listened to Nome Chomsky today on radio, on the Insecurity of the USA. Security to our government leaders is THEIR security of power, that usually leaves us citizens more insecure. There was even mention of a time a few years ago when a US plane in USSR air space triggered a nuclear retaliation. The officer in charge was supposed to send the strike but just decided not to do so, saving all our lives, no thanks to our government’s screwed up values. How much was the Iraqi war? With ISIS/ISIL there now all those billions of dollars and lost lives could be up in smoke. Of course, these Illuminati idiots will do anything for a dollar …Even end the world! By the way, a recent poll worldwide you may have been forbiden to hear about asked the public, including Americans, which country was the most dangerous and America came in at #1. Iran was way down the list. I think Pakistan was #3 and Israel was quite rightly high on the list.
Dredd:
From the article, “Thousands of jobs in five states, mostly in Alabama and Arizona, depend directly or indirectly on the program.” I don’t think all those thousands of people are in the 1%.
But there is something rotten in the state of our procurement system.
Our loss is the warmongers success.
Our $40bn went to Mr. 1% …
“Hughes Aircraft Company (now Raytheon) was awarded a contract worth US$837 million by ESD for the Peace Shield program. The schedule requirements of 54 months to deliver a Peace Shield system were thought by many people to be impossible. There were some estimates as high as 116 months. They actually met 47 months. Total program cost was US$5.6 billion. Peace Shield became operational in late 1996 and is being continually upgraded under a maintenance and development program.”
When a corporation under delivers to a client, that client refuses the product and goes with a competitor. But when a corporation under delivers to the military or government, we just keep forking over more money, or we accept substandard.
Why are we satisfied with this?
In 1984, Boeing won a contract to develop a ground air defense system for Saudi Arabia. It was a complete disaster. It appears they made a mess of a ground missile defense system subsequently.
Hughes Aircraft got the remnants of the air defense program, called Peace Shield. They reworked it, and created a really effective system called Peace Shield II that is working quite well in Saudi Arabia. This was a ground air defense, not missile defense, that Saudi Arabia needed to defend itself from Iran. One of my relatives worked on it.
In my humble opinion, the issue is not the development of defense systems, it’s our procurement system. How many times has our government overpaid while a contractor under delivered? This is true for military as well as government procurement. It is an area ripe for systems analysis for cost savings and improved quality.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/sa-peace-shield.htm
JT wrote a great column in the Washington Post today that ties in w/ this interesting post about an out of control government.
Well, that’s just great. Nothing like finding out we spent all that money and are still defenseless.
I know Israel’s Iron Dome works very well. We clearly need a missile defense program, but we need one that actually works. We need that last line of defense, whether that means this program needs to go back to prototype, or we need a new one.
Rushing to deployment was a mistake with that fail ratio.
My call would give the money back to the taxpayers. I know that doesn’t compute w/ politicians or cultists. You gain control of ANY part of the govt. but limiting it’s calorie/tax dollar intake. That was easy, give us a difficult question.