Yeah, yeah, I know, it's Scott Ritter, who supposedly has a thing for picking up teenage girls on the internets. Still, for the sake of argument, let's also assume he knows something of what he speaks:
The NMD system being fielded to counter the SS-25, and any similar or less sophisticated threats that may emerge from China, Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere, will probably have cumulative costs between $800 billion and $1.2 trillion by the time it reaches completion in 2015.
However, the Bush administration's dream of a viable NMD has been rendered fantasy by the Russian test of the SS-27 Topol-M. According to the Russians, the Topol-M has high-speed solid-fuel boosters that rapidly lift the missile into the atmosphere, making boost-phase interception impossible unless one is located practically next door to the launcher. The SS-27 has been hardened against laser weapons and has a highly maneuverable post-boost vehicle that can defeat any intercept capability as it dispenses up to three warheads and four sophisticated decoys.
To counter the SS-27 threat, the US will need to start from scratch. And even if a viable defense could be mustered, by that time the Russians may have fielded an even more sophisticated missile, remaining one step ahead of any US countermeasures. The US cannot afford to spend billions of dollars on a missile-defense system that will never achieve the level of defense envisioned. The Bush administration's embrace of technology, and rejection of diplomacy, when it comes to arms control has failed.
Couple things. For one, I think if there is a technological path becoming visible through continued progress, you pursue it the best you can. So it's not as if the idea of missile defense is a bad one, it just may not be something you dump a trillion bucks into just because you can, because you think it might work eventually.
For two, I'd like to retain enough faith in my government, and the best minds in science, and figure that maybe some poker is being played here at some level -- that the failures get reported more vociferously than the successes for a reason, that you don't let the world know every little thing about the hand you've got.
I'd like to have that faith, but really I don't at this point. Nothing this administration has done, right from the start, has been on good faith. It's all been very cynical and venal and secretive. And it's always been at the expense of engaging with the rest of the world, which is going to be a real problem a lot faster than we seem to think.
Like it or not, this is a technology that eventually will be refined, and that will be pursued, by someone else if not us. But given the level of commitment and expense, versus the current level of success (taking the news releases as fact), we are not getting our money's worth, and it appears more and more that this is just another large-scale grift by the defense-contractor class, just begging for some honest oversight.
Don't hold your breath -- there's a better chance of Courtney Love keeping her clothes on.
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