This is an interesting take on US Missile defense development. Basically, it appears that in order to show capability, even on tightly scripted tests, they rely on the capabilities of each subsystem as determined analytically, as opposed to testing, or just analyzing, the full up system.

This is faith-based missile defense:

To justify the deployment of untested technologies, officials at the Missile Defense Agency changed the fundamental epistemology of weapons procurement. In bureaucratic-speak, they ceased following a “knowledge-based” system and relied instead upon what they called a “capability-based” standard. In simple terms, it’s the difference between knowing that something works because you’ve tested it, and believing that something works because all the parts, when put together, should be capable of working. It’s the difference between test-driving a car before mass-producing it, and building one from a schematic but deciding not to turn the key for the first time until there’s an emergency. It’s the difference between the old carpenter’s advice of “measure twice, cut once,” and the new, Rumsfeldian directive: “Cut already.”

In the old knowledge-based days, procurement was based more or less on common sense: Contractors developed a weapons system that showed promise, gradually trying it out in more and more realistic situations. Once progress warranted it, the Pentagon took over and performed “realistic operational testing” under conditions that simulated battle — rain, heat, sandstorms. But now, under Rumsfeld’s “capability-based” standard, entire weapons systems can be built without bothering to see if they will work in the real world.

The depressing thing is that I favor some sort of ABM system for defense of the US, albeit my favored scheme is rather Strangelovian, or Telleresque.

I favor a system modeled on the SAFEGUARD system, which was operational for a few months in the 1970s. It uses nuclear tipped interceptors, which ameliorates most of the targeting and decoy issues.

Use of a Megaton range warhead in an exoatmospheric increases the miss distance, and it handles most of the problems with decoys, because everything is in the effect range. For terminal defense, you use something in the kiloton range with a neutron kill.

Obviously, this can’t work with tactical systems, since the authorization for use of nuclear weapons would have to come from the President, but for strategic defense of te country, it’s a better system that could be online sooner.