The Pentagon continues to make progress in showing that its $180 billion network of ground- and sea-based missile interceptors, sensors and communications links could defend the U.S. from a limited North Korean or Iranian attack, according to the military’s testing office.
The system “has demonstrated capability” to protect the American mainland or troops abroad from “a small number” of intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missile threats if the Pentagon “employs its full architecture of sensors and command and control,” Robert Behler, the Defense Department’s director of operational testing said in a new assessment obtained by Bloomberg News.
Behler’s annual report on major weapons systems, to be published this month, reaffirms increasing confidence in missile defenses improvements that have been cited by him and his predecessor starting in mid-2017. Before then, test office assessments labeled the system’s demonstrated capability to defend the U.S. as “limited” after it failed in five of 10 attempts dating from 2004 to destroy a dummy target. The two most recent interception attempts were successful.
