CBS’s 60 Minutes on prime time TV last night had a report titled “God Of War,” (Link) exposing the North Korean ballistic missile threat and its thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) threat to the United States of America that is a transparent and credible piece of reporting in providing the best information to their average audience of 12.3 million Americans. Though there will soon be 44 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) protecting the United States in the next few weeks (over the current 42 that CBS reported), the only exception that we would debate is the 55% confidence of those GBIs based on 10 successes out of 18 intercept tests (Link). Only 6 of those 18 intercept tests, of which 5 of those 6 tests were successful, used operational generations that make up the current 44 GBIs, thereby giving 83% confidence to intercept a North Korean nuclear ballistic missile targeting if one interceptor is launched and 97.3% if two interceptors were launched to defend the United States of America (Link).

On September 27, 2017, General Lori Robinson, Commander of U.S. NORTHCOM and NORAD, stated in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that she is “entirely confident in our ability to defend the United States, but that doesn’t mean we stop here” (Link). “Entirely confident” certainly does not mean 55%.

We encourage you to watch the CBS’s 60 Minutes episode on “God of War” and the reality of the North Korea nuclear ballistic missile threat to our nation that is real today and will continue to get more confidence through their “tolerance of failure” in their testing program. We need to have an even greater “tolerance of failure” in our missile defense testing program to ensure as close to 100% confidence and reliability in our systems to negate and defeat any and all North Korean ballistic missiles.