If North Korea fired a nuclear-tipped missile at San Francisco, would U.S. missile defenses blast it out of the sky? Most Americans seem to think it’s a sure thing. Sadly, they’re mistaken.
The main missile-defense system for the West Coast, known as Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, consists of 44 “kill vehicles” in California and Alaska connected to a ground- and space-based detection network. A descendant of the much-maligned “Star Wars” initiative of the 1980s, it is designed to detonate an incoming missile, traveling at more than 15,000 mph, while it is in space or on its downward trajectory toward Earth. This is the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, half of the Pentagon’s 18 tests since 1999 have failed—including three of the five since 2010. And these tests, which cost $244 million each, are conducted in controlled conditions: The crews know more or less when and where the threat will be coming from.
GMD isn’t the Pentagon’s only defense against a nuclear attack. The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, now deployed in South Korea and Guam, and the Navy’s shipborne Aegis system, are also capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, albeit not those with the intercontinental range that North Korea has recently demonstrated.
Then again, Kim Jong Un’s is not the only regime posing a nuclear threat. A system using Aegis technology and operated by NATO exists in Romania to counter a potential Iranian attack. Russia is militarily resurgent, and China is looking to become the world’s dominant power.
So, how can the U.S. deal with the nuclear threats of tomorrow? The most viable strategy at the moment involves strengthening existing nonproliferation agreements with Russia—the New Start agreement of 2010 is set to expire in three years—and reaching new deals with China, India, Pakistan and other members of the nuclear club.
That said, “peace through strength” remains a truism on a nuclearized planet.