The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held its second hearing this week on the New START Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation. Led by the chair of the committee, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), and ranking minority member, Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN), a number of senators addressed several areas of concern with the witnesses, the Honorable James N. Miller, Jr., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; General Kevin P. Chilton, Commander US Strategic Command; and Lieutenant General Patrick J. O’Reilly, Director of the Missile Defense Agency. Gen. O’Reilly …
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced on January 31, 2010, that a test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for countering long-range missiles that took place over the Pacific Ocean that day failed to destroy the target missile. The initial review suggests that the failure occurred because a new Sea-Based X-Ban radar that was tracking the target missile failed to work as expected. A more detailed review of why the GMD system failed to intercept and destroy the target has been initiated. It is to be expected that critics …
In the course of an eventful week, the People’s Republic of China has had a chance to display the full range of modern capabilities that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is acquiring. At one end, on January 11, the Chinese announced that they had successfully engaged in a mid-course interception of a missile. While the Chinese have not been forthcoming with much information about the test, including the type of interceptor, the target, or the location of the test, the test, which has been confirmed by the US DOD, puts …
