The US missile defense system is a joke (Source nypost.com) The ground-based midcourse missile defense system, which has deployed 30 interceptors in Alaska and California, has been tested under highly scripted conditions only nine times since being deployed in 2004, and failed to destroy its target two-thirds of the time, the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a report. “After nearly 15 years of effort to build the GMD homeland missile defense system, it still has no demonstrated real-world capability to defend the United States,” said Laura Grego, a UCS physicist who co-authored the report. The Missile Defense Agency said in a statement the rapid deployment requirement in the law that created the system was “a driving factor” in the delivery of a ground-based interceptor with “reliability challenges.” The agency said the problems had led to changes in the interceptor’s design and a program to improve reliability, including use of more mature technologies. The MDA said it was seeking ways to reduce the risks of deploying equipment still under development. The UCS report echoed criticisms the homeland missile defense system has faced from other quarters. A Pentagon assessment in 2015 found that flight testing of the system was still “insufficient to demonstrate that an operationally useful defense capability exists.”