[sam h]

Many scientists have said these tests are jokes, set up explicitly to favor the system and in no way approximating what a real intercept would entail. Not to mention 500 simultaneous intercepts, or whatever it might take in a real exchange with a country like China. I don't know enough about it to say one way or another. But I tend to very skeptical about how the Pentagon spins these types of projects - they certainly have a robust history of lying to us to cover up the failures of various weapons systems and massive cost overruns.

I believe that the MAD doctrine was quite effective in deterring state-to-state nuclear exchange. The SDI system, if it were ever actually effective, would make MAD unfeasible for most countries and might actually destabilize the world rather than protect it.

If we are to commit to missile defense, many have argued that the smaller more flexible ship-based system - I think some variant of the Aegis technology - is better than the vastly more expensive and logistically much tougher to coordinate SDI system.