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Shooting Down the HypeThe satellite takedown doesn't prove anything about our missile-defense capability.

By Fred KaplanUpdated Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, at 4:56 PM ET

Standard Missile-3The Feb. 20 shoot-down of a toxic-fueled satellite was an amazing technical accomplishment. Think of it: An SM-3 missile, fired from a cruiser in the Pacific Ocean, ascending 133 miles and colliding dead-on with an object the size of an SUV that's zooming through outer space at 17,000 miles per hour. Truly remarkable!

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But does it say much, as some have claimed, about our ability to shoot down ballistic missiles fired at American (or allied) shores by a nuclear-armed enemy? Not really.

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Michelle Tsai explained why it cost $60 million to shoot down the spy satellite. In May 2006, Fred Kaplan dismissed the plan to put missile interceptors in Europe. In December 2004, Kaplan asked, "Must we spend another $80 billion before we admit missile defense doesn't work?" In September of that year, he wondered, "When will Bush stop throwing billions at a failing project?"

The SM-3 that shot down the satellite was, in fact, designed—is part of the overall program—to shoot down ballistic missiles. But, as Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and former commander of Strategic Command, the agency that runs the missile-defense program's operations), said at a Pentagon press briefing on Thursday, the SM-3 had been "modified" to shoot down the satellite. As reconfigured, he said, it was "not a missile defense system." The two tasks "do not correlate." The profile of the target and the nature of the intercept were "very different."

One reporter asked, "Does the whole episode then add to the knowledge that could be used or applied to missile defense at all?"

Cartwright replied, "Other than netting the sensors together, which is what we used for missile defense"—and which has been tried out in many previous missile-defense tests—"not really. I mean, it doesn't cross over."

Let's back up. The SM-3s, which are based on the Navy's Aegis-class cruisers, have been the most successful weapons in the multilayered missile-defense program. They have hit their target—a mock warhead—in 11 of their last 12 tests. The Pentagon didn't need to fire one against a satellite—a mission that involved much modification in its software—to show that, within the parameters of the test, it works.

But let's back up further. The challenge of a missile-defense program is not to "hit a bullet with a bullet." That feat, remarkable as it is, was demonstrated some time ago. The challenge is to hit several bullets with several bullets in a short period of time. To drop the metaphor, it's to hit several warheads—each the size of a small refrigerator (much smaller than the satellite and thus much harder to find, track, and hit)—some of which might be zooming alongside decoys that might be very hard to distinguish from the warhead. (The missile defense agency has yet to conduct tests against any but the crudest decoys.)

And another challenge is to hit warheads that an enemy might fire from a surprise location—perhaps outside the easy range of our anti-missile interceptors. For instance, an enemy might fire missiles from a boat a few hundred miles (and, therefore, only a few minutes of flying time) from U.S. or allied shores—not enough time for our radars to track the missiles, much less shoot them.

The satellite shoot-down, as well as some previous testing, suggests that the missile-defense system, once it's installed, might be able to shoot down a) one decoy-less missile b) fired from a distant, known site c) along an arc within range of our radars and interceptors.