By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
PENTAGON: Yesterday’s $244 million missile defense test didn’t just hit an IBCM-like target for the first time in the history of the system: It hit a cutting-edge IBCM modeled on future North Korean weapons, complete with decoys to confuse defenders.
“It actually replicated — without getting into classified details — an operational scenario that we’re concerned about,”Vice Adm. James Syring, currently at NORTHCOM HQ in Colorado Springs, told reporters gathered here around a speaker phone. While the Missile Defense Agency director didn’t explicitly say the threat yesterday emulated a North Korean missile, he did say tests replicate threats “from North Korea or Iran. In this case it was a Pacific scenario.” (Protip: Iran is not in the Pacific).
In fact, MDA tests against the intelligence community’s best estimate of where the North Korean and Iranian missile programs will be “three years” from now. “What we see in 2020…was very well replicated in the tests that we conducted yesterday,” Syring said.
Read the full story at Breaking Defense