So much for the much vaunted US missile defense shield. With such a low probability it is just like swiss cheese
US missile shield badly exposed to hypersonic threats
Hypersonic missiles and other high-tech weaponry advances are opening wider holes in already porous US missile defenses
However, both trial and battlefield figures paint a more pessimistic picture. The GMD has a
, with only a 55% success rate in highly-scripted tests, including six misses in its last six tries. Only half of the intercept tests conducted since 1999 have been successful, and the system has not been tested in realistic war-time conditions.
Even if the GMD is upgraded over time, it is not certain it can keep up with equally evolving countermeasures fielded by China and Russia, such as stealth coatings, decoys, maneuvering warheads and, not least, hypersonic weapons. If that is indeed the case, then the GMD cannot be relied on to defend the US even against a limited nuclear attack, with the absence of a defense system making no difference at all.
Regional missile defenses perform slightly better, although their record also leaves much to be desired. The Patriot system has a
in the field, with the US Army initially claiming an 80% success rate in the 1991 Gulf War, which it later reduced to only 50% and then further winnowed to confidence in only one-quarter of intercept cases.
The Aegis and THAAD systems have
, with the Aegis having a mixed record of 34 successes out of 43 attempts in 2021 while the THAAD before 2006 had a dismal two out of 16 successful intercepts, which later
to 16 out of 16 in 2019.
