Here's Why the U.S. Missile Defense System Is Utterly Broken

Last month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a scathing report: the system to defend the U.S. from ballistic missiles doesn't work, and probably never will. But it gets worse. Congress then voted to expand the broken system, allocating money for a new, sub-par missile defense site. How did this happen?

It's the latest iteration of federally-funded cognitive dissonance that has been going on for years. In theory, the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system—which is overseen by the Missile Defense Agency —should be capable of launching missile interceptors, each tipped with a "kill vehicle" that detaches, detects and destroys the incoming threat.

In the real world, ground-based missile defense has failed all three of its flight tests since 2010.

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