A day after Independence Day, and as global crises were knocking at the administration’s door, the Pentagon announced that it failed to stop a test missile over the Pacific.
The Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing, Joint Functional Component Command, Integrated Missile Defense (JFCC IMD) and U.S. Northern Command conducted an integrated exercise and flight test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element of the nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System, the Defense Department said this evening.
“Although a primary objective was the intercept of a long-range ballistic missile target launched from the U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, an intercept was not achieved,” said the Pentagon.
The interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif.
“Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept,” the Pentagon continued.
It’s unknown if Kim Jong-un is celebrating in reaction to the news — a recent Defense Department report to Congress on security developments in North Korea warned that the country is pulling closer to its “stated objective of being able to strike the U.S. homeland.”
“North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear technology and capabilities and development of long-range ballistic missile programs, as reflected in the December 2012 Taepo Dong 2 missile launch and April 2012 display of a new road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, underscores the threat to regional stability and U.S. national security posed by North Korea,” the report stated.
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