Betting the planet on IT
Editorial: Betting the planet on IT
The national missile defense (NMD) system, a $36 billion proj-ect to build
an ultrahigh-tech intercontinental ballistic missile shooting gallery,
faces a crucial technical test this week. The July 7 exercise, which involves
intercepting a Minuteman II missile using a complex space-based warning
system, will go a long way toward determining the fate of the politically
charged project. But it will also say a lot about whether today's information
and telecommunications technology is ready and reliable enough to "bet the
country on," as one critic says in our cover story this week.
Certainly the challenge is technically breathtaking. Ground- and space-based
sensors and tracking systems would have to work seamlessly to detect the
equivalent of a fast-moving nuclear golf ball high over Seattle — from hundreds
of miles away. Without any electronic countermeasures to confuse the system,
that would be difficult enough. But NMD would have to discriminate a real
threat from among a throng of decoys and other disguised systems.
Is our information technology — and the management systems that bind
it together — really trustworthy under such circumstances? Probably not.
As in the realm of network security, a more fiendish countermeasure is always
in the making. So the system is never likely to be fail-safe.
We have also learned from our experience with modernizing the nation's
air traffic control system that, at least at present, even the top guns
in the technology field have trouble developing and managing billion-dollar
software projects. NMD, like air traffic control systems, requires integrating
multiple systems — with each link, like each system, representing another
potential point of failure. Even a positive outcome Friday leaves the possibility
for plenty of failures in the future.
NMD represents a powerful stake in the arms control debate. And though
it may not be a hard shield, it could provide a layer of insurance against
an actual attack. But NMD should not be considered an effective, reliable
application of information technology. That's a view that will only backfire.
NEXT STORY: Navy's submarine force in crisis