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</p>Yesterday, The New York Times ran an editorial titled “<ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/opinion/24wed3.html">Fixing Missile Defense.” Given the editors’ clear track record of opposing missile defense, they must mean “fix” it in the sense of neutering it.* Ostensibly, the editors are pointing to recent public complaints by the Director of the Missile Defense Agency about poor quality-control practices by several unidentified defense contractors.* Predictably, the editorial calls for punishing the contractors.
What is important here, however, is that the criticism does not stop there.* The editorial also warns against adopting a missile defense testing program that produces a long string of successes.* This warning has merit if it is intended to prevent the missile defense program from failing to advance the technology.* It does not have merit, however, if it is designed to result in some number of test failures only as a means for justifying the termination the program.* All weapons development programs that seek to advance the level of technology will experience failures from time to time.* In many cases, more can be learned from test failures than successes.<spanid="more-29782"></span>
In the end, The New York Times editorialists are offering their criticisms of missile defense in bad faith.* Simultaneously, they want the missile defense program to follow a testing regime that both increases the risk of an occasional failure and punishes the program for a failure by terminating it.* Clearly, the criticism is offered with only the goal of termination in mind.