However, it has to be remembered that the GBI program is not intended to be an effective defense against Russia's Strategic Missile Forces with its thousands of missiles and warheads. It is intended to be a defense against rogue nations such as Iran or North Korea. And they simply do not have that kind of technology available. Nor, for that matter, does China. Indeed, Chinese military leaders are upset because Russia so far has refused to sell them advanced military technologies including such "crown jewels" as MIRV capabilities.

The BMD critics are correct to point out it is misleading to lump successful short- and intermediate-range interception test results with the far more difficult tests of intercepting ICBMs. Where intermediate-range missiles may fly at speeds of up to 10,000 mph, ICBMs can fly at up to 18,000 mph. That is why GBIs have to be designed to fly at up to an astonishing 25,000 mph.

However, separating the results makes the interception results and probabilities against intermediate-range missiles vastly more impressive. This is extremely good -- and important -- news for India, Japan, Israel and Taiwan, which face their most serious dangers from intermediate-range missiles. It shows them that their defense against ballistic missile attack does not rest on wishful thinking but on a technology that, while demanding, is already relatively mature.

This means that defense against incoming ICBMs is vastly more difficult than many enthusiasts for the U.S. BMD program realize. However, it is still far from impossible. Even an alleged success rate of one successful U.S. test in three against ICBM targets since 2002 means there is already a 33 percent success rate.

Also, in any new missile program, a disproportionate number of test failures are to be expected, especially for such a demanding new technology. As the program develops, however, reliability usually improves dramatically. That is not wishful thinking; it is based on missile development programs -- both U.S. and Soviet/Russian -- going back more than half a century. In other words, it is rocket science.

U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering III was correct in his speech at the European Institute in Washington on Sept. 18 to point out the significance to the European diplomats and defense industry officials of the decisions by many nations, most notably Taiwan, Israel, Japan and now South Korea and India, to pour more investment into their BMD programs.

"We have seen a dramatic increase in interest in missile defense around the globe," he said, according to a report in Defense News on Sept. 23.

As these columns have repeatedly documented over the past 2żż years, that is nothing more than the truth. And it is also true, as Obering further noted, that the ballistic missile threat from Iran and North Korea in particular has become more acute as time passes rather than less so.

In such a political climate, more cautious leaders who might not have chosen to invest heavily in BMD programs in the first place will nevertheless probably be extremely reluctant to slow down or slash funds for programs that are already in place.

That has already proved to be the case in the United States, where the Democrats controlling both houses of the current 110th Congress have left almost all the Bush administration's key BMD programs intact. And it may also be the case in Japan where cautious Yasuo Fukuda has just replaced hard-charging but politically hapless Shinzo Abe as prime minister.

Obering's upbeat optimism on the U.S. BMD program to those European officials and executives, therefore, was not based on wishful thinking; it was based on a realistic assessment of the current state of the MDA's programs and of the political circumstances surrounding them.

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