On sait que le programme dit Ballistic Misile Defense<\/em> (BMD) est un des axes fondamentaux de la doctrine US dite de la domination nucl\u00e9aire, permettant aux strat\u00e8ges d’envisager une premi\u00e8re frappe nucl\u00e9aire. (On sait que cette doctrine extr\u00eamement th\u00e9orique, d’o\u00f9 l’abondance des guillemets, est dans nombre d’esprits imaginatifs, jusqu’\u00e0 envisager son activation op\u00e9rationnelle puisqu’il s’agit de sauver la civilisation. La Russie serait alors, dans les circonstances pr\u00e9sentes o\u00f9 l’on sait bien qu’elle menace la civilisation en cours d’installation \u00e0 Kiev, la cible b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiant de cette op\u00e9rationnalisation du concept strat\u00e9gique. On en chuchote beaucoup l\u00e0-dessus, comme nous le notions le 9 juin 2014<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t… C’est le moment que choisit David William, du Los Angeles Times<\/em>, ce 16 juin 2014<\/a>, pour publier un \u00e9norme dossier sur le programme BMD, et conclure sobrement : il ne marche pas, mais alors pas du tout. (On notera que le programme a \u00e9t\u00e9 rebaptis\u00e9 pour l’occasion de BMD en GMD, pour Ground-Missile Defense<\/em>, puisqu’il d\u00e9signe le complexe bas\u00e9 \u00e0 terre, constituant la dimension strat\u00e9gique fondamentale du programme. Certains trous de la narrative<\/em> du programme sont bouch\u00e9s par les unit\u00e9s navales porteuses du syst\u00e8me AEGIS, dont l’efficacit\u00e9 est \u00e9videmment mise en question [voir le 23 avril 2014<\/a>].)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLe BMD\/GMD a commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00eatre d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 en 2004 et, manifestement, il ne marche pas. Sur les huit derniers tests effectu\u00e9s depuis 2008, dans des conditions idylliques et sans rapport avec la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 puisque la cible \u00e9tait connue, sa trajectoire d\u00e9termin\u00e9e d’avance, etc., cinq ont \u00e9chou\u00e9. Il semble qu’un BMD\/GMD ne serait pas capable de faire ce que Guillaume Tell fit \u00e0 une pomme pos\u00e9e sur la t\u00eate de son fils avec un carreau de son arbal\u00e8te. Il semble qu’on traite le BMD\/GMD exactement comme on traite le JSF : on fabrique, on met en service, on laisse entendre ou l’on fait croire c’est selon que cela marche, on commence les programmes de test et d’exp\u00e9rimentation pour s’apercevoir que cela ne marche pas, on continue, on passe \u00e0 autre chose. Recette \u00e9prouv\u00e9e.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tUn court extrait de l’article de William dont on songe qu’il aurait pu rajouter la Russie parmi les \u00c9tats-voyous … \u00abThe Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from rogue states such as North Korea and Iran. But a decade after it was declared operational, and after $40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied on, even in carefully scripted tests that are much less challenging than an actual attack would be, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe Missile Defense Agency has conducted 16 tests of the system’s ability to intercept a mock enemy warhead. It has failed in eight of them, government records show. Despite years of tinkering and vows to fix technical shortcomings, the system’s performance has gotten worse, not better, since testing began in 1999. Of the eight tests held since GMD became operational in 2004, five have been failures. The last successful intercept was on Dec. 5, 2008. Another test is planned at Vandenberg, on the Santa Barbara County coast, later this month.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe GMD system was rushed into the field after President George W. Bush, in 2002, ordered a crash effort to deploy an initial set of missile defense capabilities. The hurried deployment has compromised its effectiveness in myriad ways. The system is not reliable, said a recently retired senior military official who served under Presidents Obama and Bush. We took a system that was still in development it was a prototype and it was declared to be ‘operational’ for political reasons. At that point, you couldn’t argue anymore that you still needed to develop and change things. You just needed to build them.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbDean A. Wilkening, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., offered a similar assessment. Wilkening served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that issued a 2011 report on missile defense. GMD remains a prototype system that has performed less well than people had hoped, he said at a May 28 policy conference in Washington, D.C. If you’re going to rely on that as an operational system, one shouldn’t be too surprised that it does tend to fail more than you’d like. At a separate conference this month, Wilkening called the system’s test record abysmal.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLe journaliste William, du Los Angeles Times<\/em>, termine son immense dossier par ces remarques (datant de f\u00e9vrier) de Frank Kendall III, sous-secr\u00e9taire \u00e0 la d\u00e9fense pour l’acquisition, la technologie et l’acquisition, pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 comme ayant d\u00e9sert\u00e9 la narrative<\/em> officielle sur les performances sublimes du syst\u00e8me : \u00abWe recognize the problems we have had with all the currently fielded interceptors. The root cause was a desire to field these things very quickly and very cheaply…. We are seeing a lot of bad engineering, frankly, and it was because there was a rush.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n