After much speculation, our long-promised “October surprise” from our North Korean friends has been revealed. On Oct. 10, North Korea paraded a “monster” intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM), appearing to have capabilities that can give U.S. homeland missile defenses a run for their money.
Congress and the American people need to understand that, despiterecent progress in putting missile defense systems in the field,the U.S. remains largely vulnerable to the ballistic missilethreat. The Bush Administration and Congress need to accelerate theeffort to develop and deploy effective missile defense by focusingon systems that offer the greatest capability.