The Obama administration says missile defense isn't as important
as it used to be. Its budget says otherwise.  Military analysis.
Feb. 4 2010 6:36 PM  Watch What They Spend, Not What They Say
When Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out his $708.2 billion
budget proposal this week, he also submitted a 48-page document
called the "Ballistic Missile Defense Review." Reading this
review, you might think that Gates was slashing the missile-
defense program. You'd be wrong.  Gates writes of "a new course
for spending" that is responsive to "budgetary constraints." He
says he won't deploy any system until it passes realistic tests.
(In more than a decade of development, no BMD system has been
subject to any realistic tests, and none has passed more than
half of the rigged ones.) And he's moving away from exotic
technologies based on "unrealistic concepts of operation" and
designed for threats that won't exist for a long, long time, if
ever. Gates says that the program will deal with threats as they
evolve. But, he