Be damned. A general–not just any general, mind, but the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command–actually talked sense about National Missile Defense (NMD), my bete noir for years.

He stated what I’ve contended since my days on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee of the U.S. House–that NMD could make us more, not less, vulnerable. Why? Because it could be seen by China (in his example) as part of an offensive arms buildup and start a destabilizing arms race.

General Kevin Chilton stated yesterday (11/11/09) that  NMD “… might encourage [China] to double, triple, quadruple their current nuclear forces. Because they would feel that their deterrent was no longer viable.”

But that’s not the half of it. As I wrote at Counterpunch.com in 2006 at BlueOregon.com in 2007, even if the Pentagon could deploy an anti-missile missile that was 80 percent effective–a better success rate than any in history–the system would be unlikely to prevent a successful enemy attack. The explanation lies in probability theory …

Let’s assume an 80 percent success rate for a U.S. missile interceptor matched against an incoming warhead (the equivalent of trying to hit a gnat with a b-b gun). Let’s further assume an enemy has launched eight ICBM warheads against us.

Probability theory teaches that the U.S. missile interceptor attacking the first warhead takes an 80 percent bite out of its (the interceptor’s) probability of success, leaving a 20 percent probability that the attack will succeed and the defense will fail.

The Pentagon’s second interceptor takes an 80 percent bite out of the second warhead’s probability of success.

But in terms of totally defeating the attack, 20 percent of the attack is now beyond the ability of the second interceptor to change. That is, there’s a 20 percent probability that the attack has already succeeded with the first warhead, and the defense has failed in its mission of total protection.

Therefore, the second interceptor can only take an 80 percent bite out of the remaining 80 percent, which means the best you can do with two interceptors against two warheads is 80 percent of 80 percent, or 64 percent.

Run through the declining success rates to the eighth incoming warhead, and you’ll discover that U.S. interceptors boasting “80 percent reliability” will collectively achieve only a 17 percent probability of success against the eight-missile attack.

If the enemy launched 20 missiles instead of eight (more likely), the national missile defense system’s probability of success falls to 1 percent – meaning there is a 99 percent chance that the attack will succeed.

National Missile Defense gives new meaning to a “faith based initiative.”