Missile Defense Costs to Nearly Double by 2016

In a new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that looks at military spending between now and 2024, total investment costs for missile defense are expected to hit their highest point in 2016: $15 billion ($18 billion, if cost risk is included).

This peak in spending is three years later than the CBO had anticipated when doing its projection in October 2005, largely due to delays in a few of the programs, according to the Center for Defense Information (CDI), a defense analysis organization.

The Bush administration has committed to fielding a missile shield although some question the maturity of the technology behind it.

The cost projection considers the various elements of the overall ballistic missile defense (BMD) system separately, CDI says.

"This insistence on following the scatter-shot approach for missile defense -- spending money on every single aspect with the hope of eventually weeding out programs -- is actually having the opposite effect," says CDI research analyst Victoria Samson. "Weapon systems, once they have funding and political backers, become entrenched and their cancellation becomes nigh impossible. Instead, if [the Missile Defense Agency] is serious about establishing a working missile defense system, it would do better to focus its time, money, and effort."

Prior to joining CDI, Samson was the senior policy associate at the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a consortium of arms control groups in the Washington, D.C., area. She previously worked as a subcontractor on war-gaming scenarios for the Missile Defense Agency's Directorate of Intelligence.