Admiral Stresses Need for Missile Defense.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.
• Position: Washington Pulse - Kathleen K. Paige - Brief Article

The United States must do more to address the threat of ballistic missiles, said Navy Rear Adm. Kathleen K. Paige, who is director of theater air and missile defense and systems engineering at Naval Sea Systems Command. "The ballistic missile is a terrorist weapon," she said at a conference in Washington, D.C.

Paige said it is imperative that missile defense moves from a classic threat--based model to a capability-based model. "What's even more sobering than what we know about the threat, is the number of times that we have been surprised by specific, very critical aspects of the threat," she said. One of the unknowns was the range of the No Dong missile North Korea launched in 1993. "It turned out that that missile flew over Japan, flying further than we thought the missile capable of...