The latest missile defense update by Congressional Research Service analysts calls the development and deployment of missile defense both “elusive” and “divisive.” Among topics highlighted in the report: how the Bush Administration “sharply altered” the debate; why the Administration asserts the US deterrence theory is passé; why critics maintain the technology remains immature, and the whole thing is a “budget-buster.”
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…