California gets all the good stuff

The New York Times has an editorial about the ABM:

At a time when the United States government is under pressure to cut spending, and every dollar counts, some members of Congress are pushing for a new missile defense site, possibly on the East Coast, that could eventually cost nearly four billion dollars. The proposal is premature at best and could actually harm America’s national security by denying resources to other more urgently needed and more effective defense programs.
The United States now has a West Coast interconnected operation, based jointly at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, as part of a system of interceptors and radars to defend against intercontinental ballistic missile attacks by Iran and North Korea. But some influential Republicans, including Representative Howard McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, are aiming to put $250 million in the 2014 defense authorization bill for a second site, including $140 million for initial planning-and-development costs and $107 million for advance procurement of parts and equipment, such as interceptors.
Supporters of this scheme argue that a West Coast system alone will not protect the country. Pentagon officials have said that the existing site is enough to do the job. Even so, there is widespread agreement among experts that— a quarter-century since Ronald Reagan outlined his lofty vision of a Star Wars shield— the missile defense system as a whole has serious weaknesses.
Furthermore, there is little doubt that North Korea and Iran, which are both working aggressively to develop long-range missiles that could carry nuclear weapons, are a threat that the United States must guard against. Philip Coyle III, a leading missile defense expert who has worked at the White House, the Pentagon, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has written that “the technical core of the US missile defense program is in tatters.”
In the last sixteen months, two studies— one by the National Academy of Sciences released in September of 2012and another by a task force of the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board in 2011— have raised additional questions about the missile defense program.
Among the most problematic and persistent is the failure to design an interceptor missile that can distinguish between an actual enemy warhead and the debris, decoys, and other countermeasures that an adversary would use to divert the interceptor from its target. In addition, the National Academy of Sciences report warned the Pentagon against investing more money or resources for systems that aim to intercept enemy warheads shortly after firing because these are “not practical or cost-effective under real world conditions for the forseeable future.” It advised focusing on systems that aim to intercept enemy warheads at a later, midcourse trajectory.
The Pentagon, at Congress’ directive, is supposed to do an environmental study on a potential East Coast site later this year. Although Democrats have opposed the idea in the past, some seem to be softening. Senator Charles Schumer of New York recently said that if the proposal goes forward, the site should be located in his state, preferably at Fort Drum near Watertown and the former Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome.
But a case has not been made for another site and given the flaws in the missile defense program— which all told has cost an estimated $250 billion— the focus should be on acknowledging the problems and developing reliable technologies to fix them.

Rico says the fact that the Times, and its whole editorial board, are on the East Coast, didn't seem to have affected their opinion...