Physicist Group Says Missile Defense Tests Fall ´Far Short´. Apart from politically-based misgivings about an anti-missile defense system, there’s the unanswered question of its technical feasibility.

The world’s largest professional association of physicists says the Pentagon’s test program is an inadequate basis for an informed decision about whether the proposed weapon can actually shoot down enemy warheads. Interception tests do not take into account at all the offensive countermeasures an attacker would take to overwhelm or confuse a missile defense system. President Clinton plans to decide after the next round of testing in June whether the $60 billion program should be given the green light. The American Physical Society’s statement is available at the group’s website. The Pentagon, of course, rejects the group’s criticism.

And China has weighed in on the proposed weapon. Its “chief arms negotiator said today that the American proposal to build an antimissile defensive shield posed an unacceptable threat to China’s security and could force Beijing to significantly expand its own nuclear forces in response.” [New York Times]