Yes, during the campaign, Obama made that video of all the military/defense cuts he wanted to make, and included unproven missile defense systems.

Of course, the rub is what constitutes unproven. If we never actually use them in a real world situation, then I suppose that’s unproven in some peoples’ minds.

From my reading, all the prongs of our missile defense system are progressing quite well – with the possible exception of the land based interceptors (based at Elmendorf and Vandenberg?).

We’ve advanced quite a bit in these systems since Bush took office. But, not surprising Obama has targeted them. During Clinton, IIRC, funding and testing was severely reduced. I think Carl Levin (D-MI) seems to hate the whole idea and is a vocal critic.

As you noted, the airborne laser is coming along apace. Patriot PAC-3 is a great improvement from initial Patriot during Desert Storm. THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defense) has had successful tests and finally, seaborne missile defense on AEGIS with SM-3′s have been very successful during testing.

In fact, seaborne was the weapon used to shoot down the satellite that was crashing to Earth back in February. Seaborne missile defense scored a direct hit on the fuel tank of the satellite – which is what they were aiming for. The intercept occurred at about 60 miles above the Earth.

So, yes, I think airborne laser is a very real missile threat intercept/destruction option for all potential missile launch regimes. Additionally, for the SoKor/NoKor scenario, Patriot PAC-3, THAAD and AEGIS launched interceptors would all be threat diminishing options.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that right now, or quite often, we have AEGIS near the China-Taiwan Straits just for that purpose.

I’m a very big proponent of our missile defense program – many democrats are not and Obama sounds like he’s one of them. Seems to me they consider the whole idea belligerent and provocative. So, we’ll have to see what kind of cuts, if any, get made to future missile defense programs.