As with all things military, it's fairly safe to assume that more advanced technology has been in place for probably 10 years before we hear about it. Disinformation is part and parcel with military campaigns. They didn't retire the SR71 without a viable option as it's replacement... Aurora? Who knows, but enough has leaked about a hydrogen fuel pulse engine that it seems entirely possible.

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if we had a functional shield that starts with sat based laser weapons for launch pad destruction, jet platforms for high altitude launch and reentry detonation with laser, and even missile to missle defense. Not to mention that there are now weapons that can fire an incredible rate of "ammunition" using railgun technology. They could just put up a monstrous spread of lethal highspeed shrapnel that could blanket a trajectory and keep firing until they track it properly and hit it.

Yeah, I think it's safe to assume that even if all of these systems are even 30-50% operational that combined they have a pretty strong chance of stopping it.

A highschool friend of mine was programming patriot guidance software to intercept scuds back in Desert Storm for Intergraph. That's been since back in the very early 90's. You couldn't convince me that 15 years of new technology and testing hasn't improved our chances. And I often wonder if some military tests are purposefully blown just to keep our strategic capability unkown.

If governments operate on the assumption of mutual destruction and one of them secretly can avoid that destruction, it changes how you do your bargaining. This administration's has been open about its willingness to use tactical and strategic nuclear weapons and to pursue development of new ones. Maybe that's not a coincidence.