These guys are clueless. 'Brilliant Pebbles' was originally conceived during the late 1980's. Probably during last 2 years of Reagan or the first year of Senior Bush. I know because I saw printouts from a graphic video presentation that TRW was putting together. Nice graphics for the time. Granted that may have been during the initial proposals.
Yes. It was a very late Reagan-era idea, formulated by Edward Teller when it looked like Excalibur wasn't panning out as well as hoped. What is being discussed here is the revival of the idea. It had never been killed for infeasibility or cost. But killed due to a philosophical opposition to defense.
Since 1998, it is clear which philosophy is overwhelming ascendant. Defense. And Brilliant Pebbles shows distinct performance advantages and cost savings over the lame, inflexible, ground-based approach.
But of course the Usual Suspects from the Left, at the CDI, who are always keeping things from being deployed, but only studied, and then underfunded, etc., are then criticizing the Administration for merely following what they have preached it to do...study and not deploy.