National Missile Defense: Bush Pipe Dream

Bush is off-key as usual when it comes to this issue. Lets put aside the larger issue of breaking treaties with other nations for a moment to concentrate on why we think we need such a thing to begin with.

The Soviet Union is no more, and the Russian nation and her military is in no shape prosecute a war of any kind. The once proud Russian Navy, which at its height carried as many Sea Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) as the U.S. Navy, is rusting at pier-side, and the once formidable Strategic Rocket Forces have met the same fate, only on land. And the Russian Army, well we all know the story.

The only other countries in the world with the capability of launching missile that can reach U.S. soil are, Britain, and France, via sea based delivery platforms. And at last read they were our allies. Yes, the Chinese now have MRV warheads but they lack a long-range delivery vehicles on which to mount and launch them. The Chinese are working on a sea-base platform, but it is estimated that is will not be ready for sea until 2002, and even then the delivery platform has only been test fired once. And launching a missile from a submarine is nowhere as near a benign affair as launching one from land!

And yes, there are other countries with nuclear arms, including the India, Pakistan, Israel, South African, and perhaps the North Korea, but none have the capability to introduce a strategic a nuclear weapon unto U.S. soil.

He speaks of rogue nations, but can he or anyone else quantify who they are? And wouldn't we know a from test firing and other suspicious activities, what these rouge nations are up to and take steps to hinder or defeat their progress? Wouldn't it be far more cost effective to step up surveillance on these "rogue nations" then it would be to pump billions into something that doesn't even work!?

The nuclear threat to the U.S. in for foreseeable future lies in ground based placement of nuclear armaments, introduced to U.S. soil by terrorist (via commercial or other means), or other groups seeking to disrupt our way of life. Perhaps more time, energy, research and money should be spent on ways to thwart these very possible attacks, then wasting billions of our money on pie-in-the-sky dreams that do not work, and are not necessary.

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