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Canada says "nein!" to missile defense

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Saturnman

Banned
Mostly...

Martin will reject missile defence: report
Last Updated Tue, 22 Feb 2005 21:49:56 EST
CBC News
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Paul Martin will reject Canadian participation in the full U.S. missile defence program, CBC News has learned.

Martin plans to announce in the House of Commons as early as Thursday that the country will not partake fully in the controversial program, the CBC's French-language network reported Tuesday.

The news comes hours after Canada's next ambassador to the United States, Frank McKenna, set off a storm by saying Canada is already taking part in the program because it has agreed Norad can monitor the skies for incoming missiles.

Martin's planned announcement will mark an abrupt change from his position 16 months ago during the Liberal leadership race, when he signaled that Canada should partake in missile defence. Since then, Martin has insisted that he hasn't reached a decision on whether Canada should be a full partner.

And just two months ago, U.S. President George W. Bush pressed Martin publicly to sign on, saying on a visit to Halifax that he hoped the two countries would soon move forward to co-operate on ballistic missile defence.

But federal officials, who wished to remain anonymous, told the CBC's Radio-Canada that domestic considerations may have outweighed pressure from Washington.

Martin's government lost its majority last spring and the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats oppose the plan, while the Conservatives support it but want a full debate on Canada's role.

As well, Martin faces stiff resistance in his own caucus. The Liberals also want to improve their fortunes in Quebec, where there seems to be little support for missile defence.

Federal officials told the Canadian Press that the United States was informed of Canada's decision at the NATO summit in Brussels.

"[The Americans] were told we will not participate," a federal official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the agency.

"It is a firm 'no.' I am not sure it is an indefinite 'no.''"

Canada already 'part of' missile defence: McKenna

Earlier Tuesday, McKenna, a former New Brunswick premier, delivered an opposite message outside a meeting of the foreign affairs committee, which is examining his appointment as the next ambassador to the United States.

Canada already 'part of' missile defence: McKenna

Earlier Tuesday, McKenna, a former New Brunswick premier, delivered an opposite message outside a meeting of the foreign affairs committee, which is examining his appointment as the next ambassador to the United States.


"I believe that we've given in large measure what the Americans want, which is the ability to use Norad and their intercept information in order to be able to target weaponry," he said.

Canada agreed last August to allow Norad, the joint Canada-U.S. air defence command, to share information it gathers with the people running the U.S. missile defence program.


McKenna's comments touched off a fiery exchange in the House of Commons.

"They don't want to tell the population that we've got our arm in the wringer of the washing machine and it's sucking us in," charged Bloc Québécois MP Michel Gauthier.

But Defence Minister Bill Graham repeatedly insisted that there is no contradiction between what McKenna said Tuesday and what the Liberal government has been saying all along.

"Canada's position is not a done deal," he said, adding that the Liberals have not signed off on issues such as "how it works and ultimate deployment" of U.S. weapons to shoot down incoming missiles aimed at North American targets.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper wasn't buying the distinction.


Frank McKenna said earlier Tuesday that Canada was already 'part of' missile defence.
"How could this prime minister secretly make this decision, so clearly breaking every commitment he's made to this house and to Canadians?" he asked during Question Period.

"All the ambassador said is that we signed a Norad agreement," Graham replied. "If that's a surprise to the leader of the opposition, it is certainly not a surprise to us."

U.S. has 'great deal' of what it needs: McKenna

McKenna told reporters he believes the U.S. now has much of what it needs to operate a "modest ballistic missile defence program."

When asked by reporters if Canada was part of the program, he said: "We are. We're part of it now and the question is, what more we need.

"There's no doubt, in looking back, that the Norad amendment has given, has created part – in fact a great deal – of what the United States means in terms of being able to get the input for defensive weaponry," he said.

McKenna says the United States has not asked Canada for financial support for the program and it hasn't asked to put missile interceptors on Canadian territory.

He says he's not sure what Bush means when he calls for Canada to sign on to the program.

The Liberals were expected to debate Canada's full participation in missile defence at the party's national convention in two weeks.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/02/22/mckenna-missile050222.html
 
When we are attacked by the Chinese from the West and the Europeans from the Eest and terrorists from inside North America. We will see who has the last laugh.
 

fallout

Member
ZEIG HEIL! ZEIG HE- ... oh uh ... I mean, well done Prime Minister Horton and congratulations on your double, double.
 

Phoenix

Member
Shit its Canada - who cares what they think :D

Seriously though, is Canada going to boot the early warning radars from the country because so long as there are radar arrays in Canada - they are part of the system.
 

G4life98

Member
I will never understand why people get so riled up up about nmd research, it seems to me that developing and building an effective defense is preferable to bigger & better nukes.
 
G4life98 said:
I will never understand why people get so riled up up about nmd research, it seems to me that developing and building an effective defense is preferable to bigger & better nukes.

Well that 5 billion/month price tag for the war in Iraq is really going to start cutting into any sort of research that the US want's to do.
 

fallout

Member
G4life98 said:
I will never understand why people get so riled up up about nmd research, it seems to me that developing and building an effective defense is preferable to bigger & better nukes.
I think most who are against it don't see that as the only other way to spend the money.
 

NLB2

Banned
Tommie Hu$tle said:
Well that 5 billion/month price tag for the war in Iraq is really going to start cutting into any sort of research that the US want's to do.
Shit, the war only costs five billion per month? Now I see why Bush wants Iran, too.
 
NLB2 said:
Shit, the war only costs five billion per month? Now I see why Bush wants Iran, too.

This time I actaully believe Bush. He would be shitfucked insane to try an invasion on a country three times as large and as populous as Iraq.
 

Boogie

Member
I'm rather baffled as to what we could have contributed to the US missile defence anyway, other than the stuff that we're already a part of via NORAD.
 

fallout

Member
Boogie said:
I'm rather baffled as to what we could have contributed to the US missile defence anyway, other than the stuff that we're already a part of via NORAD.
Democracy. Freedom.
 

TheQueen'sOwn

insert blank space here
Without a similar system for ourselves.. won't we just get screwed over when the States shoot something down before it gets to them (ie over us)?
 

Phoenix

Member
TheQueen'sOwn said:
Without a similar system for ourselves.. won't we just get screwed over when the States shoot something down before it gets to them (ie over us)?

There is no orbital trajectory that should put a missile over Canada before reaching the United States along the East Coast.
 

Memles

Member
Phoenix said:
There is no orbital trajectory that should put a missile over Canada before reaching the United States along the East Coast.

Plus, the missile defense shield would shoot them down in space, so there would be little in the way of nuclear fallout as it would not really effect anyone directly.

Canada's support of missile defense was purely a policy issue. Those who see American-Canadian relations as a paramount interest believed that Martin should just give in as a sign of good faith between the two parties. The negative side, however, is more or less "We don't like the concept of weaponizing space". It was never about what Canada could bring to the table, it was instead about whether Canada should endorse his actions. As McKenna said today, really Canada through NORAD already has basically submitted to the basics of the American policy. It is the principle of the issue that is contentious, and it looks like Martin will be taking a stand against Bush on that principle.
 

Boogie

Member
Memles said:
Plus, the missile defense shield would shoot them down in space, so there would be little in the way of nuclear fallout as it would not really effect anyone directly.

Canada's support of missile defense was purely a policy issue. Those who see American-Canadian relations as a paramount interest believed that Martin should just give in as a sign of good faith between the two parties. The negative side, however, is more or less "We don't like the concept of weaponizing space". It was never about what Canada could bring to the table, it was instead about whether Canada should endorse his actions. As McKenna said today, really Canada through NORAD already has basically submitted to the basics of the American policy. It is the principle of the issue that is contentious, and it looks like Martin will be taking a stand against Bush on that principle.

But if the principle is essentially meaningless, what's the point?

...

Wait, nevermind, I forgot. This is Canadian politics we're talking about :-/
 
Memles said:
Plus, the missile defense shield would shoot them down in space, so there would be little in the way of nuclear fallout as it would not really effect anyone directly.

Canada's support of missile defense was purely a policy issue. Those who see American-Canadian relations as a paramount interest believed that Martin should just give in as a sign of good faith between the two parties. The negative side, however, is more or less "We don't like the concept of weaponizing space". It was never about what Canada could bring to the table, it was instead about whether Canada should endorse his actions. As McKenna said today, really Canada through NORAD already has basically submitted to the basics of the American policy. It is the principle of the issue that is contentious, and it looks like Martin will be taking a stand against Bush on that principle.
Since Canada is stuck on this issue because of NORAD, can they make an agreement so that NORAD is NOT used for missile defence? The article mentions data sharing between NORAD and missile defence, but is there a time limit to this agreement? There's still time before the "missile defence" gets up and running.
 

FightyF

Banned
Why can't our PM play hardball?

Lessen your tarriffs on hardwood, and let Canadian beef cross your borders, and we'll think about it.
 

Macam

Banned
Well, looks like we all know what the O'Reilly Factor will be about tomorrow. Ann Coulter will be making the rounds as well I'm sure. It's amazing how much they rant about Canada for the most trite of offenses, if one could even call it that.
 

NLB2

Banned
Phoenix said:
There is no orbital trajectory that should put a missile over Canada before reaching the United States along the East Coast.
Russia, for sure would put a missle over Canada first. As would China, most likely. They go the shortest possible distance, i.e. north.
 

Socreges

Banned
Phoenix said:
Shit its Canada - who cares what they think :D
The American government, it would seem. ;)

G4life98 said:
I will never understand why people get so riled up up about nmd research, it seems to me that developing and building an effective defense is preferable to bigger & better nukes.
http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=19081

Boogie said:
But if the principle is essentially meaningless, what's the point?

...

Wait, nevermind, I forgot. This is Canadian politics we're talking about :-/
Pffft.... this is why history majors shouldn't be allowed to talk about RELEVANT political conflicts. ;)
 

Azih

Member
Alright well first off, missile defense doesn't prevent arms race, it accelarates it. You can bet China and Russia are taking a look at the American plans and figuring out ways to make their missiles circumvent it. Given the current state of the plans this aint exactly any accomplishment at all, but the most obvious way to get past any halfway decent shield is to throw more nukes at the States or create faster missile delievery systems. Say hello to the nuclear arms race again.

Secondly damn the Martin government sucks at politics. Cretien made straddling the fence seem like the most comfortable thing in the world, he freaking reclined on it like it was a down filled feather mattress. Mr Dithers on the other hand is getting raped by it.
 

Anthropic

Member
Alright well first off, missile defense doesn't prevent arms race, it accelarates it. You can bet China and Russia are taking a look at the American plans and figuring out ways to make their missiles circumvent it.

This is a load of horse hockey. The *top secret* guaranteed way to circumvent the missile defense system is to shoot more than 20 warheads at it. It's not as if we have hundreds of interceptors sitting there, there's going to be a total of 20. Right now, we have seven interceptors sitting in silos (it may be one or two more by now, it's been a few months since I looked into this). But the plan still is 4 in CA and 16 in AK. That's it. The only purpose of this system is to act as a hedge against North Korea and possibly Iran sometime down the line. That's why they're being absolutely open about how many interceptors get put into launch silos. Anyone with real strategic firepower (China and Russia) could easily defeat the missile defense system at full strength, today. Nevermind the fact that the radars we're building to guide the interceptors will only point west, not north over the pole as we would need to shoot at incoming Russian and Chinese warheads.

The whole reason SDI got labeled "Star Wars" is because it literally would take the Imperial fleet to stop a full blown attack by Russia. Nothing currently deployed, on the drawing board, or even concievably imaginable could stop that. We know that, they know that, everyone knows that.
 

Azih

Member
Ahuh and you think the millitary industrial complex is going to be satisified with this 'hedge against Iran and North Korea'? Everybody also knows that this initiative aint going to stop, hell people in the administration have COME OUT AND SAID that they view missile defense as the first step towards weaponisation of space.

Plus arms races aint exactly overly rational. Why do you think the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world hundreds of times over each? That doesn't make sense but it happened and overreactions of that nature will continue to happen in the future; As missile defense moves forward and gets implemented China and Russia will take measures to prevent any future where the U.S is protected from missile attacks and they're not. They're already doing so.
 

Tiktaalik

Member
The current american missile defense plan is land and sea based and has nothing to do with space. The technology is pretty much the equivalent of shooting down a bullet with a bullet and is massively out of our reach. The last two tests failed, and many more tests have failed than have passed. All these failures are taking place in tests with incredibly optimal conditions (blue skies, no wind, known incoming missile). There is no way the system would work in regular conditions (you don't really know where the missile is, it's night, there are clouds, rain etc). One retired NASA employee that was head of testing said that he thought it would never work.
 

Anthropic

Member
Ahuh and you think the millitary industrial complex is going to be satisified with this 'hedge against Iran and North Korea'? Everybody also knows that this initiative aint going to stop, hell people in the administration have COME OUT AND SAID that they view missile defense as the first step towards weaponisation of space.

The problem with this argument is that one does not play with the law of large numbers and nuclear weapons. Any system designed to shoot down hundreds or thousands of warheads cannot be 100% effective, and that means cities will be destroyed. A 99.99% effective missile defense system that has a capacity to stop 1000 warheads just let 10 cities get nuked. That is to say that the nuclear arsenal that Russia possesses today is more than enough to overwhelm any missile defense system that we may ever deploy.

As for the weaponization of space...We passed that bridge in the 60s when the first spy satellites were sent up. We've been using space as a weapon for years.

This missile defense system though, really does qualify as "weaponization of space". The missiles are based in California and Alaska. The interception does take place in space, but the interceptors carry no warhead per-se. It's just a thick hunk of metal with a sophisticated guidence system. No explosives or nuclear weapons are carried. Kinetic energy is the only weapon.

If you're worried about the military industrial complex, this is not the system to worry about. We will never drop missile defense on innocent children. You'll never see Isreal using missile defense to kill some Palestinian leader in the streets of Gaza. Missile defense will never be used to torture prisoners of war. Residue from missile defense will not cause birth defects.

Strictly speaking, missile defense is the most peaceful weapon we've developed in years.
 

Azih

Member
Anthropic said:
Strictly speaking, missile defense is the most peaceful weapon we've developed in years.
You're not understanding my argument. The *reaction* from the other millitary powers is the issue.

This missile defense system though, really does qualify as "weaponization of space". The missiles are based in California and Alaska. The interception does take place in space, but the interceptors carry no warhead per-se. It's just a thick hunk of metal with a sophisticated guidence system. No explosives or nuclear weapons are carried
You see if the U.S has *any* kinds of weapons in space, then Russia will want them, China will want them, and hell France will want them, and potentially India will eventually want them too. ARMS RACE. You see the ARMS RACE is the problem.

If you're worried about the military industrial complex, this is not the system to worry about. We will never drop missile defense on innocent children.
Look the millitary industrial complex isn't the U.S millitary (or its decisions), the millitary industrial complex is the stable of companies that have made fortunes off providing R&D, materials, equipment, and ordinance to the millitary. They have always pushed for more and more funding for this stuff, and they will push further then just Kinetic based anti-missile systems.

Edit: NEVER underestimate the paranoia of powerful nations, hell America is displaying it what the heck makes you think China and Russia are viewing American actions with calm? They ain't, they're convinced that this huge infrastructure being created is an initial foray into American domination of space.
 
Azih said:
Plus arms races aint exactly overly rational. Why do you think the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A stockpiled enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world hundreds of times over each? That doesn't make sense but it happened and overreactions of that nature will continue to happen in the future; As missile defense moves forward and gets implemented China and Russia will take measures to prevent any future where the U.S is protected from missile attacks and they're not. They're already doing so.

Phoenix explained that in another thread. The reason why they needed so many was because back then missiles weren't accurate. This means that their strategy was basically spray and pray.
 

Azih

Member
Sokar said:
Phoenix explained that in another thread. The reason why they needed so many was because back then missiles weren't accurate. This means that their strategy was basically spray and pray.

Yeah but not to the extent that the weapon stockpile grew, what was it at peak? America with 300X world destructive power and Russia 100x? There was a very large streak of paranoia, suspicion and fear on both sides on what the other side was doing. That hasn't changed and missile defense is not immune to it in any way.
 

Phoenix

Member
NLB2 said:
Russia, for sure would put a missle over Canada first. As would China, most likely. They go the shortest possible distance, i.e. north.

Russia isn't part of the ABM plan being rolled out. You'd have to put interceptor bases IN Canada for that. The system is designed principally to cover North Korea - at least according to where the bases are.
 

Pimpwerx

Member
Missle defense is the biggest sham to be pulled over the taxpayer's eyes since tax cuts. There's no defense. It will cost billions of dollars, and be outdated and outmoded before it ever gets completed. If its supposed to stop Iran and NK, then it's totally pointless. By the time those countries develop missles capable of striking these shores, they should have a large enough arsenal to easily overwhelm the paltry system that's in place. This is ignoring the obvious fact that the system simply doesn't work. Has ANY test passed so far? AFAIK, every test has failed, and they've used known trajectories and other optimal conditions so far. If you can't win when the whole world is tilted in your favor, then you simply can't win. And as mentioned before, there's nothing stopping Iran or NK from developing decoys that fool the system.

My Eng. Design professor worked on SDI, and he told us a bit about the stuff. He pretty much confirmed what we all thought. You can fool any kind of sensing equipment b/c nothing's gonna be good enough at those ranges and those speeds. Thermal, radar, chemical, acoustic, sight...it doesn't matter. SDI was/is a pipedream, and the current system should never have been approved and doesn't deserve to be funded. It's a good thing the military pretty much calls all the shots, b/c otherwise they'd never get even a fraction of the bullshit they request approved. We're spending billions of dollars on the most impractical science project anyone can imagine. And should we someday get it to work in its present form, it will be useless against the next generation of ICBMs. Serenity now. PEACE.
 

Phoenix

Member
Zaxxon said:
The current american missile defense plan is land and sea based and has nothing to do with space. The technology is pretty much the equivalent of shooting down a bullet with a bullet and is massively out of our reach. The last two tests failed, and many more tests have failed than have passed. All these failures are taking place in tests with incredibly optimal conditions (blue skies, no wind, known incoming missile). There is no way the system would work in regular conditions (you don't really know where the missile is, it's night, there are clouds, rain etc). One retired NASA employee that was head of testing said that he thought it would never work.

Pimpwerx said:
Missle defense is the biggest sham to be pulled over the taxpayer's eyes since tax cuts. There's no defense. It will cost billions of dollars, and be outdated and outmoded before it ever gets completed. If its supposed to stop Iran and NK, then it's totally pointless. By the time those countries develop missles capable of striking these shores, they should have a large enough arsenal to easily overwhelm the paltry system that's in place. This is ignoring the obvious fact that the system simply doesn't work. Has ANY test passed so far? AFAIK, every test has failed, and they've used known trajectories and other optimal conditions so far. If you can't win when the whole world is tilted in your favor, then you simply can't win. And as mentioned before, there's nothing stopping Iran or NK from developing decoys that fool the system.

My Eng. Design professor worked on SDI, and he told us a bit about the stuff. He pretty much confirmed what we all thought. You can fool any kind of sensing equipment b/c nothing's gonna be good enough at those ranges and those speeds. Thermal, radar, chemical, acoustic, sight...it doesn't matter. SDI was/is a pipedream, and the current system should never have been approved and doesn't deserve to be funded. It's a good thing the military pretty much calls all the shots, b/c otherwise they'd never get even a fraction of the bullshit they request approved. We're spending billions of dollars on the most impractical science project anyone can imagine. And should we someday get it to work in its present form, it will be useless against the next generation of ICBMs. Serenity now. PEACE.

Damn, I guess the one sitting around Moscow must have been donated by aliens....
 

Memles

Member
Pffft.... this is why history majors shouldn't be allowed to talk about RELEVANT political conflicts. ;)

My brother, history major, decided you were on drugs with this statement. Good times. But, in reference to Boogie, I guess it could be true.

It is entirely a principle issue that is important because it is a symbolic gesture of the Canadian opinion on US Foreign Policy. And, much like Chretien's decision on Iraq, it is a symbolic refusal to endorse their policies. In almost all international situations not directly related to peacekeeping or rebuilding efforts, where Canada actually has some form of influence, Canada's involvement is pretty well symbolic in nature. There would have been little support to SEND to Iraq back in 2003, and there would be little Canada could do for Missile Defense.

I think that the missile defense shield is meant to be defensive, but anyone who believes that that is its only purpose is pretty well insane. The real threat that, to me, the missile defense shield protects against is that of rogue terrorist groups getting their hands on nuclear weapons. While the US at least has the opportunity to attempt to bargain and negotiate with states, terrorists aren't to easy to negotiate with, and there are no trade embargoes or the like to use against them. Yes, it also serves the purpose of protecting against China, North Korea, etc. But, it also serves to protect against non-states.

And, yes, it will piss off China and the like. Putting up a defense shield basically is putting up a target saying "We're going to run the world, and you can't bomb us into oblivion to stop us". If you were to put the shield into words, that would be it. Now, of course, they attempt to pass it off as purely defensive, but it is my belief that there is no real defense in existance that involves nuclear weapons in any way. If you play with nuclear weapons, whether it be in stockpiles or missile defense shields, you are playing with fire.

And, for the sake of argument, I will assume the shield works. It's no fun to argue about something's legitimacy as foreign policy if it doesn't work, damnit.
 

Phoenix

Member
Azih said:
Yeah but not to the extent that the weapon stockpile grew, what was it at peak? America with 300X world destructive power and Russia 100x? There was a very large streak of paranoia, suspicion and fear on both sides on what the other side was doing. That hasn't changed and missile defense is not immune to it in any way.

Yes there was indeed, but initially the whole idea was to hit military installations and silos. But you couldn't because they are VERY small compared to population centers. Couple that with the fact that the Soviet Union based a considerable number of their missile silos near population centers (there are silos sitting around Moscow for example), and the best you could hope for was to be able to blanket the areas where the silos were and threaten the destruction of population centers. Moscow is actually unique in its location in that the ABM treaty (which allows you legally to build a missile defense system so long as it only defends one city or one battery of missiles) allows both a city and a battery of missiles to be defended by the same ABM system.

Back in the day, the strategy WAS of first strike. ICBMs weren't actually planned as a weapon of deterrent, they were planned as a weapon of first strike. The Soviets were just faster to the draw at developing a system to defend themselves against American ICBM.... back in the 70s. Today they have a system that works - or at least they say it works, but then again they also say the SS-27 can't be shot down so who knows :)
 

darscot

Member
This gets a thumbs up from me. The missle defense project is one of the dumbest thigns I have ever heard. As a Canadian I have a lot more important things I want to see my government spending money on.
 

Socreges

Banned
Memles said:
My brother, history major, decided you were on drugs with this statement. Good times. But, in reference to Boogie, I guess it could be true.
Did your brother decide to ignore the wink, too? The fact that it was obviously just a poke at Boogie? Good times, indeed!
 

Anthropic

Member
It should be noted that the current Russian missile defense system works by using nuclear-tipped interceptors. In order to use it, you have to use nuclear weapons over your own soil. The U.S. developed such a system in the late 1970s and the cost as well as the thought of detonating nuclear weapons over our own soil led to it's cancelation.

The current US missile defense system, as I said, is entirely kinetic. This means the weapon is "cleaner" from an environmental and political perspective, but it also means that it has to be much, much more accurate. To a system that's based on nuclear interception, you simply have to get near the incoming warhead so that when your nuke detonates, it takes out or seriously damages the enemy warhead. A kinetic based system requires actually hitting the other warhead, and in fact requires hitting a specific spot on the enemy warhead for best results. That's why the new system is so complex and why it currently is debateable whether it works.
 

darscot

Member
The thing that I find so laughable is even if they perfect the Missle Defense system so it guantees the US cannot be hit with a missle. What's stoping a someone from sending a nuke FedX? Or any of the million other ways to get a nuke on target. This makes about as much sense as wearing a bullet proof vest in a boxing ring.
 

Anthropic

Member
darscot said:
The thing that I find so laughable is even if they perfect the Missle Defense system so it guantees the US cannot be hit with a missle. What's stoping a someone from sending a nuke FedX? Or any of the million other ways to get a nuke on target. This makes about as much sense as wearing a bullet proof vest in a boxing ring.

This argument is like saying we don't need Navy because all possible enemies will just drop bombs from aircraft. It's laughable. There's no one solution to defending a country from all possible threats.

The military is in the thankless business of looking down the road, judging possible threats, and buying ways to defend against them. And sometimes they get their asses kicked. For example, after the Cold War ended, it was decided for budget reasons that having only seven bases, each with two fighters on alert status was enough to guard the United States from all possible air threats. And then someone decided to use jet liners as cruise missiles. Another example...Between the World Wars the Royal Navy decided that continually buying carrier based torpedo bombers was a waste of money...And then in 1941 they were chasing the Bismark with biplanes.

Thus, the military has to buy things that today seem overly extravagant and wasteful but down the road may come in very handy. Perhaps these things will never come in handy...That's the point, they have to guess. Today, buying Seawolf and Virginia class attack submarines seems like a waste of money, but one of these days, one of these countries that are buying Kilo class subs will decide to try out their purchase, and on that day we'll thank our lucky stars we have the best attack subs on Earth.

The same goes for missile defense. Today, it seems like a crazy, wasteful idea. In 10-20 years it may save several million lives. Or, maybe it won't. The point is that the future is dangerous and unless we decide to start defending against these threats now we'll get caught with our pants down.
 

darscot

Member
The only defense from a nuke is peace and MAD. You can convince yourself all you want that this will save lifes but it is a waste of money. Spend a fraction of this on peace and the US would save ten times the lives.
 

Anthropic

Member
Problem: North Korea already has nuclear weapons.
Problem: North Korea has ICBMs.
Problem: North Korea is so heavily defended that an "Iraq-style" regime change would be a blood bath for all involved. See: Korean War.
Problem: North Korea has consistantly shown that they view diplomacy as a sort of soap-opera. They don't take it seriously enough for any sane leader in the U.S. to bet that we can "buy peace" with North Korea. Maybe we can "buy peace" with North Korea, but gambling on that would be irresponsible.

Solution: We try to "buy peace" with North Korea while at the same time investing in more proactive solutions like NMD, the Airborne Laser, and upgrading Aegis for missile interception.

We already have an upgraded Aegis ship sitting off North Korea so that when they test an ICBM we can collect radar data.

What we have already is MAD with North Korea. I'd bet we have a Trident SSBM sitting off North Korea right now, ready to pound them if they every use a nuke. But the current situation is too unstable for comfort.
 

NLB2

Banned
Anthropic said:
Problem: North Korea already has nuclear weapons.
Problem: North Korea has ICBMs.
Problem: North Korea is so heavily defended that an "Iraq-style" regime change would be a blood bath for all involved. See: Korean War.
Problem: North Korea has consistantly shown that they view diplomacy as a sort of soap-opera. They don't take it seriously enough for any sane leader in the U.S. to bet that we can "buy peace" with North Korea. Maybe we can "buy peace" with North Korea, but gambling on that would be irresponsible.

Solution: We try to "buy peace" with North Korea while at the same time investing in more proactive solutions like NMD, the Airborne Laser, and upgrading Aegis for missile interception.

We already have an upgraded Aegis ship sitting off North Korea so that when they test an ICBM we can collect radar data.

What we have already is MAD with North Korea. I'd bet we have a Trident SSBM sitting off North Korea right now, ready to pound them if they every use a nuke. But the current situation is too unstable for comfort.
No way in hell does North Korea have ICBM's. And if they do, they've never been tested.
 
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