No Missile Defense Until the Missiles are in the Air

When Ronald Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik a lot of
good things were happening. One side would pledge to scrap this weapon
and the other side would pledge likewise with another weapon. This
meeting went on like this until the Soviet leader, at the very end of
the meeting, asked Reagan to limit the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI) to laboratory testing. SDI, or Star Wars as it is more commonly
known, was theorized to have the ability someday to provide a shield
that would knock down any intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
that threatened the United States and/or Europe.

Reagan ended the meeting right there nullifying all the progress
that had been made at the Northern-most capital in the world. He knew
that making a missile shield would protect the United States and our
allies but would also work to disarm the Soviets. A couple years later
he was proven correct in his supposition when the Soviet Union fell
under the crushing debt spurred by its increased military spending
aimed at counteracting a parallel increase in American military
spending.

So why has the current administration signaled it might be willing
to change its mind on this issue? According to Yahoo and Reuters the
Bush Administration may indeed hold off on implementing real-life SDI
defenses in Eastern Europe that would protect against an Iranian
nuclear tipped ICBM.



From Yahoo:

The United States might delay activating its proposed
missile defense sites in Europe until it has “definitive proof” of a
missile threat from Iran, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

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At a news conference after meeting Czech Prime Minister Mirek
Topolanek, Gates said this was a proposal to the Russians — who
strongly oppose U.S. missile defense — that has yet to be worked out in
detail.

“We would consider tying together activation of the sites in Poland
and the Czech Republic with definitive proof of the threat — in other
words, Iranian missile testing and so on,” Gates said with Topolanek at
his side.

From Reuters:

The United States has proposed delaying the activation
of parts of its European missile defense shield if Russia cooperates on
the project, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

The U.S. plans to place interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar
system in the Czech Republic as part of a system Washington says is
needed to counter possible attacks from “rogue states” including Iran
and North Korea.

Russia argues the system would be a threat to its security.

Gates said the possible delay was one of the proposals he and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put forward in talks with Russian
officials to try to ease Moscow’s concern and win its cooperation over
the defense system.

“We continue to encourage the Russians to partner with us in missile
defense and continue our efforts to reassure them that these facilities
are not aimed at Russia and could benefit Russia,” he said.

So not only are we going to wait until a serious threat materializes
but we might also share some of our technology with Russia who has
shown recent signs of regressing back to its Soviet roots.

I’ve never understood our nation’s hesitance on SDI. It is the
technology that might render ICBMs obsolete and protect us from a
nuclear holocaust. Shouldn’t that be one of the biggest aims of the
American government: protecting this nation’s people against a barrage
of nukes? Maybe not all is wrong in the world because in another story
about missile defense we have the president saying that it is one of the central tenets of American foreign policy.

President Bush said Tuesday that plans for a U.S.-led
missle defense system in Europe are urgently needed to counter an
emerging threat of attack by Iran.

“If (Iran) chooses to do so, and the international community does
not take steps to prevent it, it is possible Iran could have this
capability,” Bush said. “And we need to take it seriously — now.”

Bush’s latest warning about Iran’s nuclear ambitions came in a broad
defense of his security policies at the National Defense University. He
said intelligence estimates show that Iran could have the capability to
strike the United States and many European allies by 2015.

“The need for missile defense in Europe is real, and I believe it’s urgent,” Bush said.

The backdrop to all of this is an Iranian government who insists they cannot be deterred from pursuing nuclear technology. Ahmadinejad said
“We are in favor of talks but we will not negotiate with anyone about
our right to nuclear technology.” What really bothers me is that
constructing an effective missile defense system would significantly
mitigate the need to preemptively decommission an Iranian nuclear site
and the leftists in this country and in Europe are totally against such
a measure. What exactly do they want? A nuclear war to end all wars?



Israel sees the threat as it is.
They have already said they will preemptively attack Lebanon if
threatened by another terrorist war and they have more recently said
they will take out Iranian nuclear sites before they can get too far
along in development. Israel has proven it is serious about what it
says by already have blown up a nuclear site in Syria within the last
couple months.

Is this what we want though? To live in fear of a nuclear ICBM from
Iran is not really something I think many want. Sure, even if we do
create a perfect missile defense shield it would not protect us from a
ground attack with a nuclear weapon in the form of a dirty bomb or a
conventional nuke. Having the shield would limit our enemies’ options
though and would hopefully limit the yield of a nuclear blast because
possible bombers would have to detonate the bomb at ground level.

While Iran claims its sovereign right to develop nuclear technology
we should claim our rights to work in conjunction with our allies to
develop anti-missile technology. Our only hope in diverting a war with
the Iranians is to follow Reagan’s example and make their weapon
development so expensive that it bankrupts their country. Besides that
the only option would be to militarily strike Iran before it gets too
far along on its nuclear “technology.” BigT