Missile Defense, as conceived by the current Military establishment is tremendous fiction. I am in a fairly decent position to speak on this. I worked on a Missile Defense contract for several years, and also studied US National Security under Peter Rodman and Henry Kissinger at the Nixon center. My father is an engineer on one of the missiles to be used in the NTW program. My sister is contractor to BMDO. I know of what I speak on this. Missile Defense, as conceived, is a horrendously bad allocation of resources. First of all, the system on its face, is of dubious value. The missiles cannot effectively discern between decoys and the real targets, and cannot be launched in enough numbers to compensate. The tracking and targeting systems can easily be foiled by countermeasures that our enemies would use. On a larger scale, how does missile defense fit into our security strategy. Missile defense (and I'm referring to Strategic rather than Area or Theater) is designed to protect against a threat that by and large no longer exists. Diplomacy and our nuclear deterrent is sufficient against those with the means to launch ballistic missiles at the US. Those who would be undeterred by our conventional deterrents don't have the means, and would otherwise much rather use other methods to attack the US. We would be spending billions of dollars and allocating vast intellectual capital against an attack that for many reasons is most likely never going to happen, rather than against attacks which will certainly be forthcoming in the future. It is historical folly to prepare future defense against the past war - in this case the cold war. But Missile Defense is actually worse for us than the Maginot line for France. Both defended against the least likely attack. Both inspire false confidences. Both drew an inordinate amount of resources away from more sensible expenditures. However, unlike the Maginot line, Missile Defense undermines our security even more. It encourages our enemies and rivals to expand their nuclear programs. (China in particular) It encourages enemies seek easier targets. (World Trade Center) And it antagonizes our allies when we need their cooperation most. If we are concerned about mainting a balance of power in our favor, we souldn't tell our allies we aren't going to protect them. The purpose of the ABM treaty was, among other things, to dissuade nations from seeking to counter us by appearing to be less interested in hegemony. If we are concerned about our safety, we should develop defenses that may actually work against threats that actually exist. There has been only one valid reason to pursue National Missile Defense. On the one hand, the NMD would provide a vast subsidy for a declining national security base while to keep it vital as we determined what future threats would be. We now clearly see what our future threats are, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are way down the list. Within the context of our actual threats, the complicated web of relationships we have with other countries, the costs of the system, and it's likelihood of succes, prioritizing a technological solution for Missile Defense makes little sense. Unless of course, you are preparing against an invasion by space aliens. (and even then our current long range missiles would be a better bet)
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