Punk said:
For the fourth time, I SUPPORT A THEATER BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM.
reading comprehension people
Your post gator was about the Arrow, not the SM-2/3. The Arrow is being designed for a two-fold purpose: 1.) a joint theater ballistic missile defense system and 2.) later on to be the national defense missile system.
Now pay attention, what I'm asking is it worth it for a nationwide defense system?
Okay, having just gotten back on the computer I see that Punk has been just about dead on with his arguments while Brett, being his normal grumpy self, sits in the corner and throws hand grenades.
I think Punk has an excellent point about Theater Ballistic Missile Defense efforts. As several of you have already pointed out, there is wide proliferation of SRBM and MRBM systems around the world. The SM-3, PAC-3 and the THAAD are all okay to good systems that will likely provide a good deterrent and an effective defense to SRBM's and MRBM's. These systems are further developments of existing systems, the PAC-3 and the SM-3, or a relatively (and I do mean relatively) inexpensive system (THAAD) compared with hte whole MDA budget.
And while MDA does provide funding and is the lead agency for some of these systems, that is not where most of the money goes. Most of the money goes to the GBI's and their supproting systems and they are suppose to provide a defense to CONUS from a ICBM attack. They have spent billions and they now have a handful of GBI's in two locations, Vandenburg AFB, CA (north of LA) and Ft Greely, Alaska. They are specifically there to counter the threat of ICBM's from the Far East. For those of you who did not comprehend what Punk was trying to say, this is the part of Missile Defense that I think is a waste.
Like Punk pointed out, the exoatmoshpheric kill vehicles (EKV's) that atop the GBI's are the best way to intercept a ICBM right now. While Wink pointed out that boost phase interception is the optimal phase to shoot down a missile in flight, the technological hurdles with actually getting the chance are enormous. We would have to know precisely where the missile was coming from and a very good idea of where the missile was going to in order to destroy it in the boost phase. You would have sensors optimally placed and with enough sensitvity to correctly identify and then intercept the missile in powered flight. To do this you would need a huge network of sensors that are much more capable than the ones we have now in place to cover an extremely large area, like all of Asia. While this may be possible it is not pratical, we would have to spend billions of dollars to create a surveillance system like that. For those of you who say that we should have a pretty good idea of where the missile would be coming from in the first place, we thought we had a pretty good idea where Saddam was hiding his Scud's in the Gulf War and yet he was able to launch missiles up until the end of the war. If you think we have gotten a lot better at looking for them then how did we think that he had enough WMD to wipe out millions of people and it turns out he had nothing? If you think finding a missile in the desert of Iraq is hard, try the mountains of North Korea.
So, after billions of dollars the MDA has figured out that the GBI's with the EKV's is the best way to destroy an ICBM. But who are the GBI's protecting us from? The only two countries that probably have ICBM's targeted at the US are China and Russia. North Korea may or may not have the capability to hit us, they have never tested their 'ICBM' though. Russia has a couple hundred ICBM's and SLBM's that could hammer us in 30 or 40 minutes, way to many to be defended by the liimited number of GBI's that we plan to have. China has a lot less ICBM's, but what is to prevent them from making more? They are flush with the billions they are making off their exports all over the world. So what are the GBI's good for? North Korea? Kim Jong Il is a nutcase but I think he wants to live. He launches a nuke at us and it is the end of him and North Korea. Even Hitler didn't use poison gas in WWII. Why? Because dictators are always the same, they want to hold onto power. Launching a rogue nuke at the US is not a good way to stay in power.
And another point that no one has brought up, what about the countries above developing countermeasures? Russia has already made some claims that they are developing coutnermeasures to defeat BMD
"Russia claims to have developed missile defense countermeasures for the SS-27 allowing the SS-27 to penetrate any known missile defense." For every every weapon someone tries to come up with a countermeasure, and someone usually finds one.
Some of you have pointed out that rogue states would develop missiles that woul dreach the US. I would argue that there is a big difference between being able to develop and field an SRBM or MRBM than an ICBM. There is a reason that only three countries have built and fielded operational ICBM systems, they take enormous resources and expertise to make them. It is a big leap to go from a missile than can go 1500 miles to one that can go 10,000 miles. If you don't believe me, why hasn't anyone else done it? It would make much more sense for a country that wanted to threaten the US to load a couple Scud's on a freighter and sail it up the east coast lobbing a few missiles at some cities. Unless we knew it was coming and committed every Aegis ship we had we would be hard pressed to defend against something like that. And if you think it would be easy to find any old freighter off the east coast, you need to take a ride with the VP guys sometime.
And by the way, I am not the only person who thinks this way. Like I said before, I regularly deal with MDA in the course of my job. They regularly come to us asking for stuff. They are usually (book) smart people but like I said before, a bit arrogant ("I am the most important person you support" Uhh, no you aren't). I also work with a lot other very smart people. These are mainly civilians but are
very smart when it comes to the above subject, they live and breath this kind of stuff. To a man (and woman) they have a very, very low opinion of what MDA is trying to do. Spend 5 minutes talking to one of them and they will poke so many holes in what MDA is trying to do and it will mae your head spin. Whenever MDA makes it case a 'meeting of the minds', there is universal sigh of resination at the crazy kid who always crying about the sky falling.
So while it may be a great idea about defending the homeland from the evil terrorists or rogue regimes, someone is going to find a way through the forest of the Ardennes and deliver a big swift kick in our a#$ when we are looking the other way. If any of you want to hav ea full bag of knowledge about the MDA debate, I highly suggest reading the paper on the following link:
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/missile defense.htm
While it is extremely long, if you take the time to read a good chunk of it is a pretty good overview of the debate. It goes into excruciting detail but that is what is looks lik esome of you could use
. The following is also a good article by the RAND corporation. Again, very long but very informative:
http://www.rand.org/natsec_area/products/missiledefense.html
In short, is a robust MDA that covers the United States and its allies possible? Probably. But are we willing to invest the hundreds of billions of dollars to make it a reality, at the expense of a good chunk of the defense budget. I certainly don't want that to happen. It is time to stop attacking the windmills.
