The maginot line was obviated, but against the threat it was designed to face it worked. The missile shield can't even do that and it's technology, which is now the aggregate product of what, in present terms, likely equates to close to 100 billion dollars of inputs, can be folled by a 10 cent decoy balloon. It couldn't swat missiles like flies unless we invested truly ridiculous sums of money on it, as in like a 100 billion a year or so, and built interceptors literally every few square miles. Costs >>>>>> benefits.
I know it couldn't - but I argue that even in a best-case scenario, the missile defense program would be a Maginot Line-like flop.
B1 is such a waste of money... it'll never work yadda yadda and Carter canned the program... yet without it, we would be relying on a total of 76 B-52's that are currenly 40+ years old and a whopping 21 B-2's Reagan saved the day by revising and reviving the program and as such the 96 B-1b's are the big hammer of our current airforce point being, technology improves, threats change and imo this is a terrible time to kill a project that carries the potential to one day end the threat of global annihilation... anyone reading this thread remember hiding under your desks at school, wondering if the world was going to end?? say, hasn't North Korea been testing missiles for the past 6 years or so and isn't it widely believed they have nuclear capabilities right now http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/02/24/nkorea.missile/ though I would definately take a second look or three or four before the "Widely believed" part flies with me these days... I do agree, however, that the deployment of the system is premature and possibly politically motivated and diplomatically irresponsible... who really knows? Most importantly... What makes you guys so sure that we will never be attacked from a small country that has no hope of defeating us in a conventional war? Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it
Yep... and DEFINITELY. Good thoughts here. btw- Japan had a nuke tested near them recently by NK... Scuds could reach Tel-Aviv from the western region on Iraq (now maybe from Syria?)... a minor amount of advancement in technology and either could be made into an ICBM type weapon that could cross the Atlantic or blast Hawaii out of the water...
1998 is pretty recent... it's not like it was 1944. What did the Clintonians do?? Zilch in the way of a Missle Defense... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/161513.stm World: Asia-Pacific Anger at North Korean missile launch The Japanese Government has reacted angrily after a North Korean missile flew over its territory. Officials in Tokyo say the medium-range ballistic missile test-fired by North Korea on Monday landed in the Pacific Ocean, travelling much further than previously thought. Tokyo Correspondent Juliet Hindell: "Probably a two-stage missile" Japanese Government officials said the missile was composed of two stages, the first of which landed in the Sea of Japan, with the second falling in waters off Japan's north-east coast. If confirmed, the test is the first reported launch by North Korea of a two-stage missile and marks a significant step forward in its rocket technology. 'Strong protest' The Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said on Monday his government had been aware of North Korea's preparations to launch a ballistic missile into the waters that divide the Korean peninsula from Japan. As a result, Japan has refused to sign an agreement on sharing the cost of providing safer nuclear reactors to North Korea and will protest to the North Koreans. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka expressed Japan's "strong protest" in a complaint to North Korea's representative at the United Nations. Tokyo and Pyongyang have no diplomatic relations. "It was an extremely dangerous act to conduct without any advance notice in the sea near Japan where a number of vessels and aircraft of our country are operating," Mr Nonaka said. US concern The United States expressed concern over the North Korean action. Correspondents say it is likely to overshadow talks which have resumed in New York between Washington and Pyongyang on the progress of an agreement by North Korea in 1994 to freeze its nuclear reprocessing programme. North Korea's test programme Russian officials have said the missile launch was a test which misfired. They announced the missile had landed inside their territorial waters and are reported to have sent warships to the area to investigate. South Korea's Defence Ministry identified the missile as a newly-developed Taepo-Dong One, with an estimated range of approximately 1,000 miles. In 1993, North Korea caused anxiety in Japan by test-firing a medium-range Rodong-1 missile into the Sea of Japan, demonstrating that parts of western Japan were within the 1,000km (600-mile) range of the missile. The BBC Tokyo correspondent says there is speculation that the latest missile firing was intended by North Korea as a show of power in advance of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Stalinist state.
OOOOPS... There's more recent Nuclear activity since 1998 too... read toward the bottom... ------ ----- ------ http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107686.html ---- ----- ----- ----- ----- ---- But hey... we don't need any defense system. We can trust 'em. I don't see my inventions anywhere, underoverup. I'd say the facts are all there. Recent tests (within the last decade)... and continued developement, coupled with a whack job leader... All of which gives me reason to fear putting in a leader that would give "cuts" to a "missle defense." If you'd rather die, it's your business. I choose to elect a leader that will defend my way of life.
And Kerry proposed, and sponsored, bills to cut Intel funding when again? Oh, right. While he was a Senator. On a committee to STOP this kind of thing. But I guess a 22% participation rate in these meetings is fine enough to adequetly stop the attacks that may present themselves. And if that's not enough time, you can always blame the president for your lack of committee work, which was supposed to aid the president and raise his awareness. btw- you subvert and skirt this particular issue, and I fight the facts with more of them... meanwhile, why ignore the threat that may arise by calling a defense system frivilous? Is the National Guard a frivilous expenditure because we are rarely threatened on national soil over the years in comparison to overseas? Your logic is a bit wanting.
We have a defense system - it's called "If you launch a nuke at us, we will wipe you off the map". That's why if someone is going to attack us with nuclear weapons, they won't use ICBMs. And that's why this is a 21st century Maginot Line - whether or not it works : it's deployed against the wrong threat.
all i responded to was that line about history repeating the fact is we have never been attacked by missiles so how can history repeat itself? the last time this administration was so focused on missile defense was it's first 8 months in office, ignoring the real threat.
I apologize for being misleading... I should have said "an unarmed test of a nuclear weapon." Sorry, I really wasn't trying to be an alarmist, just showing that the missles (possible vehicles of nukes) are out there & being tested. I missed my own oversight for twice.
It was a haphazardly thrown to together scud built with 3 stages --- only 2 of which actually worked. Just for the record.
4 aircraft carriers completely neutralized the US Pacific fleet, had the Japanese chosen, they could have taken Hawaii right then and there... Only 2 of three attack waves were launched, saving the dry dock and allowing our ships to be rather quickly repaired-- anyway the point isn't how the attack was carried out but that we were completely unprepared
And then we would have built some new carriers and dislodged the Japanese in 7 years rather than 5, or else we would have built more a-bombs, etc. But anyway that's beside the point. The "we're unprepared" argument can be use for a lot of things with huge costs and small chances of success. Look at giant meteor strikes: Tunguska, 1912, Cretaceous period, Flagstaff crater. Yet I don't see anybody rushing to build an anti-meteor shield, even though the chances of it being successful, given the fact that you have months to do it, rather than minutes, at any point in the next 25 years are far greater than that of a missile shield being successfully used to foil an attack. There's also a half empty half full argument -- a partially effective missile shield could save a hundred million lives or so -- but would you want to live in an America where 100 million people were incinerated and most major metropolitan areas were gone? I sure wouldn't -- might as well blow the whole freaking thing up, I have no desire to live in a MadMax scenario. Based on the liimited resources that we have and the nature of the various threats to our national security, as well as its effectiveness of what we've got -- this approach just makes no sense, and neither does pouring tons of money into it.
LOL, I actually even wrote it like his name instead of the movie too, didn't I? That reminds me of a funny story, way back when, one of my first assignments at work was to go collect documents for a client that were at Belmont & Aqueduct raceways. We were hanging out with their security people all day long, and the security director, who might have been just pulling my leg, claimed that their most frequent security problem wasn't cheating or fixing horses or anything like that, but people having sex with horses!
