If this was a missile, why was there no response?
From a tactical point of view what response would there be. Let’s assume it was a missile from a foreign power for a moment, not many countries have the technical ability to launch a SLBM. Take out the friendly nations to us and that leaves only a couple possibilities.
1: Russia
2: China
I don’t believe in coincidences so let’s look at when this ‘UFO’ appeared. Right during the whole QE2 debate was going on this object was sighted, also this was in advance of the G8 summit.
Now, assuming it was a missile I doubt it would be us. We wouldn’t have fired this in sight of LA if this was something we wanted to keep secret. If it wasn’t us and it was a missile all signs point to China. Russia has nothing strategic to gain from firing a missile off our coast and really doesn’t have the muscle to back up t hat threat. China has both a strategic gain and the muscle to back up the threat. China sees itself as pretty much the sole Superpower in the world now, if you consider military AND financial might. Right now our economy is so fragile that *if* China had the balls to call in the chips we would be screwed financially. Sure, so would they but in a long-term conflict their financial power and the influence through the rest of the world would be the deciding factor. Right now the Chinese Navy cannot go toe to toe with ours but that’s changing quickly and due to financial pressure we’ll have to severally cut our defense spending if we don’t dramatically change course. Give the Chinese another 15-20 yrs at current pace and we will have to write off the entire pacific.
The US was caught unaware. What kind of response would you suggest?