Posted on 02/24/2021 5:38:57 AM PST by MtnClimber
All decent people are peaceniks. This holds true always, but especially in a nuclear age, when one misstep, whether on purpose or not, can spell the deaths of not millions, but billions of people. It is only a maniacal misanthrope who would not fall under this rubric, but, then, he would hardly be counted as "decent."
The U.S. government has just registered a successful foray in the direction of peace. For the very first time, a long-range ICBM was brought down not from a land-based anti-missile defense strike, but from one located on the John Finn, a Navy destroyer. An SM-3 Block IIA missile was effectively used in the test run. Applause, please.
If you expected the pro-disarmament left to appreciate this new breakthrough, you will be sadly disappointed. The Union of Concerned Scientists opposes anti-ballistic missiles. One fear is that they will not work; the perpetrator could employ multiple warheads, most of them as decoys. The proper response is a more sophisticated ABM. Another argument is that if only one country had this technology, others might be tempted to employ a first strike, since the previous safety net, Mutual Assured Destruction, would no longer safeguard the world's population. In an act of statesmanship probably never before or after equaled, Ronald Reagan offered to share this equipment with the Soviets. If that cannot unambiguously establish the peaceful nature of this initiative, nothing can.
But opposition to the employment of the only alternative to MAD continues. Noam Chomsky goes so far as to characterize the ABM as a "first strike." No, no, no — the very opposite is the case. The first strike is the offensive missile. The second strike, or the countervailing shield, is the defense.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The left admires our enemies. They want us to lose.
Noam Chomsky is still alive?..........................
He was always brain dead, but he is still breathing. So, no.
>>the perpetrator could employ multiple warheads, most of them as decoys<<
The decoy would have to weigh as much as a real warhead, otherwise it would be evident on reentry. If it has to weigh the same as a real warhead, then they might as well have it be a real warhead.
I remember writing papers about SDI in high school and college during the 1980s and the left made the same silly arguments. I even think Chomsky was one of those making that argument.
>>Another argument is that if only one country had this technology, others might be tempted to employ a first strike, since the previous safety net, Mutual Assured Destruction, would no longer safeguard the world’s population.<<
Some unknown percentage of missiles will always get through.
In an environment with ABM defenses, if A shoots first at B, and B shoots down most of them, then A loses, because all the missiles at B which survived, will now be re-targeted away from now-empty silos in A, to other targets, like A’s cities.
When “pacifists” oppose defensive measures their true sympathies are revealed. There were pacifist groups in the U.S. in the thirties that opposed America entering WWII. Then Hitler invaded Russia in 1941 and all of a sudden these groups were all about intervening against Germany, showing their alignment with Stalin. A member of one such organization went to the FBI and became a spy.
Yes. This absurdity reveals the cognitive defect of leftists. A peculiar lapse in critical thought.
The US missile defense system is not now, nor will it be in the foreseeable future (ie. several decades) an all-encompassing shield obviating or subverting MAD.
How many ICBMs does Russia have? Roughly 400. China, 100. How many interceptors do we have? 44... Even if you count THAAD systems which have a decent chance of success against something moving as fast as an ICBM, and start counting the SM3-IIAs it is not going to be enough. Consider that "shot doctrine" when you're talking about a weapon of mass destruction headed for a population center is to fire more than one interceptor at it in order to increase the probability of success. Sorry lib lurkers, I know "probability" is a big scary math word.
If we're firing 2 or 4 interceptors at each incoming ICBM we are going to rapidly run out when faced with dozens of weapons. The real, current, and for the foreseeable future purpose of missile defense is 3 fold: Protect us from rogue/accidental launches. Protect us from smaller states, bad actors, and terrorists. ({cough} Iran...{cough} North Korea) Develop technologies so that some day, not in my lifetime and perhaps not in the lifetime of anyone reading this, we might have the ability for 100% protection.
Now, if ICBMs tipped with WMD were rendered useless, maybe people would stop building them and threatening their neighbors with them. No-one is stockpiling pikes, maces, and shields anymore. Maybe someday...
“A peculiar lapse in critical thought.”
Not a lapse, but intention. With an effective ABM, we become superior, and not beholden to MAD threats. This would be a MAGA strategy, cant’ have that.
For people who were around 35 or so years ago, they’ll remember the Left having a meltdown regarding Reagan’s plan for Strategic Missile Defense.
Unfortunately it’s too late the save the country (because we refused to deal with these people when we could), but at least SOME PEOPLE may start to learn that we really do have home-grown enemies who, literally, want this country destroyed...and they have been around for decades, many decades.
I remember it well. They called him Ronnie Ray-Gun.
Many of the world peace/nuclear freeze groups that made lots of noise during the Cold War were revealed to have been KGB-funded front groups following the fall of the Soviet Union.
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