Posted on 10/09/2005 3:27:18 PM PDT by Dundee
Star wars armed and accurate
The US missile defence program, initially written off by sceptics as a waste of money and effort, can already intercept and destroy a North Korean ballistic missile aimed at the US mainland.
On a brief visit to Australia, US Missile Defence Agency director Henry Obering said the program already had nine missile interceptors between California and Alaska.
The system is mainly being configured to cope with missiles launched from North Korea or the Middle East, but it will ultimately have the ability to cope with missiles from anywhere. Australia is deeply involved in the program as one of just four nations with full missile defence co-operation agreements with the US. The others are Britain, Japan and Italy.
Australia's primary involvement is in research and development, with further co-operation through the Pine Gap satellite communications facility in central Australia.
However, the Howard Government has announced plans to buy three air warfare capable destroyers with the Aegis missile defence system.
This will provide defence against missiles aimed at deployed Australian forces, naval or army, and could also provide some limited defence to points on the Australian mainland. And Australia could in the future buy a more comprehensive missile defence.
Lieutenant-General Obering said Australian industry could make a real contribution to missile defence. "There are some very significant capabilities in Australian industry that could be jointly pursued. We don't have all the answers in the US. Many of our threat nations around the world are collaborating against us."
Lieutenant-General Obering, with a budget this year of $US6.4 billion ($8.45 billion) for development and $US1.4 billion to operate the existing system, said more countries were moving towards missile defence, with the US in the process of negotiating agreements with a number of other friendly nations and allies.
"Increasing numbers of nations are realising that other means of defence are not sufficient," he told The Australian. "Many actors are just not deterrable. We're beginning to understand fully what it's like to be in the post-Cold War world."
He said be believed the political and the technical arguments against a missile defence system were now a thing of the past. He said the technical arguments were lost in the first Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein was able to inflict significant loss of life on allied forces with missiles. In the second Iraq war, all his missiles were intercepted in the air.
In terms of the political battle, the program now has bipartisan support in the US, and increasing numbers of militaries around the world, such as the Germans and the Dutch, are pursuing their own missile defence.
Lieutenant-General Obering said although there were still technical issues to overcome, the basic utility of missile defence had been well established.
"This is not easy, building these types of capabilities," he said. "We're on a path to handle more complex threat suites. It couldn't handle a Russian or Chinese attack and it's not designed for that."
Instead, he said, the system was designed to handle a rogue nation or terrorist missile attack.
He said the impetus for developing the system in the US came from an event that did not involve missiles -- the September 11 terror attacks.
"The major lesson was not the method of attack but the demonstration of will to inflict major damage on us," he said. "Not being able to protect yourself against even a short-range missile is very bad."
Australia's primary involvement is in research and development, with further co-operation through the Pine Gap satellite communications facility in central Australia.
Australia could in the future buy a more comprehensive missile defence.
Lieutenant-General Obering said Australian industry could make a real contribution to missile defence. "There are some very significant capabilities in Australian industry that could be jointly pursued. We don't have all the answers in the US. Many of our threat nations around the world are collaborating against us."
All sorts of interesting things are happening behind the scenes. There's a lot of radar and missile experts here in Australia.
The Angloshpere lives on.
"The US missile defence program, initially written off by sceptics as a waste of money and effort, can already intercept and destroy a North Korean ballistic missile aimed at the US mainland."
Somewhere up there, Ronald Reagan is smiling.
Safe from ICBM's, but not from potential nuclear bombs coming over the border.....................
""Increasing numbers of nations are realising that other means of defence are not sufficient," he told The Australian. "Many actors are just not deterrable. We're beginning to understand fully what it's like to be in the post-Cold War world."
This is good news, indeed. Ballistic missile defense (BMD) has been a concern since the first German V-2 missile landed in England in 1944, yet the arms control community has opposed BMD with an almost religious fervor. Thanks to President Bush's courageous decision to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which hampered BMD development, and to revitalize our BMD program, which had been severly cut back during the Clinton years, it seems that we may finally have a means of defending ourselves against incoming ballistic missiles.
KIM: WHAT HAPPEN?
AIR DEFENSE OFFICER: SOMEBODY SET UP US THE ZOT.
And Canada makes a perfect "no mans land" for a place for the burning, radioactive debris to come crashing to the earth.
After all, they object to, and refuse to help on the anti-missile defense system.
Mark
I am an Air Defense Artillery Officer who has known from the start that this system would work if given the time and resources.
God bless you Ronald Reagan!
Bad news for Democrats and others who believe that the best defence is to stand naked before your enemies and negotiate.
This is another tribute to President Ronald Reagan who first proposed a missile defence system to defend the U. S. and in the process brought down communist Russia.
Liberals dubbed the system "Star Wars" and said it would never work and would not be accurate. But then, liberals are usually wrong.
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