[sam_paine]

Why has this possibility never been talked about?

Are you out of your mind? " Never been talked about?" LOL. Did you sleep through the entire Cold War/Mutually Assured Destruction thing?

A) Missile Defense IS NOT FOR DETERRING MASSIVE STRIKES

B) Missile defense is for catching limited rogue strikes and suckerpunches that cannot be deterred by MAD stratgies!

There will not ever be a scenario of "hour upon hour" of launches against the US, no matter the actors. If a large strike begins, a large retaliation will launch before the attack missiles even reenter. If not, then all the money spent on missile command was worthless.

[freemike]

A) Missile Defense IS NOT FOR DETERRING MASSIVE STRIKES Why not?? Maybe missile defense should and could be a deterrent. Sorry,, but the usual scenarios during the cold war were "first strike,, second strike." In other words, they fire 20 or 30 ICBMs at us,, we then launch 20 or 30 at them, or whatever number, and so on. Make it a hundred for each strike, if you want. The whole premise behind MAD was we had the ability to strike them after they struck us. Yes, I realize we have the ability to launch before a single missile lands on our nation. My point is,, has anyone considered the possibility that once the missiles begin to fall, they might not stop for several days? Why not make a defense based on that possibility. I think this whole concept of MAD was a mistake. We ought to have the mind to win a nuclear war. Our defenses should be massive. We are talking about the survival of the nation. A missile defense should consider the possibility of thousands of missiles raining down on us for hours or days.