Posted on 06/28/2002 6:30:59 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
In a challenge to Bush administration plans for a missile defense shield, China and Russia on Thursday submitted a joint proposal to the Conference on Disarmament for a new international treaty to ban weapons in outer space.It marked the first joint Russia-China initiative on the issue, which has long been a priority for Beijing because of its fears that U.S. development of a missile defense will inevitably involve outer space.
"We support the urgent adoption today of all measures possible in order to prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space, rather than waste subsequently huge efforts and resources to have it "de-weaponized,'" said Leonid Skotnikov, the Russian ambassador to the conference.
The Soviets were on the threshold of deploying their Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) when Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). FOBS would have improved their warhead accuracy (by liberating it from the uncertainties of the "gravity map") and allowed them to shorten warhead delivery times by more than 50%, greatly decreasing the likelihood that we could disarm them by a counterforce strike if we came to blows. Ever since then, they've known they can't compete with us militarily, so they want an agreement that we won't compete at all.
The Chinese, of course, want to take Taiwan by force, but with the assurance that we won't step in to stop them or punish them. Their hole card is nuclear bombardment of American cities on our West Coast with their tiny strategic missile force, a threat they consider adequate to keep us from opposing their drive for hegemony in the East. So they want to thwart any possible anti-missile shield we might develop.
Sorry, guys. You lose. The Bush Administration knows it doesn't need your approval to protect Americans from your weapons of mass destruction. Let's hope subsequent administrations know that, as well.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
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