It's my understanding that the ground-based interceptors are only capable of knocking out one target at a time, at substantial financial cost. If an enemy, or group of enemies, fires more than one missile at a time, it could render the system ineffective. Okay, I do admit that if even one nuclear missile is knocked out it could prevent a holocaust, but it isn't realistic to tout that this is a surefire defense program based on tests wherein they were dealing with single targets.
Which begs the question... are we expecting some kind of nuclear war with the Middle East? Why all the defense around the region?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Goobieman Explain how that can be the case here. |
Exerpts from
here: Russia totally opposes plans, stating that a European missile system, so close to the Russian border, is akin to the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s where the US and Soviet Union went to the brink of nuclear war...
As predicted, the future development of a European US missile shield has caused very loud opposition from Russian President Vladimir Putin, directly highlighting that such a move would cause another arms race and could create a nuclear standoff between Russia, US and Europe in between
The US missile shield concept depends on European
fast response missiles to be launched as soon as the threat of imminent attack is detected from aggressors in the Middle East and beyond.
---------------------------------------
Any missiles that can be launched for defense can also be launched for offense. Russia's response indicates this, as they are concerned it will trigger another arms race. This is also known as a security dilemma (see: polisci 101)... in order to ensure one's security, one must have weapons capable of countering enemy weapons. Then once you build more weapons, so does the opposition, ad infinitum. The U.S. is trying to enforce the idea on paper that these are for defense only, such as with security agreements, so that Russia will not feel threatened and in turn develop counter-weapons. The U.S. wants to avoid the security dilemma. The problem is that such agreements overshadows the fact that, in their very nature, ground based interceptors can also be used offensively. There is also the potential that the launchers could someday be used to launch other
types of missiles via potential modification. Once the installations are built, it opens the door to other avenues.
I'm not making claims on whether the U.S. would ever make such modifications, but the mere possibility leads to a security dilemma with Russia. We should not be at all surprised by Russia's reaction. The U.S. would be reacting the same way if missile installations were being built within a few thousand kilometres of its borders.
Linear Mode
Main
Extras
