The Missile Shield is shelved! Huzzah!

[Sqrl]

famousringo said:

halogamer1989 said:

Obama essentially is giving an FU to Eastern Europe and something for nothing to Putin. This also bodes badly for Netanyahu's Israel and the shield's potential defense of that nation.

He is taking an idealist (not realist) approach at a world without nuclear weapons where everyone can go to the UN and talk it out and sing kumbayah. This is a load of crap as the world will always be filled with evil bastards who wish to harm other nations with nuclear or conventional attacks.

BTW, he did this on the same day that the IAEA came out with a report (they later redacted - maybe a Rahm Emmanuel phone call?) that stated that Iran has the capability and the will to create the bomb and deliver it.  http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090918_1612.php

Given that the missile shield hasn't even been proven to work, I think putting your faith in it is more idealist than realist.

Even if it did work, the sure-fire counter is to launch enough missiles that the system can't cope. Given that the world is "filled with evil bastards who wish to harm other nations" (impressive fearmongering, considering no nuclear attack has been made in 65 years), do you really want to encourage every nuclear power in the world to stockpile a nice big arsenal before they feel secure? Isn't your realist self concerned that an arms race between the nine (nine of them now!) nuclear powers in the world would increase the risk of a warhead falling into the wrong hands and being delivered in a manner which no missile defense system can counter?

Actually yes it has been proven to work, there have been dozens of successful intercepts.  Unless you mean proven to work as in "in a real life scenario"..in which case..I'm quite happy we haven't had a chance to find out yet =P

As for it's initial shortcomings....well the first telephone network was hard to hear over, didn't accept many customers, and probably failed all the time.  Now you can get comparatively excellent call clarity, billions of customers, and we have a robust network with no single point of failure.

Technology doesn't sprout to full form, it has to be incrementally improved.  Trying to abandon it because it doesn't provide every feature you want right away is how you stagnate tech and find yourself falling behind other nations.

In any case the GMD system is not 100% foolproof, but it does provide a better than 0% chance that you can shoot down the missiles coming after you.  In fact based on recent tests since 2006 it is probably in the 70-75% range.  And those odds compound in your favor when you have multiple launch sites.

As for overwhelming it....this is true, but that argument actually undermines your position.  The shield was supposed to protect against rogue nations...not to protect against Russia.  Russia could overwhelm it..rogue nations could not.  

PS - It is insane to celebrate this move until we know what the US got for it.