Jeroen wrote: >That still doesn't justify such an enormous expense on a shield. With >all >those surveillance satellites in orbit, the US will notice any missile >launch in a few seconds. The US military already has the means >necessary to >take out a single missile by conventional means. Not really. Those Patriots are totally overhyped. And besides, they probably couldn't take out an ICBM, the scuds were a lot smaller. The Patriots HIT the scuds, but if the scud is finished boosting you have to kill the warhead. And the Patriots didn't do that. But in reality the new Missile Defense plans are for a souped-up Patriot style weapon, perhaps sea-based for mobility. But yeah, it would be hugely expensive. Perhaps the money might be better spent on intelligence gathering. However, given the dismal American track record on intelligence perhaps we should stick to technology. >A shield will also be useless in case of an attack with large numbers >of >missiles. It may be able to take out several missiles, but many will >still >break through the shield and destroy their intended targets. Yes, what is proposed is a system that could shoot down a few missiles, not WWIII. >And who would want to launch an attack against the US? A country with >only >one (or just a few) nuclear missiles will probably use them against >their >neighbours. Countries in the Middle East will most likely target >Israel; >Pakistan will probably use it against India. They simply have nothing >to >gain from sending a single nuke to the US. I agree with this. The only trouble is Israel. Nuking Israel would neccesarily nuke millions (or at least hundreds of thousands) of Arabs too. The terrorists want to take back Palestine, not destroy it. But in any case, such terrorists probably wouldn't bother with an ICBM, they'd bring it over in a suitcase. You'd only need one or two people to actually trigger the thing New York or Washington. The thing is, I can't picture the Dictator of a state doing such a thing. He has too much to lose, his slaves are too vulnerable. Any dictator can be rooted out by the US/NATO military, provided we are determined enough. Dictators survive because no one wants to destroy them bad enough. Lob a nuke at DC and there's your reason. Terrorists are much more likely to use such a weapon, since there is no real target to strike at...maybe a few camps, or maybe not. And even if a rogue state provided the weapon to the terrorists, or was behind the terrorists, it would be very difficult to pin it on them. It might take months before we found out that the nuke was provided by, say, North Korea. And anyway, the proper response would be to invade and occupy the country, not nuke them. What would that accomplish? ===== Darryl Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
