Rethinking WARNO [Pinkerton Must-Read on Missile Defense]

Tech Central Station ^ | Jim Pinkerton

[governsleastgovernsbest]

"Whither Deterrence?" That's an interesting question to ask at a time when undeterrable missiles, thousands of them, have been raining down on Israel from Lebanon. Of course, the question of deterrence -- or not -- has, shall we say, implications for Americans, too. Surely it would be better for any country if incoming missiles could be intercepted. And if I can be allowed a personal point, I will note that more than five years ago I wrote -- here in TCS no less -- that the civilized nations of the world needed to get together, as an international alliance, to thwart this threat.

[snip] In reality, we had become the hostages of a terrorist army and its masters in Tehran. We thought we were deterring them, but they were deterring us from doing anything about their growing arsenal." To put it bluntly, Hezbollah can't be deterred, because they don't fear the deterring attack; Shia, stoked up with religious and nationalistic fervor, don't fear death. So now, with negotiations seemingly useless, Israel must go north into Lebanon to destroy the missiles. Maybe they will succeed in this mission, and maybe they will fail. But we know for sure that they can't stop the missiles once they're launched.

A similar threat-situation is emerging in North Korea. Everyone agrees that the NoKors are continuing to build up their nuke stockpile, even as they seek better missiles. So what's the US doing about this gathering danger? Not a whole lot. Of course, as things stand now, we don't have any good options:

[RicocheT]

The Hezbollah missiles are cheap, big versions on the 4th of July fireworks rockets and have limited explosive capability. It isn't worth sending up a Patriot anti-missile missile as the Patriot shot costs a couple of million $.

North Korean or Iranian medium range or intercontinental range missiles could strike Europe, Israel or the US depending on where they are going. Also, these could have nuclear warheads. Such missiles need to be shot down at all costs as the destruction is immense if they hit. That's what our anti-missile defense is designed for.

[ModelBreaker]

After a brief NMD surge at the beginning of the Bush administration, the idea of actually defending the homeland has been crowded out by other priorities, notably Iraq.

This is deeply myopic. The NMD deficiencies are primarily due to twenty-five years of leftist obstruction. The left does not want us to be able to defend ourselves against missles and they have succeeded.

[ModelBreaker]

The Hezbollah missiles are cheap, big versions on the 4th of July fireworks rockets and have limited explosive capability. It isn't worth sending up a Patriot anti-missile missile as the Patriot shot costs a couple of million $.

This is a really good point. As technology now stands, bad guys with a lot of cheap rockets beat good guys with Patriots, so long as the bad guys don't worry randomly hitting civilians and so long as the bad guys can get position.

What that says is Israel needs new weapons systems that will shoot cheapo rockets down for less-per-shot than the missle cost. Sort of a Phalanx system for cheap, ballistic missles.

As for the US military, these cheapo rockets are not so much a threat to our guys because they are inaccurate. Over time, that will change.