Free Republic

FORT GREELY, Alaska, Dec. 20, 2006 – Just a few years ago, this snow-swept central Alaskan post lay dormant, closed through the Base Realignment and Closure process. But today it’s up and running again at full speed, serving as the epicenter of the United States’ Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program. Spc. Juan Coronel, left, and Sgt. Michael Picirrillo, members of the Alaska Army National Guard’s 49th Missile Defense Battalion, patrol the perimeter of the Missile Defense Complex at Fort Greely, Alaska. Picirrillo came to the job because he “wanted to be on the cutting edge.” Defense Dept. photo by William D....

"Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep. We want to accomplish three things: One, we want the Americans to withdraw conventional forces from Europe. Two, we want them to withdraw nuclear forces from Europe. Three, we want the Americans to stop proceeding with Strategic Defense Initiative." Quote by: Mikhail Gorbachev (1931- ) General...

Ukraine inflamed mounting East-West tensions yesterday by offering up a Soviet-built satellite facility as part of the European missile defence system. The proposal, made amid growing outrage among Russia's neighbours over its military campaign in Georgia, could see Ukraine added to Moscow's nuclear hitlist. A Russian general declared Poland a target for its arsenal after Warsaw signed a deal with Washington to host interceptor missiles for America's anti-nuclear shield. The move came as the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a cease-fire deal that sets the stage for a Russian troop withdrawal after more than a week of warfare with its...

HONOLULU — The U.S. military intercepted a ballistic missile Thursday [June 5, 2008] in the first such sea-based test since a Navy cruiser shot down an errant satellite earlier this year. The military fired the target, a Scud-like missile with a range of a few hundred miles, from a decommissioned amphibious assault ship near Hawaii's island of Kauai.

Honolulu (AP) -- The U.S. military says it has intercepted a ballistic missile near Hawaii in a test. The sea-based test Thursday was the military's first since an errant satellite was shot down earlier this year. A target was fired from a decomissioned amphibious assault ship about 100 miles off the island of Kauai. It was a Scud-like missile with a range of a few hundred miles.

Obama Pledges Cuts in Missile Defense, Space, and Nuclear Weapons Programs February 29, 2008 :: News MissileThreat.com A video has surfaced of Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama talking on his plans for strategic issues such as nuclear weapons and missile defense. The full text from the video, as released, reads as follows: Thanks so much for the Caucus4Priorities, for the great work you've been doing. As president, I will end misguided defense policies and stand with Caucus4Priorities in fighting special interests in Washington. First, I'll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I'm the only major candidate who opposed...

It's always a pleasure to come back to Heritage. An invitation from The Heritage Foundation, obviously, is always very special--only more so when it provides an opportunity to talk about Ronald Reagan's visionary Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). I'm sure [Heritage President] Ed Feulner thought, "Well, if we're going to talk about Star Wars, we might as well invite Darth Vader." I'm happy to accept.I see many friends in the room tonight. I'm reminded of a tribute once given to Ed and the supporters of The Heritage Foundation--comments that are still apt today. We are "unlucky in many things in...

Obama Pledges Cuts in Missile Defense, Space, and Nuclear Weapons Programs February 29, 2008 :: News A video has surfaced of Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama talking on his plans for strategic issues such as nuclear weapons and missile defense. The full text from the video, as released, reads as follows: Thanks so much for the Caucus4Priorities, for the great work you've been doing. As president, I will end misguided defense policies and stand with Caucus4Priorities in fighting special interests in Washington. First, I'll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I'm the only major candidate who opposed this...

Perhaps it is fitting that the 25th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" speech falls on Easter Sunday. After all, many had believed Reagan's grand plan for a system that would render Moscow's nuclear-tipped missiles "impotent and obsolete" died along with the Soviet Union. But "Star Wars" has been resurrected, and has been standing guard over America's skies since 2004. But the more than $120 billion spent over 25 years to build the "Star Wars" missile shield has not left the U.S. less vulnerable to attack - some would argue that it has done exactly the opposite, by diverting...

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2008 – Vice President Richard B. Cheney commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Strategic Defense Initiative last night, pressing for a renewed U.S. commitment to a national missile defense system to protect against current and future threats. Speaking here to the Heritage Foundation, Cheney recalled former President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 proposal to create a shield of ground- and space-based systems to protect the United States from incoming strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The Defense Initiative Organization stood up to oversee the program, which came to be nicknamed “Star Wars,” after the popular space movie series. The concept...

WASHINGTON - Borrowing a theme from the presidential contest, Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that the possibility of a 3 a.m. emergency call to the White House is all the more reason for the next commander in chief to follow through on President Bush's plans for a national missile defense. "It's plain to see that the world around us gives ample reason to continue working on missile defense," Cheney told the conservative Heritage Foundation at a dinner recognizing the 25th anniversary of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed network of rockets capable of shooting down incoming intercontinental ballistic...

Tomorrow night, a European spacecraft is scheduled to blast off from French Guiana on its maiden voyage to the international space station, giving NASA and the world a new way to reach the orbiting laboratory. For NASA, however, the launch of the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) also highlights a stark reality: In 2 1/2 years, just as the station gets fully assembled, the United States will no longer have any spacecraft of its own capable of carrying astronauts and cargo to the station, in which roughly $100 billion is being invested. The three space shuttles will be retired...

This is a matter of national security which should concern every normal American. These are Barack Obama's own statements below: "First, I'll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.And I will institute an independent "Defense Priorities Board" to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is...

SDI: A destroyed satellite attests to the prowess of U.S. technology and our ability to defend ourselves. Democrats said it wouldn't work. Adversaries say it's provocative. Somewhere Ronald Reagan must be smilingRarely is military technology put to so public a test with so much riding on its success or failure. With the whole world watching, a modified Standard Missile-3 was launched Wednesday night from a Navy cruiser in the North Pacific, its target a spy satellite in a decaying orbit headed to Earth full of hazardous hydrazine fuel. Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey discounted any comparison with an anti-satellite...

<p>A HIT! A missile launched from a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific hit the decaying U.S. spy satellite it was targeting 130 miles above Earth's surface..... Developing...</p>

WASHINGTON — The order by President Bush for the Navy to launch an antimissile interceptor to destroy a disabled satellite before it falls from orbit carries opportunity, but also potential embarrassment, for the administration and advocates of its missile defense program. The decision was described by senior officials as designed solely to protect populated areas from space debris, and not to showcase how the emerging missile defense arsenal could be reprogrammed to counter an unexpected threat: in this case hazardous rocket fuel aboard the dead satellite. Even so, the attempt, expected within the next two weeks, will again throw into...

The Japanese know all about surprise attacks and the devastation caused by nuclear weapons, and they are determined to be victims of neither. Our former foe is now a determined ally, and between us we are rapidly unfolding a missile defense umbrella over both countries and the ocean between. In Greek mythology, Zeus used a shield called Aegis. Today, another shield called Aegis is in the hands of the descendants of the samurai. The latest in a stunning string of missile-defense successes took place Monday, when a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor launched from the JS Kongo knocked out a target...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The military shot down a Scud-type missile in another successful test of a new technology meant to knock down ballistic missiles in their final minute of flight, the Missile Defense Agency said Saturday. A ship off Kauai fired a target missile at 9:15 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time Friday, or 3:15 a.m. EDT Saturday. Minutes later, soldiers with the U.S. Army's 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade launched an interceptor missile from Kauai that destroyed the target over the Pacific, according to the agency. The military says it already can shoot down missiles in their last stage of flight...

Security: Perhaps you haven't heard, since the media would rather ignore the success of what they've derided since Ronald Reagan floated the idea 24 years ago, but America now has a working missile defense system. The news was not entirely ignored. The New York Times/International Herald Tribune covered it. But it has gone largely unreported elsewhere. When a senior military officer says that a key defense system is operative, newspapers should splash that on their front pages and television and radio should begin their broadcasts with the news. It's as if the media don't believe the U.S. is worth protecting....

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A ground-based missile successfully intercepted a target missile Friday in a test of the nation's defense system, the Missile Defense Agency said. ADVERTISEMENT An intercontinental ballistic missile interceptor blasted out of an underground silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base shortly after 1:15 p.m., and tracked a target missile that had lifted off from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska, the Boeing Co. said in a statement. The Missile Defense Agency said initial results show the interceptor's rocket motor system and kill vehicle performed as planned. Boeing said the warhead was tracked, intercepted and destroyed....

VANDENBERG AFB, Calif., Sept 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Riki Ellison, President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/, was at Vandenberg AFB to view the ground-based interceptor launch from the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense site on Vandenberg AFB, CA and got to witness the successful intercept by one of our nation's ground-based interceptor missile (GBI) deployed there against a threat-representative long range target missile launched from Kodiak, Alaska. Ellison's overall appraisal of the test was characterized as "an overwhelming success with the 7th intercept of this system gives our nation and our public great confidence that our military has the...

August 28, 2007 The Cold War might be over, but the underlying strategy that arose with Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense program in the 1980s lives on as the threat of long-range missile attack remains a global concern. Lockheed Martin have just announced successful testing of part of the Missile Defense Agency's “Multiple Kill Vehicle” program designed to be a single-launch platform to neutralize an entire fleet of incoming enemy missiles. Before Reagan’s Star Wars speech in 1983, America’s missile defense system consisted mainly of the simple and scary concept of Mutual Assured Destruction – you bomb us, we’ll bomb...

Tulane historian Douglas Brinkley has provided the first extended look at Ronald Reagan's personal diaries ("The Reagan Diaries" HarperCollins, 2007). He makes clear this is not the entire edited collection, which is being prepared separately, but just a sample---if a large one running 680 pp. He also alerts the reader that perhaps the first genuine, reliable biography of Reagan is forthcoming by former advisor Martin Anderson and his wife, which is reassuring after the debacle of "Dutch" by Edmond Morris. Several themes stand out. First, any notion that any of the liberal journalists ever had that Reagan was lazy evaporate...

"'La force motrice' of Reusable Launcher Development: The Rise and Fall of the SDIO's SSTO Program, From the X-Rocket to the Delta Clipper" Introduction. NASA commissioned me to document the development of the X-33 in March of 1997. The X-33 is an advanced technology demonstrator vehicle intended to flight test technologies deemed critical for eventually building a reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket transport. Those technologies include a metallic thermal protection system, an aerospike engine, and composite cryogenic hydrogen tanks. As part of the history project, I chose to write about the SDIO's SSTO Program as a predecessor to the X-33, even though...

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- "I can pledge this to you: If I should be elected president of the United States, I will never, never, never abandon Israel," emphatically announced Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., before enthused attendees of "A Night to Honor Israel" at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall at Northern Virginia Community College, Sunday night. Hunter, an announced presidential candidate, immediately followed an impassioned plea from Rev. Jan Willem Van Der Hoven, who in his "Greetings from Israel" address declared that an American pull-out in Iraq would be tantamount to an abandonment of Israel, a nation surrounded by enemies in...

SDI: If missile defense technology is so "untested and unreliable," as Democrats keep telling us, why are the tech-savvy Japanese so hot for it? One of the major criticisms Democrats have of the various national missile defense programs is that the tests thus far allegedly have been scripted, not representing real-life missile combat conditions, with the results mixed and unconvincing. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says the operational testing is unconvincing. Over on the House side, seven Democrats, in a letter sent to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, complained of "tests that have been highly scripted...

SDI: If missile defense technology is so "untested and unreliable," as Democrats keep telling us, why are the tech-savvy Japanese so hot for it? One of the major criticisms Democrats have of the various national missile defense programs is that the tests thus far allegedly have been scripted, not representing real-life missile combat conditions, with the results mixed and unconvincing. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says the operational testing is unconvincing. Over on the House side, seven Democrats, in a letter sent to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, complained of "tests that have been highly scripted...

The airborne laser ballistic missile defense system successfully fired its tracking laser during a flight test Thursday night. Testing of the ABL is based at Edwards Air Force Base, and the laser test took place over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. The weapons system is designed to use a high-energy laser mounted in a highly modified 747 aircraft to destroy a ballistic missile while it is still in the boost phase, shortly after launch. A high-energy chemical laser is used to puncture a hole in the missile's pressurized fuel tank, causing it to rupture. In this way, the...

CANBERRA and Tokyo are negotiating a defence and security agreement that will open the way for Japanese troops to train on Australian soil. The co-operation pact will bring a new dimension to Australia's relations with its biggest trading partner, providing for joint military exercises, regular meetings between foreign and defence ministers, exchanges of officials and closer work on regional challenges such as North Korean nuclear proliferation. It will be Japan's first bilateral security agreement, other than the US-Japan alliance, which remains the linchpin of the Japanese defence arrangements. Both Canberra and Washington have been pushing the previously reluctant Japanese Government...

Some who play a part in changing the world are hardly recognized. Jim Baen, who has died following a stroke at the age of 62, science-fiction editor and founder of the U.S. science-fiction publisher Baen Books, was one such. His role as a cultural warrior was a proud one. He contributed very significantly, below the radar of sociological and cultural commentators, to the strengthening of Western culture. He also did something not many cultural warriors, and not many publishers, can claim: he may have contributed directly and significantly to the West winning the Cold War. ... In November, 1980, with...

Democratic leaders are poised to gut America’s missile defense - at the same time North Korea and Iran are testing long-range missiles that can strike the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, Japan and Britain. Meanwhile, sources inside the missile-defense community tell Pajamas Media that the Bush administration is planning to ask Congress to begin funding development of an “orbital battle station.” With these key developments, 2007 is set to be the biggest battle of space-based weapons since President Reagan proposed “Star Wars” in 1983. The incoming chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee is Carl Levin. Levin, a Michigan...

U.S. Must Move to Full Missile Defense by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.Posted Oct 09, 2006This week, HUMAN EVENTS begins an occasional series of exclusive articles in which leading conservatives who served in the Reagan Administration explain how they believe the principles of Reagan conservatism ought to be applied today and in the coming years. This week, Frank Gaffney, who served in Reagan’s Defense Department, addresses the issue of missile defense. Ronald Reagan is now esteemed around the world for having the vision and the leadership skills to bring about the demise of the Soviet Union. He is less widely appreciated...

Today's Democrats are nothing like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, who with courage and decisive action kept on top of their jobs and aggressively confronted one national defense crisis after another .........

Today's Democrats are nothing like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, who with courage and decisive action kept on top of their jobs and aggressively confronted one national defense crisis after another. Jimmy Carter, elected during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and (1) believing Americans had an inordinate fear of communism, (2) lifted U.S. citizens' travel bans to Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia and (3) pardoned draft evaders. President Carter (4) also stopped B-1 bomber production, (5) gave away our strategically located Panama Canal and (6) made human rights the central focus of his foreign policy. That led...

A test launch of a next-generation, submarine-launched Russian ICBM ended in failure yesterday when the missile crashed into the White Sea shortly after launch, news agency Novosti reports. The Bulava was fired from Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine the Dmitry Donskoi. Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo confirmed the failure of the test, admitting: "A failure in the testing program of the Bulava missile occurred during the second stage of the test. A special commission will conduct a detailed investigation into the cause of the incident to eliminate it during further stages of the test program after the vessel returns to base."...

The news about the successful missile defense test conducted Friday by the Defense Department came at an opportune moment. Not only do we have constant reminders from North Korea and Iran of the importance of this program, but the program itself has been in real need of a boost, because congressional appropriations have been lagging.

WASHINGTON -- A test of the national ballistic missile defense system failed Monday when an interceptor missile didn't get out of its silo, the second failure in as many months. The failed test came less than a week after North Korea declared it had nuclear weapons, giving new attention to a possible threat from that nation. An initial test evaluation blamed equipment at a Pacific island site rather than the interceptor itself. If that assessment bears out, it would come as a relief to defense officials because it would mean no new problems had been discovered with the missile....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 - The nation's fledgling missile defense system suffered its third straight test failure when an interceptor rocket failed to launch Sunday night from its base on an island, leaving the target rocket to splash into the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon said Monday. The target rocket was launched from Kodiak, Alaska, at 9:22 p.m. Sunday (1:22 a.m. Monday, Eastern Standard Time), but the interceptor that was supposed to go up 15 minutes later remained on its pad in the Marshall Islands, the Missile Defense Agency at the Pentagon said. The target rocket fell into the ocean near Wake...

An interceptor missile failed to fire in a missile defense test last month because a support arm in the silo did not clear when it was supposed to, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday. Air Force Lieutenant General Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said the program to field a system capable of intercepting long-range ballistic missiles was going through "a period of disappointment." "The hard things about missile defense we are accomplishing. The easy things is what we are having trouble with, like arms moving out of the way," he told reporters. The interceptor missile has now...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first test in nearly two years of a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield failed on Wednesday when the interceptor missile shut down on its launch pad in the central Pacific, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said. About 16 minutes earlier, a target missile carrying a mock warhead had been successfully launched from Kodiak Island, Alaska, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said in a statement. The aborted mission appeared likely to set back plans for activation of the rudimentary bulwark against ballistic missiles that could be fired by countries like North Korea (news - web sites). The...

The newsies are all headlining the "failure" of the test of the missile intercept system. It is not that simple please go HERE for a review and links to a fuller picture.

Lost in Space By Henry F. Cooper and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr.,The Wall Street Journal, reprinted in Missile Threat.com in toto, August 31, 2006 Consider the implications of North Korea's July 4 missile tests. While the Taepondong-2 failed, Pyongyang has already demonstrated (in 1998) that it can launch long-range rockets. Meanwhile, the six short- and medium-range missiles it successfully tested can be sold to other rogue states and terrorists -- who could launch them at us from ships off our coasts. When North Korea launched its missiles in July, what President Bush has properly termed our "modest" missile-defense system was...

WASHINGTON--The Missile Defense Agency will install 10 more interceptors at Fort Greely and deliver an X-band radar to the Aleutian Islands this year, but flight tests of the national missile defense system are on hold while the agency reviews what went wrong with two failed launches in the last six months. Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, Missile Defense Agency director, told a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that he had chartered an independent review team to look at the agency's test methods. It reported back with some suggestions last month, Obering said. Obering also appointed a program director,...

HIGH ABOVE THE EARTH, the Aries missile streaked toward its target, creasing the thermosphere at two miles a second. Launched at 8:12 a.m. Hawaiian Standard Time, the 30-foot long solid-fuel rocket had weighed in at more than six tons and had generated 200 kilonewtons of thrust. But now, high overhead, the missile had separated from its booster, and it screamed along the edge of space. It was doomed from the start. Far below, rolling gently in the sea off the Kauai coast, the USS Lake Erie waited. The ship--a Ticonderoga class cruiser--is 567 feet of gray lethality: Tomahawk and Harpoon...

Quietly, almost imperceptibly, outside the glare of the Beltway and beyond the daily chaos of the war on terror, the US military is continuing to piece together an international missile defense system (IMD). Indeed, spring 2006 has brought with it new support and new partners from Europe, deeper cooperation in the Pacific, hopeful signs from friends in North America, steady advances on the technology front, and ever more ominous threats in the Middle East and Northeast Asia. First, the good news. Early in his presidency, George W. Bush vowed to begin operating the IMD's "initial capabilities in 2004 and 2005."...

KAUAI, Hawaii, June 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- During a test today the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System with its Standard Missile (SM)-3 successfully intercepted a ballistic missile target with a separating reentry vehicle outside the Earth's atmosphere. Both the Aegis BMD Weapon System aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) and range sensors confirmed a direct hit of the missile target during its midcourse flight phase over the Pacific Ocean. Lockheed Martin develops the Aegis BMD Weapon System and serves as the Combat System Engineering Agent for the U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency's Aegis BMD...

The Associated Press Thursday, June 22, 2006; 8:03 PM HONOLULU -- A Navy ship on Thursday intercepted a medium-range missile warhead above the earth's atmosphere off Hawaii in the latest test of the U.S. missile defense program, the military said. The Missile Defense Agency said the test had been scheduled for months and was not prompted by indications that North Korea was planning to test launch a long-range missile. The USS Shiloh detected a medium-range missile after it was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, then fired a Standard Missile-3 interceptor. The interceptor shot down the target...

PYONGYANG, North Korea, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- North Korea Saturday called a U.S. missile defense test a threat and vowed to strengthen its defense measures in response. North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland released a statement saying the U.S. test, which was conducted Friday over the Pacific Ocean, "was aimed at attacking us and intercepting our missiles," the BBC reported Saturday. The committee also called the United States the "the main culprit" in the threat of war on the Korean peninsula. "It is a folly that the United States wields the truncheons of power in order...

Report Supports Sea-, Space-Based Missile DefensesGlobal Security Newswire, August 4, 2006 The United States should focus on developing sea- and space-based missile defenses rather than expanding ground-based systems beyond the interceptors already deployed in Alaska and California, according to a experts’ report issued last month (see GSN, May 11).“Near-term options exist for developing viable sea-and space based defense within the next decade resulting in a comprehensive, global layered missile defense system,� says the 202-page report from the Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship and the 21st century.“This option would complement the [Ground-based Midcourse Defense] system currently being...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING INFO) The United States successfully carried out a flight test of ground- based missile defense system Friday, shooting down a warhead over the Pacific Ocean and saying it now has a "good chance" to intercept long- range North Korean missiles. The success, which came after two failed tests in December 2004 and February 2005, is expected to boost the recently stepped-up U.S. efforts to build up its missile shield since North Korea's missile launches on July 5. "I think we have a good chance" to shoot down long-range North Korean missiles, Missile Defense...