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Those of us of a certain age will remember a time, some 40 years ago now, when President Ronald Reagan advocated the Strategic Defense Initiative, Project High Frontier, and various other related programs, all built around the basic concept that we should have defenses against incoming missile attacks. Throughout all of human history, military preparedness has involved both offensive and defensive elements. An army might have swords and longbows for offense, while being equipped with shields for defense. Cannons and cannonballs made up the offense, fortresses and moats provided a defense. Thus it has been for thousands of years, but...

A U.S.-Japanese interceptor successfully shot down a test ballistic missile over Hawaii. It was the second-ever success for the joint missile defense program, and a stunning technological accomplishment. Also, the whole thing was captured on video. The interceptor, called the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA, destroys targets with sheer force, rather than an explosive warhead, and according to its manufacturer Raytheon, the interceptor's "kill vehicle" (a projectile) rams into a ballistic missile with the force of a 10-ton truck traveling 600 mph (965 km/h). But does any of this make the U.S. (or Japan) any safer? Are American cities less likely...

Breaking News Banner Only at the Moment... More will follow as this develops. Full Title: Pentagon Says It has Shot Down Mock Warhead Over the Pacific, in Key Success for U.S. Missile Defense Program

A warning siren bellowed through the concrete bunker of a top-secret Naval facility where U.S. military engineers prepared to demonstrate a weapon for which there is little defense. Officials huddled at a video screen for a first look at a deadly new supergun that can fire a 25-pound projectile through seven steel plates and leave a 5-inch hole. The weapon is called a railgun and requires neither gunpowder nor explosive. It is powered by electromagnetic rails that accelerate a hardened projectile to staggering velocity—a battlefield meteorite with the power to one day transform military strategy, say supporters, and keep the...

The Kremlin spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on a global propaganda network that spreads conspiracy theories, distorts reality, and incites suspicion and hatred of the United States and its representative democracy. And that is just Russia - China and Qatar have similar operations. We have nothing that bears comparison. The main Putin network, RT, has more employees than the Voice of America. We are disarming ourselves not only materially but also ideologically. This must end. From Sweden in the Baltic to Tartus in the Mediterranean, Russian forces are on the offensive. The consensus among U.S. officials not...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) applauds the passage of the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on Thursday after a week of debate and consideration by both parties. Sen. Cruz introduced or cosponsored more than a dozen amendments that were successfully adopted by the committee. “Congress’ first priority is to provide for the national defense and ensure our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have everything they need to defend our freedom,” said Sen. Cruz. “I am grateful for the committee’s support for my amendments, including measures that will ensure...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas WASHINGTON – Some of the top minds and leaders in the nation are asking for the help of ordinary citizens to protect America. Conservative stars such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., want to spread word among the grassroots about the greatest dangers America faces and what people can do to effect solutions on a local level. The South Carolina National Security Action Summit is open to the public and will be held Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Brookland Baptist Banquet and Conference Center at 1066 Sunset Blvd.,...

For decades, Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—an ambitious ground- and space-based “shield” to protect the United States from nuclear ballistic missiles—has been mocked and criticized. First proposed by the president in 1983, it was immediately dubbed “Star Wars” by the mainstream media and dismissed as unscientific, infeasible and even counter-productive. The Union of Concerned Scientists, 100,000 members strong, was fierce in its opposition. The Arms Control Association declared that SDI would end arms control, while some Soviets felt SDI would end the world. Domestic critics became furious, and the Kremlin went ballistic. But while Reagan’s critics might not have...

Four years after CNN foreign policy analyst Fareed Zakaria praised President Barack Obama for scrapping the missile defense system in Eastern Europe, Zakaria swiftly backtracked on Sunday after top Ukrainian officials declared that Russia was invading the country. Zakaria, the host of CNN's weekly Fareed Zakaria GPS program, said on his show that NATO should consider building a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that the Obama administration scrapped: "Militarily there is less that can be done. After all, Russia’s military budget is about 18 times that of Ukraine. But NATO should restart talks on providing assurances to countries like...

National Security: Our secretary of state tells the Chinese we'll restrain missile defense activities in Asia in exchange for their help in reducing the threat of a nuclear North Korea. Isn't this where we came in? In a news conference after meetings with China's top leaders on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would reduce its missile defenses in Asia if North Korea abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Well, at least he didn't bow. In response to North Korea's threat to fire some of its latest missiles, including the road-mobile Musudan, amidst news that it can...

In the 1980s, when now-Secretary of State John Kerry was a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts, he criticized the Reagan administration’s plan for a missile defense system—known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—calling it a “cancer on our nation’s defense.” … One year earlier in June 1985, AP reported that Kerry was advocating the same position of limiting funding to SDI, calling it, “a dream based on an illusion.” “We must also recognize that we could never test a Star Wars system under realistic conditions until the moment of an all-out nuclear attack,” Kerry said. …

From the cover of Time, April 4, 1983 Editor’s Note: This week, we have run a series by Jay Nordlinger on missile defense. It has been 30 years since Reagan gave his speech announcing the project. What was his vision, and how has it fared? The last part of the series is below. Parts I through IV are at the following links: I, II, III, and IV.In that speech of his, 30 years ago, Reagan said, I know this is a formidable technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century. Yet current technology has...

Editor’s Note: This week, we are running a series by Jay Nordlinger on missile defense. It has been 30 years since Reagan gave his speech announcing the project. What was his vision, and how has it fared? For the first three parts of the series, go here, here, and here.You will remember a curious incident in March 2012. Obama is talking with Dmitri Medvedev, Russia’s outgoing president. Their conversation is caught on tape. Obama says that a number of issues can be “solved,” and “particularly missile defense.” But “it’s important for him to give me space.”The “him” was Vladimir...

Editor’s Note: This week, we are running a series by Jay Nordlinger on missile defense. It has been 30 years since Reagan gave his speech announcing the project. What was his vision, and how has it fared? For the first two parts of the series, go here and here.The president who followed Reagan was his vice president, George Bush. The president who followed him was Bill Clinton — who was no fan of missile defense. He put the brakes on the program immediately. As Rich Lowry writes in his book on the Clinton years, he “slashed funding for missile...

Editor’s Note: This week, we are running a series by Jay Nordlinger on missile defense. It has been 30 years since Reagan gave his speech announcing the project. What was his vision, and how has it fared? For Part I of the series, go here.Reagan is the object of widespread respect today. He is respected even by some of those who once scorned him. So it may be hard to imagine just how mocked and reviled he was in his time. Liberal elites (to use a convenient though unsatisfactory phrase) painted him as a Hollywood simpleton who would inflict...

President Reagan addresses the nation on SDI, March 23, 1983 (The Reagan Library) Saturday, March 23, was the 30th anniversary of President Reagan’s famous “SDI speech” — the speech in which he announced our missile-defense project, which soon came to be known as the “Strategic Defense Initiative,” or “SDI.” I have a piece on this subject in the current National Review. I thought I would do an online series this week, blowing it out — expanding on this piece and this topic. There are not many more important topics, frankly. A defense against nuclear missiles ought to rank pretty high...

On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech that horrified the liberal establishment of the time: his call for a Strategic Defense Initiative. Ronald Reagan was not your typical politician. The only president born and raised in Illinois (yes, Lincoln, Grant, and Obama moved to Illinois as adults, but only Ronald Reagan grew up there), he came to politics with a heartland sensibility: do what makes sense, do what’s right; don’t worry about what the elites from the Ivy League or Foggy Bottom insist upon. Reagan came to party activism late in life, running for public office for...

Missile Defense: As Pyongyang threatens a nuclear strike, the administration says our missile defenses can handle anything they can throw against us or our allies. If so it's not because of anything the president did. 'I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Thursday after North Korea's raging runt, Kim Jong-un, said Pyongyang was scrapping the 1953 armistice deal that ended the Korean War. He threatened a "preemptive" nuclear strike against the U.S. Carney added that "our recent success in returning...

by Mark Finkelstein June 22, 2006 Norah loves Larry. At least, she loves the way Larry Eagleburger phrased things about North Korea. At the same time, Larry made it fairly clear that there's no love lost between himself and Dick Cheney. The former Bush, Sr. Secretary of State appeared on this evening's Hardball. Guest host Norah O'Donnell interviewed him along with former Clinton defense official Ashton Carter. Carter had in turn written an op-ed in today's Washington Post, which as indicated by its title, If Necessary, Strike and Destroy, advocates blowing the North Korean ICBM off its launch pad if...

National Security: Moscow threatens to strike our missile defense sites in Europe if we proceed, as missile defense advocates warn that the administration is defunding existing missiles in favor of future, theoretical versions. 'A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens," Russian Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov said at an international missile-defense conference in Moscow on Thursday, apparently not waiting for the "flexibility" President Obama told outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that his re-election would give him. Makarov's blunt threat referred to administration plans to deploy the SM-3 IIB, a missile still on...