The DC Examiner wants to know. So do I.

Sigh. Try Defense Tech.

Well, try Tim_the_Soldier and Mark Adams, commenting in this thread on Rosemary Esmay's site.

Yours,
Wince

Widely deploy the Aegis / SM-3 system and some of those laser equipped 747s.

Announce "Mission Accomplished"

And then there will be no need for further funding of the Air Force version, which is having trouble hitting its targets.

A ship based and 747 based system actually is far more flexible than fixed ground bases anyway.

Episodes I through III were definitely not up to the originals.

This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope.

They're still around.

It still isn't clear that we actually *can* (or can't) intercept something of the Taepodong class (or whatever Iran and other not-already-capable adversaries may come up with) missiles reliably enough (I don't expect perfection...even ICBMs themselves can fail, as events also show) to be considered operational, but one hopes these events clearly underscore to skeptics the *need* for ballistic intercept capability...unless one wants to rely on a watered-down form of MAD, where the only response is comparable retaliation.

Or to, um, rely on North Korean rationality (which MAD also requires), good will and willingness to sincerely negotiate...

(hmm...did I hear muffled laughter?)

I suppose it would be unreasonable to suggest with the
$50Billion wasted on Ground based missile defense
in Alaska that we could take some of that money
and just buy all of North Korea?

I suppose it would be stating the obvious that buying North Korea would hardly solve all of our missile defense needs for all times?

I suppose stopping those nasty Hessians in the 1700's totally negated our necessity to engage Germany in two ground wars during the Twentieth Century.

Anonymous

You mean, spend more, in addition to the bribes that the '94 Agreed Framework arranged for? (See KEDO, US oil shipments, and Clinton/Albright's plans for the US to suspend trade sanctions on NK.)

And that's just US spending. Japan, South Korea, and China also spend quite a bit keeping Kimmy quiet (sorta).

North Korea is fundamentally a joke.
Think Albania without the weather.
Ultimately they will fall apart.
Now, if we offer Kim Jong Il a 5 picture
deal with Universal and a place in Malibu
it might hasten the process.

Now Iran these guys are serious.
Growing economy, oil money, and a lot of population.
Now they could be an issue in a few more years,
but NK? Half their currency exchange was coming
for a decade from smuggling drugs, Forging
currency and piracy.

Here you go.
Slate.
NPR.

In many ways the missile defence system is the STS of strategic weapons systems - designed on poorly though out assumptions, heavily endorsed by bureaucrats and industry over plentiful outside skepticism , and rushed into "operational" status for purely political reasons.

Dunno about the NPR piece, but the Slate article is written by Mr. Clueless. He says:

If North Korea sticks to past form, it will launch a satellite, not a warhead, allowing it to claim that its test was for "peaceful purposes"....When it works, the missile-defense system destroys the missile's payload—either a warhead or a satellite—after the missile itself has done its job....Were the United States to shoot down a satellite, it would, ironically, antagonize its most important partner [China] in dealing with North Korea.

This fellow doesn't understand, or perhaps clumsily glosses over for the sake of grinding his silly axe, the profound technical and geopolitical differences between destroying a satellite in orbit and destroying a re-entering payload targeted at somebody on the ground. I suppose he sees little difference in shooting (in self defence) someone aiming at you with his .45 and just about to pull the trigger, and someone peacefully shooting targets at the range next door. That takes a lot of ignorance, dishonesty, or perhaps both.

The notion that the Chinese would start worrying about their satellites were the US to demonstrate a capacity to destroy re-entering payloads targeted at North America, whether or not the payloads had first achieved orbit, or were called "satellites" instead of "warheads", is just plain silly. Apparently Slate continues its long tradition (started by Fred Kaplan, as far as I can tell) of making knowledge of what the hell you're talking about purely optional for writers on defense and aerospace issues.