Taylor Dinerman writes about one of the many unfortunate consequences of a Democrat Congress--renewed (and more effective) efforts to prevent us from defending ourselves against missiles.

Rand, completely OT, but what are your opinions on the budget deficit?

My opinion is the Budget Deficit will become far, far worse if someone manages to lob an ICBM onto US soil.

Considering that the biggest determinant of federal tax revenue in a given year is economic growth, not marginal tax rates...

What about the Aegis SM-3 system? As I recall, deployment is going full speed ahead.

Okay, some Air Force guys may be unhappy if the Navy actually deploys workable ballistic missile defense making their program redundant but is that the Democrats fault?

As a Democrat, I think the Aegis SM-3 system is way cool and should be fully deployed ASAP and not merely because it was thought up by a member of the Doobie Brothers.

Putting missile defense on Aegis class warships is a terrific way to put the defenses near to the threat be it North Korea or Iran.

By the way, I also like those laser equipped 747s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defense_System

Looks like ballistic missile defense has already been deployed.

Go Navy!

Well I believe the Aegis system is only tactically certified to be effective against short and medium rang missile threats. I believe the ship needs to have some proximity to the launch zone as well. Launch silos that are far inland will be difficult for Aegis to acquire and take down. Unless you wanna steam a stealth cruiser into the Baltic sea then Russia will give you some problems.

Strategic missile defense should be viewed as consisting of multiple layers. The Aegis system would cover the first layers of the onion and should be viewed more as an offensive defense capability - knocking missiles down over enemy territory or just as they exit the atmosphere. If something were to get by that then the Air Force's solution is to be the defensive curtain surrounding our great land.

If I were in charge, every time the moonbats trot out the tired old 'maginot line' strawan, I would tell them it is a 'Gauntlet'

That is what it should be, a multi-layered gauntlet and to pass it, a booster and then warhead would have to make it thru every phase up to and including point defense.

Josh and Mike -

I am curious -- how many simultaneous incoming missiles would constitute "saturation" of your proposed system?

10 or 15 and I am 100% on-board.

Leak proof missile defense against 1000 incoming ICBMs? That I oppose because then China would only need to foreclose on our foreign debt to prevail against us.

The Dinerman piece is a really poorly-written, poorly-sourced article. Take this:

"One test of how serious both Democrats and the Bush Administration is about defending America..."

"Both IS"?

"The best time to hit a ballistic missile is just after blast off when it is climbing against of gravity"

"is climbing against of gravity"?

I know 10th graders who write better sentences. His bio says that he's a writer, so such sloppiness has no excuse.

But grammar sloppiness aside, where is his evidence that the US is going to field "a space battlestation"? What's the project called? Who is in charge of it? Note that the people he quotes are Everett Dolman and Frank Gaffney. Gaffney hasn't been in government since the 1980s, and Dolman is a far-right theorist, not a government official with responsibility for missile defense. And before the US military decided to launch such a weapon, they would first conduct smaller scale operational tests. There's nothing like that in the budget.

There are a lot of other problems with assertions in the article. For instance, JSTARS was pressed into service in the Gulf War because the platforms were already built. There was little operational risk if it did not work. In comparison, before spending billions more on a missile defense system, one would want to know if it works or not. It would seem to be a good conservative principle to not commit to spending billions without thinking things through.

Bill,

If China were to foreclose our foreign debt, they might as well forclose on the Chinese Communist Party while they are at it.
The number one rule of a good parasite is never kill the host. Make no mistake, we are China's host and their entire economy is based on exports to the US.

T-Bonds mature, they are not payable on demand. They could stop buying more but they can't forclose s you put it.

Scott,

If you want to know who Taylor Dinnerman is, google on his name. We here are quite familar with his writings.

"We here are quite familar with his writings."

Are they all this bad?

Here.

Was that so damn impossible?

No, Mike, but it's a pain in the ass for me, because long URLs screw up my post formatting...

I had to spend time to fix it.