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US Missile Shield already Defeated?
Anonymous Coward writes "Forbes is reporting that although interest in the missile defense system has waned while the US military addresses more pressing matters of immediate concern, the Russians have already developed an anti-missile-defense missile designed to defeat the system. Were the US military to actually prove that the missile defense shield worked, the Russian rocket's "zig-zag" flightpath taken en route to it's target would render the shield useless. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the non-ballistic trajectory would leave the projectile virtually impossible to down or divert. The author feels inclined to say that the missile defense shield was intended as a defense against rogue states such as North Korea that have not acquired this technology yet."
No. The treaty was with the Soviet Union, the USSR.
Sophistry.
The treaty was useless since the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
Because whatever political entity succeeds the Soviet Empire couldn't possibly launch nuclear missiles at us, could they?
Treaties can also be broken at any time.
People can be murdered at any time as well...that doesn't make it right. For this treaty to be abrogated legitimately, one of the necessary conditions for abrogation spelled out in the treaty must be met. To justify his unilateral action, Bush cited Article XV of the ABM Treaty, which states that the Treaty could be abrogated by one of the parties "if extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests." To date, the President has not specified the 'extraordinary events' which supposedly prompted his decision, and has not explained how the United States' continued adherence to the ABM Treaty could 'jeopardize' its 'supreme interests'.
That treaty would not have stopped nukes from raining down on American cities.
Funny...the treaty was in existence from 1972 to 2002, ans I don't recall a single nuclear incident on U.S soil during that time. Fast forward to now...no treaty, and Putin's bragging about a missile that can penetrate our defense system (admittedly, not much of a boast, given the pathetic state of the 'missile defense system'). Seems to me there's a bit of a correlation there.
The missle[sic] defense shield *might*.
You might want to keep up on current events. Bottom line: our President threw away a 30-year old treaty like so much garbage, needlessly antagonizing other nations, to pursue a technology that is still firmly in pipe-dream status. Not much of a surprise, though, given that this same President pulled out of the Kyoto Accords on Climate Change, withdrew the US from the treaty creating an International Criminal Court, opposed a Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would allow for inspections and verification, and failed to fulfill US obligations related to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Again, I can't help but see a trend.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
You're wrong. Some of the tests failed, and some succeeded, but to say that because a single test failed it never worked is simply incorrect.
As for the Patriot missle performance in the Gulf War, it is just as incorrect to say they didn't work as to say they did. The truth is, they "sort of" worked. I read the official (non-classified) government study on this when it came out. Here's a summary of their conclusions:
1) Some Scud missiles were successfully intercepted, but the success rate was closer to 50% than the 90% claimed by the military. Some of the Scuds likely broke up on their own because they were modified by Iraq to extend their range using poorly designed modifications.
2) Only half the damage done by a Scud is due to the warhead. The rest is due to kinetic energy, and this is not changed by a successful intercept. Thus a Patriot missile success only cuts the damage in half and alters where it comes down.
3) Since the modified Iraqi Scuds are very inaccurate missiles, altering where it comes down was of little value. The Iraqi Scuds were mostly terrorist devices rather than tactical weapons. They lobbed them at the coalition troops in hopes of causing chaos -- not to neutralize military targets.
Will we ever have a missile defense that can stop close to 100% of any missile fired? Of couse not. However, the technology to shoot down a militarily useful percentage of incoming missiles is indeed possible. To say otherwise is simply not correct.