Our current nuclear defenses are based on a mishmash of defenses that have evolved over the last 60 years. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union our opponent has been somewhat vague, if not completely non-existent to the public. In an age of terrorist and people who follow tribal customs flying civilian aircraft into population centers, it’s fair to say that the times have changed, and so should our strategies.
No longer is simply a so-called “nuclear umbrella” sufficient to adequately defend the United States, but we must develop what I refer to as a Look Down- Shoot Down defense.
The reasons are this:
We can no longer contain the proliferation of nuclear production, material and weapons
As more countries become nuclear capable the possibility is greater that an exchange will occur
The United States nuclear defenses may be vulnerable to a small-scale accurate sneak attack: A well planned, well thought out attack similar to Japans strategy, just a little bigger with a follow-up land invasion…well, I don’t want to speculate much further here but, who would have thought that 19 people would fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 5 years ago?
That’s why we must immediately, if we aren’t already, develop the ability to incapacitate an object before it reaches it’s trajectory altitude. We can no longer depend entirely on hitting something as it’s coming in, since the opponent of the future may have numerous devices and multiple and ingenious ways of delivering them. Taking out a countries ability to launch from their own soil will be necessary to deter a future enemy from picking their time and place to hit us. An enemy with less than 100 devices could leave us with some terrible options if they were willing to use them. I sincerely wish there weren’t a need for any weapons, but until that day comes let us prepare.
Wood County GOP Perspective
