There's a reason it's called Missile Defense.
And it's a deterrent I'll take over M.A.D. any day.
The possibility that America’s Ballistic Missile Defense system might actually work has been creeping into the Liberal mind of late -- a bit more than they care to admit. This fact is most greatly evidenced by the shift in the Leftist argument from, "It will never work!" to the more moderate, "It will probably never work...but, even if it does, it's a terrible idea -- because it will just initiate a new arms race!" (This is usually followed up by some platitude about America “needing to back off its world-dominating, capitalist-imperialistic ways, and sing kumbayah with the rest of the world as the real security solution.”)The strident opposition to our implementing any form of missile defense on the part of the Left (as well as on the part of our enemies -- funny how that works out, isn't it?) is one of the strongest indicators of their inexplicable longing for the days of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), and their wish that there was still a counterweight to the United States with similarly opposite values, and equal destructive power – namely, something to fill the void left by the USSR with its demise in the late 20th Century.
The rationale behind a strong national defense as a whole is self-explanatory (though often not to the Left); the rationale behind a solid, functional Strategic Defense Initiative is similarly obvious in this age of rogue nations, dictators, and imperialistic powers teaming up to threaten Western civilization as a whole -- specifically America and Israel.
The “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (isn’t it ironic that the less democratic a nation is, the more democratic/populist words seem find their way into the county’s name?), long suffering under a madman dictator, has in the Taepodong 2 a missile that can reach the western coast of the United States. Like the DPRK, Iran, under Ayatollah Khameni and his mullahs, as well as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is brewing up the nuclear material necessary to make strategic weapons infinitely more deadly -- and they have access to ICBM technology from China. Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela is another growing threat.
In this climate of emerging global threats, how does missile defense keep us less safe? And, even more importantly, why in the world would Liberals – or anybody not opposed to our continued existence, for that matter -- stand against our protecting ourselves to the utmost?
Missile Defense is not an offensive weapon; rather, it is strictly defensive. To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh: for those of you in Rio Linda, California, that means that Ballistic Missile Defense cannot be used unless we are attacked. So...what is the problem with being able to defend ourselves from attack?
The Leftist argument which (they seem to think) is most rational is the contention that our employment of any form of SDI will “cause another arms race” – perhaps a nuclear one.
You see, nations and people are all – ALL – inherently good, and would all respond to niceness with niceness, and would leave us alone, if we would only leave them alone, no matter what they do. In fact, what would be the absolute best would be if we just did away with our entire military and defense arsenal (and perhaps even transformed the DoD into a “Department of Peace”?), and hoped that the rest of the world – especially those who live only to see us destroyed – will do the same. As the argument goes:
What would Iran gain by launching nuclear weapons against Israel? What would China gain by launching nuclear weapons against Taiwan? You see, nations like money and prosperity and they receive these things through global trade. If these nations launch nuclear attacks they will watch their cities reduced to burning rubble, their regimes thrown down, and they would most likely be dead, along with all their friends and families. The Soviet Union hated us, wanted to see us wiped off the face of the earth, and even had some crackpot leaders, but they never launched because of mutually assured destruction.This argument is already inherently fallacious, but we shall address that momentarily. First, the completion of the talking points:
What happens when mutually assured destruction is removed from the equation. Suddenly, to feel safe, nuclear powers are going to feel it necessary to build and deploy their own versions of SDI and/or develop nuclear technology that could penetrate SDI. Suddenly, we are forced in a new arms race to build nuclear weapons that can penetrate their SDI.Besides the obvious fact that you are, at all times, on the brink of extermination, here is the largest problem that I see with depending on Mutually Assured Destruction as the sole deterrent: You depend, at all times, on rationality on the part of the other side (in other words, you depend on “cooler heads prevailing” every single time the situation gets a bit testy). The opposition must have leaders who at all times subscribe to — and care about — the fact that they and their people will perish as a result of launching an attack on the West.
Therein lies the problem. With Kim Jong-Il, Ayatollah Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and others, I have absolutely no faith that they will put their anti-Western, imperialistic desires, and their histories of blind, violent irrationality, behind them and make decisions of life and death – and, in the case of ballistic missiles, that is a whole lot of death – based solely on what is best for them personally, for their people, or for their economy.
In the end, North Korea’s response to our successful ABM test says everything we need to hear to know that we are doing the right thing in pursuing this purely defensive technology. From the KCNA:
[The test] was aimed at attacking us and intercepting our missiles…It clearly shows that it is the U.S. which is increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and threatening war against our country.Yes, you heard that right. “Attacking us and intercepting our missiles.” I understand that, in the workers’ paradise that is the DPRK, thought and logic is mandatorily kept to a minimum. However, in the West it is not, and all – even Liberals – are free to think logically about this: if we are using an operational Ballistic Missile Defense system against North Korea’s intercontinental missiles, then it will not have been us who attacked them, any more than a home alarm system going off when a burglar enters is an unprovoked attack by the home on the criminal.
So, to the rest of the world who is so adamantly against America defending herself against future attack: bring on the arms race! With the same tactic, Reagan bankrupted and foreclosed on the Soviet Union – and Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, et al, I am happy to say -- whatever they may be -- are no Soviet Union.
