Hamas is trying to bleed the Israelis right now by raining short and medium range rockets on all parts of Israel. Their efforts have been thwarted, however, by the Israeli "Iron Dome" system, which is a short-range tactical application of Reagan's Star Wars research, that the Israelis claim has been about 90% effective so far. All the Israeli citizenry has pretty much had it with Hamas, the politicians have not been forced by circumstances to retaliate massively and thereby potentially trigger a greater Middle East war.
The same logic applies to the strategic situation. If one of the world's rogue states launches 1-2 ICBMs toward the U.S. an anti-missile system gives us the capability to take them out before they reach American soil and give our policymakers the luxury of time to formulate a response. In fact, any potential aggressor has to seriously consider a robust anti-missile system before they even think about attacking - it does them little good to be able to inflict no damage and expose themselves to crippling retaliation in return. Thus, anti-missile systems tend to preserve the status quo and encourage diplomacy, not deter it.
P.S. - I hope this "Iron Dome" system is on the Pentagon's Christmas list.
townhall.com/columnists/austinbay/2014/07/16/israeli-iron-dome-demonstrates-missile-defense-payoffs-n1862469
No comments:
Post a Comment