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UK opens discussion on missile defense The Ministry of Defense released a paper for public discussion (pdf) on missile defense today. Mr. Hoon would like the public debate on the issues to begin now because deployment will take many years here from the start of such discussion.
The media reports claim there is currently no threat. I was surprised not even Mr Hoon pointed out how even an existing short range ballistic missile can be fired from a tramp steamer outside of the UK territorial waters.
I hope to find some mention of this in the aforementioned document which I have not yet had a chance to read.
You may email your comments to the UK MoD on this subject at:
Missile-Defence@mod.gsi.gov.uk
Dec. 3, 2001 Prototype Kill Vehicle
launch from Mecklin Island.
Courtesy US DOD
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It seems to me the UK needs missile defense more than America does. The Former Soviet Republic probably has had a few long-range weapons slip into unsavory hands in the past couple of decades…
Where are we going to get the cash for a missile defence system?
Why not spend the money(if it exists) on thing we would need if the ABM system failed, like hospitals and emergency services, cranes, bulldozers, building materials, helicopters and stuff? These can all be useful to society while we wait for someone to chuck a missile at us.
The next major test is set to occur tomorrow, a full blown ICBM intercept. DOD says results over the last 4 tests have been so good they have jumped two years on the original development schedule.
I’ll report on the test results as soon as I get the DOD press report.
And as to finding the money for a missile defense system… please estimate the damage to London expected over the next two decades due to this risk, with no defense in place. My expectation is 0-1 events with at the very least a radiological, biological or chemical warhead.
With a defense in place it probably won’t be tried, so everyone will call it waste of money if we get one; if we don’t and it does happen, everyone one scream for blood that we didn’t.
It’s really a no-win in real political terms; fortuneately even the worst of politicians also are (usually) human beings who prefer to see their fellow countrymen live long and prosper (even though their concept of how to do that may have little basis in reality)
I couldn’t give a rats ass what happens to London (which is all that would probably be defended).