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Subject: No - deterrence works just fine
[email protected]    1/12/2001 10:11:12 AM
Deterrence works, it worked during the cold war and will work against rogue nations. Iraq and North Korea understand if they use WMDs our policy is to turn their country into a sheet of glass. More likely WMDs will be used against us in a terrorist mode. Much easier to smuggle them in the country than to put them on a missle. Creating a missle defense system for this reason doesn't make sense. Maybe I'd buy it for theater force protection against conventional weapons but not for the reason Bush is proposing.
 
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Zatoichi    Just a make work project for engineers   1/12/2001 12:13:17 PM
There MIGHT have been some logic to a full up missile defense system back in the bad old Cold War days. But these days its just an excuse for the Pentagon to throw megabucks of taxpayer dollars at the millitary industrial complex and keep those engineers working.
 
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Demosthenes    RE:No - deterrence works just fine   2/1/2001 9:24:17 AM
Deterrence doesn't work just fine against WMD weapons, if the intention of the rogue states such as North Korea, Iraq, Iran and the PRC ... is to deter us from any involvement or interference with their various schemes for aggression. The reason for the oft-repeated threats by China, for example, to nuke our cities...with ICBMs btw (note, not suitcase bombs) is to deter us. Paralyzing us from decisive deployments (conventionally, etc.) to protect allies and friends that are under their attack. Clinton was clearly prepared to be paralyzed by such threats (indeed, having sold out in clear treason) was prepared to hand over Taiwan. His "Three No's" speech in Shanghai alone was grounds for impeachment, but was missed by the GOP cowards. Meanwhile, his whole presidency was marked by his bringing our military to bear on small targets of opportunity, and to bully them. And this all done for the express purpose of making it appear that he was a true commander in chief, as his policies dissipated (i.e., squandered) defense assets, funding (which he slashed in half), personnel, morale, and international support for our leadership. We are now at a point where it doesn't even probably take a nuclear threat to deter us, but with nukes, it makes us have to do even further pause to consider defending even our most solemn treaty committments and staunchest allies. NMD will at least free us from the principal self-deterrence of ICBM threats by states sufficiently wacko to mean it (and yes, Virginia, the PLA of the PRC is such).. to at least weigh things in terms of our conventional abilities to respond. NMD allows us to still stay engaged, to still be a beacon of liberty, and not a sniveling coward. PRC Bellicosity will fall on mercifully deaf ears, and even their PLA wackos will have to wake up to our indifference to such crap. And they will have to reassess their estimates of our resolve. And that may, under a serious conventional rearmament and re-preparedness buildup, restore deterrence and protect our solemn commitments around the globe.
 
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[email protected]    RE:No - deterrence works just fine   2/1/2001 8:43:02 PM
"Deterrence doesn't work just fine against WMD weapons, if the intention of the rogue states such as North Korea, Iraq, Iran and the PRC ... is to deter us from any involvement or interference with their various schemes for aggression." if any country threatens us with WMD because of our "involvement or interference" we can ignore then just as easily as if we had a AMD system because if they follow through and launch one or 1000 nukes, we will annihilate their country with 3000 of ours. not even the chinese would be willing to lose their ENTIRE country. they won't endanger their very existence. they're just not that dumb or crazy.
 
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