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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (49030)	6/22/2006 12:27:02 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

What do you think the US should do in response to a test?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (49030)	4/8/2008 12:29:08 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 90947

Antimissile Milestone April 8, 2008; Page A20 At their joint news conference in the Black Sea town of Sochi on Sunday, President Bush and Vladimir Putin talked agreeably about U.S. plans to provide a missile defense for Europe and U.S.-Russian cooperation even as they acknowledged differences. Earlier in the week, NATO endorsed the missile shield. Somewhere the Gipper is smiling. Twenty-five years after his "Star Wars" speech, Ronald Reagan's vision of a defensive shield against ballistic missiles is fast becoming a reality. The U.S. already has a rudimentary missile defense in place for the homeland and is now proposing to extend protection to Europe with a "third site" that would position a radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland. But the biggest transformation has been intellectual. No one is talking any longer about whether there's a threat from rogue nations with ballistic missiles or whether defenses are technologically possible. Those are givens. The U.S.-Russia declaration said, "Both sides expressed their interest in creating a system for responding to potential missile threats." The NATO communique spoke of the "increasing threat to Allies' forces, territory and populations." According to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, some 30 countries have ballistic missiles. On the Continent, the biggest threat is from Iran, which aims to be a nuclear power and already has missiles capable of hitting most European capitals. The U.S. has offered to share technical information with Russia about the European site. Details still have to be worked out, but Sunday's declaration that "such measures will be important and useful in assuaging Russian concerns" is an implicit acknowledgment by Moscow that the site is going forward. In Washington, the political battle over missile defense has also changed for the better. Democrats still raise objections to R&D on space-based defenses, even as China tests antisatellite weapons without warning. If a defense is necessary, however, it's hard to make a case for why it ought to be limited to earth when the next steps forward are likely to require an expanded presence in space. The proposed airborne laser also comes in for occasional political hits. The laser, which would shoot down missiles in the boost phase before decoys are released, is sometimes deemed unrealistic. But given the string of successful laser tests to date, and the overall success of missile defense technology, the critics are losing credibility. Meanwhile, NATO approval ought to silence Democrats who claimed that the third site created "divisions" among our European allies. In the Pacific, agreements on missile defense with Japan, Australia and South Korea are part of the Bush Administration's vision of a missile defense that extends world-wide. Countries are lining up to get under the U.S. missile umbrella. None of this progress would have been possible if the U.S. were still a party to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Democrats howled when Mr. Bush announced in December 2001 that the U.S. would exercise its right to withdraw. A President Gore or Kerry would still be repeating President Clinton's mantra that the treaty is the "cornerstone of strategic stability." Pulling out of the treaty and investing in missile defense is an unsung success of the Bush Presidency. The U.S. and its allies are safer for it. NATO and President Putin understand that, and it would be nice to see Democrats finally go on record with the same acknowledgment. online.wsj.com