Airstrip One

My improvement on antiwar.com, Christopher Montgomery's latest tour de force really should be read. I know it's rather unsporting to take out the best piece wholesale, but here goes. On the threats that the Star Wars shield is meant to prevent:

How do we, nutso loser state accomplish this quite dazzlingly incomprehensible goal (for one minute would an advocate of NMD set forth why the nuts would want to do this, what they would actually gain from it, other than actualization of their echt or ur-nuttiness? You know I'm beginning to suspect that this 'nutty' explanation is all a bit fishy . . .) given: we're oh so very poor, and, well, nutty? Do our nutty scientists invent atomic weaponry, and then inter-continental ballistic missile technology to boot? Doubtless, for otherwise NMD would be a pretty daft expenditure by the hated Yanquis. Heaven knows how Congress would account for the money spent if we developed non-atomic weapons of mass destruction, which might, who knows, be easier to manufacture and deploy. Still, we're a nation of irrational fruitloops, we're not going to go down that route. It's nukes or nothing. Though . . . and here it comes, super simple point, so easily understood it's Condolezzable: whilst we might well build ourselves a nice little atomic bomb, and we might very well look up New York on a map, why on earth should we deliver it by means of an ICBM? Being nuts and all, why don't we just put it on a yacht, or on the back of a lorry driven up from Mexico (thank goodness for NAFTA), or any way other than the one which possibly, just concievably might be prey to NMD? Only one thing can explain our attraction to ICBMs – we're . . . well we're not quite right in the head, are we?

The rest of the essay is almost as good, but I did like the extract above.

Now I will dissent, apart from the fact that I like Ms Rice (although Mark Steyns assertion that she's drop dead gorgeous is pretty odd). If I were American I would actually be for the Missile Shield, and for good isolationist reasons:

1) It would mean that the homeland could be defended whilst having to worry even less what other countries think. This would mean that the interventionists' assertion that America has to care about what other countries are up to would sound even more hollow.

2) The development of the missile shield will take away military resources from conventional military endeavours, like foreign garrisons.

3) It is worth avoiding millions of innocent deaths if at all possible.

OK the last of these is not an isolationist case, but it is still valid.

It is also perfectly plausible to support nuclear deployments in the 1980s and the missile defence shield today. It is simply wanting to have the highest level of weapons technology.

However, not being American, I'll look at this from the perspective of blighty. The deployment of NMD should be resisted. It is conceivable that there could be concessions that would outweigh the increased risk incumbent on siting of functional parts of the machine without its protection. American support for breaking up the EU, the substitution of British troops for Americans in every non-European theatre, the immediate disbanding of NORAID. That's just a start. But no American regime would pay that price. We are not that valuable in their plans. However we are giving away our assets for free.

The technological rush that we should be engaging in is not to prevent missiles launching, but rebuilding our own nuclear deterrent. It is an open secret that British missiles rely on American positioning technology. Compared to Star Wars that should be a cinch.