Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Setting aside North Korea for the moment, why do you think China would be irrational enough to launch ICBMs at us, incurring certain retaliation?
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Spanky, I've heard enough:
1. None of the rogue countries we worry about have ICBMs. Notwithstanding that they would never fire a misssile at us because it would mean their immediate destruction, they can't get a missile to us.
2. The countries that do have ICBMs (Russia), are not going to attack us.
3. And if Russia did decide to attack us, no SDI system could protect us. SDI can only stop a small percentage of incoming ICBMs. Russia has thousands of ICBMs. All you need is a few dozen properly placed ICBMs to hit us and we're through - the whole country is contaminated.
SDI was and always will be (1) a bluff to scare the Soviets and force them into a defense spending war which would cave their economy (which it probably helped to do), and (2) a long blowjob for the defense contracting industry (the R&D contracts alone were worth ungodly sums).
SDI is a cold war strategy game, never intended to actually be built by anyone other than a few greedy defense contractors and clueless "experimenters" at the Pentagon.
In a world where the primary nuclear threat is a dirty bomb or smuggled tactical nuke, advocating SDI is criminally stupid.
Sorry to sound nasty, but this debate is infuriating.
