• Missile Defense,  North Korea

    Why the United States Needs National Missile Defense

    North Korea Nuclear Missile Attack on USAScreencap of video depicting a nuclear missile attack on the United States

    Is there any wonder why President Reagan over three decades ago, pushed for national missile defense?

    It begins benignly enough, with an image of a sleeping young North Korean man, and a genteel piano version of the US feel-good pop anthem We Are the World providing the musical backdrop.

    But the YouTube video recently posted by Uriminzokkiri, North Korea‘s official website, quickly takes a more sinister turn as the man’s dream continues into the realms of Stalinist fantasy.

    Within seconds he is aboard a space shuttle, launched into orbit by the same type of rocket the North successfully launched in December. The shuttle orbits Earth, at one point passing over a jubilant and reunified Korean peninsula, before the focus switches to an unidentified city draped in the Stars and Stripes.

    What appear to be missiles rain down on the city, setting fire to high-rise buildings in scenes reminiscent of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York.

    “Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing,” the Korean-language caption says. “It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze.”

    Here is the video (embedded below):

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKWJSKYBDXE&feature=share&list=UUknqqNd3-joIjWzf1Jn4oVQ[/youtube]

    Of course, this is just plain B.S. and something for members of Congress to consider when they have to vote on whether to cut the crap out of the defense budget over the next few months

  • Missile Defense,  Russia

    Obama’s Russia Reset: Russia Threatens Strike on Missile Defense Sites

    europeanmissileshield Poll Watch: 31 Per Cent Agree With Obamas Decision to Kill Missile Defense for Poland, Czech   Russia Stands Pat

    So much for President Obama’s reset of Russian foreign policy.

    Russia’s most senior military officer said Thursday that Moscow would preemptively strike and destroy U.S.-led NATO missile defense sites in Eastern Europe if talks with Washington about the developing system continue to stall.

    “A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens,” Russian Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov said at an international missile defense conference in Moscow attended by senior U.S. and NATO officials.

    The threat comes as talks about the missile defense system, which the U.S. and its allies insist is aimed at Iranian missiles, appear to have stalled.

    “We have not been able to find mutually-acceptable solutions at this point and the situation is practically at a dead end,” Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said.

    Ellen Tauscher, the U.S. special envoy for strategic stability and missile defense, insisted the talks about NATO plans for a missile defense system using ground-based interceptor missiles stationed in Poland, Romania and Turkey were not stalemated.

    But she acknowledged Wednesday that the recent elections in Russia and the upcoming elections in the U.S. make it “pretty clear that this is a year in which we’re probably not going to achieve any sort of a breakthrough.”

    She reiterated that the U.S.-built system, still in development, is being designed to shoot down Iranian intermediate-range missiles aimed at Europe, not Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

    Yeah, Yeah, Russia is afraid of missile defense as they always have been since Reagan. And, President Obama and the Democrats in the Congress hate the program.

    Just watch Obama capitulate and Romney to jump all over the President, especially since Obama made those flexibility remarks..

  • Barack Obama,  Missile Defense,  Polling

    Poll Watch: 55 Per Cent of Americans Favor an Anti- Missile Defense System Vs. 16 Per Cent Opposed



    The United States Missile Defense Agency


    According to the latest Rasmussen Poll.

    President Obama drew fire from his political opponents last week after he was overheard confiding to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that U.S.-Russian missile defense negotiations would have to wait until after November’s elections, a time when the president should have more “flexibility”.  Most voters nationwide currently favor a U.S. anti-missile defense system, and a majority believes a missile attack on the U.S. is likely to occur in the near future.

    The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows that 55% favor the creation of a U.S. anti-missile defense system, while just 16% are opposed. Another 29% are undecided.

    Something the President should keep in mind, before he negotiates anything flexible with our enemies.

  • Kim Il-Sung,  Missile Defense,  North Korea

    North Korea Watch: Here We Go Again With Missile Launch

    This DigitalGlobe satellite image, obtained on March 30, shows Tongch’ang-ni Launch Facility on North Korea’s northwest coast. A rocket launch, purportedly to put a satellite into orbit, is set for sometime between April 12-16 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of founding president Kim Il-Sung

    And, the United States has initiated its national missile defense system.

    The Pentagon recently activated its global missile shield in anticipation of North Korea’s launch of a long-range missile, according to defense officials.

    The measures include stepped-up electronic monitoring, deployment of missile interceptor ships, and activation of radar networks to areas near the Korean peninsula and western Pacific.

    Three interceptor ships near Japan and the Philippines, as well as U.S.-based interceptors, are ready to shoot down the North Korean missile if space-, land-, and sea-based sensors determine its flight path is targeted at the United States or U.S. allies, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The Obama administration will regard any launch by North Korea as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions regardless of whether the North Koreans claim the rocket test is for space launch purposes, the officials said. The technology and rocketry used for a space launch is nearly identical to that used with ballistic missiles that carry a warhead, they said.

    Also, because the payload or warhead of the test launch cannot be determined prior to launch, the Obama administration decided to activate the missile defense system.

    According to U.S. officials, current intelligence assessments indicate the North Korean missile will be launched from a base called Tongchang-ri, located on a west coast peninsula north of Pyongyang between April 12 and April 15.

    The Obama Administration has rightly activated the shield and remember when Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats came out against the system and ridiculed President Ronald Reagan.

    “This premise, that one day Kim Jong Il or someone will wake up one morning and say ‘Aha, San Francisco!’ is specious,” Senator Joe Biden told AP in May 2001.

    Meanwhile in the Senate, Carl Levin (D., Mich.) offered in June to cut off funds for the ground-based interceptor program that Mr. Bush recently activated in Alaska in anticipation of the North Korean launch. Mr. Levin wants to stop new interceptors from being built, but Senate Republicans wouldn’t bring his proposal up for a vote. Mr. Levin has been waging his own private war against missile defenses for a generation, to the point of outflanking Russian objections on the political left.

    In May 2001 the Boston Herald‘s Woodlief wrote that John Kerry “wants to croak the hugely costly nuclear missile defense system.” And just one day before the 9/11 attacks Joe Biden (D., Del.) gave a National Press Club speech outlining Democrat opposition to national missile defense.

    In May 2001, John Kerry himself outlined some of these arguments on Meet the Press by saying that he wanted “a very limited…highly verifiable and mutually agreed-upon (missile) defense system.” And he complained about the cost. “We’ve already spent $68 billion and have almost nothing to show for it,” noted Kerry.

    On May 3, 2001, John Kerry called national missile defense a “mythology” on Don Imus’s radio show.

    On June 14, 2001, John Kerry told Hardball‘s Chris Matthews that a “missile shield that could defend the United States against any incoming missile is a fantasy, it is too expensive, it won’t work, and that’s what people believe will drive an arms race.”

    If it had been left to them, there would be NO missile shield.

    Stay tuned…..

  • Barack Obama,  Missile Defense,  President 2012

    President 2012: Missile Defense Becomes Campaign Issue As Obama Is Caught on Open Mic



    So, what the hell does this mean, Mr. President?

    Unaware that a microphone was recording him, President Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday for breathing room until after Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign to negotiate on missile defense.

    “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev at the end of their 90-minute meeting, apparently referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Mr. Medvedev replied, “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…”

    “This is my last election,” Mr. Obama said. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”

    The Russian leader responded, “I understand. I transmit this information to Vladimir.”

    The exchange was picked up by microphone of a Russian reporter as journalists were allowed into the meeting room for remarks by the two leaders. It was first reported by ABC News, which said it verified the conversation. A Washington Times reporter heard a portion of the tape that begins with Mr. Obama saying, “This is my last election.”

    The two leaders are in Seoul for a nuclear security summit involving the heads of more than 50 nations. Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev were huddling close together in their respective chairs when the conversation took place.

    The President and the Democratic Party have never been in love with the National Missile Defense system first started by President Reagan and greatly accelerated by President George W. Bush. During the Obama Administration, the issue has been quiet as cuts were made to the program but slow deployment and research progress was made.

    So, did President Obama just elevate the issue of missile defense into the political arena?

    The President has some answers to deliver to the American people and undoubtedly will be asked about the level of his support for the program during the Presidential debates.

  • Missile Defense

    Ground Based Missile Defense Test Fails Over Pacific

    The Missile Defense Agency was unable to achieve a planned intercept of a ballistic missile target during a test over the Pacific Ocean today. The flight test included the successful flight of an intermediate-range ballistic missile target from Ronald Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and a long-range interceptor missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

    I am not feeling any more secure as the Missile Defense Agency acknowledges yesterday’s failure.

    A test of the sole U.S. defense against long-range ballistic missiles failed on Wednesday, the second failure in a row involving the system managed by Boeing Co (BA.N), the Defense Department said.

    “The Missile Defense Agency was unable to achieve a planned intercept of a ballistic missile target during a test over the Pacific Ocean today,” Richard Lehner, an agency spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. No preliminary explanation of the failure was provided.

    The miss brought the so-called ground-based midcourse defense’s batting record to eight intercepts out of 15 tries, as reckoned by the Missile Defense Agency.

    “This is a tremendous setback for the testing of this complicated system,” Riki Ellison, head of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a booster group, said in a statement. He said it raised troubling questions about the reliability of the 30 or so interceptor missiles deployed in silos in Alaska and California.

    The test was a repeat of a Jan. 31 exercise in which an advanced sea-based radar had not performed as expected.

    Well, more testing and development is in order and at least with the GOP control of the House there will NOT be an attempt to defund the Missile Defense Agency. Being that the Democrats and President Obama have been reluctant to support missile defense, the GOP success in November looms even bigger.

    But, there is nothing better than success and Boeing will have to demonstrate it or make way for other contractors. Missile defense is too important for failure.

  • Missile Defense,  Ronald Reagan

    Missile Defense Watch: United States Navy Uses Laser to Shoot Down Drones

    This new unclassified silent video shows during a recent test, a Navy laser using a tracking system from Raytheon to shoot down the unmanned aerial vehicles with lasers

    The money quote of the day: “The targets came in over the ocean, and it was a good day for lasers, bad day for drones.”

    Indeed.

    Remember when the LEFT including Vice President Joe Biden used to ridicule President Reagan and Star Wars?

    Political cartoon by Michael Ramirez

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    The Missile Defense Archive

  • Barack Obama,  Missile Defense

    President Obama to Kill Missile Defense With New Space Treaty?

    Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

    Well, the President and Vice President have never been fans of a National Missile Defense program and this new treaty may put a dagger in it is heart.

    The THAAD (terminal high altitude area defense) interceptor has been maligned for years as a failed, overly expensive missile defense system. That’s mostly due to the missile’s volatile initial testing phases during the mid-1990s, when the program was wrought with failure after failure — not unusual for the testing cycle of any new weapon system, particularly one as sophisticated as THAAD. In early 2000, Lockheed engineers went back to the drawing board, worked out the bugs, and were back launching the hyper-accurate interceptor by 2005. There hasn’t been a test failure since (just yesterday there was another successful intercept), a record sturdy enough for the Army to stand up two batteries of the critical system in the past two years. The launchers were designed explicitly to intercept SCUD type missiles, and are also capable of killing an ICBM payload when it’s in the terminal phase of flight. Given the widespread proliferation of ballistic missiles, the need for such a weapon is pressing.

    It’s a shame then, that President Obama could inadvertently ban the THAAD system through yet another constricting treaty — and I’m not talking about the START follow-on. Yesterday the New York Times reported that: 

    The Obama administration on Monday unveiled a space policy that renounces the unilateral stance of the Bush administration and instead emphasizes international cooperation, including the possibility of an arms control treaty that would limit the development of space weapons.

    In recent years, both China and the United States have destroyed satellites in orbit, raising fears about the start of a costly arms race that might ultimately hurt the United States because it dominates the military use of space. China smashed a satellite in January 2007, and the United States did so in February 2008.

    The new space policy explicitly says that Washington will “consider proposals and concepts for arms control measures if they are equitable, effectively verifiable and enhance the national security of the United States and its allies.”

    The State Department says details are forthcoming, but this sounds like a veiled reference to the PAROS treaty (prevention of arms race in outer space) or–at the very least–a like-minded document. Because certain types of ballistic, air-launched, and ship-launched missiles can be modified to kill satellites, such a treaty would be devastating to the national security and military capabilities of the United States (and all but kill missile defense)..

    This, in spite of successful tests of the THADD System – such as yesterday’s.

    June 29, 2010: Test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system. 100% intercept success rate, going 7 for 7.

    I doubt President Obama will be able to secure the votes to ratify this treaty but the Democrat LEFT’S intent is clear – kill the Missile Defense Agency by any means/excuse/rationale.

    Remember in the 1980’s when the Democrats ridiculed President Reagan by saying the missile defense systems were Star Wars and would not work? Now that the technology works, and is deployed, they continue to turn their backs.

    Amazing……..

  • Missile Defense

    United States Successfully Tests Airborne Laser on Ballistic Missile



    Courtesy of the Missile Defense Agency


    Airborne Laser Testbed Successful in Lethal Intercept Experiment

    The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile. The experiment, conducted at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range off the central California coast, serves as a proof-of-concept demonstration for directed energy technology. The ALTB is a pathfinder for the nation’s directed energy program and its potential application for missile defense technology.

    At 8:44 p.m. (PST), February 11, 2010, a short-range threat-representative ballistic missile was launched from an at-sea mobile launch platform. Within seconds, the ALTB used onboard sensors to detect the boosting missile and used a low-energy laser to track the target. The ALTB then fired a second low-energy laser to measure and compensate for atmospheric disturbance. Finally, the ALTB fired its megawatt-class High Energy Laser, heating the boosting ballistic missile to critical structural failure. The entire engagement occurred within two minutes of the target missile launch, while its rocket motors were still thrusting.

    This was the first directed energy lethal intercept demonstration against a liquid-fuel boosting ballistic missile target from an airborne platform. The revolutionary use of directed energy is very attractive for missile defense, with the potential to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometers, and at a low cost per intercept attempt compared to current technologies.

    Less than one hour later, a second solid fuel short-range missile was launched from a ground location on San Nicolas Island, Calif. and the ALTB successfully engaged the boosting target with its High Energy Laser, met all its test criteria, and terminated lasing prior to destroying the second target. The ALTB destroyed a solid fuel missile, identical to the second target, in flight on February 3, 2010.

    The high-powered Airborne Laser system is being developed by Boeing Co., (BA.N) the prime contractor, and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

    Boeing produces the airframe, a modified 747 jumbo jet, while Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) supplies the higher-energy laser and Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) is developing the beam and fire control systems.


    Boeings Airborne Laser (ABL) will locate and track missiles in the boost phase of their flight, then accurately point and fire the high-energy laser, destroying enemy missiles near their launch areas.

    President Reagan who initiated the development and deployment of national missile defense would be proud.

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  • Barack Obama,  Dmitry Medvedev,  Missile Defense,  Polling

    Poll Watch: 31 Per Cent Agree With Obama’s Decision to Kill Missile Defense for Poland, Czech – Russia Stands Pat

    europeanmissileshield Obama Administration Officials Head to Poland and Czech Republic to Kill Missile Defense?

    But, only 38 per cent disagree.

    Voters have mixed feelings about President Obama’s decision to halt the deployment of a proposed anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe, but many worry that it will hurt America’s relationship with its European allies.

    A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 31% of voters agree with the decision to stop the shield, but 38% disagree. Thirty-two percent (32%) are not sure what’s best to do.

    Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans oppose the president’s decision, a view shared by the plurality (43%) of voters not affiliated with either major political party but only 15% of Democrats.

    Among all voters, just 23% think the decision not to deploy the ground-based system will help America’s relationship with European countries. Forty-three percent (43%) say it will hurt that relationship, while 12% say it will have no impact. Twenty-two percent (22%) aren’t sure.

    Let’s face it this issue is not on the front burner for most Americans. But, ONLY 31 per cent support “The One’s” decision.

    How far has the mighty O fallen?

    And, how have the Russians taken the news?

    Russia’s top general said on Monday that plans to deploy missiles in an enclave next to Poland had not been shelved, despite a decision by the United States to rethink plans for missile defense in Europe.

    The piece gos on to say that maybe the Russian missile depoloyments will be changed but the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will have to talk to Obama about it when they meet up later in September (in a few days).

    Ok, so, in other words, we will see.

    Nice move, Mr President – insult our allies, destabilize Eastern Europe, weaken United States defense and for what?

    A chat?


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