Why We Need Missile Defense

Reason number

According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an “emergency”. In return, the agreement states that Venezuela can use these facilities for “national needs” – radically increasing the threat to neighbors like Colombia. The German daily claims that according to the agreement, Iranian Shahab 3 (range 1300-1500 km), Scud-B (285-330 km) and Scud-C (300, 500 and 700 km) will be deployed in the proposed base. It says that Iran also pledged to help Venezuela in rocket technology expertise, including intensive training of officers.

Hey, what could go wrong?

32 thoughts on “Why We Need Missile Defense”

  1. Missile defense my arse. What’s needed is re-targeting a few 300kt warheads on Caracas, plus a few mega$ to fund Venezuelan patriots seeking to overthrow that fruitcake. Maybe some training with the Special Ops folks, too. A few Stuxnet worms to bugger up their oil pumps might be a good project for joint Microsoft/NSA summer interns, too.

    If that isn’t sufficient, a blockade of Venezuela would be another option. Who’s going to say boo about it?

    I dislike Maginot Line solutions. If you don’t want to be walked on, having a nasty stinger in your tail works better than a thicker skin.

  2. I’ll go middle of the road on this one. Send Hilly to tell them quietly that this is considered an act of war. If they go ahead with the base Tomahawk the crap out of it and step up insurgency funding in V-land.

  3. Regarding a blockade of Venezuela, doesn’t much of our petroleum come from there?

    I saw one link that says that Venezuela to US petroleum flows account for 60% of their exports and 11% of our imports.

    We’d be blockading ourselves. 😉

  4. To contribute Blue Screen Of Death technology?

    That’s actually a rather elegant, not to mention deniable, solution: let M$ equip Venezuela’s infrastructure and military with brand new workstations, all running Vista. Send them some Nigerian scam emails, maybe a few links to the shadier bittorrent sites, and the whole country BSODs.

  5. The title says they are in US range, but even the Sahab 3 doesn’t come close to the US, except for Puerto Rico.

    If I were Columbia, though, I’d be pretty unhappy.

  6. BTW , if they go thru with this and the Iranians get the bomb, That is a guarenteed +15% bonus for the Republican candidate in 12.

    This has to be Obama’s worst nightmare.

  7. And it O grows a pair and orders strikes to take out the Iranian missiles in Venz just prior to election day 2012, he gains 10-15 points.

  8. So Iran can cause an arms race in South America as well as in the Middle East and North Africa? The news just keeps getting better. Even the possibility of Venezuela getting nuke-tipped missiles means a very good chance that Brazil revisits their attempts to get them as well. And if that happens, that will encourage Argentina and perhaps other countries to make the attempt as well.

    Well, thanks to Stuxnet it looks like Obama’s successor will have a chance to shut down this nuclear proliferation. If that doesn’t work, then that will be a tough blow to the current US hegemony unless they can develop a counter, such as anti-missile systems as a counter.

  9. Monroe Doctrine, where are you when we need you? Oh, yeah, needs a pResident that actually believes in the country, not just as a stepping stone to the next rung on the personal career ladder…which would be…what, exactly?

  10. Ah, the old saganite “Maginot Line” argument. I thought that strawhorse got beaten to death back in the 1980’s.

    The only problem with your analogy, Carl, is that it isn’t analogous. The Maginot line never fell. The Germans simply went around it. That’s the problem with static defenses. Missile defense is not a static but dynamic. It can be relocated and retargeted.

    Your argument is the same one put forth in the 1930’s against investing in radar and fighter-interceptors: All that was needed was retargeting a few blockbuster bombs on Berlin, training some SAS folks, etc. The threat of etaliation would always prevent war; air defense would simply be a “Maginot line solution.” “The bomber will always get through.” Fortunately, the British government didn’t listen, and Fighter Command saved the day in the Battle of Britain.

  11. And it O grows a pair and orders strikes to take out the Iranian missiles in Venz just prior to election day 2012

    The probability of which is only slightly greater than that of him mounting his unicorn and leading a host of Elves in armor of the Elder Days to storm Caracas.

  12. The missed point here is that Venezuala Argentina and Brazil are all buddies and there won’t have hostile competion between them.

    The only in risk here is Colombia which is attacked by Venezuela/Brazil sponsored Communist guerrilha FARC.

    Colombia will fall …

  13. Obama cannot “grow a pair.” That sort of change requires transsexual surgery. It’s long and painful and appearance only. It won’t actually make someone a man.

  14. The only problem with your analogy, Carl, is that it isn’t analogous. The Maginot line never fell. The Germans simply went around it.

    Yes and no, Ed. You certainly have a point. You’ll note I didn’t say Maginot Line defenses are never the answer — I just said I didn’t like them. I prefer a vigorous offense, as I said. The problem is not guns, the problem is people who use them, and I prefer to make people sweat in fear over the consequences of using them badly to taking away the guns, or trying to weave bulletproof clothes.

    In this case, for example, assuming Venezuela is never a strategic threat, only a terror launcher, than if we poured our assets into missile defense, they might indeed “go around” that — by delivering a bomb via speedboat to Miami. Or truck up through Mexico.

  15. Defense against these missiles already exists and is mobile. The RIM-161 SM-3 missile can be carried by any Navy Aegis cruiser or destroyer and has a proven anti-missile (and anti-satellte) capability.

  16. You’ll note I didn’t say Maginot Line defenses are never the answer — I just said I didn’t like them.

    You missed the point. Entirely. You don’t understand the difference between a static defense (the Maginot Line) and dynamic defenses (like air and missile defense).

    A truly effective missile defense would be space-based and global. An enemy could not simply go around it, any more than the Luftwaffe could go around fighter command. The only way to “go around it” would be to go into space.

    I’ll tell my military and police friends that they should stop wearing bulletproof vests because you don’t believe in them. I’m sure they’ll be glad for your expert advice. 🙂

    The fear of consequences didn’t stop Hitler, and it would be naive to think it will always stop enemies in the future. Assuming that Venezuela is the only enemy we will ever face is a very bad idea. At some point, your strategy will guarantee that we face enemies who have better weapons than we do, because they didn’t choose to engage in technological disarmament.

    Ah, the old truck bomb argument. You really are channelling Carl Sagan. We must never develop any new weapon system because there’s some other possible threat that it isn’t designed to counter — by that logic, no one should ever develop any weapon system.

    Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that our enemies will follow such (obviously flawed) logic. It was said that if the United States didn’t “militarize space,” no one else would, either, but our unilateral didn’t stop China from pressing ahead with ASAT tests and military spaceplane development. Chinese generals will laugh if you tell them they shouldn’t be developing weapons to take out satellites and aircraft carriers because the US might attack them with a truck or speedboat instead. Forget Carl Sagan, read “The Strategy of Technology.”

  17. Er…Ed, talk about missing the point. I said I preferred aggressive forward active defense, not that passive defenses were entirely inappropriate. For the record, I’m a strong supporter of missile defense, both theater and strategic, and have been since Ronnie Raygun first proposed BMD. You seem to be mistaking me for someone else, with different opinions, with whom you’ve had a fierce argument at some point.

  18. Building a missile base is no overnight proposition. There is a non-trivial probability of one or both of the regimes involved going pffft before the ribbon-cutting ceremony takes place.

  19. I said I preferred aggressive forward active defense, not that passive defenses were entirely inappropriate.

    Again, missile defense is active. It actively engages enemy missiles. Passive defenses are things like armor, your example of the Maginot line, or the proposed Mexican border fence (which I seem to recall you supporting on another occasion). Cheyenne Mountain could be considered a passive missile defense, but that is not what we’re discussing here.

    For the record, I’m a strong supporter of missile defense, both theater and strategic

    I guess I was confused by the fact that you started off with “Missile defense my arse.” On my planet, that is not a term of approval. 🙂

  20. “For the record, I’m a strong supporter of missile defense, both theater and strategic…”

    Ah, forget theater defense. Rattigan’s dead, Shaffer’s a (dead) one-hit wonder, Mamet mostly does movies…might as well nuke Broadway.

  21. The fear of consequences didn’t stop Hitler

    Actually, it did. This is why they didn’t use mustard gas as they did in the first world war.

    sjv, Puerto Rico is the United States.

    I was confused by the fact that you started off with “Missile defense my arse.”

    Carl can speak for himself, but I think that’s a bingo. As far as missile defense being active I haven’t heard Carl disagree; however, there are degrees of active and if I’m hearing right, Carl wants a higher degree. I as well. We used to have a policy of no Russian military in the Caribbean. After Georgia that seems to have gone out the window.

  22. The missed point here is that Venezuala Argentina and Brazil are all buddies and there won’t have hostile competion between them.

    Right. So you’re trying to be sarcastic, right?

  23. ”Karl Hallowell Says:
    December 13th, 2010 at 6:15 am
    The missed point here is that Venezuala Argentina and Brazil are all buddies and there won’t have hostile competion between them.

    Right. So you’re trying to be sarcastic, right?”

    Actually not Lula from Brazil, Chavez from Venezuela, Kirchner from Argentina and most of the minor Latin American countries heads of states are members of the Sao Paolo Forum, a left wing political coordination organism.

    It is simply impossible that they would lob bombs at each other, because they actively work for each regime survival, the only one in risk is Columbia because the FARC is member of the above mentioned forum.

    Interests doesn’t always follow borders.

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