Why Missile Defense Won't Work
A TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

What the US Really Wants

Any reasonably well-informed person would know that a missile defense shield is techincally impossible. Additionally, most people would agree that the world will become a much more dangerous place if the missile defense shield does not work as planned, since other countries will build up their missiles, and Russia will drop all non-proliferation treaties. However, it doesn't make sense to build a missile defense system that won't work and would reduce worldwide security. This is the part that is bothering Russia and China: they know that the missile defense shield won't work, and that there are easy ways of defeating any shield that America could ever set up, but they don't know why America is then wasting its money on it.

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Space-Based Lazer (SBL)

The current missile defense shield does not put lasers into space. However, Bush's defense proposal intends to eventually launch Space-Based Lazers (SBL) to shoot down missiles. Of course, these lazers would shoot down missiles, as they were designed, but they could also shoot at other things.

Once America has lazers in space to shoot down missiles, it could easily convert them to shoot at enemy military installations, to shoot down satellites, or space launches. With this power, America would gain an enourmous military advantage over the rest of the world. In fact, it could fight entire wars without risking a single life. When wars cost less than the amount of money a middile-class person makes in a year, America would definitely be involved in more of them.

Why Space is Important

Whoever controls space controls the planet. If a single country controls space, they could basically do whatever they want. They could kill all enemy satellites and prevent them from ever being replaced. They could shoot down any spaceship launch. They could shoot down any missile or plane. They could bombard any part of the world without risking any lives. This would give the US a huge military advantage, and considering previous US military actions (such as the 1954 overthrowing of the Democratically-elected leader of Guatemala, who was seizing the lands of wealthy [US] businesses and distributed them to poor, starving "middle class", so that they could have a better future), it is possible that this would do more harm than good. No single country should control the world, since it will always do what's best for its national interests, without considering the lives of people in other countries.

MORE LINKS

Missile Defense Forum Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Scientific American Article All images on this section are copyrighted Scientific American and Area51ZONE.com (for minor adjustments). Most of this section is based on the Scientific American Article (pages 36-41, August 1999) and some parts have been taken directly from it.