Missile system flawed from the outset
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Nato is clearly wrong and Russia's Vladimir Putin is clearly right, as he informed Nato earlier this month that the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system proposed for parts of the EU bordering Russia would not work - as history has shown.
This is what US military strategists concluded in the 1970s and 1980s concerning a “foolproof” strategy to defeat an ABM system: the attacker would launch missiles with dummy warheads; the ABM system would expend its entire arsenal on the dummy targets; and the attacker would then launch missiles with real warheads, unhindered by the spent ABM system. End of story.
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger has addressed the concern about a possible missile threat, concluding that “tried and true” diplomatic efforts are the answer, so why not listen to someone who has been through this? Why try to reinvent the wheel? He wrote: “America has an obligation to explore every honourable alternative” (Washington Post, July 31, 2006).
Why cannot Nato and especially Americans in particular study what has already been researched and proven useless? There is no way around the simple strategy outlined above to disable an ABM system, so who is trying to fool whom?
Guy Baker
Bangkok
