[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Missile Defense: Is it Working?

[Levy, Stuart A]

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Subject: [ufpj-activist] Missile Defense: Is it Working?
From: Global Network <globalnet at mindspring.com>
To: United for Peace and Justice <ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org>
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I delivered this speech on May 24 in Waterloo, Canada at an event called "Securing the Peaceful Use of Space for Future Generations"


Missile Defense:  Is it Working?

By Bruce Gagnon

One of the biggest questions in the space technology world today is will “missile defense” (MD) really work?  Recently we’ve seen articles making a case that it does not work and never will.  I would suggest that depending on where you are standing, a strong case could be made that MD is working quite well.  It’s all a matter of perception and definition.

When looked at from the point of view of the Russians or Chinese one might consider that they view it very differently than some of the critics.  Critics see scripted Missile Defense Agency tests while Russia and China see a hyperactive deployment program, which is directly connected to a larger U.S./NATO military expansion ultimately leading to their encirclement.

Critics might see the MD system today largely as a corporate boondoggle while the Russians and Chinese are looking toward 2020 and beyond when new generations of a well funded research and development program (now committed to by NATO’s 28 members) has delivered faster, more accurate and longer range interceptor missiles.

Critics in a sense can help demobilize opposition to the program. Some peace activists think it would be a waste of their valuable time and meager organizing resources to spend energy working against a program that has been labeled by experts as unworkable and an exaggeration.  But viewed from a wider perspective, that includes U.S. and NATO military encirclement of Russia as well as the Obama administration’s “pivot” of military operations into the Asia-Pacific, one may see an entirely different picture.


See the rest of the talk at: http://www.space4peace.org/bmd/md_is_it_working.htm

Find a report on the conference on my blog at:  http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2012/05/are-space-treaties-no-longer-necessary.html


Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet at mindspring.com<mailto:globalnet at mindspring.com>
www.space4peace.org<http://www.space4peace.org>
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/  (blog)


Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.  ~Henry David Thoreau
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