Liberals plan to gut missile defense
June 19, 2007| By Nathaniel Ward
Liberals in Congress are proposing a defense bill that would undermine efforts to expand America’s missile defense capability, leaving America’s citizens and armed forces exposed.
Heritage defense expert Baker Spring explains that two provisions in the bill would put a damper on missile defense development. “The first eliminates funding for a test bed for missile defense systems in space, and the second establishes operational testing requirements in order to continue development of the missile defense system.”
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Opponents of missile defense argue, speciously as it turns out, that space-based missile defenses would “weaponize” space. Spring points out, though, that space is already weaponized “because ballistic missiles travel through space on their way to their targets.”
Liberals also insist that no further missile defenses be deployed until current systems meet what Spring calls “an unrealistic and perhaps impossible slate of end-to-end operational tests.” Development necessarily proceeds incrementally, he notes, and it’s hardly reasonable to expect that a partial system function as well as a complete defense. But crossing that nigh-insurmountable barrier is exactly what missile defense opponents are calling for.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
