Spike Jones wrote:
>
> Eugene Leitl wrote:
>
> > Not in vacuum. As soon as you see drag, it's too late to intercept,
> > anyway. Then, baloons are useless, admittedly. But they have served their
> > purpose, already.
>
> Too late only for EKV. There is still THAAD, which strikes in the
> upper atmosphere, and below that is two PAC-3s with look-fire-look
> capability, so if they both miss, then two more can be fired. That's
> why it is called layered defense.
>
> What I dont understand is why the commies are signing on and
> the Europeans are not. Something is gravely amiss here.
What is going on is that northern europe is now the most distant target
from real rogue states. Note that Italy has signed on, primarily because
it is a prime target of Tactical Ballistic Missiles from northern
african nations (there is an interesting study on this at:
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/docs/aegis.htm
that examines the use of the Aegis system to protect Italy from TBM
swarm attacks.)
Russia is, of course, having to deal with Iraq, Iran, Agfhanistan,
Pakistan, India, China, as well as former Soviet republics like
Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, etc that all have varying capabilities with both
ballistic missiles AND nuclear weapons. Note the prevalence of muslim
dominated countries.
Beyond that, its really not conducive to continue to call Russians
'commies', since the communists are a minority party in the Duma, nor is
Berlusconi a commie either, he is more of a libertarian than a
socialist.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:56 MDT