North Korea’s relatively successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, and Israel’s relatively successful demonstration of an iron dome met at a lighted intersection in late 2012. It is curious that these two public events, years in the making, hit the green light in a virtual dead heat.
It is understandable that the press, particularly the neoconservative press, like The Wall Street Journal, which I read regularly and enjoy, would celebrate the iron dome. Because if the technology that neutralized scuds can also succeed against ballistic missiles, thousands of them, Northern European democratic whites can be what they have been for 5 centuries; and what the Chinese and Russians accuse them of wanting to be today: The World Hegemon.
The Chinese and Russians, and one assumes the North Koreans, clearly do not want a hegemon telling them how to behave inside Russia, China and North Korea. And Russia and China have learned something over the past 50 years: Nuclear weapons put a fence around national entities where the hegemon cannot be hegemonic. Think Cuba. Russia with just 4 nuclear armed ballistic missiles was able to trump the Monroe Doctrine.
Think Vietnam. Russia and China, with many more than 4 ballistic missiles in the late 60’s were able to supply North Vietnam with impunity, and finally force a defeat on Americas, knowing that America would not attack them. Russia and China will never forget that.
The Journal thinks the logic of the iron dome will provide corrective instruction to the Chinese and the Russians:
Israeli interceptors have eviscerated the Iranian-supplied Hamas missiles heading for population centers. Chalk up an important strategic and technological win for missile defense. . . .
Three years ago, the Obama Administration pulled the plug on a site in Poland and the Czech Republic, bending to Russian pressure. In its place, the White House decided to protect Europe from a short – and medium- range Iranian Missile with Aegis interceptors initially based at sea and later on land.
The revised plan’s last, fourth stage would eventually address the long-range threat by putting interceptors in Central Europe. But that’s the issue that President Obama famously promised Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev that he’d have “more flexibility” on in a second term.. .
With missiles proliferating and the world unprepared to stop Iran’s nuclear program, missile defenses are becoming more urgent than ever for the U.S. The Israelis are showing the importance of being protected in an era of rogue missiles.”
The editorial conflates the product that the Arabs can fire; and the product that the Russians and the Chinese can fire.
Think of it this way: A young mother is playing with her three year old daughter on a beach. The little girl, in a great show of effort, with an underhand motion sends the beach ball to her mother. The iron dome intercepted that weightless ball slowly drifting in space.
Russian and Chinese nuclear engineers are not restricted to that beach ball. Russian and Chinese engineers reduce that beach ball to the size of a baseball; a baseball that goes faster than a bullet; a baseball that is equipped with instrumentation that can enable it to avoid challenges; a baseball that can distinguish after a 10,000 mile trip between the elementary school it is programmed to hit and the Wal-mart 20 mile away that it wants to miss. And, if they put enough baseballs into the baseball game; Russian and Chinese engineers can destroy 14,000 years of civilization in one afternoon.
The railroad that leads to the workshop that Russian and Chinese engineers occupy, does not stop at the little girl’s house. Chinese and Russian engineers are something behaviorally; and what they are has no logical connection with the Arabs who are shooting off the beach ball.
The Wall Street Journal knows this. In a piece that appeared December 8-9, 2012, “Tokyo Shows Off Its Missile Defense” by Chester Dawson, we read:
“Experts say Japan’s system is hard to compare with Israel’s Iron Dome. ‘Technically the systems are quite different. Iron Dome is designed to hit relatively slow and low-flying rockets, and Japan’s and American’s more-sophisticated systems are designed to target faster and higher ballistic missiles,” said Robert Farley, a professor of military doctrine at the University of Kentucky, who has written a blog post on the subject. ” (p. A 11)
Parenthetically, I want to find that blog. See what Professor Farley makes of all of this.
It would be a mistake to think that because there is an answer to the beach ball; logically, there must be an answer to the baseball. The heart of this blog is that Russian and Chinese engineers have demonstrated something over the past half century. I say again, as I have said before, 50 years may not be worth everything. But 50 years is worth something. The Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons program reflect very able technical talent. Virtually every breakthrough in the nuclear weapons program from the oceans to outer space took place first in America. But after 50 years of spectacular engineering breakthroughs, and mountains of money; America is more vulnerable than it was in 1956. There is a reason America is more vulnerable than it was in 1956.
The Wall Street Journal argues, in effect, that this nuclear weapons game is a morality play. It draws conclusions from Russia’s abrogation of an agreement on adoptions of Russian children. It says,
“If Moscow can’t honor this kind of treaty, it’d be good to know why the Obama Administration expects to negotiate another arms control deal with this crowd.”
Well, I expect the Obama Administration to try to negotiate an arms control agreement because if there is no agreement; the kind of vulnerability that China and Russia forced on America; and the reciprocal vulnerability that America forced on China and Russia in the last 50 years will be prologue to an even more ominous vulnerability. The platform for nuclear weapons will be in space and the nuclear oven will be seconds away.
IQ means something in this game. It means everything.
R. Peppe
