A Real Threat Requires A Real Defense

Conn Carroll / July 06, 2009

Former Missile Defense Agency director, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, and Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, distinguished fellow Eric Edelman, write in today’s Washington Post:

The apparent reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his frequently expressed commitment to pursue nuclear and ballistic missile capability, underscore the importance of proposed U.S. radar sites and missile defense interceptors in Eastern Europe. Critics of the plan frequently recycle the arguments repeatedly invoked by Russian diplomatic and defense officials during rounds of U.S.-Russian diplomacy throughout 2007-08, including two meetings between their foreign and defense ministers.

That thinking goes: There is no near-term, long-range Iranian missile threat; the proposed U.S. system could not defeat such a threat anyway, but placing that system in Europe will threaten Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

These tired arguments are not persuasive. (more…)