Past time for missile defense

The economy stinks. We’re deficit spending. And Islamo-terrorism appears to be the greatest threat to American security.

So why should we be making missile defense the No. 1 military priority of the nation?

Because the next wave of weapons proliferation in the world will be in the form of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

According to a report in my G2 Bulletin intelligence newsletter this week, 2010 is the magic date by which a number of rogue nations will not only have nuclear weapons but the means to deliver them practically anywhere in the world.

And guess who’s the No. 1 target?

Right. The United States of America – known in some quarters of the world as “the Great Satan.”

If you think we have security problems now, just wait. If you think the terrorist threat is scary, just wait. If you think the Cold War was unnerving, just wait. Just do nothing. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

There’s only one way to stop the threat. You can’t put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. You can’t stop determined and wealthy nations from building and buying long-range missiles. You can’t stop the development of nuclear arms. But we can defend ourselves against it. The technology is there. It’s just a matter of having the will and foresight to do it.

The clock is ticking. The year 2010 might seem like it’s far off. It’s not. And some intelligence analysts believe we could be vulnerable to attack or nuclear blackmail much earlier than that.

Recently, the Bush administration imposed economic sanctions on China for helping Iran to build ICBMs. Economic sanctions won’t do the trick. There’s much more money to be made selling the equipment than will be lost to sanctions.

And Iran is only one of many nations now eyeing ICBMs as their weapon of choice. You see, ICBMs are a much cheaper investment than submarines, than air forces, than conventional armies. The U.S. learned this lesson a long time ago. Now there are a dozen nations thinking they can have a sort of military parity with the lone superpower in the world simply by having some ICBMs and nuclear warheads.

Iran may already have some nuclear weapons, according to many intelligence sources. If not, Tehran will be able to produce them soon. They could easily buy them on the black market right now. North Korea is already boasting that it can hit the continental United States with crude nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is attempting to bribe nations like India and Pakistan not to invest in ICBMs. They’ve already got nuclear weapons.

Did you know Saudi Arabia has an advanced long-range missile program? One that permits it to hit nations much further than its arch-enemy Israel? Saudi Arabia has the money to buy whatever it wants. Some intelligence analysts believe the Saudis are covertly planning to do just that.

Syria is a country that has found it cannot compete with Israel in the area of conventional arms. It just doesn’t have the resources to keep up with sophisticated armaments – like the best planes, tanks, etc. But Syria is very fond of missiles. Missiles are cheap by comparison – even long-range missiles.

“Some experts who were behind the 1995 intelligence assessment presented to President Clinton had suggested the U.S. has a window of opportunity at least until 2010 to widen the technical gap and use diplomacy to convince countries such as Russia, China, the Ukraine and North Korea not to export long range weapons systems or technical know-how,” says the G2 Bulletin report. “Now it seems Western intelligence experts may have failed to assess the rapid development of ballistic missiles, not only in the leading technical countries but also in oil-rich countries with anti-American and anti-West and Islamic fundamentalist ideologies.”

The report says after the fall of Saddam Hussein, nations such as Iran, North Korea and Libya are more determined than ever to create some balance of fear with the U.S.

“In reality the solution to the growing U.S. threat as perceived by the pariah nations can be challenged only by purchasing and investing in the development of missiles,” it says. “These missiles programs are now being transformed from the older concept of having missiles with a short and medium range to the actual purchase of the next generation. This can be done at a relatively low cost. Expenses for building a missile or launching site are much lower than investment in a large navy or modern air forces.

Time is running out. If we want to protect the U.S. for the sake of our children and grandchildren, we need an aggressive missile-defense program now.

Subscribe to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.