Townhall.com posted an article today about the threat of North Korean missiles.
The article quotes Charles Krauthammer in a Washington Post article:
Across 25 years and five administrations, we have kicked the North Korean can down the road. We are now out of road.
On July 4, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile apparently capable of hitting the United States. As yet, only Alaska. Soon, every American city.
Moreover, Pyongyang claims to have already fitted miniaturized nuclear warheads on intermediate-range missiles. Soon, on ICBMs.
However, in the midst of this unsettling news, there is some good news. At least Hawaii is safe.
The article reports:
But although there are questions about whether we can fully protect the mainland, Hawaii, the most vulnerable state to Korean attack, is well protected by America’s missile defense system. Early this year, a new missile-defense system in the state destroyed a target missile, proving that the area will be well-secured in the event of a nuclear attack.
The United States has had a successful test of its own recently. In late May, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced it had successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile during the first test of its updated ground-based intercept system.
The missile was launched from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The intercept, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, collided with the missile an hour later over the Pacific Ocean.
The system had gone 9-for-17 in tests from 1999 through 2014 but had not tested an intercept since. It was the first successful test since 2014 and the first time the intercept had worked with no pre-programmed information on the location of the target – a true blind seek-and-destroy mission.
How completely we can protect mainland America depends on how many nuclear missiles the North Koreans have. In Israel, the Iron Dome has protected the country from numerous rocket attacks. I am not sure how useful the Iron Dome would be in the case of an ICBM attack. However, the most recent intercept test does show that we do have the capacity to protect ourselves. The “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) policy used with Russia during the Cold War does not apply to today’s tyrants. Iran believes it can hasten the coming of the Mahdi by creating chaos, and the North Korean leader is not a rational person. Our best strategy is to be able to shoot down anything that comes our way before it gets here. We also need to understand that America has very few allies in the world who would be willing to help with our defense. (And those who would be willing to help us are dealing with serious issues regarding their own defenses).
It is time to acknowledge that we can no longer kick the can down the road. It also might be a good time to make sure our defenses are up and running to protect all areas of the country.