I’m seeing a pattern.

We’re “Banana Warring” right now… all over the world… in a fashion similar to the Banana Wars at the beginning of the century.

What effect did the banana wars have? They improved our reach, our world presence. They were a small part in maintaining US presence on the world stage. They seemed like a good idea, at the time.

But then, after a number of years, they also helped build isolationist tendencies amongst our own citizens. People wondered why American boys were fighting and dying in these pointless foreign wars.

Sound familiar? Same thing’s happening today. People are wondering.

My point is that I worry that all of this will have backlash. I worry that popular opinion in our country will become isolationist again… just like right before World War 2. If you know your history, you realize that we were drawn into World War 2 just a few years after the last of the Banana Wars, and we were drawn in kicking and screaming. Just a few weeks before Pearl Harbor, a million students signed a petition demanding that the US government not enter any foreign war. It was a stupid position on the part of those students, for the rest of the world was already aflame, and our involvement by then was predetermined. Yet our complacency and our unpreparedness and our isolationism costed thousands of lives at Pearl Harbor and throughout the Pacific.

You can’t just look at the status quo. You have to look at history, and make some educated guesses about where the status quo will lead.

Right now, would we support Japan in a war against North Korea? OF COURSE we would. That’s the status quo. But will we ten, twenty years from now? Our own history makes that doubtfull… especially if the leaders of North Korea learn from history, and don’t give us a reason to fight. Suppose they don’t give us a Pearl Harbor. What would we do?

N. Korea isn’t a major threat to the U.S. unless they start selling nukes. And Kim Jong-Il knows that any act of agression towards Japan will be met by the U.S. While he may be loopy I don’t think he’s crazy enough to throw nukes around willy nilly. After all whats the point of having “Joy Brigades” if you aren’t around to enjoy them? Exporting nukes to anti-American groups/countries is another matter altogether.

However, they DO have the capability to launch massively on local powers, such as Japan, or South Korea.

Would we step to the plate and defend Japan against a massive nuclear bombardment? Especially if it were calculated to miss our bases there? The question becomes a little more hazy. As things stand right now, there is no doubt; we would. But a lot of Americans right now are not in the mood to fight “a war not ours”… another Iraq or Afghanistan, it would seem to them. The number of Americans who think this way is rising. If the current trend continues, I think this danger will rise, and there will come a time when it actually seems a viable option to the North Koreans.

Unless something about the current status quo changes.

Scary stuff.

Don’t be too upbeat over a single success. And of course the government may provide misinformation… I don’t deny that. It’s just that this is not a new thing. It’d been going on since the founding of our country.

Furthermore, about 5 years ago, Russia came out with ICBM’s that are capable of extremely low ballistic flight as well as jinking on the way down, rendering THAAD and other experimental systems like it pretty much too little, too late.

What I’m trying to say, is that I think that the American public simply knows far too little about this subject, and has grown complacent. The Cold War is this distant memory that no longer exists, to many… and this simply is not true. It is alive and well. Russia continues to hold a nuclear arsenal, and they continue to make a big deal about keeping up with us, in capability and technology, if not in numbers. And yes, for any of you doubters… Russia is and has been for a long time vastly superior to us in ICBM technology. Unlike the Cold War, however, now we have China and North Korea to worry about, and North Korea and Iran are sharing missile technology, so there’s another complication… it’s a regular nuclear circus out there.

So everything that happened during the Cold War… still happens. It’s just that people don’t want to believe it, and when it becomes starkly obvious, as in this case, they want to remark upon it like it’s a new and terrifying development, a governmental coverup, a “misinformation campaign”… when it might or might not be all of these things, but the more basic fact of the matter is it is nothing new, nor remarkable at all.

That’s what I’m trying to get at.

Its far more important that N. Korea believe that we can shoot down their missles than it is for us to actually have the capability. Meaning that “if” the first two tests failed we have bought ourselves enough time to iron out the bugs. After all Tsun Tzu teaches that the best batlle is one that is never fought and that’s standard teaching at West Point.

Do you think that the US would allow reporters access to this technology if it wasn’t close to being true? Of course we could still be in a situation where our government is providing disinformation, and I accept that, but I can’t help but think we’re very close to a very good missile defense.

In the end, maybe Reagan was right. After all, if we can shoot a warhead out of the sky and prevent a nuclear holocaust, that’s an amazing technological feat.

One can only hope.

“Ignorant” was a nasty mean thing for me to say. I apologize. I’ll try to tone it down from the riling language. The root position stands, though.

In what may prove to be a truly colossal lapse of judgment Justin Gardner has decided to allow me the privilege of annoying you contributing to Donklephant.

You’re already annoying me. Be gone! ;-)

Regardless, it sounds like this program is likely to be effective no matter which way the actual test went.

As for THAAD’s ability to “completely destroy chemical and nuclear residue”… surely people have better common sense than that. Don’t trust everything the government says. However, it’s arguable that since the explosion is so high, any residue would be spread out over hundreds of miles, and so would be minimal.