A little more than nine years ago, when I was a columnist for the Minnesota Daily, I wrote a column expressing my opposition to a planned missile defense shield. In the wake of President Obama’s decision to cancel the planned defense shield in Eastern Europe, I went back and re-read that column, and what was true then is just as true today: a missile defense shield is useless, and Obama was right to cancel it.
It was actually pretty humorous to read that column again. In the intervening time period, little had changed. The technology today is just as useless as it was then, despite those decade-old proponents saying that "while the technology isn’t ready now (in 2000), in five or 10 years it will be possible to build a shield that would work perfectly." Not even close. Of course, the philosophical objections remained identical.
Since President Obama was the one who cancelled this, predictably certain people on the right are going completely crazy over this cancellation, saying that we are turning our backs on our allies or giving in to Russia. Not all conservatives are this insane, however. It is rather sad and telling that some conservatives would defend "a system that won’t work, against a threat that doesn’t exist, paid for with money we don’t have" just to get a shot in at Obama. Not to mention that those same conservatives who think we should build a defense shield in Europe would lose their minds if Russia built a shield in Mexico or Cuba.
There’s no long-range missile threat from Iran, and any shield we could build in Europe could easily be overwhelmed by Russia if they wanted to do so. And there’s no evidence at all that they wish to engage in a new nuclear showdown with the U.S. A shield would cost much in dollars and unnecessary tension, while providing exactly zero benefit. Liberal or conservative, it seems like a no-brainer to me.