[CaptainCrunch]

I'm fully onboard with the missile defense shield especially since its going to cost us nothing, and its not putting offensive weapons into space

Lets be honest here

The MDS is not designed to stop a determined attack using the new generation of ICBM's that the Soviets possess or to a small extent the Chinese, thats where MAD still applies since the leaders of those countries are still rational.

Where the MDS does apply is a rougue nation like North Korea or a Iran or if god forbid a terrorist organization gets thier hands on a delivery vehicle and warhead. You can't use Mad against a North Korea or to a lessor extent Iran or some other nation because they're not exactly rational.

You also have to realize that the majority of the members of the Fallout club don't have

A) a lot of long distance warshots

B) Hardened and sophisticated delivery systems.

Most of thier delivery systems are based around either artillary or gravity dropped bombs.

So under its initial design the MDS should work

One failure dosen't mean an entire failure for the project

The scary thing is that there's not a whole lot more that the U.S can do about smuggled weapons from a monetary standpoint, it comes down to process now, and a airport security guard or customs officer can not take down a rogue missile unless he's a really good shot

It was an interesting comparison that somebody made with the missile defense system to the Phalanx CIWS mounted on Navy ships, except that the Phalanx is the last line of defense in a interlocking strategy, the Sunburn still has to go through 4 belts of antimissile systems before it even gets close enough for the Phalanx to fire, even the Russian Navy agreed that it was unlikely that it was going to happen unless they used the concept of overwhelming numbers of missiles. Which like the MDS the Phalanx isn't designed to do. The Phalanx is a mop up weapon put into place to knock down the few leakers left after the attack has run through the long and short range Sam defense.

The latest generation of Naval variant Sams were also designed with the Sunburns and other sea skimmers in mind.

The other funny thing about the Sunburn is that its got a 90 mile range, which means that any Russian or Chinese ship would be well within sensor range of a carrier task force before it could get its shot off, and likely to be attacked in the event of a hostile scenario.

In fact the U.S. navy just aquired a large portion of all varients of the Russian Navy Sunburns to test thier system.

The moral of the story.

National defense against a unpredicatable foe is to take into account every scenar. Interlocking defense. the MDS, increased border vigilance, better foreign intelligence all have to be there or the concept of being prepared is empty and hollow.