Missile Defense

Should we spend money on missile defense or is this one item of the federal budget that can be cut? Recently I had Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) on my radio program to talk about this issue.

He began by pointing out how much money Congress spent in just the first five weeks of this year. He had some interesting ways of helping us understand what $840 billion looks like. Aircraft carriers are one of the largest and most expensive items in the defense department. Currently we have 11 of them. If you used the money Congress recently spent on a stimulus package and instead bought aircraft carriers, you would have 250 of them in a row.

Another way to look at what Congress spent is to compare it to what has been spent on the Iraq-Afghanistan wars. In the first few weeks of this year Congress spent more money than all the money has been spent so far on these wars. And Representative Akin pointed out that not one penny of what Congress recently spent went to defense.

Representative Akin believes we need to spend money on missile defense. The recent missile test by North Korea is one reason. Iran is another reason. He also points out that North Korea has shown a willingness to sell weapons technology to the highest bidder.

An important development has been the agreement to place ballistic missile interceptors and tracking radar in Eastern Europe. During the Bush Administration, the U.S. signed agreements with Poland to host an interceptor site and with the Czech Republic to host the radar site. President Obama and his administration are less enthusiastic about such a deployment.

There is also talk of an Airborne Laser that would be mounted on a Boeing 747. This laser would be used to shoot down ballistic missiles while they are still over the launching country. The Airborne Laser is expected to take its first test shot while flying late this summer.

We live in a dangerous nuclear age. Spending money on missile defense is one way to make the world safer. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.