US Scraps Final Phase Of European Missile Shield

[Purveyor]

Source: BBC

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has scrapped the final phase of its European missile defence shield, citing development problems and funding cuts.

Upgraded interceptors were to have been deployed in Poland to counter medium- and intermediate-range missiles, and potential threats from the Middle East.

Mr Hagel said the threat had "matured" and that the US commitment to Nato missile defence remained "ironclad".

The interceptors had been strongly opposed by the Russian government.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21812161

[UnrepentantLiberal]

1. They've decided to install them in California instead.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014426184

[PSPS]

2. Do these even work?

As I recall, these only worked under controlled situations where the target had a convenient homing beacon built in and, even then, it usually didn't work.

[pansypoo53219]

3. its a money pit for contractors.

[UberGlenn66]

4. Possible Concession?

Wondering if this may be a concession to Russia for cooperation in another matter...
It's give and take out there, and the Russians have been up in arms about this for years...

[longship]

5. First, they never work very well.

Second, deploying them is extremely destabilizing. When your opponent deploys an ABM system, your best counter move is to deploy more missiles to overwhelm the ABMs. And here's the thing, once you have the technology to build ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, it's fairly cheap to just build more of them whereas the ABMs are very much higher tech with appropriately higher costs.

Plus, there's the deal that they just don't work very well.

ABMs are a waste of money.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Good

Would've been about as useful as herpes.

[Ash_F]

7. How about not constantly being at the throat of everyone in the world? /nt

[Paul E Ester]

8. This was a 10 billion dollar project for the poles.

They cannot be happy, especially since they pissed off a lot of people starting the project.

The bases were going to be built to counter the "Iranian threat". Maybe the Iranian threat will be neutralized before these could be built.

The polish people are currently paying for their entry into NATO and Polands adoption of western weapons systems.