GOP senator applauds move to ramp up West Coast missile defense

By Molly K. Hooper - 03/17/13 10:41 AM ET

The top-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sunday praised the administration’s decision to bolster the West Coast missile defense, after threats from North Korea.

“I think all of us applaud the efforts to beef up our missile defense on the west coast,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on “Fox News Sunday” of efforts to deal with the potential nuclear threat from the rogue nation.

The senator, though, acknowledged the threat from North Korea is not “imminent.”

“I don’t think the threat is imminent, I don’t think they have the delivery mechanisms that are necessary to really harm us but I think it’s really good that we’re taking those precautionary measures to make sure they do not do damage,” Corker said.

The ranking member told host Chris Wallace, that he’s going to be speaking with the Pentagon and State Department this week to hash out the “technical issues.”

The administration announced last week that it would augment its missile-defense capabilities in Alaska by deploying additional missile interceptors on the West Coast.

“The reason we're advancing our program here for homeland security is to not take any chances, is to stay ahead of the threat and to assure any contingency,” said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The move came after North Korea ramped up its rhetoric against the United States and South Korea and on the heels of a recent nuclear test.

Pyongyang has in recent weeks threatened to declare the end of the armistice which ended the Korean War and criticized new sanctions passed by the United Nations Security Council and military training exercises being held by Seoul and Washington.

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Barack Obama asks for ‘flexibility’ from Medvedev on missile defense.

Alternative title: “Barack Obama begs Russia for more time to arrange capitulation on missile defense.” There’s an election coming up, you see – and if the President gets re-elected then he will be in a position where he won’t have to worry about those pesky voters, and their provincial dislike for having nuclear weapons pointed at their heads. Hence, the need for more time:

President Obama assured Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday that he’d have “more flexibility” after the November election, during a conversation that appeared to focus on the touchy issue of missile defense.

Flexibility.

Flexibility.

Ye gods and little fishes.

There is no flexibility, here. The missile defense system was proposed for a reason, and the reason is that nobody particularly trusts the Russian ‘Republic’ – which is actually a kingdom whose ruler remembers fondly the days where it was the center of an empire and one of the two poles of the world. More to the point, that kingdom still has the nuclear weapons that made it one of those poles*. Nukes + an aggressive foreign policy designed to stoke domestic pride + systematic domestic problems = worrisome neighbors. Which is why countries like Poland were happy to host the missile defense platforms: after all, they’re well aware that Russians have difficulty admitting that the concept of “Poland” should exist in the first place.

I should not have to explain any of this to an American President. Then again, as we all know killing missile defense has long been on the progressive Left’s wish list for some time. Certainly Barack Obama knows:

(‘Unproven.’ Amazing how badly this guy guesses the future, huh?)

That’s from 2008, and Barack Obama’s apparently decided to see if he can keep his views quiet just long enough to get reelected in 2012. Great news if you’re an antiwar progressive; not so great if you happen to have relatives in Warsaw, Riga, Kiev, and/or Budapest. Or just don’t want to see Eastern Europe under outside imperial control again…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Let me make this clear. Missile defense is a shield, not a sword. That an effective missile shield will marginalize Russia on the European stage should not be the problem of the United States of America. It should instead be an impetus for the Russians to become better neighbors. And, hey, possibly a functioning representative democracy, too? – Crazy notion, but God knows they’ve gone through all possible variations of autocracy by now; the Russians might as well try something radical.

*Well, it’s not like the Soviet Union was ever a world power because of its economic policy. Or technological prowess. Or grasp of basic agricultural principles.

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