Lil' Kim teaches us a lesson

Jed Babbin writes in The American Spectator:

Asked about the chances our ballistic missile defense had to shoot down the North Korean ICBM launched on July Fourth President Bush said, "I think we had a reasonable chance of shooting it down." He added, "Our anti-ballistic missile systems are modest, they're new, they're new research, we're testing them. And so...it's hard for me to give you a probability of success." Mr. Bush -- not a big fan of the Keller Kidz' leakathon -- was probably struggling to remember if that aspect of the ABM system was classified. He erred, as he should, on the side of protecting classified information. And so shall we.

[Snip]

Twenty-three years ago, Ronald Reagan proclaimed our intent to protect ourselves from the threat of nuclear missile attack. He said, "Wouldn't it be better to save lives than to avenge them? Are we not capable of demonstrating our peaceful intentions by applying all our abilities and our ingenuity to achieving a truly lasting stability?...Tonight, consistent with our obligations of the ABM treaty and recognizing the need for closer consultation with our allies, I'm taking an important first step. I am directing a comprehensive and intensive effort to define a long-term research and development program to begin to achieve our ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles....We seek neither military superiority nor political advantage. Our only purpose -- one all people share -- is to search for ways to reduce the danger of nuclear war."

That was March 23, 1983. So why, twenty-three years, three months and twenty-eight days later, don't we have a ballistic missile defense that gives us better than a 60-40 chance to protect ourselves? Better ask Senator Carl Levin.

Though Teddy hung the "Star Wars" label on it to ridicule it as science fiction, Levin has been the most dedicated opponent to ballistic missile defense since President Reagan announced it. First objecting to its costs, next as a defender of the ABM Treaty long after the other principal party to it ceased to exist, and last as a sarcastic unbeliever in its science, Levin has served as the brilliant general of the liberals determined to leave America defenseless. Steadfast in opposing any ballistic missile defense, Levin has thrown roadblock upon roadblock in its path, and slowed the program from a rush to a crawl.

North Korea has given us a free lesson. The tuition for the kind of lesson we should learn from its missile launches last week is usually paid in lives. Before we define what we learned, we must add a few more data points.

First, North Korea is held more dangerous as a proliferator of missiles and nuclear weapons than as a direct aggressor. Second, its nuclear weapons program would not have reached its current success without the technology delivered by Pakistan's A.Q. Khan and the support of Beijing. Third, without our direct intervention, and that of our allies, North Korea -- or, more importantly, anyone with enough money to buy them from North Korea -- will have ICBMs capable of hitting American and allied targets with nuclear weapons. Eventually some apocalyptic madman or some dictator convinced of some worse alternative will launch a nuclear-armed missile at us. The lesson we must take from the July 4th North Korean failure is that we must do whatever it takes to finish developing and deploying a comprehensive ballistic missile defense because we can no longer live without it.

Go and read the rest. Pay particular attention to why he says that Republicans are not stepping up and making the case for all out research on a true multi-layered anti-missile system.