Trump review calls for more missile defenses but no space weapons — yet

[JacksinPA]

https://www.politico.com/story/2019...review-more-defenses-no-space-weapons-1106978

The Trump administration’s long-awaited missile defense review that will be released Thursday recommends additional deployments of anti-missile systems at home, abroad and possibly in space, according to a senior administration official.

The two-year review, which was ordered by President Donald Trump just days after he took office, calls for a third suite of interceptors located on U.S. territory to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles. It also recommends additional study of the controversial idea of placing weapons in orbit to strike enemy missiles launched from Earth.
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We are defenseless against the hypersonic cruise missiles being fielded by the Russians & Chinese. They fly 'nap of the Earth' which makes them virtually invisible to land-based radars & missile systems. Satellites with both surveillance & targeting radars could be designed that could knock out these cruise weapons with small missiles fired downward from space.

 

[Westphalian]

Reviving space fantasies has not gone down a storm in Moscow. The US should remember that it's always easier and cheaper to counter a missile defense system than it is to build one.

https://www.rt.com/news/449153-russia-warns-usa-missile-defense/

Of particular alarm is the notion of deploying not just sensors but also weaponry in orbit, the Foreign Ministry said. The MDR “practically gives the green light to deploying elements with strike capability in space.”

Implementation of these ideas will “inevitably lead to an arms race in space, which would have the worst kind of consequences for international security and stability,” the Foreign Ministry added, calling on Washington to “come to its senses” and abandon the attempt to revive the ‘Star Wars’ program proposed under the Reagan administration in the 1980s.

This will not improve the security of either the US or its allies and partners, but have the entirely opposite effect – striking a “heavily blow to international stability, which is already falling apart thanks to irresponsible actions by Washington,” it said. “Obviously, no one wins in this scenario.”