By Loren Thompson, Forbes: “Today, the only defensive system the U.S. has that can intercept long-range ballistic missiles is the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) – so-called because it intercepts intercontinental ballistic missiles in the middle of their arcing trajectories while they are in space.
By Kevin R. James, RealClearDefense: “The history of how deterrence actually worked during the Cold War shows that any deterrence arrangement between the U.S. and North Korea will necessarily be subject to a substantial risk of catastrophic failure.”
By Adam Cabot, RealClearDefense: “RAND found that a NATO force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades supported by air power and adequate land-based fire support would be necessary to prevent a rapid defeat until more forces can arrive in Europe.”
Evaluating Integrated Defense Systems:
How to Proactively Defend the Final Frontier
By Frank Bednar, Jim Davitch & Cara Treadwell, Strategy Bridge: “For air power practitioners, the Italo-Turkish conflict demonstrated that military forces in the future would now need a plan to suppress enemy air defenses. Since then air warfare strategists have had to grapple with the problem of gaining and maintaining control of air and space while dealing with enemy defenses designed to prevent exactly that.”
(War On The Rocks) A likely apocryphal exchange after the Vietnam War captured the problem of fighting without keeping effectiveness in mind: An American colonel tells a Vietnamese colonel, “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield.” “That may be so,” replies the Vietnamese colonel, “but it is also irrelevant.”