Playing God with Missile Defense

This was started by the Essembly resolve:

An effective defense against ballistic missiles is in the best interest of the United States, and as such it should actively and aggressively peruse developing and deploying such a defense.

The link goes to the discussion I'm having with Andrew Berman about why I disagree. This is probably harks back to me debating why space-based weapons (i.e. Star Wars) is a bad idea during junior year of high school. So yeah, I'm not exactly approaching this with an open mind.

More on the flip.

My concern isn't really unique to missile defense though, but rather, harks back to this idea of the US playing world cop. I don't necessarily oppose that -- provided it's done right. My fear is just that it's not going to be done right.

Feasibility aside, if we actually did get a missile defense up and running--and assuming we deployed it worldwide (e.g. in space) --wouldn't that make us responsible for the launch of every missile around the world?

If Israel launches a pre-emptive strike on Iran, and we could have stopped it, but we didn't, isn't that effectively condoning a missile strike against Iran? As I mentioned in the discussion. It's like playing God. You get blamed for everything no matter what you do.

The way around this, sort of, is to clearly define when you will act and what that act consists of. Using Thomas Barnett's terms, we create a "rule set" about the usage of our missile defense system. Ideally, we get people to buy into that rule set as well.

It's the difference between the world cop adhering to the rule of law (even if the law is mostly written by himself) and the world acting as a vigilante making things up as he goes along. Who would you rather trust?

One part of me believes we can do this -- that someone has to be the world cop and that we can do it. Sure, we'll fail a few times, but eventually we'll get it.

But in light of things like Iraq, I can't say I'm terribly optimistic.

[tag]World Police[/tag] [tag]God[/tag] [tag]American Foreign Policy[/tag] [tag]Missile Defense[/tag][tag]Essembly[/tag] [tag]Thomas P.M. Barnett[/tag] [tag]Leviathan[/tag] [tag]Rule Sets[/tag]