Reagan once dreamed of Missile Defense force to stop any nuclear missile attack, but was never completed. Russia and China both have over a hundred of nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic missiles( ICBMs) capable of whipping out the United States in minutes. Of course they would never do so since we have our own nuclear force and can retliate.(they same thing would have happened if we attacked them) We can't be the opponent but they can't beat us basically. This fact of guaranteed destruction and no winner in a nuclear war is known as Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD. That is why there was no WWIII between us and the Soviets and a Cold War instead. However, with technology the ICBM stalemate may be over. US had signed on to more missile interceptors in Romania with the SM-3 reaching anti-ICBM capability in 2020. Our home base ICBM defense the GBI is now getting the MKV, a project abandoned in 2008 by Obama, but now restarted. This is a multiple shot missile to guarantee a hit and to destroy both warheads and decoys. Giving the US nuclear immunity will be no easy task. Russia has increased its ICBM forces for better nukes packed with decoys, jammers and chaff plus they can maneuver in space. It will be very costly. Also, Russia doesn't like this since it breaks the balance of power. If US has ICBM-immunity, Russia is obviously vulnerable to US bullying because they can beat. If war breaks out, US could easily use its nukes to defeat Russia in minutes while every Russian nuke will be intercepted. Putin hates this fact. Missile defense's objectives have been more aimed at irrational actors who don't care about retaliation like Iran. If they gain ICBM capablity with nuclear warheads they can strike the US and even if we retliate, they might not care(their religion doesn't mind if they die, just them killing the infidels) and a single nuke can destroy cities easily. Should US increase its missile defense program to break the MAD doctrine? Or continue to use MAD for World Peace, Negotiation, and cost saving?
It would be naive to completely halt missile defence and nuclear capabilities, especially considering the West has armed Israel, Pakistan and India. However, clearly this area of national defence should be less prominent today than 30 years ago. Times change. Redirect a lot of the funding towards conventional and cyber warfare, and leave nuclear tech mostly to maintenance of the current arsenal. Personally I think Australia ought to build a significant nuclear power industry, and I'm not opposed to us having nuclear weapons. We simply don't have any tangible threats which we could minimise with nuclear deterrence. We have no conceivable opposition on whom a nuclear attack would be needed. That wasn't true 30 years ago.
LOL, what a ridiculous post, do you ever post anything of substance or do you just post to increase your post count?
