![]() China adds roughly another 100 similar missiles collectively armed with about 180 nuclear warheads. The main threat is the Russian arsenal of just over 480 land- and sea-launched intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs), collectively carrying just over 2000 warheads, with a maximum of about 1500 warheads actually deployed (to keep the numbers within the limits established by the recently extended US-Russia New START agreement). Strategic-range ballistic missile threats are the focus of North American homeland missile defence operations, using ground-based interceptor missiles designed to knock out attacking warheads in mid-course in outer space. The American BMD system runs the gamut from localized theatre defence against short-range cruise and ballistic missiles, through to defenses aimed at regional- and then strategic-range threats. The context undeniably includes a persistent threat to North America from strategic range, nuclear-armed, missiles, but the American “homeland” missile defence system, due to technical and strategic constraints, offers no defence against the overwhelming majority of missiles aimed at North America. Now, with a more “progressive” Democrat back in the White House and NORAD modernization moving up the continental defence agenda, the Canada-and-BMD question could be cued for another round of attention. ![]() Speculation about Canada joining the North American component of the Pentagon’s ballistic missile defence (BMD) system of systems makes periodic appearances in Canadian defence discourse – though direct participation has never gained broad political support. The areas in black denote deactivated missile wings, the areas in red denote the active missile wings.See The Simons Foundation Canada's page on Canadian Defence Policy for briefing papers by Ernie Regehr, O.C., Senior Fellow in Arctic Security and Defence at The Simons Foundation Canada. Map showing the areas of the six Minuteman Missile wings on the central and northern Great Plains. United States Minuteman Missile Wings - 272KB PDF For instance, from Launch Facility (Missile Silo) Delta-09 to Moscow was approximately 5,100 miles.Ģ) Protection - Minuteman sites away from America's coastlines meant more warning time if submarines launched from off the coasts.ģ) Far Away From Population Centers - Minuteman sites on the sparsely populated Great Plains meant less lives were directly at risk from nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. The following are considered the three major ones:ġ) Distance - The shortest distance to the Soviet Union - the United States main opponent during the Cold War - was over the North Pole. There was a multiplicity of reasons that Minuteman's were sited in the Great Plains region. Why Minuteman sites were constructed on the Great Plains ![]() From the mid-1960s until the early 1990s there were 1,000 Minuteman Silos and 100 corresponding Launch Control Facilities for command and control. They could also be remotely controlled from Launch Control Centers miles away from the actual silos, allowing sites to be dispersed over a wide geographic area. Due to its solid fuel technology, the missiles could be mass produced. The most common sites have been the Minuteman. Since that time there have been hundreds of Atlas, Titan, Minuteman and Peacekeeper sites constructed all the way from Texas to North Dakota, New Mexico to Montana. The first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) silos arrived on the Great Plains in 1959 when Atlas sites were constructed in Wyoming. "A nuclear missile silo is one of the quintessential Great Plains objects: to the eye, it is almost nothing, just one or two acres of ground with a concrete slab in the middle and some posts and poles sticking up behind an eight-foot-high cyclone fence: but to the imagination, it is the end of the world." Ian Frazier, Great Plains, 1989 Aerial view of the Delta-09 launch facility view towards southwest, 1992.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |