https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1779964782181011613
Noah is being so incredibly dishonest it is hard to read.
He starts by conflating nuclear armed ICBMs with cruise missiles, drones, and short to medium range ballistic missiles. Then has a quote from Yglesias without context talking about nuclear ICBMs and makes the following points:
1) N Korea and other rogue states didn’t at the time have the technology to hit us with ICBMs
2) missile defense against nuclear ICBMs was nearly impossible
Noah then concedes that on the actual issue being discussed then Matt was right and is still right today.
But then he fails to mention the fact that the Bush administration in pursuing missile defense also just happened to basically dismantle the entire arms control treaty architecture that had slowly worked to set norms against a new arms race in ICBMs, ABMs and the militarization of space.
We can’t blame Bush for the looming expiration of START, but it certainly didn’t help that they unilaterally withdrew from multiple arms control treaties to pursue what even Noah describes as a failed strategy to prevent ICBMs ending our civilization.
Anyways, they largely pivoted to anti-terrorism afterwards but the arms control damage had already been done. We are in a much worse position with regard to arms control because of these choices.
On the A-10/F-35 debate—I take his point, I can acknowledge that the F35 seems to be much more successful than was thought by many.
