AP tweets should US shoot down N Korea missles if shot at Guam. Guam resident responds.

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This is what you get when you have half your population with no understanding of actual war

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It appears they deleted this tweet.

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It appears they deleted this tweet.

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It appears they deleted this tweet.

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What the frick is wrong with liberals?

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If U.S. territory is threatened, countermeasures are a no-brainer. But if the missiles aren’t expected to hit the island — the stated goal is to have them hit waters well offshore — should it? Could it?

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THE CONS

A big problem is that failure would not only be humiliating, but could actually weaken the U.S. position more than doing nothing at all.

The U.S. has pumped billions of dollars into its missile defense systems and sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth to its allies, including the very controversial deployment of a state-of-the-art system known by its acronym, THAAD, in South Korea. The U.S. military has also conducted two ICBM interceptor tests since May. Officials called them successes, but critics say they don’t replicate actual conditions close enough to be a fair gauge.

Taking out Guam-bound missiles would require successful intercepts by ship-based SM-3 “hit-to-kill” missiles over the Sea of Japan or land-based PAC-3 “Patriot” missiles on Guam. The ship-based defenses are designed to kill a missile that’s in midflight, while the ground-based ones take out whatever missiles make it through and are in the final stage.

But it’s highly questionable whether either or both would be able to take down the full salvo of four North Korean missiles. President Donald Trump hinted the defense system still needs beefing up on Thursday when he told reporters the U.S. will be spending billions more on them.

A failed intercept would likely embolden the North to move ahead even faster. It could also have a chilling psychological impact on allies like Japan and South Korea, which might seek to build up their own nuclear forces independently of Washington. Rival powers China and Russia, meanwhile, might see the exposed weakness as an opportunity to push forward more assertive policies of their own.

Even if it were successful, a policy of shooting down missiles would undoubtedly raise tensions, and put an uncomfortable squeeze on American allies on the front lines.

Worst of all, if American intentions aren’t clear, an attempt to intercept a missile might be misinterpreted by Pyongyang — or Beijing or Moscow — and escalate into a real shooting war.

On a technical level, just as the North learns valuable information on its capabilities with each launch, so does the U.S. military. Shooting down the missiles would cut that intelligence off.

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