Apparently North Korea is planning to launch a satellite soon and thereby test long range ballistic missile technology [so much for the reset implied by recent signed agreement that was remarkable only for the fact of how many people actually thought it a milestone of some sort]. Now, it was during Bush's last term [or possibly we were already in Obama world] that similarly troubling missile technology was test fired - and there was much debate about whether the US should shoot the missile down. Without benefit of hindsight there's no correct answer in this kind of debate since there's much potential downside no matter which way you go - but I supported shooting it down for these reasons: the only way to perfect this technology is by trying it out - you shoot it down, they can't perfect it; if we don't call their bluff on these things the dynamics suggest the provocation will just worsen - them launching a satellite is a perfect example of this; we have anti-missile technology - there may be an upside to getting to test it in a real world situation - and then ask yourself if there's a nice deterrence payoff from an interdiction of this sort - would it help re Iran? - of course, if we try and then fail to knock the thing down, that's not good.
So here we go again with N Korea testing missile technology that we definitely don't want them perfecting and then exporting - what to do? I say shoot the thing down. At some point there has to be a line you cannot allow countries like this to cross - otherwise you're opening the door to devils unknown.
