Rodent Regatta

are in proximity to or headed to the Middle East. I believe we have 12 carriers in service right now, with others under construction.

With the USS Nimitz deploying today for the Middle East, it will be joining the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Harry S. Truman, USS Constellation and the USS Theodore Roosevelt. All of these have air wings numbering as many as 85 aircraft. Five of these are Nimitz-class carriers. Only the USS Constellation falls into the Kitty Hawk-class of carriers.

• * * UPDATE * * * MSNBC covers the story this way.

That leaves six other carriers to cover the rest of the globe. For those who are obsessed with the threat posed by North Korea, it would seem that in many ways their military capability closely resembles the ICBM threat we faced for so many years during the Cold War. In other words, an ICBM launched from North Korea would be identified immediately.

Doing anything about it is another matter. Remember when we based our military strategy on MAD – mutually assured distruction? Kissinger brought us through the ”detente” era.

Though secret technical weaponry exists, we are not likely sitting here in a state of operational readiness to defend against an ICBM – that’s an intercontinental ballistic missile.