Kalistan

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Chancellor announces end to Kalistani Missile Defense Program
"Strategic weaponry is a waste of our money," said Hanson
Kaliburg, Grand Duchy of Ananto
July, 7, 5701


Chancellor of the Empire Sir Reg Hanson addresses reporters following tense government meeting

Today, the Chancellor of the Empire, Sir Reg Hanson announced that Kalistan was abandoning its strategic defense program in its nascent stages. "Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Carolina II Ananto has determined that development of strategic defenses, in light of Lodamun's progress, no longer makes sense for Kalistan." The Chancellor cited early cost overages on even studies about feasibility of a strategic weapons defense program in the Empire. "Costs were rapidly exceeding budgeted moneys, and threatened to more than double before we even got into the conceptualization phase. And it turns out that the strategic weaponry program so far has been just a big waste of money. So Her Imperial Majesty decided to cut her losses early in the development process and abandon the program all together."

The Chancellor said that though there were many viewpoints on the matter, with the strongest defenders being Her Imperial Majesty's Defense Minister and KalMilInCo, Her Imperial Majesty's Finance Minister continued to sound the alarms on the budget, and ultimately the Empress agreed with the Finance Minister. "We don't have an unlimited military budget like our Kerisian Friends, who can maintain global projection and a strategic weapons force without experiencing massive inflation or economic dislocations. Kalistan is and has always been on a budget, and we have priorities that do not always include things that major powers just take for granted." He said the remainder of the budget for strategic defense will be rediverted back to conventional weaponry.

"Kalistan has all the systems in place, technically," said the Sir Hanson. "We have full regional surveillance, which we developed over a century and maintain obsessively. This includes subsurface monitoring, Over the Horizon radar installations in both Ananto and in Marlingantos, a large surface and air surveillance fleet that gives us eyes on much of the Northern Anantonese between Keris and Indrala, and a satellite surveillance system that allows us to keep eyes on the surface, to spot missile launches such as those which destroyed our capital in 5612 and to watch troop movements around the globe. If we're watching, it does not go without notice, especially around Kalistan. We also have the equivalent of a Missile program, which has so far served commercial, scientific and intelligence purposes that could be converted to an offensive missile program fairly easily. But the goal was defensive, and that is much harder."

The Chancellor noted the Lodamese hypersonic kill vehicle system which was just revealed earlier this year. "The Lodamese developments were the final determining factor for Her Imperial Majesty. Kalistan does not have the resources to compete with that. And if that is the solution to some lunatic with a ballistic missile launching it south toward Kalistan, we are going to be screwed anyway: Hitting an incoming warhead in its terminal phase is incredibly difficult: It would be like hitting a bullet falling from space with another bullet fired from Earth. If Lodamun can do it, they are significantly farther ahead than everyone else is, and it would likely cause deficit spending in Kalistan for us to even begin to think about building something like that ourselves. And we have people to feed and infrastructure to rebuild. Her Imperial Majesty's priorities supersede any contingency requiring us to divert hundreds of billions of Imperial Rubles to an event we may never ever need to address, or one where another country can just change one thing and render our system entirely useless and our money squandered."

The Chancellor said the allocation for strategic defense which remains will be diverted to more tactical development. "We are working on the KA-11, but planners are already talking about modernizing the detection and target acquisition in our main multi-role fighter or the planning for a new fighter. This conversation also fits into our priorities and if we can build 10 fighters for the price of one anti-missile system, that seems to make Her Imperial Majesty more optimistic on the frugality of the budget expenditures."

He also said Kalistan may continue working with their allies on missile defense. "We have reached out to offer to help others," said the Chancellor. "But for the time being we will continue working on Fortress Kalistan, and let the world do its own thing, and help if we are invited to do so where we can. It only means it is that much easier for us to ensure a good quality of life for the People of Kalistan, and if someone decides to terrorize Kalistan with ballistic missiles, we'll cross that bridge when or if, we ever get there."

@TheRepublic