Pravda Commemorates 1961 Test: A Time When Ballistic Missiles Were Thought “Absolute”
Pravda commemorates “an important date,” the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet Union’s first interception of a ballistic missile. Indeed,
Pravda describes it as “the world’s first.”
On March 4, 1961 a medium-range missile was launched from the Kapustin Yar rocket test range (Lower Volga). After a short interval its front section was detected by tracking systems and then hit by an anti-missile. This system was deployed at the Sary-Shagan range in Kazakhstan (a former Soviet republic), according to RIA Novosti. The direct hit of the missile front section was not only of military and technical, but also of political significance, since in those days the ballistic missile was considered to be an “unputdownable” weapon, or absolute. It was stressed at the press-service that it was a landmark event, one which opened a new page in global confrontation between the two superpowers - the USSR and the US.
Worth noting is that ballistic missiles are referred to as having been perceived “in those days” as “unputdownable,” or “absolute.”
Pravda indicates that the Soviets and Russia moved beyond such superstition—which was subsequently followed by the deployment of their operational missile defense system around Moscow.
Unfortunately, many elites in America today are still wed to the idea that ballistic missiles are impossible to defend against. It is this mistaken notion which has long provided a primary impediment to the political will to provide for the common defense
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