Cold War mentality?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by JALU3

Where did it come from?

In this scenario, Poland.

Where is it going?

Here's a rub. The interceptor is itself basically a ballistic rocket. If it is overflying Russian territory, there is no way for them to be sure whether it is an offensive or a defensive rocket, and in any case a defensive rocket be used as an limited offensive one with relative ease (just like a SAM can be used for antiship attack).

In any case, even in the case of a fully defensive rocket, there are certainly sovereignty concerns to consider with shooting your SAMs (a ABM is basically a SAM) into other people's territory.

Is it a threat to us?

Here's the other rub. If you don't go by intentions (ultimately blind faith in America and Poland), there's no way to know, at least not until the uncertainty circle associated with the tracked ballistic trajectory gets small enough that it definitely doesn't cover anything important, or of course, until it makes the intercept (if it does).

If it is a threat, eliminate it.
If it is not, contact State Department, and ask why we weren't informed ahead of time.

They won't know for sure until its flight terminates, which will be a little late if it was a nuke, no?