There's no longer any doubt that thousands of West Coasters witnessed an unarmed missile streaking across the sky Saturday night. What remains open to interpretation: Why? Why test-fire a missile within sight of the nation's second-largest city? Did officials underestimate social media's ability to turn a routine event into front-page fodder? Or was that the plan all along, using the inevitable influence of social media to flex America's military might for observers in Beijing and Moscow? The answer: It's complicated. Loren Thompson, a military analyst who used to teach nuclear strategy at Georgetown University, told The Washington Post that We have entered an era when anybody can reach a large audience using social media and the blogosphere, so the military needs to look closely at the implications of testing close to population centers. Obviously, with something as large as a Trident II missile, whether you launch during the daytime or at night, it will be visible," he said. "That's just the nature of it." Even so, the extra attention might not have mattered to military officials, Thompson said. If you ignore the frenzy on social media, there is a benefit to visibility: The U.S. Navy, Thompson writes in Forbes, views nuclear deterrence as its most important mission, and the Trident is the backbone of that deterrence. "You could have demonstrated same point to the Russians or the Chinese without getting people really concerned in L.A.," Thompson told The Post.