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Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

rshowalter - 11:58am Feb 11, 2001 EST (#670 of 674)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

President Bush got high praise on the NYT editorial page today, in "Between Two Eras."

. " a president who entered office with a shaky mandate is performing above expectations." . . .

Although " we have profound policy differences with Mr. Bush" . . . . but "Mr. Bush has demonstrated that he takes the presidency seriously. ........Members of Congress, whether they support him or not, can feel it. The public . .. . . seems to sense in this White House a mature insistence on order."

I've been impressed by that sense of order, and called the administrations organizational stances vis a vis defense "beautiful" rshowalter 2/9/01 1:53pm in the sense that "Beauty is the proper conformity of the parts to one another and to the whole."

If Good military theory is an attempt to produce beauty in Heisenberg's sense in a SPECIFIC context of assumption and data, the administration is taking good steps to make the pursuit of beautiful solutions possible, at least in form, and at the level of organization for solutions.

But for the safety of the country, we need to remember that "goodness" must be judged, not only in of terms of the context of assumption and data considered, but also in the contexts of fact and relationship that actually apply to the defense of the United States.

rshowalter - 12:03pm Feb 11, 2001 EST (#671 of 674)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For example, in THE WEEK IN REVIEW , James Daos Please Do Not Disturb Us With Bombs shows the beauty of the pro missile defense position in its own terms.

The story also indicates that these terms may be fatally flawed - that the assumptions of what can work may be without foundation. The picture with the piece - showing the contrail results of gross servo-instability in a interceptor test last year, shows how very far short we now are from the we can do it assumption that makes the difference between practical beauty, and gross and dangerous ugliness, for this strategy.

The questions raised in Missile Defense System Wont Work by David Wright and Theodore Postol ----- May 11, 2000 in the Boston Globe need to be adressed. No matter how "hypothetically beautiful in its own terms" missile defense may be, it is ugly in terms of national defense if it does not work.

At the bottom of page 18 theres another article,

Smaller, Cheaper, Stealthier, Deadlier by William Broad

that raises severe questions about the missile defense strategy on grounds of proportion. It is a huge resource committment, and adresses only one threat among a number, and not necessarily the largest.

A major difficulty may be based on an assumption of trust.

Senior american officers, for reasons that I sympathize with entirely, look at Russian actions in the most distrustful possible light - because fear and distrust go with nuclear weapons, which are terror weapons.bigred152 2/11/01 8:36am

The Russians interpret our actions in the most distrustful possible way, and at huge cost to themselves, prepare for the worst (acting in a way that stimulates distrust on the part of American officers.)

NEW COLD WAR WARMS UP.....The Moscow Times ..... Feb. 8, 2001 In the history of the nuclear terror, the cycle of escalating fear and distrust has been a sadly consistent fact that no assurances of good faith, on either side, have ever stopped -- essentially because nuclear weapons are only useful in first strikes, and deception is essential to make a first strike possible.

I've made a proposal, one of many possible, that suggests that we assume distrust, rather than trust and proceed from there. rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am

I believe that it is ugly for us to deny the mutual fear and distrust that go with nuclear weapons, and that beautiful solutions require that we acknowledge that fear, and take steps to adress the fears involved in rational detail.

If we do this, I believe that we may be able to devise a much safer, more stable world, at much less cost than the costs now being contemplated.

rshowalter - 12:47pm Feb 11, 2001 EST (#672 of 674)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I've worked extensively on a forum on The Guardian Talk - Europe

We need an international missle system now - Why son of Star Wars is a good idea.

The thread was started on Feb 4 by beckvaa who I believe is our former President, and is now about forty pages of text. I express concerns about nuclear destruction in #9 on that thread, and elsewhere. In my view, the risks of our current situation have been understated, and should motivate efforts at control. Some good steps that might provide such control are being considered by the Bush administraion.

soyousay - 09:35pm Feb 11, 2001 EST (#673 of 674)

Why are certain nations so expressing fear of an application of technology they themselves say publicly is overly complex, uncertain of function, as so easily spoofed?

Why not remain silent on the issue and allow the US to spend Billions of useless Dollars that might otherwise be spent on more effective instruments of deterence and projection of national force of will?

dirac_10 - 11:05pm Feb 11, 2001 EST (#674 of 674)

A very good point.

If it worries the folks that had the technical ability to build H-bombs and Sputniks 50 years ago, stopping the Saddams of the world is a piece of cake.

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