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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

gisterme - 08:19pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10813 of 10820)

rshow55 1/15/02 6:44am

"...Last year, Russia hosted a meeting on the militarization of space - something like 104 countries attended. The United States did not. Lasar weapons were centrally involved in the issues of concern..."

I heard recently a Russian talking about communism. I wish I could remember his name. He told a story that illustrates some realities. It went something like this:

"Two communists were talking one day about socialism and the first one asked the second:

"If you had two houses and I had none, would you give one to me?"

"Of course I would give you one of my houses." was the reply.

"If you had two cars and I had none, would you give one to me?"

"Of course I would give you one of my cars if I had two and you had none."

"If you had two chickens and I had none, would you give me one of your chickens?"

The reply... "Of course not, because I HAVE two chickens".

Those folks interested in the "weaponization" of space are naturally all the have nots.

gisterme - 08:28pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10814 of 10820)

rshow55 1/15/02 11:37am

"...Americans need to be WORTHY of the GOOD THINGS people associate with the flag - - not just wave it..."

How do you define worty in this context, Robert? If you feel unworthy, then don't wave the flag. I feel absolutely worthy to wave Old Glory and especially blessed to have the opportunity.

gisterme - 08:30pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10815 of 10820)

rshow55 1/15/02 11:53am

"...Lies or mistakes on "missile defense" or other subjects don't help..."

Then be more honest and correct, Robert.

gisterme - 08:33pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10816 of 10820)

"...What is 'an American'? Answer most often is someone from elsewhere who now resides at a political_geographical locale named USA."

With the added caveat that they feel good about waving Old Glory.

guy_catelli - 08:37pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10817 of 10820)
the trick of Mensa

rshowalter - 10:11pm Oct 24, 2000 GMT (#7 of 249)

Nuclear war has bothered me because of personal experience. As a bookish boy with big muscles and a forceful disposition, I found that I had to fight or defer, found that I fought pretty well, and learned something about fighting, both with individuals and with groups. When I went to college, I got interested in some matters of applied mathematics which had military significance, where it was felt that, if the Russians solved a certain class of control problems before we did, we might find ourselves, without warning, stripped of the capacity to fly planes that could survive air-to-air missile attack. That is to say, we'd find ourselves without an air force, and conceivably losers in a war with the very terrible Soviet Union. That made the problem interesting to me, and I've kept at it, and made some progress on this class of problems, since.

There was a difficulty. Here was an instability. Change a simple mathematical circumstance, or perceptions of it, and perceptions of military risk shifted radically. If we could lie to the Russians, and say we'd cracked the problem, we might scare the hell out of them, at trivial cost. Just a little theatrics in the service of bluff. Scaring the other side, with bluffs (lies) is standard military practice. I found myself asked to get involved in what I took to be serous Russian scaring. I refused to go along, after talking to some people on the other side, because of my old fighting experience. It was my judgement, right or wrong, that they Russians were already plenty scared enough, and if scared much more, they might lose control, and fight without wanting to. I may have made a big mistake.

But I did become convinced that the United States was carrying on a very careful, calibrated, but terrible tactic.

We were maintaining the Russians at a level of sufficient fear that they spent much more than they could afford, in money and manpower, on their military. The feeling was that, if we kept at this, for many years, the Soviet system would become degenerate, and collapse of its own weight. I believe that this is what in fact happened.

I'd been appalled at the tactic (as I understood it) because I didn't think the controls were good enough, and feared unintended, world destroying war might result.

But when the Soviet Union fell, my guess was that the tactic had been maintained, and controls had been good enough, and the plan had worked. Nuclear weapons, used as terror weapons, had defeated the Soviet Union, yet never been actually fired.

let me get this straight. (apparently) rshow55 developed *his own* algorithm for measuring: 1. how scared the soviets were; 2. how scared they needed to be; 3. the marginal contribution to their fear of the no-cost, risk-free, harmless course of action by our side.

he then sought the advice of our enemy; and, finding his views and our enemy's views were in concert (how surprising!), he refused to cooperate with our side.

Robert, this is your own version of the case. i wonder how a less charitable witness to the facts you relate would have described them.

gisterme - 08:41pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10818 of 10820)

rshow55 1/15/02 5:02pm

Red herring, Robert. :-) Nice try. There's no problem with the math. The problems have been with technological execution. The great advances in vehicle maneuverability that have occured since the references you cite were written are the result of solving engineering problems far more than underlying science problems.

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