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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?

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rshow55 - 09:43am Feb 10, 2002 EST (#11411 of 11414)

gisterme 2/10/02 1:41am

"The focused beam is made possible by the adaptive optics."

That's a question of fact, is it not? A question of fact that applies to a particular system, ABL, in the tactical contexts actually involved?

Suppose, by chance, that people didn't trust my objectivity completely, or yours either. Wouldn't it still be possible to check? It would, and the checking wouldn't be difficult, either. The checking wouldn't be expensive, and would be more than justified by the enormous stakes.
MD11402 rshow55 2/9/02 8:17pm

We've been talking about the need for umpires, for referees, for a long time. Some of those references, going back some months, are set out in MD11380 rshow55 2/8/02 8:18pm .

gisterme , I'm glad for your responses. You and I have both been interested in issues of stability , in various ways. The missile defense programs are unstable in a basic sense. They're based on very many mistakes, and very many far-fetched assumptions. In a forum like this, one can never get to closure. But the logic, and the argumentation, and the issues involved, do get set out. Not like a trial, but in some ways, rather like the "discovery" phase, pre-trial.

It doesn't matter all that much that we don't always like each other in every respect. Some other things matter more -- key questions of fact chief among them. There will be ways to determine them.

MD11403 lchic 2/9/02 9:00pm includes this:

"Enron hearings will become emblems of the Bush administration. The themes explored in the cut and thrust of the multi-pronged enquiries go to the very heart of how the US is being run . . .

As those hearings proceed, the need to ask for key accountings of fact will become increasingly clear, to more and more voters, and more and more public servants. On issues of missile defense, and other defense matters as well.

I think we're making progress.

rshow55 - 12:04pm Feb 10, 2002 EST (#11412 of 11414)

Management decisions? Good investment logic?

If "logic has nothing to do with decisions" -- and if the patterns are as James Dao and the people he quotes describes in Big Bucks Trip Up the Lean New Army http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/10/weekinreview/10DAO.html ... , what we have is a cancer -- sapping the vitality of our nation, and distorting things that might otherwise be hopeful

If the public comes to understand this -- there will be corrections.

Concerns are especially valid for programs that have no chance of working.

I'm for spending every dime we reasonably can on missile defense.

But it is a short list of MD programs that have any tactical promise. Perhaps none at all. Rate-of-return for an investment with a lumped payoff, cost, uncertainty, and time, is the natural log of the risk discounted payoff-to-cost ratio, divided by the time from cost to payoff. A simple model, but good enough for a key point about missile defense. The risk discounted payoff-to-cost-ratio of the technically hopeless "investments" in MD is -- and that may be all of them, is zero , and the "rate of return" is negative infinity - - they are sucker bets -- sure losers - - which weaken the United States. They are, at best "make-workfare" for contractors who could be usefully doing other things. We should do reasonable accounting, face facts rather than avoid them, and act in the national interest -- which would be the world interest, as well.

What would happen if the United States used the resources it had more effectively? What if we made decisions with more of the honesty and competence that the rest of the world hopes for, and expects from America ? We could have better security

I think that the Bush administration may be selling some politicians, and the American people, short. There are problems, but good decisions often do get made. MD11109 rshow55 1/28/02 4:37pm

Most of us understand some of the human limitations pointed out by Robert Bork . We know that politicians can be "bought", especially on "marginal" decisions, that can add up, and especially when few concerned for the public interest are really attending to what is done. All the same, politicians are capable of honor. Some are showing that now. Similar things, both about the possibility of corruption, and the fact of honorable conduct, may be said of the press. rshow55 "The Collapse of Enron-- Moderated" 1/29/02 8:36am

The country is moving in a direction where real checking, for score, may be possible on "missile defense" (the quotation marks are intentional - whatever these programs are about, defending the interest of the United States as a nation isn't it.) The lead article in the TIMES today is

Web of Details Did Enron In as Warnings Went Unheeded by KURT EICHENWALD with DIANA B. HENRIQUES http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/10/business/10COLL.html

Will a time come when someone can make an analogous headline as follows?

" Web of Details Did "Missile Defense" In as Warnings Went Unheeded

Could be.

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