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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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

gisterme - 03:40am Feb 14, 2002 EST (#11535 of 11552)

lchic 2/13/02 9:09pm

"The USA Government has bottomless pockets?"

Nope. If you were a US taxpayer, that would be your chicken too and you'd know better. That's why spending whatever it takes for effective MD is far less costly than repairing cities that have sustained trillion dollar damages for lack of doing that. You know lchic, even the prospect of such massive property damage is not so much my concern. Economies can recover from even the worst disasters. What has been built before can be built again, even better. I'm more worried about the people. What price would you put on the loss of say, 200,000 poeple? What if they wre people in your own city? Maybe even including you? I'd like to know.

"...At what point are MD matters prioratised?..."

I'd say that if they're not at the top of the list, then they need to be moved up.

"...How accredited?..."

Time will tell. If the MD is successful in deterring an attack it has been worth every penny in my view. If it stops an attack or stops three out of four, or saves even a single city, it's been worth every penny. If you don't believe that, just imagine that you are an inhabitant of the saved city after the fact. How grateful would you be? Let your mind's eye unbiasedly investigate that scenario for a while if you're capable. I believe you are. Write a poem about it. Be honest.

"...When is redundancy admitted?..."

When it exists. As has been pointed out previously, ruduncancy within less than 100% effective systems has been statistically shown and empriaclly proven to increase their reliability. When the issue is so important as hundreds of thousands of lives at stake ( per target ), what probability less than 100% would you estimate is sufficient for protecting them, lchic? Care to give a number?

"...Where's the list of low priority projects that can be jettisoned?..."

On the President's desk I hope.

"...Where is the list of projects to keep?"

In the federal budget and in the minds and hearts of all Americans, I hope.

Lchic, nobody would like to see the world rid of nuclear weapons, all of them, more than I would. As much as I may seem to rag on Robert, it's because of his apparent lack of regard for truthfulness, not because we disagree on that point. Allegorical references to genies and bottles and curious women's boxes are all worn out. Let's say it straight. WRT things nuclear, there's just no way to undo what's already been done in terms of knowledge. As is the case with ordinary fire, things nuclear can simultaneously be the best of blessings and the most terrible of curses. The only difference is one of scale.

Even if by some miracle every single nuclear weapon were removed from the world (with the world remaining intact), and every recorded reference to them erased, every bit of knowledge or memory of them blotted out from human minds, the huge branches of scientific knowledge dealing directly or indirctly with or derived from the knowledge of things nuclear obliterated, until not one iota of the perceived power given by things nuclear existed anywhere in human cousciousness or record, tall as that order would be, lchic, it wouldn't be enough. Please recall that just a hundred years ago, there was no knowledge that such things as nuclear bombs were even possible. Two hundred years ago, such things were not even in the realm of science fiction. Think about that. To insure that nuclear things would never be invented again you'd also have to erase the human creativity that invented them in the first place. Now that is impossible.

As Robert has said over and over again, we need to avod doing things that can't work.

mazza9 - 09:11am Feb 14, 2002 EST (#11536 of 11552)
Louis Mazza

lchic:

To reinforce what Gisterme said in post 11535, you spend the money if you think you can effect an outcome. This is a moral decision which can only be measured at the end of the process, for example.

Our $5 Trillion of debt is the results of these decision.

1. Cold War - results; a win.

2. War on Drugs - results; no win.

3. War of Poverty - results; mixed and ongoing.

If we believe Jesus then the poor will always be with us, but that doesn't diminish the moral decisions to try and relieve the suffering of the poor.

This is why ABL is funded.

LouMazza

rshow55 - 01:51pm Feb 14, 2002 EST (#11537 of 11552)

On the need for Congressional oversight, and the difficulty of getting it, I think James Dao's piece yesterday is very good, though it doesn't mention missile defense at all: Warm Reaction to Bigger Pentagon Budget http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/13/politics/13PENT.html

"Democrats joined Republicans on the House Budget Committee in expressing strong support for increasing military spending....

Dao's piece includes this quote:

" I don't hear a lot of people who are second-guessing the numbers, " Representative William M. Thornberry, Republican of Texas, said at a Budget Committee hearing, expressing a view seconded by Democrats."

Well, is it in the national interest to "second guess the numbers" or not?

That depends on circumstances, risks, and the stakes.

If effective countermeasures against a class of BMD systems is something like a million times cheaper to develop than the BMD system itself, that's not a "keepable secret." Nor is it a secret to keep from Congress, or the American people.

I've been reviewing, and it seems to me that one of the best statements of arguments for BMD was set out by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and cited and quoted by kangdawei MD9893 kangdawei 9/29/01 4:27am

Rumsfeld makes assumptions, as we all must. Are his assumptions correct? It is a high-stakes question.

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