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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 02:21pm Apr 5, 2001 EST (#2010 of 2011)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

almarst-2001 4/5/01 2:06pm

I hope it is a thorough examination -- and that enough manuals and other information is there so that it can be clearly established what the best operational equipment cannot do.

Because "missile defense" - which worries so many, would worry people a lot less if it was clear how technically unrealistic that "technical Potempkin village" really is.

rshowalter - 02:32pm Apr 5, 2001 EST (#2011 of 2011)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Speaking for the longer term -- the only source of energy on the horizon, that can let the world go on indefinitely, and permit peoples now impoverished to share in prosperity -- has to be nuclear power.

In a well run world, there's no reason we couldn't make that work.

But nuclear weapons would have to be effectively outlawed. Many kinds of stability and reliability would have to be higher than today. And the stain of security, which has made nuclear engineering so backward, will have to be lifted so that people can check their work.

( I might add that some improvements in applied math, some dear to my heart, wouldn't hurt either.)

Nuclear engineers often fear that, if nuclear bombs were outlawed, they'd have nothing to do. Not so. They'd have new, more honest jobs, making nuclear power work safely this time.

Russia could take a leading position here.

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