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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 - 08:19pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4004 of 4011)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It is right for militaries to be wary, and prepared.

All the same, treaties can be useful. There are kinds of military exchanges that all concerned would prefer to avoid. Poison gas could have been used in WWII (and, for not much money, could have been synthesized at a scale that could destroy the world) and was not. Treaties help.

Nukes are no more useful than poison gas -- if you look at what they can actually do, and know how people react.

We should move for nuclear disarmament and take steps to get risks from "rogues" and crazies down.

The objectives are complementary, not mutually exclusive.

(Technically, I think AMD is too unsure and too slow -- we can get safer more surely, and faster, and cheaper, in other ways.)

gisterme - 08:19pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4005 of 4011)

almarst wrote: "...Also I wish, the US cuts its military spending to the level needed to defend this country in a time of a peace, and not a penny more. Why should I pay for services - the "protection of US interests" I don't understand or given some credible explanation for?

What is wrong with that?"

As an ideal, almarst, nothing is wrong with that. When we someday live in an ideal world "defense" in a military sense won't be an issue.

In the US during the 1930s there was a huge groundswell of idealism that lead to serious debate over whether or not the US should just isolate itself behind its oceans. "Why risk our boys over Europe's problems? Nobody can cross the ocean and successfuly invade this place." was the flavor of the arguement in favor of isolationism. Same as before WWI. The US government responded to that sentiment and practically disarmed. I don't have exact figures, but I believe the enitre US military, all branches, was only a couple of hundred thousand strong. That didn't change significantly until Hitler began to march. If the US had not had such a dynamic economy, great industrial base, abundant natural resources and people willing to work hard the war with the nazis might have had a different ending. Grim thought. As it was though, both Britain and Russia had to hang on for a few years while the US built its military to a useful condition and got the war material pipeline primed and flowing. Stalin was relentless in demanding that the US and Britain open a "second front" during this whole period, and why not? After all, Russia was getting mauled. Russia hadn't been prepared either.

So the lesson learned by both Russia and the US was that being prepared for peace doesn't work well when somebody else who has prepared for war attacks.

rshowalter - 08:21pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4006 of 4011)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Thought experiment:

Suppose the US, and Russia, and China, and India, and Pakistan all agreed to nuclear (not conventional) disarmament, and agreed that they'd cooperate in removing nuclear weapons from other hands, and prohibiting them.

How much could be done?

Is this really less concievable than a working antimissile system, with the reliability it would need?

rshowalter - 08:23pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4007 of 4011)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We need prohibitions of nukes with teeth and we need military balances that make everybody safer, and have plenty of feedback, and don't ask anybody to trust anybody else, when it comes down to it.

tshep51 - 08:30pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4008 of 4011)

My fellow Americans!

Do not forget the enemy in your own backyard, Mc Vie.

rshowalter - 08:32pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4009 of 4011)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

You do the best you can -- and perfect safety is unobtainable, but it makes sense to take reasonable steps for reasonable safety.

On deterrance:

If Hitler's German sociotechnical system had been as vulnerable in 1939 as the US sociotechnical system is right now Hitler, monster though he was, would have been deterred. He was rational enough for that, and so was the staff around him.

lunarchick - 08:36pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4010 of 4011)
lunarchick@www.com

The world is populated with mad-men, but, should they have access to lethal weapons.

rshowalter - 08:41pm May 16, 2001 EST (#4011 of 4011)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The sociotechnical systems involved here are complex ( Kline's complexity indices in the trillions, with complexity indices greater than 4 not explicitly soluble now) and the amount of misinformation embedded in our defective feedback systems is large.

This mess can be sorted out, but it has to happen in a logically incremental way, it will take time and a lot of staff work --

and with "hip shots" happening too often, the whole world could go slam-banging into disaster.

And end.

A hopeful time, I feel, but a time that demands a little care, as well.

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