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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?


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rshowalter - 08:35am May 24, 2001 EST (#4190 of 4202) Delete Message
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD 3383-3385 seem worth reading again here, especially
MD3385: rshowalter 5/6/01 8:41pm

MD3385 includes this:

" The American military, and military-industrial complex, seen through foreign eyes, looks much too much like the German military looks in Casablanca. I believe that this is an essential aesthetic and practical point. I believe that it needs to be understood in America, as it is already understood in much of the rest of the world.

gisterme , I said then, and say again now, that there is something missing from arguments that would have made perfect sense to Adolph Hitler.

Including many of yours. And many of your tactics of argumentation.

Even though I respect much of what you say, that remains a problem.

applez101 - 03:00pm May 24, 2001 EST (#4191 of 4202)

To everyone: I've noticed the conversation has grown a tad esoteric...to bring this back into the main, I suggest people check out the NMD Action paper the Union of Concerned Scientists put out.

rshowalter - 03:20pm May 24, 2001 EST (#4192 of 4202) Delete Message
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/security/0missile.html

contains much great stuff -- Here is UCS's Position on National Missile Defense http://www.ucsusa.org/security/rec.ucsonNMD.html

" UCS strongly opposes deployment of the proposed US national missile defense (NMD) system because the security costs incurred by deploying such a defense would far outweigh the potential security benefits.

" A key weakness of the planned defense is that it could be easily defeated by simple countermeasures enabling an incoming warhead to penetrate the defense. Any country with the capability and motivation to deploy long-range ballistic missiles against the United States would also have the capability and motivation to build countermeasures to defeat the US NMD system. In addition, the planned NMD system cannot address two of the most likely means of missile attack -- chemical or biological weapons distributed among many small warheads (or "submunitions") and short-range missiles launched from ships near the coast. As a result, the planned NMD system would offer little real protection from ballistic missile threats to the United States.

" At the same time, US deployment of an NMD system would pose significant problems for future progress in arms control and nonproliferation measures. As long as the United States and Russia continue to rely on nuclear deterrence based largely on ballistic missiles, deployment of a system that threatens the retaliatory capability of either country will make deep reductions in nuclear weapons much more difficult to attain. The deployment of the planned US NMD system, which can be readily expanded, would be particularly disturbing to Russia because the United States continues to deploy large numbers of ballistic missiles with high accuracy and large warhead yields that have a first-strike capability against Russian nuclear weapons.

" In addition, since US deployment of the planned NMD system would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the United States has sought to modify the treaty. Russia, however, is opposed to modifying the treaty and has made it clear that its compliance with existing START arms-reduction treaties is contingent on continued US compliance with the ABM Treaty. To maintain its deterrent in the face of growing US offensive and defensive capabilities, Russia could elect to increase the state of readiness of its nuclear forces, but at a cost of increasing the chances of an accidental or unauthorized missile launch.

" Furthermore, the planned NMD system would be very likely to stimulate a Chinese response. Because China has only two dozen missiles capable of reaching the United States, US deployment of even a very limited NMD system would probably lead China to strengthen its deterrent capability by expanding its long-range missile force.

" In sum, deploying the proposed NMD system over the strong objections of Russia and China would significantly undermine the cooperation needed to implement effective nonproliferation measures for nuclear and missile technologies.

  • *******

    All of which seems right to me so far as it goes.

    The objective of many, if not all, the people on this thread has been, primarily or in part, finding a way to step away from MAD.

    With an emphasis on finding ways to get cooperation and communication to the point where nuclear reductions, or, much better, nuclear disarmament, might be practically possible.

    wrcooper - 10:48pm May 24, 2001 EST (#4193 of 4202)

    The military-industrial complex wants a limited BMD because it's just the sort of speculative, long-term, big-budget program they like. It's entirely open-ended. What milestones do the developers have to reach in order to avoid termination? I've heard of none. NASA doesn't operate this way. The X-33 was axed recently because of problems developing its carbon fiber fuel tank, even though its revolutionary new rocket engine had performed well in tests. If a program involves a weapon, it seems, it's hard to kill it. The Pentagon can wave the national defense flag and get almost whatever they want. Once BMD R&D gets geared up to full speed, it could drag on for years, and at the end of it the country will have a system that doesn't work or could be defeated easily and cheaply with countermeasures. The engineering difficulties in targeting are enormous. A small device traveling at hypersonic velocities has to detect and intercept another small device also traveling at hypersonic velocities. That's bad enough, but add in the factor that it has to discriminate between multiple targets, many of which will be dummies, and the problem becomes orders of magnitude more difficult. Meanwhile, a determined terrorist with a pocketful of anthrax only has to steal across the border somewhere and dump his deadly cargo into a big city's water supply to kill hundreds if not thousands of people. If a "rogue nation" wanted to kill Americans, there are lots of easier ways to do it than by building a ballistic missile. The whole program is NUTS!

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