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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?

ndpnyt - 07:01pm Jun 20, 2001 EST (#5575 of 5579)

Putin's blunt warning re ABM should make it clear even to Bush that you can't have both ABM systems (either real or imaginary) and nuclear weapons control, that all nuclear arms agreements, including START I & II, assume and presuppose adherence to the 1972 anti -ABM Treaty.

It might be helpful to those who, like Mr. Bush, do not understand this issue, to review its history. Bush's "robust" ABM, as everyone knows, is not the first such scheme. Neither, contrary to popular belief, was Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars. In fact, the Pentagon's vast junkyard of multi-billion $ fiascos is littered with them. The first was Nike Zeus in the mid 1950's. Then, when that flopped, Nike X, followed by Sentinel, followed by Safeguard. I may have overlooked one or two others but those were the main ones. All, of course, were flops but two Safeguard systems, one around Wshington DC, the other at an ICBM site in N. Dakota, were actually built. By the late 1960's, however, ABM was essentially dead. [Ref. 1]

Then the Soviets got into the act. In the late 60's they built their own ABM S. called Galosh (by us, not them) around Moscow. The Pentagon could see that Galosh wouldn't work (the technology was behind that of its own would-be ABM S's) but it worried that the Soviets might take it into their heads to launch a first strike in the fond belief that their marvelous ABM S. would shield them (or at least the Politburo) from the inevitable U.S. 2nd strike. So Nixon and Kissinger (That's right! those two notorious peacenicks, N. & K.) sent a team of negotiators (including some Pentagon generals) to try to convince the Sov's that ABM's were worse than useless; first, because they don't work, and second, because the other side has to deploy more nukes in order to convince the first side that they don't work. In other words, all they do is escalate the arms race and waste money.

At first, the Sov's were skeptical. And suspicious; "Obviously this is just an American trick to persuade us not to try to defend ourselves." But, after 2 long years of arguing and haggling, the Russians finally see the light; they agree to our anti-ABM proposal and the Treaty is signed, by Nixon and Brezhnev, in Moscow in May, 1972. [Ref. 2]

So now comes Bush Jr., former baseball team owner from Texass, winner, by a 5 to 4 vote, of the 2000 election, as ignorant of this problem and its history as he is of every other political problem, foreign or domestic, and repudiates our own treaty. And Putin, the post-Soviet president of Russia, has to remind him why we both signed the treaty. Will he get it? I doubt it. But I think everybody else, including the Congress, will. So I think ABM (or SDI or NMD or whatever else you want to call it) is dead. Dead as Nike Zeus, etc. Atleast until the next idiot president comes along.

Ref. 1. The decision to reject ABM and rely on retaliation (MAD) and arms control is outlined in Secty of Defense Rob't. McNamara's 9-18-67 San Francisco speech.

Ref. 2. See the five part article, "Annals of Diplomacy" by John Newhouse, New Yorker, 5-5-73 to 6-2-73, for a detailed account of these negotiations.

mazza9 - 07:05pm Jun 20, 2001 EST (#5576 of 5579)

56,818 that's the fact Jack, (Dirac!! hubba hubba) when "2001 a Space Odyssey" was produced, Kubrick spent a great deal of energy on "getting it right". I read an article that described how the matte artists had been given the actual star fields for the year 2001, so that in the sequences where the Pan Am shuttle docks with the Hilton space hotel, the star fields would be accurate. The article I read said that this minor detail would only satisfy astronomers who would see the "reality" in the movie but that Kubrick did it for them.

Well, the stars for the pre hominid sequence at the films opening were those for the year 56,818! Believe me?

LouMazza

dirac_10 - 07:17pm Jun 20, 2001 EST (#5577 of 5579)

ndpnyt - 07:01pm Jun 20, 2001 EST (#5575 of 5576)

You need to make up your mind. Claiming it won't work against the N. Koreans and then claiming mighty Russia would be threatened is a rather obvious contradiction.

Can't have it both ways.

mazza9 - 07:18pm Jun 20, 2001 EST (#5578 of 5579)

ndpnyt

The ABM treaty is as dead as the treaty of accomodation between Victorian England and The Confederacy. You do understand that for treaty to have any force the signatory individuals must "EXIST". The Soviet Union is as dead as Carthage, Atlantis, Troy, and Cleopatra's Egypt. So let it be written so let it be done!

Bush and Putin can make accomodations for the 21st Century and then deal with common foes. Don't you think that Putin has reason to fear the Muslim states on his souther borders. Does Iraq, Iran, Taliban, Osama Bin Laden ring a bell?

Deal with these issue and help the Russian economy grow and develop along with democratic institutions and we will outgrow this juvenile portion of our evolution. then we bring along China and Africa

LouMazza

dirac_10 - 07:21pm Jun 20, 2001 EST (#5579 of 5579)

mazza9 - 07:05pm Jun 20, 2001 EST (#5576 of 5577)

I read said that this minor detail would only satisfy astronomers who would see the "reality" in the movie but that Kubrick did it for them.

Seems that even they wouldn't notice.

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