![[F]](../_images/site.gif) New York Times on the Web Forums  Science
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?
    (6919 previous messages)
rshowalter
- 11:22am Jul 11, 2001 EST (#6920
of 6923) 
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
MD6480 rshowalter
7/3/01 4:16pm ... updated:
It is getting easier and easier to argue that the
administration's "missile defense" proposals have no technical merit
at all. That is, if these proposals are judged in terms of what can
be done according to technical usages in the open literature.
To make these proposals practical, there have to be a long list
of "miracles." And it is getting clearer exactly how miraculous
these magical breakthoughs have to be. It is getting harder and
harder to argue for these miracles -- and harder and harder to argue
for the technical competence of the people backing the proposals.
We've just been through a set of arguments, based on well
established technical facts and relations, that make lasar weapons
far less plausible or threatening than the administration has argued
that they are.
MD6418-6423 rshowalter
7/2/01 5:26pm .... MD6431-6432 rshowalter
7/2/01 7:21pm
And the lasar based programs are all fatally flawed
. . . not only because of resolution and control problems, but
because it is easy, with reflective coatings, to make missiles and
warheads immune to these "weapons". http://www.phy.davidson.edu/jimn/Java/Coatings.htm
Threats to the US have been much overstated -- both in terms of
missile threats MD6844-46 rshowalter
7/10/01 12:13pm ... , and terrorism more generally. The
Declining Terrorist Threat by LARRY C. JOHNSON http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/opinion/10JOHN.html
Almarst's idea that nuclear weapons protect Russia from the
things he fears doesn't make any sense either.
rshowalter
- 11:23am Jul 11, 2001 EST (#6921
of 6923)
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
Simple solutions to major problem of military balances,
especially nuclear balances, may be out there, but to get to them,
America and Russia, as political and sociotechnical systems, have
to decide what they can reasonably want.
It isn't sensible to want something based on illusions, or to
ask for things that aren't possible.
If reasonable things were asked for -- they might be achieved. I
believe that they could be.
The problem is only partly a logical problem. The difficulties,
in large part, depend on fear, and on the need to cast off
illusions, and look at things in a new light.
* * * *
Nobody involved is blameless. Much is ugly - and, doing our best,
there will still be ugliness. But we can do better than we're doing.
rshowalter
- 11:36am Jul 11, 2001 EST (#6922
of 6923)
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
It is getting close to "the end of the road" for bombers as
viable military aircraft. With computer power, and simple knowledge
of the refection properties of any aircraft in the
very anisotropic radio wave illumination of the sky,
any airplane, regardless of active or snells-law-based
passive countermeasures, is visable on easily designable systems of
radars. And as computer power increases, that's getting more true --
rapidly. And the systems are getting cheaper -- rapidly. Technology
produced radar sets long before it produced cell phones for a reason
-- in many ways -- radar is easier.
The sky has never been an easy environment to hide in -- and
hiding is getting downright impossible. Planes are getting more and
more vulnerable -- and that trend will increase. I believe that, for
basic physical reasons, there is no going back. There will be no
"stealth aircraft."
Although the US may find a drone F-4 fighter a worthy target for
Patriot missiles, these days, it isn't going to be long before
ground-to-air and air-to-air missiles start approaching the
targeting facility of animals -- polynomial extrapolation will work
pretty well http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/pap2
.
The US should spend much more attention looking for ways to
"defend its interests" that can work - - - - and not continue
to waste huge resources on dead ends.
Bombing is also, far too often, a war crime, morally if not yet
in law, in the ways the US military uses it today, and the ways that
it can reasonably be expected to be used in the future.
rshowalter
- 12:03pm Jul 11, 2001 EST (#6923
of 6923)
Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
MD6210 rshowalter
6/27/01 8:37pm .... MD6211 rshowalter
6/27/01 8:43pm
MD6212 rshowalter
6/27/01 8:58pm ...
I think if militaries, all over the world, really got to
work figuring out all the ways they could kill and hurt people
(people with names) and how much damage they could do, and how many
ways they could do it - - - the world would be a safer place.
NOBODY is fully defended. Nor can be.
It is an argument for care, good communication, and politeness,
in my view.
* * * * *
I think NMD is a bad dream -- and any other idea of perfect
invulnerability is a bad dream.
We need to make peace - knowing that we are all human beings --
and hence all dangerous.
I also think that nation states have a duty to stay
dangerous.
But to do so in a calibrated, proportionate, stable way.
That would be a lot better, and a lot safer, than the situation
today.
   
New York Times on the Web Forums Science
Missile Defense
Enter your response, then click the POST MY MESSAGE
button below.
See the quick-edit
help for more information.
| 
