New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 11:57am Jul 19, 2001 EST (#7227 of 7236)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD7145-7148 rshowalter 7/17/01 7:15pm

To clean up the messes left by the Cold War, and make better security possible, communication has to happen between the staffs of nation states. This thread is built as an example of what would be required to meet the needs of this staffed communication.

Could it be that this transition to a much safer, more prosperous world will be impossible, for a while, because the Bush administration is full of people who are so dirty themselves? The potential for impropriety surely exists. And the patterns shown in Elder Bush in Big G.O.P. Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm by LESLIE WAYNE March 5, 2001 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/05/politics/05CARL.html?pagewanted=all are ugly.

The administration is advocating, against a prepoderance of evidence, a program that will waste many tens of billions of dollars, and make the world a more dangerous place, but that will probably enrich key members of this administration, including George W. Bush, personally.

I've offered to help check a number of things -- based on information in the open literature. This program, considered as a defense of the United States, is a shuck.

descripto - 12:33pm Jul 19, 2001 EST (#7228 of 7236)

By pursuing a concept that attempts to survive nuclear warfare you give nuclear warfare a ‘chance’. That ‘chance’ of survival destroys the very essence of the worldwide deterrence model. That is why the international community has overwhelmingly tipped the scales in opposition to this system. That is why SALT I and the ABM protocols exist between the two largest nuclear powers.

Deployment of such a system embraces the theoretical perspective of Nuclear Utilization Theory. It may not be the intent of those who deploy-but every rational state views the system as a total embrace of a theory designed to win a nuclear war. That perspective (NUTs)(grin) implies that not only will nuclear war be fought-but it must be fought to survive and win. In such a pursuit, you lower conventional warfare thresholds and lower the crossover points at which conventional conflict goes into nuclear conflict. This is due to the very fact that one has added a chance to something in which no chance existed prior. You cannot posture yourself against the irrational actor- the minority of this world. Doing so only requires the majority if this world (rational actors) to balance against your own actions. You cannot thwart the irrational actor because the irrational actor has no limits or boundaries. The very name implies that the irrational actor is impossible to deter. As noted by the CIA of May 19th 00, the terminology of ‘rogue’ state has no significant in the course of debate regarding missile deference. ‘Ruge’ implies that such states are irrational and every state America has labeled rouge is in fact as the nations own CIA as admitted is rational. The rational/irrational actor model is core issue regarding deterrence. As the CIA pointed out, the label of rouge state has “more political significance then true value to the structure of deterrence”. In short the largest nuclear power embarking on the deployment of a system designed to survive nuclear strikes creates the impetus for every rational actor, despot to allied to do the same. All at varying levels of technological development all at varying levels of efficiency

. In doing so-you destroy nuclear deterrence-the very concept that has maintained no use of nuclear weapons against states since 1945. If one recalls our operational experience in Desert Storm is that while missile defense did not work very well, deterrence did work very well. Saddam Hussein had poison gas-tipped Scuds that were available for launch at the time of the war, and he did not use them. Subsequently, after the U.S. military interrogated some defectors and some captured Iraqi leaders, it became clear why not: Saddam Hussein did not want to get blown up. Before the war, the United States, Britain, France and Israel had all stated, both publicly and privately, that if he was the first to use weapons of mass destruction, he would not be the last to use weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein and his kindred despots in other countries that we are worried about have not survived for extended periods of time by being stupid or careless. They are ruthless and cruel and sometimes reckless, but they don't remain in power, despite our repeated attempts in the case of Saddam Hussein to dislodge him, by being careless about the survival of their regime. Saddam Hussein understood very well that if he initiated the use of weapons of mass destruction, our retaliation would annihilate his regime. So the notion that missile defense is the only bulwark we have against weapons of mass destruction attacks from these regimes simply flies in the face of our actual experience, in which deterrence has worked very well and missile defense has not worked very well at all.

rshowalter - 01:01pm Jul 19, 2001 EST (#7229 of 7236)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The core things Eisenhower warned against have happened. In many ways it is humanly understandable -- but there is a mess, it is as dangerous as it can possibly be, and we need to fix it.

MD972 rshowalter 3/13/01 4:48pm . . . MD973 rshowalter 3/13/01 4:58pm
MD974 rshowalter 3/13/01 5:28pm . . . MD975 rshowalter 3/13/01 7:53pm

Foundations are shaking. We're at a real risk of doomsday , and we need to be careful.

Doomsday: Rebecca Johnson is executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy: commentary : http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4222863,00.html

(7 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense