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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?

speedbird77 - 06:45am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#7987 of 8012)

NOT ONE opponent of NMD has YET come up with a strategy to deal with a small-scale nuclear attack against the Continental United States.

I hear alot of anti-NMD posturing but not ONE word of how the US should handle such an attack.

Now tell me it will never happen.

bilbobaggins0 - 06:54am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#7988 of 8012)
Bush is NOT my president.

speedbird77 8/22/01 6:45am

EAsy, keep Nuclear subs, and other launch vehicles far enough away that they are no threat.

You can't launch a nuke from your pocket.

rshowalter - 07:21am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#7989 of 8012)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD7870 blackknight5 8/14/01 1:49pm . . . the defense departments list of rogue nations is not exactly impressive:

MD6980 rshowalter 7/12/01 1:25pm starts with

" The "misconception" that "states like North Korea and Iran would not dare attack the United States, knowing they would pay a terrible price in response." ....... has been extensively discussed on this thread, and has included many able people - including a representative of the administration, gisterme , who has worked hard. If you search "deter*" -- this thread, there are 5 search pages, including many more links than these.

alas, for now, the search function has been removed, but rshowalter 7/12/01 1:25pm includes 40 links, only a few of my own on the issue of deterrance.

I believe that MANY of these links are worth reading, and represent careful, well grounded views. rshowalter 7/12/01 1:25pm ends as follows:

" There has been little argument at all in support of the idea that there are "undeterrable rogues" out there to motivate the administration's missile defense proposals. Of that small amount of fragmentary argument for "undeterrable rogues" - none has made any sense to me. Except as a pretext for supporting a program motivated for other reasons -- reasons other than any valid defense of the US - since the proposals are so technically (and diplomatically) flawed.

MD7872 benjamin420a 8/14/01 2:04pm

A missile sheild is moot when someone can just sneak a nuclear warhead or biological warhead in to the U.S. in a suitcase.

MD7873 rshowalter 8/14/01 2:23pm

Worse than moot -- because it wastes resources, and because the defense of such a corrupt position corrupts, and weakens, all the institutions and people involved -- both because credibility is lost, and because after organizations start engaging in persistent, conspiratorial deception and avoidance of fundamentals, they become MUCH less capable of doing jobs which require honest checking -- as essentially all real engineering and defense jobs do.

So the cost of this fiasco is FAR above the "sticker price" -- high as that "sticker price" is.

The question starts being raised - outside the US, and inside, too -- how do we trust either the judgement, the competence, of the good faith of the US "military industrial complex?"

The efforts to push missile defense, including many arguments by gisterme on this thread, make the question a just one.

rshowalter - 07:40am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#7990 of 8012)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Some excellent letters to the editor:

A Missile Shield, Deconstructed http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/26/opinion/L26MISS.html

referring to MAD ISN'T CRAZY by Thomas L. Friedman http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/24/opinion/24FRIE.html

rshowalter - 07:41am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#7991 of 8012)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MAD may not be crazy - but we can hope to do better -- but we have to be CAREFUL -- lest we do much worse.

At the same time, technical realities need to be remembered, and more clearly established. At a technical level, MAD isn't being threatened at all, because the "saran" missile shield is no shield at all -- and can't be, with respect to the levels of technical competence that the Russians, Chinese, and others have.

southerncross - 09:39am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#7992 of 8012)

"We have to be careful that the world does work"

However, who will ultimately be in charge of that "world"?

lunarchick - 09:44am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#7993 of 8012)
lunarchick@www.com

Showalter's firing on eight cylinders :)
Whilst in the City today i was, quite apart from choosing beads and crystals and having a tete-a-tete with a circumspect and sapping data base, thinking about the classification of information.

Two continuums arose:

(1) data information knowledge wisdom
(2) thought invention patent copyright innovation inputs process outputs marketing sales consumption

The point regarding classification is simply this ... quite apart from SLA .. wow Pluto inspired such an indepth draft paper .. much that is classified is innovation. Sitting above which are thought and invention. Innovation is too far down the line not to be generally understood by .. for want of a better word - 'Academics'.

So it seems with MD. The Academics understand the physics and science appropriate to MD and the Sheild.

Perhaps many technical people further down the line - a the innovation point - don't understand the enabling principles. Much, therefore, that they try to classify ... has already flown the coup!?!

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