Missile Defense

DOD: http://www.defenselink.mil/

Ballistic Missile Defense Organization http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/

MD7021 rshowalter 7/14/01 1:14pm includes a reference that I've found particularly impressive, The Coyle Report: (Phillip E. Coyle was Director: Operational Test and Evaluation, Department of Defense )

NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE DEPLOYMENT READINESS REVIEW 10 August 2000 . . . . 69 very interesting, technically detailed pages. http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdf/nmdcoylerep.pdf

the Center for Defense Information http://www.cdi.org/issues/ is a great source: http://www.cdi.org/hotspots/missiledefense/

Federation of American Scientists' Military Analysis Network http://www.fas.org/man/index.html

wrcooper - 05:12pm Aug 23, 2001 EST (#8058 of 8070)

Thanks, Bob.

frankmz - 05:15pm Aug 23, 2001 EST (#8059 of 8070)

rshowalter 8/23/01 2:55pm

I think in these matters we ought to take a lesson from history. Doesn't even a perfunctory reading of history make it quite clear as to how often people and states have carried on policies based on error, misinformation, miscommunication, prejudice, bias, and downright stupidity?

Without my going into a lot of details on this, this seems especially clear in the actions of nations in World War I and in the Cuban missile crisis, but not only these.

How this impacts on nuclear policy I am not sure, but it would be folly to depend on the rationality and wisdom of world leaders.

rshowalter - 05:25pm Aug 23, 2001 EST (#8060 of 8070)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Things can be checked. Perhaps because I haven't been smart or courageous enough, I've been slow to take some direct approaches on this -- and now I'm finding some reason to hope that some direct approaches may work. I've felt that this board has been effective at the level of "pre-trial discovery" -- thinking in analogy to patent litigation. The facts, or many or them, and the relationships, or many of them, are laid out.

Now, it is time for sharper focus -- and I'm seeing reason that it might be doable. If you look at the links (and if I remember the amount of stuff I've waded through over the last year) -- there's plenty of "information" out there -- and plenty of interest, at least in some quarters. But closure is harder to come by. Let me start printing out some review of how this thread has gone, to give a sense of what is done now, and what might be done.

An organization which might be willing to help with the "full dress" examination I've been proposing has asked me to be specific - and I've been working to do that.

What I think is new on the table is the idea that the core facts involving the technical proposals can be evaluated for plausibility - in very considerable detail - on the basis of the open literature - - - so that the "breakthroughs" or "miracles" that DOD is being asked to deliver can be clear.

lunarchick - 05:26pm Aug 23, 2001 EST (#8061 of 8070)
lunarchick@www.com

Pentagon wise - who evaluates whom/what?
How is checking - if any done?
Is the Admin/Management revised to current (Deming advocated) standards .. or still in a Fifties time warp.

Checking links above one notes: Postol - worked former Assistant for Weapons Technology to Chief of Naval Operations - will examine the technological promise and problems of new defensive systems.

Using Deming standards. Statistics are important. (Deming put Japan to the fore ... nepotism is their downfall).

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