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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?

rshowalter - 08:37pm Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8283 of 8287)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

PS -- I like negotiations too - and can even appreciate the occasional signal switch, or bluff. But, for negotiation purposes, isn't $1500 for every man woman and child in the United States a little heavy?

I want the US to be, beyond question, THE strongest military power on earth.

Sometimes I even think about weapons design, just for fun.

But I ask you -- if you add up the negotiating advantages current military patterns buy the United States -- and the costs -- and consider alternative uses for some of the money -- isn't the price a little steep?

VERY steep for weapons that can't possibly work?

Although I must say, I think you guys can do better on your radars, and on your controls, in spots. Maybe enough better to hit targets that were more realistic . . .

Still, there IS that matter of costs -- including alternative costs. Isn't the ROI, everything considered, negative?

possumdag - 02:50am Sep 1, 2001 EST (#8284 of 8287)
Possumdag@excite.com

Anyone heard how the GreenPeace Prisoners .. 'those that trespass against us A' ... are going .. has Uncle Sam hung them from it's postition of strength yet?

possumdag - 02:57am Sep 1, 2001 EST (#8285 of 8287)
Possumdag@excite.com

Interesting events out in the Indian Ocean this week. A Norwegian tanker Captain was told to pick up the guys from the sinking boat and go to Indonesis -- the nearest port.

Instead he took them to Christmas Island .. giving the Aussie PM an opportunity to be really 'strong' .. from a postition of strength he said - get lost.

Then from a postition of weakness looked around for someone to take these guys.

NewZealand has gone for the 'Families' 150 people. And the small island of Naru is to act as a 'processing' depot.

And the Aussie tax payers are up for an arm and a leg ... to finance all this stuff ... so .. the Aussie PM showed (to his mind) strength ..... trying to win the popular cause re a re-election -- labelled refugees as 'other' ... and put Australia back 20yrs on the world stage.

The reality here is that the problems of the day don't relate to killing people -- rather -- assisting them towards LIFE!

gisterme - 04:43am Sep 1, 2001 EST (#8286 of 8287)

Hi possumdag!

You could be right, I wish I could say for sure. On the other hand, the jihid could just be trying to get started in Oz.

gisterme - 06:12am Sep 1, 2001 EST (#8287 of 8287)

rshowalter wrote ( rshowalter 8/31/01 8:29pm ): "Good to see you, gisterme

. . . .

the way things are happening, part of me thinks some significant parts of what you administration folks are doing is well crafted..."

Thanks Robert. It's kind of nice to have some time to spend on this again...

Us administration folks???? What DO you mean by that? Didn't you get what I said before? I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the US government or the current administration. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

However, let me encourage the part of you that thinks that some policies are being well crafted...this is a difficult world and we're all in it no matter what our personal views may be.

That said, where is this $1,500 for every American figure coming from? Is that referring to the US military budget? Remember that we're only talking about five bucks a head per month over ten years per American for missile defense if it costs $100 billion.

Let's see...$1,500 times 200,000 million Americans (roughly) adds up to about $300 billion.

According to: http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/intfile1-1.txt , as of Nov 1, 2000 there were about 276,000,000 Americans. So if we count them all (obviously there are a lot like children who don't pay taxes) then...

From: http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

Current Military,$334B: Military Personnel $78B, Operation and Maintenance $107B, Family Housing $4B, Procurement $54B, Research and Development $37B, Construction $5B, $1B Misc., Retired Pay $17B, DoE Nuclear Weapons $13B, NASA 50% $7B, Coast Guard $4B, Internat’l Security $7B...

then $334,000,000,000/276,000,000 is about $1210 per head. So your $1500 figure per taxpayer is probably pretty close...

That proven, which expenditures would you want to do away with? Assuming that BMD would account for about $10 bn/year of R&D and or procurement over the next ten years, do you think that would really change things in the economy that much? As others have said, that's just a drop in the bucket. That's about 2.9% of the military budget. Do you disagree Robert? By those figures, the retirement pay for military veterans amounts to more that the total DOE expenditures on nuclear weapons...so even if we get rid of most of the nuclear weapons, say 90% of them, keeping just enough to ensure we can stave off an attack on our own shores, that's still only a savings of $11.7 bn, only about 3.5% of the total military budget. Maybe you think we shouldn't pay our veteran's retirements. Is that it????

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