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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 Sep 20, 2001 EST (#9546 of 9548)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

At that conference were a number of "experts" -- and they were expert engineers - - though not, as billed, "top scientists" - - and they said some postive things about their missile defense work. They had done good work, they felt - - - and wanted that conveyed. I don't feel any need to disagree, from where they sat.

The case made by the " Safe Foundation " people at the conference might indeed be true, so far as it went.

They said that in 3-10 years, there might, if things went very well, be a reasonable chance of hitting most, though perhaps not all, of 3-8 nonmirved ICBMs, shot at the US with some sort of warning, if the missiles were "primative" and did not employ decoys.

But that is not significant security for the United States. Such a level of missile defense, at this cost, might be possible. But very difficult -- and with easy changes in assumptions about the threat -- impossibly difficult. And on the basis of realistic estimates of the threat - - not worth doing at all. There's no contradiction that the people standing up at the news conference felt they'd done good work.

Several people speaking at the news conference were at pains to make this clear:

At least so far as anybody could forsee, they only hoped to be able to intercept "primative" missiles, from primative "rogue states."

Some opinions expressed seemed less convincing to me.

One was that only "left wingers" and the "left wing press" object to missile defense as now proposed.

Another opinion was that decoys were "hard to make" and "easy to detect" -- and at another point, that decoying itself was "science fiction." That seemed preposterous to me then, and does now.

There's no contradiction built into the idea that the people saying these things might be "good people" and might believe what they say. BUT IT MATTERS WHETHER OR NOT WHAT IS SAID IS EMPIRICALLY TRUE. And IT MATTERS HOW THE THINGS THEY SAY FIT INTO A TOTAL CONTEXT.

rshowalter - 08:39pm Sep 20, 2001 EST (#9547 of 9548)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Congressman Weldon made a statement.

“Finally we have a President who is willing to address a serious threat that endangers our way of life,” . . . “The world remains a very dangerous place, and I hate to think about what will happen if we listen to the opponents who would have the public believe that we cannot attain an effective missile defense.”

I don't have to doubt Congressman Weldon's sincerity. Or the fact that the world is a dangerous place.

But the feasibility of the program, its ability to work, and its cost, still need to be examined. Because right answers matter on this question of life and death decisions.

We face many threats, after all, and resources are scarce. Especially if the program isn't workable at all, at the tactical level where it needs to work.

rshowalter - 08:43pm Sep 20, 2001 EST (#9548 of 9548)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Life is as complex as it is. We ought to be thankful for that -- because it permits solutions, where a simper world would have no solutions.

But the complexity needs to be understood and respected. Plusses and minuses, which may at first seem contradictions, may only be contradictions because of an oversimplified, incorrect model in our heads.

A lot of people, all over the world, especially in Europe, have warm feelings of sympathy with us, as they think about the tragedy-crime of September 11th.

http://home.earthlink.net/~hankinhsd/thankyou.htm ... shows that clearly, and convincingly.

That says nothing about the many horrors of the Cold War, and nothing about the reservations that people in these countries also have about US missile defense plans, and military stances in general.

Emotion, when it is connected to circumstances, and a reasonable weighting of circumstances, is important and indispensible.

Even so, appeals to emotion that ask us to forget about details, and facts, and indeed to forget all negatives that happen to be inconvenient to a point of view, are not helpful.

The sympathy people feel for American and Americans, shown in http://home.earthlink.net/~hankinhsd/thankyou.htm ... , is important. Something to build on.

That does not relieve us of the need to do things right, in ways the fit circumstances.

We need to get good outcomes, not disastrous ones. In the world as it is.

We live in a real world where, for reasons almarst often mentions, we can be "part of the problem" in serious ways that we should want to fix.

Discussion of these issues are essential, I believe, if we are to come up with ways to handle the concerns that missile defense is built to address.

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