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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

gisterme - 11:09am Oct 17, 2003 EST (# 15197 of 15203)

Rshow -

"...some things do deteriorate (or get better) slowly..."

I have to admit that you have a real gift for nailing things down, Bob...and here for all these years I'd been thinking that pretty much everything did one or the other.

wrcooper - 11:58am Oct 17, 2003 EST (# 15198 of 15203)

Linked below is a pro-missile defense analysis "The Way Ahead for Missile Defense" (Journal of International Security Affairs, Summer 2003), worth reading for its comprehensive examination of the international political context in which the Bush administration has sought to promote its missile defense plans. The author, Ilan Berman, is the Vice President for Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC, and is described as an expert on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Russian Federation. He is the editor of the AFPC's weekly Missile Defense Briefing Report.

http://www.afpc.org/berman-missiledefense.pdf

You will note how little attention he gives to technical issues, suggesting toward the end of the article that recent tests and PAC-3 "give the lie" to critics of the Bush administration's NMD program who cite its technical problems. It also buys wholesale the Rumsfeld commission report on the seriousness of the missile threat. The gravity of the threat is one of the issues that many experts dispute, but Berman takes the administration's position uncritically.

What struck me, however, and was valuable to observe, was the extent to which missile defense has become an international lever, at least as depicted by Berman. It's a driving force in attempts to restructure the international military balance of power. Yet, from my perspective, given what I know about the technology's inherent limitations, the new order is built on a false premise, which makes it vulnerable to rapid crumbling. It reminds me of the Maginot line.

wrcooper - 12:18pm Oct 17, 2003 EST (# 15199 of 15203)

It is incumbent on me to provide a link to a worthwhile critic of the Bush administration's NMD system, Admiral Eugene Carroll, Jr., Retired, the Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information. He is a retired rear admiral in the United States Navy.

"Nuclear Missile Defense: Why Should We Care?"

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/00.10/0010carrollnationalmissiledefense.htm

You will note at this website of The Nuclear Peace Foundation a number of links to pertinent articles and reports.

Will

rshow55 - 12:26pm Oct 17, 2003 EST (# 15200 of 15203)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

October 1 _ and 1000 posts ago

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.UmuIbG9IP1H.0@.f28e622/15908

And March 7, 2001 - with questions about corruption that make even more sense after Enron, a comment about N. Korea and threats that still makes sense - a problem with a dictionary - and questions from Eisenhower that did "get to the point" http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md862_864.htm

bluestar23 - 01:30pm Oct 17, 2003 EST (# 15201 of 15203)

WRC:

"It's a driving force in attempts to restructure the international military balance of power. Yet, from my perspective, given what I know about the technology's inherent limitations, the new order is built on a false premise..."

But your analysis forgets that (the Americans have already used the MD-development effectively in international diplomacy)....serious gamesmanship and even statecraft require the skills of the "bluff" and the "appearance" of strength...(Hitler played this to the max.) It is possible to win a favourable position without full powers....it is useful for the US to have the threat of MD, you don't take it seriously, but obviously the scientists advising the governments of Taiwan, Israel, Japan, maybe China, India, etc. take MD for real....and want their own...you don't yet see the MD search is now fully internationalized...it doesn't now matter what the USA does or doesn't do, right...? because lots of others now independently pursue this.

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