New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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.

wrcooper - 01:10am Oct 18, 2003 EST (# 15212 of 15221)

CONTINUED

I'll agree that defeating decoy countermeasures is a problem but not that it's a show stopper.

If they can’t find a way around it, then it’s a show-stopper. And they haven’t found a way around it. None of the tests has actually built in realistic decoys.

Don't forget that the folks we're trying to defend against aren't all that sophisticated. So far, they're just trying to get an ICBM to fly right.

If these folks were able to build an ICBM, then they’re extremely sophisticated. That job would be much, much, much harder and more expensive than building the decoys that would render our radars and satellites impotent.

Now, I'm sure I'd be remiss if I underestimated their ability to add some decoys to their ICBM. I'm also sure I'd be remiss if I underestimated our ability to do something about it.

If there is something to do about it, then the system’s designers should release at least the general outline of their capability. They haven’t. Very knowledgeable and smart people who study these problems would no doubt have some clue how the countermeasures problem might theoretically be solved. However, nobody has. We know what the types of radars are that will be used and the infrared detectors in orbit, what their capabilities are. They’re not adequate to the job, so the experts say.

What evidence do you have that "the military hasn't found an answer"? Is your "evidence" that they haven't told us what the answer is?

Let’s see if any tests actually employ realistic decoys. I would be willing to change my tune if a simulated attack was planned that used a number of warheads and a large number of decoys that were as realistic as possible, wherein, as in war games, the tactics of the attackers were not known in advance by the defenders. That is, if the simulated attackers planned their decoys and tactics in secret, trying as hard as possible to get through the defenses. So far, the tests have been real softballs, tossed gently (literally, at about half the intercept speed of an actual attacking missile).

If detection systems that guide the interceptors are sophisticated enough to tell the difference between balloons and bowling balls in the same way that we do then there's no problem. For example, machine vision is not a new technology.

You need to do a little catching up, my friend. First of all, actual decoys and warheads would be indistinguishable visually, for starters. The detection systems, however, are infrared and radar, not visual systems, such as are used on smart bombs.

Also, don't trivialize the problems with building decoys, Will. Unless the decoys look, smell, feel and act like the real warheads they're likely to be ineffective...and if it requires the launch of a half dozen intercptors to defend against a warhead and its decoys, so what? That's a small cost compared to saving an entire city.

Oh, I’m not trivializing it. However, any decoy would be orders or magnitude easier to build and deploy than ICBMs and warheads—or an ABM system, for that matter. You’d have to have a system with enormous redundancy, perhaps targeting each bogey with two interceptors each, to insure destruction…and even then it’d be dicey. Attacking missiles could be MIRVed and they could carry a relatively large number of decoys. Targeting and hitting every bogey, decoy and warhead alike, would be an extremely difficult task in the fog of an actual attack. Everything would have to work perfectly. In the real world, you can just forget that.

MORE

wrcooper - 01:10am Oct 18, 2003 EST (# 15213 of 15221)

CONCLUDED

Remember that this BMD system being deployed is designed to protect from a small number of incoming missiles. Not against a Cold War scale attack. The threat is not at that scale.

I know that very well. That’s why the entire idea is a tragic waste. First, even a small strike would be hard to guard against when a large number of decoys could be deployed. If the threat is coming from only a handle of ICBMs, we’d be much smarter to just go in and destroy them on the ground during a mounting crisis. Why take a chance? As I have argued, better intelligence-gathering, stronger international monitoring and diplomatic and economic pressure applied to rogue nations, and the development of an interdiction force capable of taking out any missiles we identity before they can be launched are the right steps to take.

At any rate, I haven't noticed that the BMD program has been cancelled. So I can only assume that design criteria for the system have been met during the test program so far.

Just because the program hasn’t been canceled doesn’t mean that everything’s going along hunky-dory. You know better than that.

bluestar23 - 01:03pm Oct 18, 2003 EST (# 15214 of 15221)

"Everything would have to work perfectly. In the real world, you can just forget that."

No it wouldn't. Any serious degradation of the strike severely limits its usefulness. and therefore its original raison d'etre... no one would attack not knowing what percentage of the Nukes might get through...

(7 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense