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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?

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wrcooper - 02:09pm Oct 18, 2003 EST (# 15217 of 15221)

In re: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.dUTFbJ7aPj9.3403255@.f28e622/16895

bluestar23:

I think it's a fallacy that if I just read and fully comprehend your self-selected links that I am honour-bound to arrive at your own conclusions.

Why would you think that? I am simply providing you with materials that support my position or provide useful information no matter which side of the issue you come down on. Don’t get paranoid on me now. I give you full permission to make up your own mind and use your own best judgement. :-)

( You might want to remember that posters are not likely to get bogged down in demands to read ten or twelve extensive links..try one or two...)

Granted, the UCS site (and others I linked) contain a great deal of material. This subject is, in fact, quite complex. I personally have read a fair amount about it in the publicly available sites, pro and con, but I am always coming across new material. Just read what you can. I do think, however, that we have an obligation to educate ourselves about it if we’re going to debate the subject. Reading the materials that our debate partners propose—at least skimming them over—seems like a responsible course of action.

I do not beleive that MD has been now conclusively proven to be undoable, which seems to be your ultimate formulation.

It hasn't, but it is not my position that it has. Not at all. What I am saying, however, is that it is also true that the system has not been conclusively shown to work…not at all. Therefore, the administration shouldn’t be thinking of deploying it. Further painting such a decision in an unfavorable light, there are outstanding technical problems for which there is no forthcoming solution, for example, the problem of countermeasures. Even more telling is the recognized fact that the supposed threat that the system is meant to counter doesn’t yet exist, and, if it did, there would be other, cheaper, better ways to try to deal with it than building an expensive and questionable ABM system.

wrcooper - 02:21pm Oct 18, 2003 EST (# 15218 of 15221)

In re: <a href="/webin/WebX?14@13.dUTFbJ7aPj9.3403255@.f28e622/16913">bluestar23 10/17/03 1:30pm</a>

bluestar23

But your analysis forgets that (the Americans have already used the MD-development effectively in international diplomacy)

No, I haven’t forgotten that. That’s why I linked the article from the Journal of International Security Affairs, which discussed ABM diplomacy and strategic power bargaining.

[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...

No, I think that other powers take it seriously. They can’t afford not to, because, should it pan out, they’d be way behind the eight ball. What I was saying is that, based on what I know, ABM technology looks to me like a Maginot Line. Everybody took that seriously, too, until Hitler’s motorized Blitzkrieg ran through the low countries and outflanked it.

[L]ots of others now independently pursue this.

Others are pursuing theater defense systems (Israel’s using the Patriot and the Arrow). Great Britain has shown some interest in ABM defensive systems for midcourse interception of ICBMs, but I don’t think they’ve actually signed on yet. Who else is pursuing a system similar to Bush’s NMD?

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