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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.

jorian319 - 04:31pm Oct 24, 2003 EST (# 15579 of 15593)
The earth spin rate is slowing 2 msc/day as evidenced by the additon of a leap second every 500 days - James "I failed math" Nienhuis

what difference would there be..?

None... until some crackpot decides to see if it works.

cantabb - 04:50pm Oct 24, 2003 EST (# 15580 of 15593)

Another 'expensive' deterrent with no iron-clad guarantee that it can provide the protection intended/needed. Real or imagined (bluffed), the arms race did manage to bankrupt the Soviet Union. With cold war long over, and Putin now a GW-soul-mate, the possibility of any nuclear attack has been considerably reduced. But in the post 9/11 environment, and NK/Iran/China/Pakistan in the picture, concerns are just under the surface and rising again.

rshow55 - 05:27pm Oct 24, 2003 EST (# 15581 of 15593)
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.

Spent all day slogging. Feeling pretty good about it - at mechanical levels, but intimidated , too. I'm writing a letter to the "top dog" - and can't imagine what he's like - but he presides over an empire that includes people who can do masterpieces of summarization - for instance this, which is way beyond me:

. 15570 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.a1e8b2XfREj.0@.f28e622/17283

Seems to me that an alternative to "being done with it" isn't so far away.

All that would have to happen would be for a guy SO far above me that I can't imagine how he looks at things to say - - OK Joe - talk to the bastard.

bluestar23 - 05:53pm Oct 24, 2003 EST (# 15582 of 15593)

No, you said you were telephoning the New York Times today, Showalter....did you lie, and not really phone them..?

jorian319 - 05:54pm Oct 24, 2003 EST (# 15583 of 15593)
The earth spin rate is slowing 2 msc/day as evidenced by the additon of a leap second every 500 days - James "I failed math" Nienhuis

...he presides over an empire that includes people who can do masterpieces of summarization - for instance this, which is way beyond me:

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.a1e8b2XfREj.0@.f28e622/17283

All that would have to happen would be for a guy SO far above me that I can't imagine how he looks at things to say - - OK Joe - talk to the bastard.

WTF are you talking about, Robert? Did you link the wrong thing? You can get whoever you want, to tell whoever they can to "talk to the bastard" but NOW HEAR THIS! I do NOT work for NYT. Repeat after me:

"jorian319 does NOT work for NYT"

"jorian319 does NOT work for NYT"

"jorian319 does NOT work for NYT"

Good. Do we feel better now?

bluestar23 - 08:29pm Oct 24, 2003 EST (# 15584 of 15593)

Deterring the secret "container-ship" Nuke: Steven Den Beste:

"We'd also have to establish a new doctrine, and this would be more controversial and politically risky. The doctrine would be that if anyone set off a nuke in our territory and no one claimed responsibility, or if a terrorist group claimed responsibility, in that case we'd also obliterate NK. No questions asked, no excuses listened to, no attempt to determine if the nuke had been sold by NK, no delays, no nothing. Under this doctrine put in place after an NK nuclear test, if any city of ours was destroyed, NK would be destroyed as soon thereafter as we could manage. That's the only way we can limit the danger that NK would surreptitiously sell one or more nukes to someone like al Qaeda.

Any doctrine which involved us saying that we would obliterate NK only if we could show that the bomb used against us had come from NK would tell them that they could get away with it as long as they were sufficiently careful to cover their tracks. As soon as it got into an "is the evidence good enough" game, we're fu..ed (Consult the recent past in the US about that kind of debate.) The only way to truly prevent NK from selling nukes to terrorists is to make sure their leadership knows that they could not avoid disaster if they did, no matter how well they covered their tracks.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense