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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.

manjumicha2001 - 01:02pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#442 of 484)

An interesting report came out on Monday, maybe this ties in with the new US nuclear doctrine of preemptive strike;

CIA Cites Credible ICBM Threat from NK

The US Central Intelligence Agency said Monday that North Korea"s missile technology development over the last three years will enable Pyongyang to launch an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that can reach the US. National Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs Robert Walpole delivered the "CIA National Intelligence Estimate of Foreign Missile Development and the Ballistic Missile Threat through 2015" to the Senate"s International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services Subcommittee of Governmental Affairs, which suggested the possibility of an ICBM attack by North Korea, Iran or Iraq.

Walpole pointed out that although Kim Jong Il extended the voluntary flight-test moratorium-in effect until 2003 in May 2001, the North continues to develop missiles, emphasizing technological leaps in the last three years. "The multiple-stage Taepo Dong-2, which is capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear weapon-sized payload, may be ready for flight-testing," continued Walpole, "the Taepo Dong-2 in a two-stage configuration could deliver a several-hundred-kilogram payload up to 10,000 km-sufficient to strike Alaska, Hawaii, and parts of the continental United States," and "if the North uses a third stage similar to the one used on the Taepo Dong-1 in 1998, the Taepo Dong-2 could deliver a several-hundred-kg payload up to 15,000 km; sufficient to strike all of North America."

Walpole said that intelligence agencies in the mid-90s predicted that Pyongyang was capable of producing one or two nuclear weapons, adding that while plutonium production activities at Yongbyon had been suspended in accordance with the Agreed Framework of 1994, Pyongyang still has chemical and biological weapons programs.

lchic - 01:07pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#443 of 484)

Doesn't China have 'influence' over NK?

rshow55 - 01:14pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#444 of 484)

China does. Russia has some too. The EU countries are developing ties.

I don't discount the danger. I do say that some fundamental mistakes are being made, and have long been made -- that generate escalatory fights -- to the death.

I know quite a lot about escalatory fights -- for reasons Greg Smith would know something about - and because of military involvements, too. Bill Casey knew we had a problem. I wish the present crowd did.

If you set people up so that all they can think of to do is fight -- they fight -- and fighting to the death may be irrational - but it is natural behavior for human beings, and human sociotechnical systems.

manjumicha2001 - 01:16pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#445 of 484)

I am not so much impressed with the content of this report (which is an old news by at least 5 years and includes often repeated spin on the number of nukes) but with the timing of it.....that such public report came right after the leak re: the new nuclear doctrine.

I believe these are the beginning of the post-9/11 US strategic posture in the world:

i.e. Rumsfeld to NKs ---- We will build NMD despite all the flaws and you better be prepared to be nuked preemtively unless you prove to us that you are not armed with WMD. Although our NMD might not be perfect, our 100 anti-misssile-missiles, coupled with space-based sensors, will get your puny 5 to 10 ICBMS that might escape our preemptive nuclear strike. so what is gonna be !!

Gentlemen, I say we are witneessing a beginning of new and totally differernt kind of nuclear confrontation.

lchic - 01:20pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#446 of 484)

Doesn't China have 'influence' over NK?

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... It must have been difficult for Seoul officials to resist this Chinese pressure. China has exerted influence on Korean affairs both politically and economically since it opened diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992. Its influence in the political sphere, in particular, has ever increased since North Korea started to raise international issues with its nuclear and missile programs. Maintaining balance in its relations with South and North Korea, China has been regarded as the sole country in the world that can exert influence on North Koreans.

rshow55 - 01:27pm Mar 13, 2002 EST (#447 of 484)

Let's suppose that this is exactly the "back channel" conversation, and suppose that, as far as it goes, it is not easily changed:

Rumsfeld to NKs ---- We will build NMD despite all the flaws and you better be prepared to be nuked preemtively unless you prove to us that you are not armed with WMD. Although our NMD might not be perfect, our 100 anti-misssile-missiles, coupled with space-based sensors, will get your puny 5 to 10 ICBMS that might escape our preemptive nuclear strike. so what is gonna be !!

There better be a lot more to the interaction than that -- there better be a lot of much "sweeter" options -- a lot of things appealing to systems of nation, including N Korea -- and some ways to "save face" -- or we have a nuclear confrontation indeed.

Cops in the US carry lethal force on their hips -- it is part of the mix. But they seldom use it, or have to use it - - because they have social skills, and calibrated social forces behind them. The also know that once you start threatening (surely threatening N. Koreans) you start a cycle of logic very likely to escalate.

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