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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 - 11:11am Oct 16, 2003 EST (# 15149 of 15156)

"...Why do you think their odds are good of building a successful system? The evidence so far contradicts you..."

What evidence??? So far in a test program there has been very good success. Four out of seven hits aint bad. If even an unjelled test system could keep four out of seven places from being nuked that would be way better than nothing. I'm sure folks in the four un-nuked places would agree after the fact.

"...Furthermore, none of the military’s public announcements has adequately addressed the issue of countermeasures..."

Why should they? What do you mean by "adaquately addressed"?

"...How will the interceptors distinguish between decoys and actual warheads?..."

Wouldn't you agree that "how" interceptors might distinguish between decoys and actual warheads and "how" interceptors would engage their targets might be among those bits of information that deserve to remain classified?

How do you distinguish between bowling balls and balloons?

"...This is the real show stopper, and the military hasn’t found an answer..."

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

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. 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?

"...In an arms race between offensive and defensive missiles, the attacker will win,..."

'Can't agree with that generalization. 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.

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.

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.

One more thing. The "military" are not the ones who design, build and test systems like those of the current BMD effort. The work is done by private contractors, under overall fiscal direction of the Congress of the United States and technical direction based a set of performance standards that are developed jointly by civilian and military personnel. The resulting design criteria document says "this is what we need". The contractors build and test it to show that design criteria have been met. If design criteria aren't adequately met, the program gets cancelled. The military's job during development of large systems is primarily to monitor progress and verify compliance with design criteria. Once the test program is complete, the military just sort of hops in and drives it away.

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. To me that's far stronger evidence that solutions to difficult problems are known than "military silence" is evidence that they're not.

gisterme - 11:20am Oct 16, 2003 EST (# 15150 of 15156)

Will,

"...If an empirical assessment of a technological system shows that it does not work and is not likely to work given certain fundamental facts, and doesn’t even address real threats, we shouldn’t spend billions of dollars on it..."

I couldn't agree more. However, because the BMD program is going ahead, my confidence is bolstered that there's been no such emperical assessment (by qualified folks) that has shown it to be unworkable.

For me, four out of seven successes in the test program is pretty strong evidence that the system is workable. There's little that's "emperical" about full scale flight tests or four direct hits.

gisterme - 11:23am Oct 16, 2003 EST (# 15151 of 15156)

Will -

"...I provided links to reports detailing the basic problems with Bush's NMD program. Have you read them yet?..."

I haven't found that post yet. Would you please post those links again for me?

lchic - 11:29am Oct 16, 2003 EST (# 15152 of 15156)
TRUTH outs ultimately : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

give him an e-address to expediate the excruciating process ...

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