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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.

wrcooper - 01:45pm Aug 10, 2002 EST (#3610 of 3615)

Lou,

Ballistic missile defense may be doable, given enough resources, breakthroughs and time. I don't think a workable system is impossible. It would be foolish to say so.

However, suppose that we spent billions of dollars and many years to develop a reliable and workable BMD system and succeeded. It would only encourage our enemies to manufacture crude, low-tech alternative weapons.

The danger we face isn't from ICBMs. It's from somebody with a nuke in a backpack or a phial of toxic bioagent. If a rogue nation or terrorist group wanted to commit mass murder in America, it wouldn't need an expensive and easily detectable ICBM force. That would incur either a American preemptive counterstrike or else a catastrophic retaliatory attack. Launching a missile at the U.S. would be suicidal.

All that such an enemy would need is a small stockpile of radioactive material and a few technically savvy ideologues to assemble a low-yield but effective device. I believe blueprints for such bombs are publicly available. How hard would it be, then, to smuggle it into this country? All they'd have to do is stick it in any of the thousands of bales of marijuana or shipments of heroin that land on our shores every year.

I think we'd be much wiser to spend our billions on programs to promote peace and economic development in the hot spots that breed terrorists. Solve the problem, not treat only the symptoms. We'd also be better off spending it in getting better field intelligence and in sharpening our interdiction abilities.

I'd like to see lots more money be put into high-powered laser and tracking R&D for the eventual development of lightcraft technology. But antimissile-missiles and space-based kinetic missile defenses are nothing more than short-sighted and wasteful pork.

Even if they worked, they couldn't protect us from the real threat.

mazza9 - 01:57pm Aug 10, 2002 EST (#3611 of 3615)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

WRCooper:

The Chinese and North Koreans are developing ICBMs. Now who do you suppose they are targeting? Theater weapons that can stop Katyuska attack missile, SCUDS etc are also necessary. If directed energy weapons on an aircraft can be used for tactical employment then we've just upgraded the bow and arrow one more time.

Of course, I'd rather see the iodine laser used for meteor destruction and alien (UFO!) assaults. If that is to occur then the R&D money has to come from somewhere and in today's climate that's the military not the NASA budget.

Mazzaroth son of Cthullu!

wrcooper - 02:19pm Aug 10, 2002 EST (#3612 of 3615)

mazza9 8/10/02 1:57pm

We've been living with the threat of ICBMs for 50 years. It's nothing new. China and North Korea aren't any more likely to attack the U.S. than the ex-Soviet Union was. Probably less so.

BMD has been sold as a defense against terrorists and rogue nations--small-scale attacks, not massive strikes such as China might launch.

My argument still stands. Let's pursue disarmament with the big boys and handle the small fry with interdiction and economic development.

lchic - 03:09pm Aug 10, 2002 EST (#3613 of 3615)

Oppenheimer - Quotes - (Powers/Tremain p27-8)

"Everybody was moaning and wringing their hands"

Lis Alvarez, a physicist at Los Alamos during the war, describing the dramatic change in atmosphere after his return from Hiroshima. Elation at the achievement had completely disappeared.

"Oppie says tht the atomic bomb is so terrible a weapon that war is now impossible,"

Popular report at Los Alamos after Hiroshima.

"If you ask,
'Can we make them more terrible?' the answer is yes.
If you ask:
'Can we make a lot of them?' the answer is yes."

Oppenheimer to Time magazine, October 29, 1945.

"Mr. President, I have blood on my hands."

Oppenheimer to Truman in 1946.

"Don't you bring that fellow around again. After all, all he did was make the bomb. I'm the guy who fired it off."

Truman to Dean Acheson after his meeting with Oppenheimer.

"Some people profess guilt to claim credit for the sin"

The mathematician John von Neumann, following Oppen heimer's well-publicized hand-wringing over his role in developing atomic weapons.

On returing from Bikini [where atomic weapons were tested in July 1946] one is amazed to find the profound change in the public attitude toward the problem of the atomic bomb.
Before Bikini the world stood in aw of this new cosmic weapon ... Since Bikini this feeling of awe has largely evapourated.

William L. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times August 1946

In conjunction with other mass destruction weapons it is possible to depopulate vast areas of the earth's surface, leaving only vestige remnants of man's material works.

General Curtis LeMay in 1947, reporting on the atomic bomb tests on Bikini the year before.

lchic - 04:10pm Aug 10, 2002 EST (#3614 of 3615)

Economy UK|USA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/recession/story/0,7369,772294,00.html

concludes | As well as downbeat productivity figures for the second quarter, the US released revisions for last year which showed productivity fell for both the first and second quarters as the US plunged into recession - not just the first quarter, as previously thought.

lchic - 04:32pm Aug 10, 2002 EST (#3615 of 3615)

If thinking on MD were cp to souces -
( http://library.uncwil.edu/is/infocycle.htm )
then first thoughts would be primary, second thoughts secondary (that could be a contradiction) and last thoughts tertiary (an overall reflection - looking back ... were back the past - yet it could still be the future!)

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