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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 - 02:13pm Aug 30, 2002 EST (# 4018 of 4045)

Showalter:

Even though I oppose Bush's BMD program, I can't agree with your opinion that missile defense is fundamentally unworkable, based on an incompatibility with the laws of nature. You've no rational basis for making such a sweeping claim. Decoy detection is by far the most daunting obstacle to achieving a fully reliable BMD system, and no resolution is in sight, but that doesn't mean that the problem can't be solved. We just don't know how yet.

I agree with Mazza that, given enough money and time spent on R&D, a BMD system could no doubt be made workable. The unlikelihood that we could ever show that it would be worth the time and effort necessary is the problem I have with it. As all of us have noted, if we did develop a fully dependable MBD system, that would only encourage our enemies to avail themselves of low-tech alternatives for inflicting mass murder in America--it would lead, in other words, to more 9/11s. BMD would also be strategically destabilizing, in my opinion, stimulating another costly and dangerous arms race.

Your insistence that it would be technically unfeasible is, however, baseless.

mazza9 - 03:19pm Aug 30, 2002 EST (# 4019 of 4045)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

Clive Cussler fascinated us with the epic "Raise the Titanic". The object of the endeavor was not archeology but "Missile Defense". The irony wasn't realized until the safe in the purser's office on the Titanic was opened and the "secret stuff" from, the Russian Arctic Island was not there. The "stuff" is eventually found and the endgame is accomplished when a missile is fired and defended by that energy umbrella which was Cussler's version of the Enterprise's energy shield.

Others have speculated that maybe Tesla's energy weapon would be a phaser weapon that Kirk might use against Romulans. Yeah, it's all Star Wars but Cooper is correct. The weapons are capable of being developed.

Lasers have shot down Katyushkas. The TRW iodine laser will be installed on the ABL. Questions regarding its efficacy are one thing. Pronouncements of unworkability are shortsighted.

I think that given the Bush's focus on new weapons for a new war we might see other issues/weapons moved up the priority ladder.

wrcooper - 04:18pm Aug 30, 2002 EST (# 4020 of 4045)

mazza9 8/30/02 3:19pm

Hmm. I didn't say that any sci-fi-inspired BMD weapon whatsoever would be capable of successful development.

I think that a workable BMD system is probably feasible, given enough time and intellectual and financial resources to back it. That doesn't mean I think "Star Trek phasars," whatever the heckfire they are, would be doable eventually. :-)

I think that the laws of physics probably do indeed rule out the reification of certain fictional technologies, such as faster-than-lightspeed warp drives and other staples of sci-fi fantasy.

However, a BMD system employing beamed energy or kinetic ballistic "kill" devices certainly wouldn't violate known physical laws. Most of the key components have already been demonstrated. Their proposed complexity is daunting, however. Just the software alone needed to manage such a system would be extraordinarily difficult to design and debug. Lots of work would have to be done to guarantee its reliability in a realistic warfare environment.

But saying it would all be impossible, as Showalter does, is unsupported.

wrcooper - 04:28pm Aug 30, 2002 EST (# 4021 of 4045)

mazza9 8/29/02 9:57pm

The SDI accomplished that and eventually bankrupted the Soviet Union.

Lou, I hardly think that SDI brought about the economic collapse of the former Soviet Union. That process had been inexorably working out for many complex reasons long before RWR dreamt up his nuclear umbrella.

Going to bed without the Sword of Damocles hanging over our children's head is a price worth paying.

Sure. The problem is that developing a workable BMD would not buy us peace of mind and security. It would stimulate another dangerous arms race and delay disarmament. It would also encourage the Bin Ladens of the world to attack us with low- or lower-tech weapons, such as we saw tragically last September 11.

If I thought that Bush's BMD program would actually produce a system that could protect us, I'd support it. Unfortunately, not only would its technical problems be difficult to resolve, even if we did find the answers, it would only worsen our defensive position.

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