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Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

rshowalter - 02:27pm Oct 13, 2000 EDT (#415 of 415)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

And (aside from the survival of us all) the biggest winners after nuclear weapons were gone would be wearing military uniforms. The next biggest winners, once they learned to live with some more openness, would be the intelligence operations of nation states. Both these groups would have jobs to do that could actually be done effectively, honestly, and, by military standards, gracefully. Now, they don't, and they have to lie to each other, and their bosses, about what they are ready for, and what they can do.

Nation states NEED strong military forces, able to threaten, and otherwise motivate, other nation states in ways such that the threats, and the actions desired, are in a reasonable and stable balance. Nation states also NEED enough information so that surprise attacks are very unlikely to occur, or to succeed.

All this is far easier in a world without nuclear weapons. Nuclear threats are insanely disproportionate, and unusable. They don't lend themselves to any kind of nuanced action. Nuclear weapons are also inherently built for surprise attack, because the weapons are so small for the destruction that they do. The world has good reason to fear surprise attack in a nuclear world.

With current technical arrangements, there is much less to fear from conventional military surprise attacks, which are becoming very, and increasingly, hard to hide. That means that nuclear weapons, sold as "guaranteers of peace" are just the opposite.

And the nuclear weapons, with current conditions and controls, could easily destroy the world. We should take them down. The militaries that have these weapons know very well how to disable and destroy them, and could do this in very short times, if they set about it.

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