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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?

kalter.rauch - 07:07am Nov 5, 2000 EDT (#473 of 474)
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Once again I have to point out the de facto "utility" of nuclear weapons to the military possessing them. If it were "only" the existence of systems like the Russian cobalt mines set to go off with a dead-man switch, we might be able to jointly chalk the whole cold war to mass hysteria. However, atomic battlefield weapons, from the "inert" depleted uranium AP dart, various classes of kiloton yield demolition charges and artillery rounds, and on up to theater nuclear delivery systems, are fully integrated into every level of the military calculation. The sheer power of any one of these systems means that even a new MIL spec issued on tank ammunition could become a potential war-winner, or loser, in certain scenarios. The hopelessly bogged down talks on tactical nuclear missles like the Pershing II were only settled when a series of completely improbable political events rendered the negotiations moot.

rshowalter - 12:31pm Nov 5, 2000 EDT (#474 of 474)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Kalter , those are good points.

Tactical nukes ARE the hardest part, as far as negotiation complexity goes, in the interaction between the powers that admit to having nuclear weapons. So maybe taking them down needs to be postponed. Maybe.

But tac nukes aren't going to destroy the world, unless they trigger firing of the "strategic" or "city killing" nuclear weapons - 97+% of which are in American and Russian hands. DEEP, DEEP, DEEP reductions of these strategic nuclear weapons make sense, they make sense immediately, and they make sense to most of the missileers themselves.

Getting rid of these "big" nukes" would do what needed to be done to eliminate the risk to the human race.

I'm also a lot less worried about triggering mistakes on the tactical nukes, because of the way they're controlled, if the great mass of the strategic nukes are down.

A semantic issue. On looking at the tactical nuclear weapons question, I'd surely NOT include depleted uranium rounds as "nuclear weapons." They act because of high density, not fission or fusion.

Very good questions, kalter and I know that this is an incomplete answer. I'll be back to you! And thanks!

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