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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 - 01:59pm Feb 17, 2001 EST (#697 of 700)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A technical point, about "scientific judgement." The arguments about "stability" of nuclear balances are based on "rational behavior" assumptions about mankind that bear but little resemblance to the vivid primate behavior shown and discussed so vividly in recent, and very beautiful, editions of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

There is no stable "balance of terror." It happens to be a fact that most young adult male humans, if threatened enough, react by fighting. It isn't a rational response. They can and do strike out without thinking, and may not know, a second before they strike out, that they are going to do it. Doubt this? Ask an experienced cop. With buttons within reach, the risks ought to be obvious. rshowalt "Science in the News" 9/18/00 11:47am

rshowalter - 02:00pm Feb 17, 2001 EST (#698 of 700)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Our missileers, talking among themselves, may want to believe they'd disobey an order to launch sonofnils "Science in the News" 9/18/00 10:04am

but they'd launch. rshowalt "Science in the News" 9/18/00 11:47am

rshowalter - 02:05pm Feb 17, 2001 EST (#699 of 700)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Lunarchick (Dawn Riley) - searched the dictionary of military terms under threat , and got 36 entries. Each a http citation, not a clear definiton.

Anybody who thinks we and the Russians communicate clearly, or can predict each other SHOULD LOOK AT THIS and THINK ABOUT IT ......... rshowalt "Science in the News" 9/18/00 11:59am

This is the situation after nearly half a century of negotiation - gross ambiguity, inconventiently packaged, concerning a key word "threat" on which "becq" also known as "Willie_Nilly," a well briefed, key man, was either intentionally evasive, or confused. Another key work was b"trust." Trust takes understanding.

Re "Willy_Nilly" willy_nilly "Favorite Poetry" 9/23/00 10:43am

this passage was discussed with: "becq" rshowalt 9/25/00 3:50pm

Want to try to communicate with an enemy FAST? When a key word, that occurs in most discourse, has 36 meanings, many evasively phrased? Mistakes could happen.

Things have been set up so that mistakes HAVE to happen. There ARE no "backchannels" that produce "hidden stability."

The "nuclear balance of terror" has always been less stable than it looked, and in the new internet era, the stability is far less than before.

The notion that the military "has this well in hand" and that we and the Russians "have an understanding" is false.

rshowalter - 02:07pm Feb 17, 2001 EST (#700 of 700)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

To ask nation states to stop treatening each other is a completely unrealistic and dangerous idea. That's what military forces largely do, and have to do. rshowalt "Science in the News" 9/18/00 12:04pm

We need force balances where threats, and logic sequences under threat are STABLE, or involve SURVIVABLE COSTS.

For this reason, we need to get rid of nuclear weapons, that are prone to instability and involve catastrophic losses.

The Russians have argued this way for years.

Gorbachev said "Even an unloaded gun goes off every once in a while."

We've resolutely denied this obvious conclusion, based on human experience.

The Russians, who are wrong about a helluva a lot of stuff, happen to be right here.

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