New York Times on the Web Forums Science

Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 06:48am Feb 22, 2001 EST (#751 of 754)
lunarchick@www.com

Reading this and other articles on the sonar sub that hit the fish-training-boat i noted that:

'the submarine's sonar repeater was not working'

If technical equipment on a working-vessal wasn't working, then, this raises the question: Just what will be working in relation to a 40-50year old defence missile system!

rshowalter - 07:08am Feb 22, 2001 EST (#752 of 754)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This question can be asked about both the equipment, and the human organization. Both questions need to be adressed in nuts-and-bolts detail.

The answers are -- this is an obsolete system, which may well have been entirely justified in its day, but it involves unacceptable costs and risks, and we need to take it down.

The officers in charge of the US missile defense wouldn't argue strongly agains this (look at Rehearsing Armageddon to see this) nor would the Russian officers.

The problem is that everybody's so paralyzed by fear that reasonable things are hard to get accomplished.

But recently, many concerned, in the US, and Europe, and Russia, have been taking reasonable action that looks, to me, like it is consistent with absolutely beautiful, disciplined, just resolutions of these problems.

It is time, I believe, for care, for repect for all the people involved, and for hope, backed by the technical discipline this matter warrants.

lunarchick - 07:49am Feb 22, 2001 EST (#753 of 754)
lunarchick@www.com

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=505415

There is need for scepticism, since much of the current debate over American defence is driven by a notion that is about 80% fiction. This is that the armed forces face a crisis of recruitment and battle-readiness. Yes, there are a few signs of decay. More than a third of new recruits do not make it through their first term. That compares with an attrition rate of just over a quarter during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The air force is in worse shape than the army or navy, and support aircraft (refuelling planes and so on) are in worse shape than fighters and bombers. But, take it all in all, the picture is fairly good. Serving men and women now have more military experience than in Mr Reagan’s day, an average of over seven years’ service compared with four in the 1980s. The percentage of re-enlistments is higher than in the 1980s.

The problem lies elsewhere: in America’s ageing weapons systems. For the past ten years the Pentagon has been on a procurement holiday. Total spending on national security will be about $295 billion this year and the annual average for the past ten years is $305 billion (in 2001 dollars). That compares with $400 billion in the peak year of 1989.

The defence department has “adjusted” to these reductions in two ways. First, by slimming down everywhere (reducing the number of army divisions from 18 to 10, see table) but not by altering the structure of the armed forces, which remain the same agglomerations of mass soldiery and heavy equipment they were in the cold war. And, second, by not buying any big new weapons systems, sticking instead to the 1980s generation of arms that Mr Reagan built up.

mhunter20 - 10:11am Feb 22, 2001 EST (#754 of 754)

rshowalter 2/22/01 5:45am

I believe that some Russian people must know that some former US leaders abhor communism and used the cold war and the arms race to defeat it. Individually, people that were lied to are not as emotionally damaged as Rick was prior to his recapitulation with Elsa. Individually the players are more detached, calculating and distrustful thus providing the current situation with a higher level of stability than you might expect. (Just my opinion.)

lunarchick 2/22/01 7:49am

Total spending on national security will be about $295 billion this year and the annual average for the past ten years is $305 billion (in 2001 dollars). That compares with $400 billion in the peak year of 1989.

There has been an economic toll on the US as well as the former Soviet Union.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense