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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?

bendarden - 07:24am Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5415 of 5461)

With Putin's threat to escalate, we now enter the stage where George II has to play 'macho'. There is simply no way in which he can just let this scheme drift away and die of its own weight.

The schools are a disaster, the national debt has not evaporated, technical labor is being imported from abroad, and the homeless are still with us. In spite of these problems, George II still wants to embrace 'star wars'.

possumdag - 08:22am Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5416 of 5461)
Possumdag@excite.com

Putin looked very comfortable in the library ... there was a point that he didn't quite understand. Whereas he had worked himself up to the top ranks in the Russian Service ... there is a query over George BUSH Senior, and how he was giventhe position.

'The News Hour' discussion made point. Elder-BUSH shook hands with the-then Russian leader and commented on their 'frendship at first sight' and later went on to treat Russia as he wanted.

Rice used the term 'hemisphere' in terms of SouthAm+NorthAm which was different.

possumdag - 08:27am Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5417 of 5461)
Possumdag@excite.com

'technical labor is being imported from abroad' bendarden - 07:24am Jun 19, 2001 EST

So the USA is still being built via the importation of educated people reared and trained at the expense of other nations. So what's new ?

rshowalter - 08:53am Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5418 of 5461)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Date: June 15, 2001 Skelton: Missile Defense Must Work By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP)

-- "The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee says he supports building a national missile defense, but only if it works and doesn't take attention away from more conventional threats. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Skelton-Interview.html

By ordinary scientific and engineering standards, the program is preposterous, if "to work" means "to work as an effective defense" and there are ways to CHECK this if ranking memebers of the House or Senate want it done. The missile defense program clearly does take attention away from other threats -- and while doing so, increases the threats to the United States.

rshowalter - 08:55am Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5419 of 5461)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Date: June 15, 2001 General Says Missile Shield Needs Money and Prudence By JAMES DAO

-- "The head of the Pentagon's missile defense program warned Congress today that accelerating development of a missile shield without a major infusion of money would be a mistake. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/world/15MISS.html

And the money would be a mistake, if the technology and the strategic consequences are not both subject to real scrutiny.

Strategically, this thing is a disaster.

And technically, it is as well. The lasar program has taken precedence in the conversations lately, in part because the intercept system has been so difficult to support. If the lasar program got reasonable scrutiny, it would ALSO be difficult to support -- they've got problems with the system (the simplest being vibration, with sin theta ~ theta -- and distances very great) that make it far fetched, not worth significant federal investment.

rshowalter - 09:22am Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5420 of 5461)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

On the matter of testing, and the general need for technical sanity in the administration's unpatriotic madness here, I'm very glad that Senator Levin comes from Michigan , capital of the auto industry, and a place where people can judge the difficulties in the execution of complex systems.

Missile Defense is a lot more complex, and has tigher tolerances, than auto manufacture -- but it seems to me that it is enough to know how difficult auto manufacture is, to judge how crazy the administration's proposals are. These issues can be CHECKED. By real engineers, with real names, in public (preferably with details posted for inspection on the net) with credentials at stake. The issues that matter, on the proposals so far, are unclassified. rshowalter 6/19/01 7:15am

MD4427 rshowalt 6/1/01 11:54am ... MD4533 rshowalter 6/6/01 2:22pm
MD4610 rshowalter 6/8/01 1:58pm ... MD4666 rshowalter 6/9/01 6:12pm
MD4686 rshowalter 6/10/01 11:52am ... MD4726 rshowalter 6/10/01 11:24pm
MD4852 rshowalter 6/12/01 12:23pm

rshowalter - 10:27am Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5421 of 5461)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD3056 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:55pm ... Majority leader Dick Gephardt said,

`` If the proposal actually comes before the House, either in the budget or in the defense bill, we'll do everything we can to raise the right questions.''

That's good because right answers matter here.

MD3058 rshowalter 5/2/01 6:02pm

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