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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?

gisterme - 06:12pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6308 of 6319)

rshowlter wrote: ( rshowalter 6/29/01 4:28pm ):

"...How much of our military function -- has been based on fraud[?]..."

How do you define "military function", Robert? Do you mean WRT weapons technology programs? We know that a MAJORITY of the US defense budget goes for paying the troops and maintaining facilities and existing weapons system. We know that the vast bulk of military spending since 1950 was for two main tasks. The first was to be able to assure the defeat a possible (many Europeans thought LIKELY) Soviet invasion of Western Europe. The second was management of the Soviet strategic nuclear threat, meaning making sure that US retaliatory forces would be effective even after a first strike from the USSR. Correct me if I'm wrong, Robert, but in my recollection, the first time I heard the term "first strike" (defined as wiping out the ability to retaliate in kind) was when the Soviet development of sub-orbital weapons was revealed.

Fortunately, neither side used ANY of those strtegic weapons, so it's hard to tell whether any of them would actually have worked or not.

As far as conventional weapons go, the 1991 Gulf War gave a pretty convincing demonstration that those advanced weapons developed at huge expense to stop a Soviet invaston of Western Europe worked very well. The cries of "fraud" that all the nay-sayers raised with regards to nearly every high tech program were almost immediately silenced.

"...I believe that it is the our patriotic duty to find out, and an essential security interest of all the nations in NATO, and of many other countries all over the world, to find out..."

Why not just go the horse's mouth, Robert? Here's a link to the "Defense Almanac" that has links to all kinds of stuff about US military organization, development programs including missile defense and especially a BUDGET BREAKDOWN.

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/

Click on the "Money" link to see the budget stuff. I haven't looked at it all; but do your patriotic duty and CHECK it out. One thing I did notice is that less than $3 bn is budgetd for all R&D (including missile defense) which is less than 1% of the overall budget. I think you'll find that the lion's share of the budget goes for paying the troops, systems and facilities maintenance and operating expenses (like fuel and ammunition for training). A much smaller part goes for actual systems procurement.

At any rate, to make a first order attempt to answer your question:

"...How much of our military function -- has been based on fraud[?]..."

Let's assume a grim scenario, that ALL R&D expenditures are a fraud. Even if ALL of the R&D expenditures were a fraud (which obviously they aren't) the answer to your question would be "less than 1% is fraud".

rshowalter - 06:22pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6309 of 6319)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

During Watergate, John Dean talked about the coverup as " a cancer on the Presidency."

Could we be dealing with a larger, more serious cancer here?

Some basic things can be checked. Money accounting is one of the most basic things of all.

I've been struck, looking at missile defense arguments - to see how dense the defects are -- how there seems to be nothing honest about any of it. How it seems to be one big lie after another.

Now, it seems that the only "successful" anti ICBM tests have been done with the "warhead" broadcasting telemetry data from the global positioning satellite to the interceptor.

What a contrast to public statements !

This seems to be fraud - and fraud gone on so long that, once questions start getting competently asked -- there will be no defense. Perhaps that is the reason for the discussion about me committing "treason."

And the very rapid, very accomodating retreat, once I came up with a fact, related to a whole family of other widely known facts, that every control engineer anywhere near missile defense had to know.

gisterme - 06:27pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6310 of 6319)

lunarchick wrote: "Fraud, conflict of interest, Nazi methodology ..."

Or perhaps something much less sinister...

Consider the PT Barnum side-show that hawked the the opportunity for circus-goers to see a "man eating chicken". Of course when you paid your two-bits, and went in, you got to see a man, eating some fried chicken. The egg definately came first in this case...followed closely by the sucker... :-)

midmoon - 07:16pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6311 of 6319)

Thanks for the comment,Gisterm!

F.C Fuller,a British general,wrote 'The Decisive Battles Of The Western World(1792-1944)'.

In this book,he interpreted the WWII with a diffrent angle from the ordinry views.

He shows an very interesting stance that the US participation to the european battles was a mistake.

He quotes the Herbert C. Hoover's explanation of the reasons why he apposed to the US joining to the european battle.

The reasons Hoover had in his mind are:

1. As the German had invaded the USSR in 1941,the risks for the UK to be occupied by the German disappeared.

2.To aid the USSR just for the reason that it fight against the German may be silly of the US.

3.The US should wait until the two tyrants are tired out from fighting each other. The US assitance to the USSR will bring the prevalence of the communism all over the world.

4.The US may have the right opportunity to fetch everlasting world peace if it has just watched the two nations' battle.

Fuller asks Why the US supported the Russia and what was the results are.

He said that the results are the Bolshevization of half of the Europe.

Gisrerm!

You may be right! Yes,the USSR army fight a heroic war against invicible German army.

But the Russia could not ever win the war if there had not the US ammunition aids.

The ways to view the USSR-German war may depend on the viewer's views on the values.

As I once have said in ths thread,everything is relative and the world per se is relative ,too.

If there had not been the Russia,the US and the UK would not lose the WWII.

There might have been another nuclear bombing upon Nurenberg.May be.

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