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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?

amacd - 09:41am Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8095 of 8103)
Bush --- the Faux President

galtreuter 8/24/01 8:48am

Regarding Bush's missile defense scam, the only thing that would be more exciting than the technological marvel of what they refer to as, "a bullet hitting a bullet", would be an impeachment bullet hitting a president.

epreuss - 09:41am Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8096 of 8103)

I am all for impeachment, too. Politicians are elected based on the programs they present to the voting public. Thus they enter a contract with the public when they are elected. Bush has grossly violated this contract in several points; this is not a gentleman's lie, this is affecting the lives of millions of people.

lunarchick - 09:49am Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8097 of 8103)
lunarchick@www.com

You mean the news stories whereby the Military were told to VOTE - post election - to ensure his selection?

rshowalter - 10:07am Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8098 of 8103)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We're dealing with a serious business, here. But people - in the United States, and the world, need to see things more clearly than they do -- and problems with "the culture of lying" --- including a "culture of lying" in journalism - - make that difficult.

lunarchick - 10:10am Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8099 of 8103)
lunarchick@www.com

St Peter on line

wrcooper - 10:11am Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8100 of 8103)

rshowalter 8/23/01 6:45pm

I'm not sure the military really HAS anything else as politically saleable as missile defense.

I would hardly describe the NMD program as "politically saleable," if that means that it has wide appeal. It doesn't. Not only do the allies largely oppose it, so does Russia. This is old news. We're asking everybody to swallow an oversized nasty-tasting pill.

I believe that they are struggling, and struggling hard, to find justifications for their continued existence.

I don't think I agree with you. There is ample justification for having a strong military in this day and age. I give you Korea, China, plus the cacophanous medley of anti-US alley cats in the Middle East and Africa--Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, et. al., where we still maintain critical strategic interests. The US needs a highly mobile and diversified military equipped with the latest and best weaponry. So it seems to me that the military could find ways to fund schemes and dreams for tomorrow's fighting forces without backing the NMD boondoggle.

I suspect that the problem may be tunnel thinking. There's a certain odor of hide-boundedness about it. It's big and sexy and on the technological frontier. It's massive and spectacular--smart pebbles flashing at high speed in space, super-secret radars and computer algorithms outwitting the enemy. I mean, the whole shebang reeks of EGO. It's money ego, power ego, tech ego--it's big-time big government big brass EGO. I think they could find other toys to play with besides missiles. Either they have darn good reasons for deploying this thing--reasons we civvies sans security clearances don't know about--or else it's just a bad hangover from the Cold War.

And contrary to what you said, I don't think we can find out from publicly available documents. You'd have to demonstrate your prowess in that department if you want to convince me.

rshowalter - 12:02pm Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8101 of 8103)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Showstoppers, when they happen, are generally simple.

Feynman, in his 0-ring demonstration of how the Space Shuttle failed, showed an example. Things that go wrong, once they are understood, are usually simple.

All that can be shown from the open literature is that -- barring a way around a basic barrier -- something can't be done.

But that basic barrier can be BIG -- and subject to very well established trends.

There seem to be many such barriers. Each one simple and solid.

Each one specifically applicable to specific proposals.

And it is specific proposals that the military is asking to fund.

I've done a fairly thorough job of setting out those barriers, with respect to lasar "death ray" weapons -- but there are similar barriers, and appear to be many of them, in other areas.

Back in a while .

rshowalter - 12:03pm Aug 24, 2001 EST (#8102 of 8103)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Citations of Maureen Dowd's columns and ideas on this thread:
rshowalter "Maureen Dowd" 8/24/01 9:04am

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