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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?

kangdawei - 08:23pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9942 of 9956)

rshowalter - 01:23pm Sep 29

You aren't insisting that the total military budget be increased, I hope. I think, perhaps, we might do things more neatly, in spots.

This is the crux of all these reams and reams of posts by Robert Showalter. He does not think that the Manhattan Massacre, and all that it portends, and all that it signifies, and all that it wakes us up to, justifies an increase in the total military budget.

That's what all his posts are really about. Because you can't solve the engineering problem of missle defense without more money.

Robert doesn't want to spend the money. That's the bottom line. And he's willing to spend many many hours of his day trying to convince Americans that we don't need to spend any more money on defense.

I wonder what it is Robert really wants.

I wonder what Robert is really selling here. For whatever it is, he is selling it very very hard.

kangdawei - 08:26pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9943 of 9956)

rshowalter - 01:23pm Sep 29

Anybody of the scientific and engineering stature of Pierce advocating missile defense, as the administration proposes it, today?

There are plenty and in the coming weeks I am going to spend much less time responding to your repetitive posts and lots of time posting links to these people of stature. Whenever you add something NEW to the discussion, I will respond to it. But only if it's not buried in your reams of repitition.

rshowalter - 08:28pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9944 of 9956)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'm interested in the survival of the world. And workable, safe conditions for the United States of America.

There are plenty of good things engineers can do -- but I don't think missile defense is one of them. For reasons that can be checked.

And should be.

kangdawei - 08:28pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9945 of 9956)

rshowalter - 01:35pm Sep 29

So that they could do a careful job of reducing the risk to Americans, in balanced ways.

Balance means taking all risks into consideration. And the risk of a China, North Korea, or Iraq armed with ICBM nukes and dictating regional/global policy is not as fanciful as the dedicated naysayers here would have us believe.

The WTC massacre was yesterdays action. It happened because we buried our heads in the sand. Now you propose that we bury our heads in the WTC debris and say "only this threat is real, and nothing more".

rshowalter - 08:28pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9946 of 9956)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

almarst , watch how things happen.

kangdawei - 08:29pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9947 of 9956)

applez101 - 05:16pm Sep 29

The classic struggle against poverty is again revisited.

You're kidding, right. bin Laden is a billionaire. The 19 hijackers were a bunch of coddled rich-kids from Saudi Arabia.

Saddam has palaces, biochem factories, missle capability and is seeking nuke capability.

Grow up. Such talk about "poverty is the root of the problem" used to be cute. It's not cute anymore.

kangdawei - 08:29pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9948 of 9956)

applez101 - 05:22pm Sep 29

A Ryder truck, 767 jet, or freight ship escape many of these constraints...and will continue to be the weapons of choice for groups that know they don't stand a chance by any other means.

This argument is repeated over and over and is wrong every time. To repeat the retort, missles aren't just a weapon they are a stepping stone to geopolitical power. Ryder trucks are not.

When Saddam has nuke missles he can dictate policy. He already has Ryder trucks.

kangdawei - 08:30pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9949 of 9956)

rshowalter - 06:00pm Sep 29

Deterrance is probably indispensible between nation states, but we ought to find better ways than nukes - - - which are unusable under virtually all circumstances anyway.

Right. Space-base lasers. Ship-launched anti-missle-missles. A deterence system that is a step ahead of what the worlds yahoos can produce. The fact is, we can remain technologically superior only if we stretch our technological goals.

rshowalter - 08:30pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9950 of 9956)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

kangdawei 9/29/01 8:28pm

I think you may have misjudged the threat, compared to others. I'm not alone in that.

I'm sure that advocating money for programs that cannot work is not in the national interest, and given things I know, I can reasonably question to patriotism of your argument.

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