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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 - 09:04pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9958 of 9965)

applez101 - 05:11pm Sep 29

What should be funded? Well, consolidating our intelligence services might be a good start, as well as improving salaries to prevent more Ames turncoats from arising (either by decreasing the likelihood of their mercenary habit taking over; or by improving the controls the organisation has to deal with these sort of individuals earlier on). This may actually present cost-savings as duplication of effort is reduced. Greater, more widely distributed civilian police forces (and get away from this horrendous paramilitarisation in the form of SWAT teams) who *are* the frontline for these types of 'asymmetrical attacks.' And desperately improve the consular services who are the real gatekeepers for all visitors to the US, those who desire at least some form of documented entry. Again, better linkage to INS may be advisable.

This list is a) irrelevant to the problem of global positioning of forces b) will be done whether or not we have a missle defense, c) doens't really contain any military items at all.

So your answer on where to spend increased military funds: nowhere.

It's what I thought.

Scratch an anti-NMD person and you find an anti-military-spending person.

rshowalter - 09:07pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9959 of 9965)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think that's a fine place for me to leave tonight.

I do wonder about the question of fact - - that "none of the bad guys believe that NMD is a hoax"

Maybe that's so.

But it seems to me, just looking at political considerations, that the Bush administration is spending an enormous amount of political capital on a bluff.

For the world to get better, we have to conduct more of our business in clear.

It is safe to do so.

And unsafe not to.

Out.

kangdawei - 09:13pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9960 of 9965)

Your calling it a "bluff" doesn't make it so.

And it won't work as a "bluff" unless it works as a technology.

And the bad-guys know the difference between bluff and reality.

To paraphrase the punch-line of an old joke, "they may be crazy, but they aren't stupid".

They leave the stupidity to the "peace movements" of the west (in whatever guise those peace-movements take).

rshowalter - 09:39pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9961 of 9965)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

kangdawei 9/29/01 9:13pm includes this:

it won't work as a "bluff" unless it works as a technology.

....

We agree about that.

MD9898 rshowalter 9/29/01 10:08am ... MD9899 rshowalter 9/29/01 10:14am
MD9900 rshowalter 9/29/01 10:28am

Right answers matter. Compared to alternatives, at least for honest people and organizations, checking is cheap.

kangdawei - 09:43pm Sep 29, 2001 EST (#9962 of 9965)

Missile Defense: The Time Is Now

Talk has never served missile defense well. In 1993, the Clinton administration slashed funding for the project, denying that the U.S. faced a missile threat at all. When the Rumsfeld Commission in 1998 exposed that position as wishful thinking, the administration resorted to the next best way to kill missile defense — consulting with the Russians. From early 1999 to the bitter end, the administration talked to the Russians about modifying the ABM Treaty to allow for a limited defense system. The talks never actually rose to the level of full-blown "negotiations" because the Russians insisted they would only "discuss" the treaty, not negotiate changes.

So, this process was born in appeasement and sustained by niggling legal hairsplitting. The Clinton administration proposed a missile system with Russian sensitivities (such as they are) in mind. The U.S. would ignore the threat coming from Iran or Iraq because defenses stationed in the American Northeast — with radars located in England and Greenland — might seem capable of defending against Russian missiles as well. Instead, then, the U.S. would focus in the other direction, on the threat from the Far East. One antimissile site would be built in Alaska as a first step that would assuage Russian fears and allow the U.S. eventually to convince Putin & Co. to accept a more advanced system.

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