http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=MJC0G2CE4AM30CRBAEZSFEY?type=domesticNews&storyID=7626297
"President Bush's planned ballistic missile shield suffered another setback on Monday when an interceptor missile again failed to launch during a test of the U.S. missile defense system.
The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it could not complete the planned $85 million repeat of a failed December test after the interceptor missile failed to launch from its base in the Pacific Ocean. "
Hmm... I can understand if the interceptor failed to hit its target, but when it won't even launch... Arg, the government should subcontract this or something.
They're trying to engineer a solution to a hard problem though. I'm not surprised they're having problems... even if it didn't leave the launchpad cough.
From what I gathered on browsing Slashdot, the research was far from complete but Bush and his goons ordered to get it into production anyway. That thing seems to be doomed to be a total failure.
Really? They should employ me then!
Here's my amazing program that can predict the future! It's not production-ready yet though:
print "Question: "
input $a
print "Processing..."
sleep 10
print "Answer: "
$b = random 2
if $b = 1 then print "Yes"
else print "No"Unfortunately, I doubt that predicting the future is on the Bonklers' agenda.
"It's clear that the program is being pushed ahead for political reasons regardless of its capability," [] "This interceptor has never been tested in an intercept test. Yet the Pentagon has already put eight of them in silos and is building at least another dozen before even knowing if they work."
"The New York Times reports that Mr. Bush's decision to make the system operational even though the testing phase is not completed, has drawn heavy criticism as well."
"the current system is designed to destroy the "more rudimentary missiles that Iran and North Korea are developing." But Russia has already developed a new missile, the SS-27, that makes the Star Wars system obsolete"
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0215/dailyUpdate.html
The general consensus by scientists for decades has been that a Star Wars program is ineffective and costly. There was a long piece in Scientific American (back when it was still a respectable scientific journal) around 1985 that lambasted the whole Star Wars scheme. There were plenty of reasons, but it essentially distilled to this: it's hard to make a shield, and easy to make countermeasures.
Lasers? Use reflective film or a shell that can burn off. Radar? Use decoys. Lots of them. Shrapnel? Throw more nukes their way. Fancy computer tracking? Also more nukes. These are all cheap countermeasures.
The shield has to be perfect, while just one nuke has to make it through. And that ignores shipping the nukes in. Sir, you've received a FedEx, express from the Kremlin.
Right.
It's "just" $1 trillion flushed down the toilet.
It's probably a waste, but that $1T is also buying experience. The US's greatest scientific military minds didn't become that way by twiddling their thumbs. Even if the shield becomes a waste like most of us suspect, there will be byproducts that will go into other endeavours.
I'm sure there are better ways to keep their minds busy though.
>I'm sure there are better ways to keep their minds busy though.
Yeah! Where is my flying car? I want research on antigravity and cosmos energy.
>>7
No, the shield doesn't have to be perfect, actually. It just has to make the enemy think that a first strike would not effectively destroy all the other side's nuclear arsenal.
You're thinking "Cold War," anyway. Such a system would not be intended for use against Russia. The Russians are our friends, more or less, at least for the moment. It'd sure make a lot of assholes pucker in Beijing, Pyongyang, and Tehran, though.
It doesn't even have to work, really. It could be cardboard mockups with tinfoil glued on them to make them look all ZOMG L33T SPACE AGE and if the enemy believed they were real and would work, that'd be good enough.
very agreed.
but thanks to things we cherish like democracy, liberty, and some transparency of government, unless it does work, everyone will know it doesn't work.
if i was tehran, pyongyang, or beijing, i wouldn't be the least bit afraid that americans could shoot down an incoming mirv nuclear-warheaded icbm coming down over l.a.
to be honest, i wouldn't expect them to be able to intercept a single mirv icbm in the next 10 years.
oh, and why is beijing in that list? don't they have dozens of nuclear icbms? i think they're effectively almost as much of a nuclear threat as russia ever was, aren't they?
not that i'm saying that china has as many nukes as russia did: but if china launched at us, they'd have more than enough to destroy every major city, wouldn't they?
>>11
For that argument to work you'd have to assume the enemy had enough nukes to destroy any retaliatory capability in the first place. If they have that, it's not hard for them to produce a few more nukes (or countermeasures) just to make sure.
Not that I misunderstand where you're coming from, but I think it's more likely for these smaller powers to attempt to ship the nuke in. Firing a single rocket at the US is plain retarded, with or without a working shield.
You guys obviously haven't heard of the Navy's SM3. It will actually directly hit a modern ballistic inbound. Yes, the AEGIS + SM3 system actually works today and can do hit-to-kill. The PAC-3 also works to some extent (not the original Patriot with the buggy software :P)
Of course, then we have this new fangled missile defence system full of buggy software (maybe it's being done in java!) being pushed forward when it's clearly not ready. Use the damn existing system that actually works you morons.
Or maybe they actually want a repeat of the Patriot catastrophe.
Oh, they go that route too.
"the Pentagon plans to add 16 interceptors for ballistic missiles -- five ground-based interceptors for a total of 21 and 11 SM3 interceptors for a total of 22, according to the budget plan."
"Despite doubts expressed by some experts about the effectiveness of the bigger [53-cm] SM3 interceptor, the U.S. Navy has pressed for building it, citing its longer range and higher interception capability."
http://asiangazette.blogspot.com/2005/02/japan-talks-with-us-on-developing.html
>>12
The Chinese have maybe twelve ICBMs capable of reaching North America. The USSR had maybe twelve thousand. That's three orders of magnitude difference.
What I like about the idea is that it seizes the initiative. With a nuclear missile defense system--even a phony one that doesn't exist in any form other than Photoshopped pictures--the US would be taking the initiative, making the enemy react to us instead of just reacting to whatever they do.
In strategy the initiative is all-powerful. If you have the initiative, you are choosing what will happen, where, and when. If you've lost the initiative, you're losing the war.
> If you've lost the initiative, you're losing the war.
Or starting the war. Our good friend Machiavelli gave some good reasons for starting wars when your enemy has the "initiative", whatever that's supposed to mean.
In warfare, there are nine unchanging principles. These are the Nine Principles of War, which hold as true today as they did in the Bronze Age.
Mass: Concentrate all available forces at the critical place and time to strike with maximum possible force and make a decisive difference in the outcome.
Objective: Every aspect of war planning and every operation must serve a clearly defined and achievable objective that advances the overall war effort.
Offensive: Seize the initiative and hold the initiative at all costs. Even when forced onto the defensive, carry out raids, patrol aggressively, make spoiling attacks to seize more favorable terrain in which to conduct the defense. Do everything within your power to keep the enemy off balance. Don't just react, be proactive and make the enemy react to you. If you can seize, hold, and exploit the initiative, it is you who will dictate what happens on the battlefield, when, and where. During the Second World War, the Germans lost the initiative when the Russians counterattacked in the winter of 1942 and never quite regained it; the Japanese lost the initiative when US troops made their first big amphibious assault of the war at Guadalcanal, and were never in control of the situation again.
Surprise: Attack the enemy in a place, manner, or time for which he is unprepared. Remember, as Pournelle said, surprise is an event that takes place in the mind of the enemy commander.
Economy of Force: at all points other than the decisive point, use the bare minimum of men and resources to hold the line, in order to build up the maximum possible mobile reserve to attack at the decisive place and time.
Maneuver: arrange your forces on the ground in a way that grants maximum advantage to you and imposes maximum disadvantage upon the enemy. Mobility grants the ability to redeploy suddenly in unexpected ways, and has the effect of multiplying the power of your forces. One example is the Russian encirclement of the Stalingrad pocket during World War II, trapping an entire German army group inside.
Unity of Command: at every level of command there must be one and only one person who has final ultimate command authority. War cannot be waged by a committee.
Security: Guard all information and feed false information to the enemy wherever possible. Never allow the enemy to gain an unexpected advantage. You must know more about the enemy than he knows about you if you are to have any chance at victory.
Simplicity: The simple plan is the flexible plan. Plans requiring units to carry out complex and precise maneuvers under enemy fire with a strict timetable are suicide because too many random events take place on the battlefield (as von Clausewitz said, "no battle plan has ever survived first contact with the enemy"). Keep every aspect of every plan as simple as possible in order to be able to deal with unexpected events as they arise.
Interesting reading, thank-you. But which nuclear power is the US at war with?
In legal terms? None. In practical terms? War could break out with Iran, North Korea, or both at once any day now.
Furthermore, China's state-run press has been saying since the late 1980s that all-out war with the US is "inevitable within five years." China is a genocidal Stalinist police state that seeks first regional, then global hegemony, and we ignore this at our peril.
Iran has no nuclear weapons, and won't for the foreseeable future. China won't risk a war for numerous reasons, partly military, partly economic.
North Korea is about the only option, and probably will not have any nuclear weapons for several years. Their wonderful leader won't use any nuke they might develop unless his back is against a wall either. He wants his kids to inherit a nation, not smoking rubble, and China will be pressuring him to keep any nukes firmly on the ground.
> partly military, partly economic.
nuclear war with the united states isn't a rational decision.
its completely 0-sum. there is no conceivable outcome in which anyone, anywhere, would benefit.
unless you disagree with that, you have to assume only irrational reasons for starting a war in which the usa would feel pressed to use nuclear weapons.
> all-out war with the US is "inevitable within five years."
you know, i just don't buy the idea of inevitable all-out war anymore. i know that people said that modern technology makes all-out war between nations unthinkable before ww1, but i really think its finally true.
if history is given a japanocentric reading, it was inevitable that japan would attack pearl harbor (or at least, the usa) because of what the american embargo did to them, especially as concerns oil.
now, move that situation up 50 years and change the players: china has no oil because of a successful usa led embargo (however implausible that is), their economy is sliding into preindustrial standards. china launches an invasion of russia or the usa or the middle east to capture oil.
to me, that sounds insanely implausible. i can't even imagine any one country making an early-20th century style resource grab. can any of you?
It's probably more a case that we'd rather not think about it. If a full-out war occurred with the US, it would obviously entail both sides being equipped with a large number of nuclear bombs and other nasties. Civilization as we know it come to an end?
Frankly, I think Kennedy and Kruschev were fucking retards par excellence to seriously play such a game.
>>22
The ayatollahs are not known for their rationality.
>>23
Remember that Japan's invasion of China made the American trade embargo inevitable; from the end of World War I on, the educated American elites were fascinated with Chinese culture and there were fads for Chinese food (note how popular Chinese cuisine is in the US even today) and Chinese games like mah-jong. These American elites viewed Japan's invasion of China with horror and rage. And many of them owned newspapers. The question is, what motivated the fascist military junta ruling Japan in the 1930s to invade China in the first place?
>>24
Ever read anything about games theory? Brinksmanship was a zero-sum game with tremendous stakes. It only took one player to initiate the game, and whoever backed down first, lost.
Yes, I know about game theory. However, you're working with a flawed model, and I don't think you fully comprehend what "zero-sum" game entails. Kennedy and Kruschev were close to the Prisoner's Dilemma. How about we put it in real-world terms to make it obvious?
Teenage dude A and teenage dude B decide to play a game of chicken. They get in their cars, rev up, and race towards each other at maximum velocity. Now, what do you think is the most rational outcome?
Of course, there are several pairs of people each year who don't blink. We bury them and privately think they're retards. Because they are.
Except that our fine friend Kennedy and Kruschev weren't just playing with their own lives. They were playing with millions, and potentially billions, of lives. The most reasonable scenario is that neither engage in this game at all. Next is one blinks, takes a loss.
If neither blinks, trying for a win, the worst-case scenario occurs, and we probably all die.
Got that?
Sorry for the scathing tone, BTW. Today has been hectic on my end.
what irrational thing has an iranian ayatollah done?
most the time they seem to be playing the awful hand they were dealt quite well.
kennedy and kruschev were idiots. what was there to lose in allowing the soviets to base missiles in cuba? yes they'd have guaranteed first nuclear strike, but the system is so distributed that mad would still be guaranteed.
if i was kennedy the soviets could have put a nuclear weapon under my desk and i wouldn't care. if nuclear war ever breaks out, proximity to the impact points won't matter much. god, one could only hope to die in the explosion!
What circumstances would have justified action, then, in your opinion?
Once we as a society believed that we have a moral obligation to oppose evil--and the Soviet Empire certainly qualified, as it was a brutal totalitarian state with publicly stated ambitions of global conquest, whose sole export was genocide--no matter the risk, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences. But something changed.
wow, i strongly disagree with your premise... by which i mean:
>no matter the cost
i can't imagine any culture that ever considered "destruction of the human race" an acceptable cost for anything. all good philosophy is inherently utilitarian; that is to say, one ought to have the greatest possible ratio of good to bad. the destruction of the human race negates all good, meaning that the ratio becomes 0/bad, where bad is a quantity of bad expressed by the untimely deaths of 6 billion people and everything they ever loved. it is the worst conceivable outcome, and therefore the epitome of evil.
> all good philosophy is inherently utilitarian
That isn't affecting the assertion (which could reasonably be made) that the political philosophy of a country is sometimes motivated by non-utilitarian, irrational and consequently very self-destructive motives. Entropy will do that to certain ideologies.
>>30
The Soviets were always rational enough to back down whenever the West confronted them resolutely. Evil usually is, though not always. The times of greatest danger to the world during the Protracted Struggle were not when the US stood firm, but rather when the West tried appeasement, which didn't work any better on the USSR than it did on Hitler.
a) If they hadn't backed down, we might not be here today to argue this. What is that supposed to prove?
b) The USSR wouldn't last forever. Extinction does.
c) Lack of direct confrontation is not appeasement.
d) "Evil"?
Yes. Evil. Evil is real and has always existed. When we confront it and do not back down from it, we can halt its advance, perhaps even push it back a little sometimes, though evil never dies.
Stalin alone killed thirty million Ukrainians. In all the lands under Soviet occupation, there was not one family left whole, not one family left intact, from the Elbe to the Pacific, from the Arctic Circle to the Himalayas. His successors were no more humanitarian than he was. Relatives of mine died in the Soviet extermination camps at Kolyma and Uglegorsk.
What is your solution to this scenario?
Soviet ambassador: "Surrender or we destroy the world." You can answer "yes" or "no." Choose one.
I cannot see any rational way to defend any answer other than "no," either "No, we're calling your bluff," or "No, we choose to die on our feet rather than on our knees."
>which could reasonably be made
no, i just disagree. show me a decision on the part of a nation which is both irrational and important.
when it comes down to it, if you get a couple dozen wealthy, powerful, and elderly men in a room together making all your decisions, you remove all humanity from the process, and you're left with economics and game theory.
there are 0 self-destructive decisions in the history of human nations... there are only short-sighted economic decisions. this isn't just my point, jared diamond wrote a whole book about it recently, called "collapse", if you're interested in the idea, and would like a couple of dozen examples of how what are commonly perceived to be irrational or hateful decisions are really just economic decisions forced by poverty and political expediency. his chapter on how the rwondan genocide had nothing to do with ethnic tensions in particular blew me away.
of course you'd say no. but not because its what john wayne would do. you'd say no because they know that they live in the world too. :P
and thats why your hypothetical never occured; because the soviets didn't want to die anymore than we did.
noone is advocating that the u.s. surrendered to the soviets, but extinction of the human race is not a reasonable response to the arming of a tiny island south of florida, especially when it wouldn't have changed the outcome of a nuclear war anyway.
unless you have some argument that cuba having nukes would have allowed nuclear war without mutually assured destruction, then i'd like to hear your argument about how a development which doesn't change the outcome of total nuclear war in the least is worth total nuclear war.
>>34
I find your labelling somewhat simplistic. Let's ignore that for a second though, and look at a-c) instead. You never gave a compelling reply to any of them. I'm particularly interested in what your counter to b) will be.
"No, we choose to die on our feet rather than on our knees," certainly makes for gallant propaganda, but when playing with nuclear bombs strikes me as misguided. National pride and dickflag-waving aside, brinksmanship and one-upmanship is exactly like the two retards racing towards their death.
Fortunately it was Kruschev that time, and not Stalin. Surrounded by his private army of paranoia-provoking denizens, who knows how he might have responded.
I stand by my statement that Kennedy and Kruschev were both idiots.
a) Appeasement is cowardice, and in the case of a totalitarian state as brutal and ambitious as the USSR or Nazi Germany, appeasement was treason to the human race. Appeasement only encourages an aggressor (on a smaller scale, the Israelis have spent the last fifteen years learning this lesson over and over on a daily basis). If Kennedy had backed down, we would likely be having this conversation in Russian, or in a death-camp in Alaska or Siberia.
b) The USSR lasted until President Reagan seized the initiative and began arming and funding anti-Soviet guerilla movements in the Third World, like the Contras in Nicaragua, the Mujhadin in Afghanistan, and UNITA in Angola. Had he not shown resolve and dared to confront the Soviets, the USSR would still exist and the world would still be under threat of nuclear war.
c) There exists a moral obligation to oppose totalitarianism by any and every means available--no matter the risk, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences. Against a Hitler or a Stalin, appeasement never works, only demonstrations of resolve. When we fail to oppose those who seek to do evil, we share the guilt for their crimes. Actions have consequences, and we are responsible for the results of the choices we make.
d) Thirty million dead Ukrainians, and perhaps twenty million others--Poles, Lithuanians, Finns, Rumanians, Hungarians, Russians, Czechs, and more, would certainly call the Soviet Empire evil. This does not even count the horror wrought in lands outside direct Soviet occupation by Soviet puppet regimes like those of Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, and Muammar Qaddafi.
You keep talking about "extinction of the human race." This strikes me as ridiculously overblown rhetoric. During the Protracted Struggle, most of each side's nuclear arsenal was pointed at the other side's nuclear arsenal. Destroying every large city in the Northern Hemisphere would have been an unimaginable horror and it might well have sent the survivors of the human race back to the Iron Age for centuries or millenia, but it would certainly not have "exterminated humanity." A valid point requires no exaggeration.