Well?
The events unfolding in New York and Washington DC are just the sorts of events that those who question the strategic wisdom of missile defence emphasise. These terrifying events show clearly that there is no technological solution.
Oh, bullshit. First off: those weren’t missiles being sent from abroad. They were planes and a car bomb, all originating apparently within the US borders. The missile defense is still as worthless a response to that as it is to actual missile attacks.
I’m not so sure that would really matter, Monty.
It does not matter whether or not it would work. The general push behind the missle shield is that terrorists will do somthing really dumb, and really bad, so we need some protection. One of the biggest arguments against the shield is that terrorists would not be this dumb, well they were.
Just my own thought here, but could we perhaps save using this tragedy to further any debate for at least a little while out of respect for the dead, some of whom might very well be posters to this board?
Rational thought will not carry the day here. Even if a ‘missile defense’ isn’t applicable here, and politician would oppse it at their peril.
You think this attack was dumb? This attack was brilliant. They have brought down both World Trade Center towers. It’s a terrorist’s wet dream.
CNN is currently estimating the death toll at 10,000. I mean no disrespect to the dead and their families, but do you have any idea how much worse it would have been if there was a nuke on that plane?
If a “rogue” organization was stupid enough to mount their precious nuke on missle instead of driving it in to New York Harbor in a boat or putting it on a commercial airliner . . . well, let’s just say they ain’t that stupid. Crazy. Not stupid.
[Podkayne would like the Gentle Reader to know that upon preview, she removed a considerable amount of profanity from this message, and wishes that she was eloquent enough to express her vehemence without vulgarity, but is not up to it at the current time.]
The best defense against this sort of tragedy is well funded, well trained, organized and effectively deployed intelligence assets.
Missile Defense is irrelevant to the issue.
Given that the budget is not unlimited, it’s certainly relevant to the issue. Just imagine how much intel you can buy with just half of the money Dubya wants to spend on his nonfunctional NMD toy…
The worst thing that we, as a nation, could do in the next few days is to let our understandable anger and bloodlust affect our plan of action. The tragedy that continues to unfold today will undoubtedly bring out demogogues arguing both sides of the O.P. One side will point to the need for the heightened security provided by new technological systems, while the other will counter that the most of the technology we have could not have prevented today’s attack. I sugest we try to slow our heart-rates down a bit before we evaluate missile defense.
The technology underlying the missle defense shield should continue to be researched and funded. However, the amount of funding the program draws should be weighed with the program’s usefulness in mind. The US currently has the greatest technical intelligence and defense on the planet. None of the proposed systems in the SDI umbrella would have helped one whit to prevent the tragedies we saw today. This in no way means that the research and technology is useless, just that it can be circumvented.
What we seem to be sorely lacking in is the human inteligence. We can not rely solely on spy sattelites and interceptors for intel and defense. We need more operatives in the field. We need more people on the ground in areas that might give birth to terrorist plans. Now, a modest proposal:
We should divert some (but not all) funding from the missile defense shield in order to further develop our anemic terrorist task forces. I am envisioning sister agencies, one operating through the pentagon, the other under the jurisdiction of the CIA. Their goal would to be to infiltrate and neutralize terrorist agencies operating on foreign soils. Terrorists will always prefer low-tech methods to high tech ones. The best way to counter them is old fashioned low tech spy craft.
Sorry extank, didn’t see your post. I got distracted by a coworker, and then didn’t preview after I finished typing. Anyway, I obviously agree for the most part. The only possible difference I could see between our two opinions would be on budgetary concerns.
Contrary to the OP premise, I think this pretty well kills the fantasy underlying SMD - that the threat is external and will come by missile. I believe the cognitive dissonance of seeing the deaths and destruction caused by a set of domestic hijackings will force the collapse of the argument in the minds of the Reagan cultists.
Of course, I thought the same after the earlier WTC bombing, Oklahoma City, the Nairobi and the Dar es Salaam embassies too - but the WTC won’t be rebuilt until well after Jethro is out of office, and the empty space will be all the reminder anyone needs.
US intelligence is reasonably well funded a rule. The problem is not the amount of funding but where the operational emphasis is. US covert emphasis is focused mainly on high tech data gathering operations. Having the latest satellite surveillance tools is not going to directly help you penetrate a terrorist cell. Doing that is incredibly messy and involves serious development of in country resources.
Some old line intelligence officers argue (off the record) that the intelligence services have been made less effective by a creeping “Mormon Mafia” (their term) that has infiltrated the mid and upper echelons of the US intelligence services when the services became paranoid about intelligence moles in the 60’s and 70’s and turned to clean cut “All American” Mormon hires who had foreign language and out of country experience as safe bets. These hires are now ensconced throughout the mid and upper level positions of the intelligence services and control entry level hiring. In this context any applicant who is not a clean cut, white bread type or otherwise “one of theirs” is at a disadvantage.
The point the older officers make is that some of the best intelligence officers and assets the agencies ever had were non-traditional people with colorful backgrounds who could effectively develop useful in-county resources and were willing to walk on the wild side to get the job done. They claim that Mormons and those they oversee are not willing to risk hiring these people and as a result the quality of useful one the ground intelligence has suffered.
Whether this is a fact or simply sour grapes by those who have their bureaucratic fortunes sour I have no real idea.
rjung: you’re right. In my haste, I misspoke and missed my mark.
What I was trying to say (and I hope I get it right this time) is that the type of security any notional missile defense system is expected to provide will be useless [irrelevant] against this sort of threat.
I was stating that the best defense against this sort of threat was effective intelligence, and any political debate that uses this incident to justify the funding for missile defense would be logically fallacious.
Furthermore, the military, while acting as a passive deterrant against aggressive nations in peacetime, is quite useless in preventing this type of motivated, calculated attack. The best they can do is react to punish the perpetrators, once identified.
So calls for further increases in military spending to deter this type of attack are also logically fallacious.
While I’m generally on the side advocating a missile defense system (I’m for it as a theory), I also agree that that, in light of other types of threats, it may be hard to justify.
And I belive that this incient will be the political clarion call to seriously (and quickly) reasses our strategic imperitives.
If missile defense falls by the wayside, then so be it; I’m not so tied to the concept to ignore the realities of our national security and the implications of this incident upon it.
Not after today.