I said
It was actually China that Bush said this to regarding their nuclear arsenal. My apologies for the misstatement.
Just about everything GWB does makes our allies mad.
Erek
Maybe that’s so he’ll have more “rogue nations” to wave as bogeymen for his pointless and stupid missile defense system?
“The need for a missile defense system today is greater than ever, now that Scandanavia, France, Australia, Japan, and Canada have become rogue nations for refusing to accept my boneheaded policies.” 
Can anyone actually argue in favour of this, or are we in universal agreement that this is a stupid idea?
Yeah…I also keep wondering when the first pro-NMD person will show his head. There are a few out there, I think!
Oh well. I’m not in favour of it, but I’ll give it a shot.
Lets see…
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The demise of the Soviet Union means that a lot of missile technology could be easily disseminated amongst a lot of countries who do not view the US favourably. In any event, as time passes, a lot more countries will develop of their own accord technology enabling missile attacks on the US.
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The current crop of “rogue states” could easily expand or contract. Pakistan’s change from a democracy to a military junta is an example of the transitional nature of the times.
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The factors listed in #1 and #2 above means that there is a probability that a large number of “rogue states” might develop, and have access to missile technology. This might not happen overnight, or even within the next 5 to 10 years, but it might happen in the future. This is just as well, because the technology to develop a shield will have a very long lead in time. If the US doesn’t start now, it won’t be ready when the threat materialises.
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US allies have no grounds for complaint - the US taxpayer is paying for this. In any event, as the technology becomes more developed, it could be extended to protect US allies.
Funny, I thought this was the answer to the question, “Why do we have this program?”
Direct answer: To keep money flowing to defense contractors so that Bobby Weaponsscientist’s family can have food on the table, private edumacation, and a SUV to tote the twin’s soccer equipment (more than likely after BW’s boss contributing quite a bit of funding to Bush2’s campaign).
…orrrrr were you looking for a logical answer for the system itself?
-'cause it seems to me there isn’t one.
*Originally posted by Dave Stewart *
and
Valiant attempt Dave Stewart
For Australia, point #4 is especially poignant. The US taxpayer may be paying for the system, but it’s the allies who’ll foot the bill for the consequences. Australia biggest market is China, so NMD forces the excruciating decision to choose between our strongest commercial ally and our strongest strategic ally.
They may not be paying the bill, but they will have to deal with the fallout, both political, economic and actual. As was already noted, the development of the system puts our allies in the position potentially of choosing between political alliances with the US and economic alliances elsewhere. And everyone is in increased danger when there are more missiles, nuclear or otherwise, in the world. One thing that I don’t understand about the system. Even if it were to work 100% and never ever miss even one missile, a destroyed missile still has its nuclear payload. So let’s say north Korea launches a nuclear missile at the United States that will actually reach the United States. Star Wars shoots down the missile. So the missile doesn’t continue to the US; instead it falls on someone else and maybe explodes. Great, the US is safe but China just lost five million people in a nuclear detonation. What do you suppose China’s reaction is going to be? Even if the warhead doesn’t detonate, the liklihood of radioactive contamination is enormous, and even if somehow the warhead doesn’t explode and doesn’t contaminate anything, someone gets a free warhead full of fissionable material.
Well in my experience many of the people who support NMD are the same ones always yammering about “big government” and “pork barrel spending.” The cognitive dissonance in this case may simply be too great.
Actually, Otto, given the geography, its more likely to be the USA’s good buddies in Japan, Guam, or maybe even Canada (I leave that one to anyone any good at plotting trajectories over the surface of a sphere) who cop a face full of radioactive debris.
Well, it depends what you are talking about here. For the mid-course, exo-atmospheric interception, I really don’t think that is a plausible scenario…If the kill vehicle hits the warhead at all (which by that time will be separated from its booster rocket) then it is going to blow it pretty much is going to blow it to smithereens. And being so far outside the atmosphere, I don’t think the radiation is an issue. However, there is more debate about what would happen in the boost phase. Some think that even in that case a hit on the warhead or even booster rocket would render the warhead inoperative but others are not so sure and then things could get dangerous.
Dave, nice attempt to play devil’s advocate. But, you have only argued part of the case. Now you have to argue that it is safer to deploy a shield than to try to take measures to prevent proliferation (which are easier to do when you aren’t pissing off the Russians et al.) You also have to argue why it is important to start deploying something (and negating the ABM treaty) so fast when almost all serious scientists say it is way immature and indeed the system can’t even pass completely unrealistic and rigged tests half the time.
Have fun! 
Well, although I like the idea behind NMD, and I feel it should be researched, I don’t think we should be striving to implement it any time soon. While we may not have the technology or the reason to implement it now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider it and research the technologies needed to actually do it.
But implement it now, as Bush proposes? No.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the President knows something we don’t? I wonder if his initial security briefing went something like, “Now let’s tell you the truth about North Korea”… Or something like that. Maybe missile defense is far more developed than we’ve been let on, because the successful programs are ‘black’. Who knows?
After all, every president since 1980 has supported missile defense when the majority of the public and the congress have been against it. Even Clinton quickly got on board the missile defense bandwagon after becoming President.
Sam Stone does make a valid point. After all, the military had developed stealth technology years before it was even hinted about. Why would NMD technology be any different?
I can guarantee this: If the government DOES have the technology, you can be damn sure they will not disclose it unless they utterly HAVE to disclose it.
Also, the government might know about potential hostilities and threats that the general public don’t know about.
I’d rather have the Fed. Gov. spend my money on missile defence than paying some welfare mama to have kid #6.
Did Gene Stoner mention welfare mothers with 6 kids all with different last names? Why, that racist/bigot/homophobe. Who does he think he is?
Um, Sam may have a bit of a point. We don’t really know the details about how credible a missile threat is and who the Rogue nations really are. While I doubt very much that the US intelligence services really knows a lot that the global press doesn’t know also, it’s at least concievable that they do.
Then again, they didn’t predict the fall of the USSR, even though my Soviet Foreign Policy prof did. Back in '85 he was saying that the Soviet union was crumbling from within and probably wouldn’t last another 10 years. This guy was a civilian who had family in Warsaw. Meanwhile the CIA is still behaving like the cold war is going to go on forever. :rolleyes:
But all of this is irrelevant, because as much as we might want to have a effective missile defense. We can’t make one now, or in the forseeable future. The problems are just too hard. Any half way competent student of the physical sciences can analyze the problem and come to that conclusion. It just isn’t possible for the Govt to keep secret the fundamental laws of motion, (or, for that matter, the state of the art in software.)
Ironically, the hardest missiles to hit will be those lobbed at us by rogue states. You see, modern warheads are spun, like a football, to stabilize them and make them more accurate. A spun warhead presents a target that is always of the same shape an orientation relative to the interceptor, so it’s a constant source of light/heat moving in a way distinct from stars, and thus possible to track.
But a more primative warhead tumbles end over end after it separates from the launch vehicle. This makes them less accurate, but much easier to design and build. Unfortunately for NMD, these objects present a random winking, blinking image to the interceptor which is nearly impossible to acquire and distinguish from background noise. Pentagon experts have basically admitted that they have no idea how to solve this problem and will probably need a decade or more of research before they might have a solution. Until recently this wasn’t considered much of a drawback because the primary threats had more modern missiles that spin.
One more thing. The only surprise about stealth technology was that it had actually been built. The fact that a sealth plane could be built was already clear from commonly available information about materials properties and commercial radar equipment. The techniques that they used represented no scientific or techical breakthrough at all. (A few manufacturing breakthoughs though).
There are many things that the Govt can keep a secret, but laws of nature and properties of materials aren’t among them.
tj
Clinton was willing to proceed with research, and one his later acts as president was a decision NOT to proceed with implementation without further orderly testing.
His reasoned approach to the problem is not at all similar to the current administrations mad scramble to force the country to abandon the ABM treaty.
When you consider all the times Bush or Rumsfeld have said things to the effect of “we don’t care if it works right away, we just need to get something built” it seems that getting out of the treaty is the not a side issue, but the administrations primary goal.
That interpretation is consistent with Bush’s apparent attempts to get the North Koreans to restart their missile program, as well as the administrations endorsement of a larger nuclear force in China. Both positions serve to decrease public confidence in the safety of american cities rom nuclear attack, and thus increase public pressure that we ignore the ABM treaty.
-Like the number of viable fetal stems cell lines in the world, right ?
If Bush has some sort of secret knowledge that made him decide to go whole hog for NMD, he must have had it before he was ever president, because he was a big fan of NMD throughout the campaign. It couldn’t be a very large secret if they tell it to every Tom, Dick and Harry who just happens to be running for president could it ?
The administration has been remarkably unsuccessful at convincing the american people, the russians or any friendly foreign power of the need to rush deployment. It seems to me that my tax dollars would be better spent paying off the debt that we built up the last time we went chasing off after some crazy Buck Rogers fantasy in the skies; which is not to say that I don’t support continued research within the bounds of existing treaties.
Wow…I have heard of desperation arguments, but if Sam Stone and Monster104 have to the resort to the “what if they know things we don’t” defense, we know that the arguments for deploying missile defense cannot be won on their merits!
Squink and Tejota have already debunked this pretty well. But, just to add a point here: Why the hell is it in the government’s best interests to publicize what they have about missile defense and the needs for it but to leave their best arguments for it under a veil of secrecy? I mean, give me a break! I think a rational person would have to conclude that if they are hiding anything from us, it is likely to be the things that are most damning to their case. And, in fact, there is already some evidence of this…e.g., the suit by a former employee of one of the contractors (Boeing?) who was fired after whistle-blowing to expose the fact that they rigged the results of a test. [Basically, in one of the tests where they wanted to see if the system could discriminate between a warhead and a decoy, they released some data showing how it had correctly locked onto the warhead. Unfortunately, this was an editted part of the time series that neglected to show how it later switched and locked onto the decoy. This despite the fact that the decoy and warhead looked quite different in these tests and also, I think, that they were given general info in advance about what the decoy and warhead would look like. ]
Exactly. No one knew that the government was building it, even though they HAD been developing it and building stealth jets years before the public got a whiff of it. If that’s not secrecy, I don’t know what is.
Can you read? I haven’t resorted to anything. I’m AGAINST deploying any NMD program any time soon. I simply noted Sam Stone made a good point in that the government has secret technologies that we, the general public, don’t know a lot about, and I backed that up with the example of the development of the F117.
No they didn’t. They simply provided input that shows that saying “the government has secrets” is not a reason to support a rush deployment of NMD. It doesn’t mean that the government doesn’t have the technology at all, but it does mean no one can use “the government has secrets” without some good correlating evidence that would suggest that the government actually DOES have the technology in secret and that there actually IS a reason to deploy it (God, I hope this makes sense).
Or are you saying the government doesn’t know anything the public doesn’t know about?