Actually, this statement is too weak since we have clearly been doing tests of the hit-to-kill system that probably go beyond any reasonable definition of research to the stage of development. Those apparently weren’t in violation of the treaty either since we’ve been doing them for the last several years.
It’s the multiple radars restriction that Bush was chafing under:
-Missile Defense Tests Are Put Off, U.S. Delay Averts Face-Off With Russia; Washington Post, October 26, 2001 (archives)
Of course NMD isn’t just R&D anymore, Bush announced that he intends to deploy a “rudimentary” system next year. Obviously the administration has made bold breakthroughs with its “evolutionary approach” to R&D&D, else they’ve got too many nimrods using Powerpoint to help them “think outside the box.”
ElvisL1ves said:
I’ve heard that some money is being transferred from that. But the ‘bulk’ of it? Have you got a cite?
In any event, even if the amount actually given amounted to only 2 or 3 billion, doesn’t that count as a good thing? How much did the Clinton administration offer in 8 years?
Do you have a cite that Bush killed this program? My understanding is that it was an internal NASA decision, because the X-33 program was seriously in the weeds. It was becoming hellishly complex and expensive, with many problems still left to be solved. I don’t think Bush had anything to do with that decision.
And you can’t get around the fact that under the Clinton administration NASA’s budget was decimated. Have a look at this chart.. NASA’s budget increased dramatically at the end of the Reagan administration and beginning of the first Bush administration. Under Clinton, it went into decline for eight years. Under Bush II, NASA is once again getting budget increases above the rate of inflation. Bush has also committed additional funds to project Prometheus, and the orbital spaceplane.
But even more important, Bush appointed a bean counter who is cutting fat out of NASA and killing some of the pork projects that were endemic in the Clinton years. Not only was NASA’s budget cut dramatically during Clinton’s tenure, but Congress forced NASA to take on hundreds of science projects it didn’t want or need, meaning even more drastic cuts to its core programs.
Complaining about Iraq. You?
Hey, I said that some of the things I listed would be seen as good or bad, depending on your political point of view. I guess you didn’t read very carefully.
[sarcasm] Hmmm… Let’s see… If I recall, and I just finished studying the Constitution… I vaguely recall something called separation of church and state… hmm… Is it just me, or does this violate the First Amendment? Hmm…
Also, what the hell are you talking about World Empire? We aren’t an empire yet… Unless…
[/sarcasm]
That is quite possibly the worst thing I have ever heard.
How exactly does enforcing religion make a stable world government? I don’t get it. If anything, we should promote religious tolerance. Not vice-versa…
One little known achievement: he prevented us from having to face unpleasant truths about ourselves, and our piss-poor judgement when it comes to leadership.
It has escaped the attention of most of my fellow citizens that Ron Reagans presidential papers were due to be released, what, two years ago. Iran-Contra, Grenada, etc. The Rejkavik summit. All of those juicy historical facts. Locked up and put away. Executive order. National security. Move along, you looky-loos, nothing to see here.
I think I know why. I think you do too.
Right. The UCS paper I linked to (especially the full report) discusses in detail why it doesn’t seem credible that a test of the radar that would have violated the ABM treaty is important at this stage.
By the way, a distinction that I haven’t pointed out that is worth making is that the development and testing of land-based systems has the fewest restrictions on it…next to none as I understand it. To quote from the Coyle article:
There are more restrictions on development and testing of sea-based and air-based systems but we aren’t at a stage with them yet where we have anything to develop or test.
By the way, one silver lining of the withdrawal from the ABM treaty is that they now no longer will have it as an excuse to explain any lack of progress. On the other hand, Rumsfeld has been hard at work trying to make sure that this lack of progress won’t become apparent by classifying previously-available information about tests (and thus the limitations of them will be harder for scientists outside of the government such as those at UCS to determine and point out), trying to exempt the system from the normal “fly before you buy” regulations that try to guarantee that the government doesn’t buy weapons systems that don’t meet minimum performance criteria, and by trying to get rid of a lot of Congressional oversight of the program. (I believe that last attempt was so egregious that even Congress might not have stood for it…although I am not sure how it all worked out in the end.)
Some relevant links concerning attempts to get around oversight and “fly-before-you-buy” requirements for the missile defense system:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6021
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5238
[By the way, the interviewee in the second link, Lisbeth Gronlund of UCS, is someone I know to some degree personally since she was a few years ahead of me in the physics PhD program at Cornell. She was recently made a fellow of the American Physical Society, a fairly prestigious honor (my wild-ass guess is that maybe 20% of PhD physicists might hope to attain this during their lifetime and she’s still pretty young).]
Of course the bolded word would be more meaningful if I hadn’t left out the “t”…i.e., theater.
By the way, just to reiterate the original bone of contention for the benefit of manhattan, Sam Stone had said:
So, all you have to do to show that I have my facts wrong is to produce a quote that supports the interpretation of the ABM treaty that would have made these moves a violation had it still been in force. Since the Bush Administration was very creative in coming up with excuses to get out of the ABM treaty, they surely must have mentioned this one if it is indeed a valid concern at the time of withdrawal from the treaty. Furthermore, since the U.S. has deployed Patriots in Israel (and to protect its troops in Saudia Arabia) during the Gulf War, there must surely be something on the web discussing how the Russians vociferously objected to this supposed violation of the ABM treaty if they did do so. In other words, a cite proving me wrong if I am wrong ought to be trivial to find.
Sorry for my lateness…
http://www.space.com/news/spacestation/nasa_congress_010731.html
“Fears of a catastrophic shuttle accident were raised last summer with the White House by a former Nasa engineer who pleaded for a presidential order to halt all further shuttle flights until safety issues had been addressed.”
But, to be fair, it was part of a long standing policy to fuck NASA over. Starting from the depths of the Reagan era to the Bush era to even Clinton (who was skimming NASA to balance the budget with the GOP congress) and now Bush.
One positive thing about Bush’s presidency, other than the lowest consumer confidence in 10 years:
the positive thing… he sure did SEEM like he was wanting to get Osama dead or alive. But now that OBL is in Northwest Pakistan (Pervez would prefer to deny this, since he can’t control Peshawar) and Saddam got into the spotlight, I guess that “Dead or Alive” thing is off.
Another positive thing: Bush fulfilled his plan, assuming that Osama is dead of course (which you’d have to produce evidence of, and not assume he is dead due to a lack of evidence that he is alive. Using that logic, hundreds of hermits are dead and not in their houses.)
RIP hermits
Many of you are overlooking President George W. Bush’s greatest achievements. He has wisely streamlined our unwieldly, two hundred year plus-year-old Constitution to allow for greater flexibility of executive action in this dangerous 21st century world. It started with his elevation to the office of the President. When faced with the challenge of an Usurper, Our Leader, with great wisdom, decided that the mechanism prescribed for disputed elections in the obsolete Amendment XII was hoplessly outmoded and infringed on his Right to hold sway over These Several States. The highest court of the land agreed that any further delay or action by congress or the states would impinge upon the Leader’s right to rule and proclaimed that he take his place at the head of this Nation. This lesson in the proper method of chosing a successor when Our Great Leader is no longer able to serve will be invaluable to the future of this great Nation.
Our Leader is Wise and Good.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001 (which were entirely the fault of Our Leader’s predecessor, whom our Great and Wise Leader has mercifully refrained from trying as a traitor) The Great Leader bravely and swiftly cut through the cursed Constitutional “protections” which allowed the evil infidels to attack us, such as the so-called “right to counsel” and the hated Amendment IV, which was an intolerable burden on the beloved, trusted, strong central government’s abillity to protect us. We all feel much safer now that Our Glorious Leader has the abillity to detain those who would threaten us for as long as he, in His Wisdom, sees fit. The fact that He has been freed from the treasonous clutches of “judicial oversight” is cause for me to thank God that he has sent a man like George W. Bush to protect me and my country.
The wisdom and glory of our Wise and Glorious Leader are dazzling to behold.
Actually, jshore, if I understand you I think we’re pretty close to agreement on at least some of the substance. Your main argument seems to boil down to that Bush “rushed” out of the treaty before it became literally, legally necessary, yes? To wit,
Could he have waited another 18 months or 2 years or 4 years? From the publicly available information, maybe. Where we seem to disagree is whether it was “Freakin’brilliant!” I believe it was. We were going to need to get out of the thing anyway at some point, the counterparty to the treaty was in no position (or inclination) to increase it’s threat to us, a window occurred where we could get out without serioius diplomatic consequences, we took it. Good show, I say.
Sigh. The old Patriots were not a violation because it wasn’t designed to strike missiles – and mostly didn’t, as so many critics have pointed out. The new Patriot under development might have bumped up against the treaty – there’s some room for tactical missile defenses, as opposed to strategic ones.
And yes, any other country was “allowed” under ABM to put up, unilaterally, their own defense. Just like I’m “allowed” to build my own airplane from the ground up. But I can’t. Not a good one, anyway – I’m a little short of cash, airplane parts and technical know-how. The point is that the United States could not assist them. That’s plain letter in the treaty. There is exactly one country in the world that’s anywhere close, technologically, to developing a real, viable missile defense. Us. (heh. U.S. – us. I’m such a 6-year-old sometimes.) Withdrawing from the treaty allows us to assist our allies.
Finally, a clarification. In my prior post, I referred to “insults.” I do indeed find it insulting to be accused of attacking strawmen when I’m not. But you (or anyone else) did not post an insult under the rules of the SDMB or of this forum. On account of the “moderator” tag under my name, I should have been more clear or not used that term. I apologize for the error. Now if you’ll excuse me, I just got about half a dozen “report this post to a moderator” emails – off to run the spammers out of GQ.
While I recognize Vibro’s intelligent explication on Our Leader’s bold and creative approach to Constitutional law, especially as it relates to outmoded “branches” of governance and the entirely obsolescent notion of “checks and balances”…nonetheless, I insist that his groundbreaking advances in phenomenology, his bold re-examination of the nature of reality and the essence of truth, will remain the true foundation of his legacy in the coming decades of his reign.
Well, we don’t quite agree as much as you imply here because I would argue that perhaps he could have waited forever…We are just simply not at a point yet to evaluate whether when we might or might not have a workable defense at some point down the road and when that will be, assuming you want to deploy something that will really work in operational conditions against likely scenarios it will face.
It is sort of like quitting one job because someone tells you that they just might have a much better job for you soon. Yes, I know, you might not consider getting out of the ABM treaty to be analogously bad…And, only time will tell how bad a move it was. Actually, it may be hard to tell because it will be hard to assign effects to cause. I mean I think that North Korea’s behaving particularly badly over the last few months is related to the Bush Administration’s general international policy with the getting out of the ABM treaty and rushing to deploy a defense being one of these things. But, I am sure that others will blame it all on Clinton. (I am curious how many years of Bush we have to endure before anything is perceived as his fault.)
At any rate, I think that getting out of the ABM was probably not as bad as this apparent rush to deploy and also this attempt to thwart Congressional and outside oversight of the program and to exempt it from “fly before you buy” and that sort of stuff. That’s really where the Bush Administration goes off into loony-land.
Thanks. I was sort of wondering what you considered to be an insult. I figured it was the “strawman” thing since that was the closest I could find to one.
The North Korea thing may not be a crisis, but apparently it’s enough to put deployment before testing on NMD:
Yeah, it keeps getting worse and worse! And here is another MSNBC link (which I actually got to from clicking on a link from the article you cited) that shows that even the current director of testing at the Pentagon (i.e., the successor to Philip Coyle) is having trouble with the idea of deploying the missile defense system in its current stage. No wonder the Bush Administration wants to exempt it from operational testing!
The sad part is that all of this is really no surprise for those of us who have followed this issue fairly closely.