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The US Missile Defence System

deletia

21:09 / 17.06.01

From the "Totenborg Riots" thread:Originally posted by reidcourchie:

Explain to me then why the Toxic Texan would want to put a missle defence system in this day and age?
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Fear and ignorance. Regretable, though not the same as corruption and greed.

Now, I was talking to the Man a couple of weeks ago, and I have to confess that this seems like a terribly benign view of the SoSW.

To wit. Assuming that the missile defence system can be made to work, and given enough money it will, it will significantly degrade any nation's capacity to wage nuclear war, This may provide a measure of security against "Rogue States". However, it will also potentially degrade the capability of other nuclear states, such as Russia and the UK, potentially (since Russia does not have the resources either to develop its missiles to counter the MDS or to attack the MSD directly) to the extent that the US is able to work on the assumption that it can destroy any other nation on Earth, and for the first time since the cold war began not expect to be to all intents and purposes destroyed itself.

So, the only safety, if this is the word we are looking for, from the US is now to be a part of the MDS, effectively to outsource a part of your capacity to defend yourself against foreign powers to a foreign power. Nice. If you remain on the outside, you have no protection either from other nations outside the MDS or from other nations *within* the MDS. Who themselves have to toe the line, lest they be forcibly withdrawn from the MDS in the first instance and the world of not being a fast-decaying wasteland in the second.

Plus, of course, the installation and developement of the MDS would give the US a network of orbital platforms. And dropping a big fucking rock from an orbital platform is an awfy lot cheaper and an awfy lot cleaner than using valuable nuclear weapons....

21:41 / 17.06.01

Isn't it also the case that the MDS (if it ever actually works at all) will provide no protection against anything other than missiles - so that 'rogue states' or terrorists (Dubya's 'they') will simply resort to other methods (such as suitcase bombs, chemical and biological weapons) if they wish to attack the US or its allies?

Moreover, I understand that the protection afforded by the MDS to some allies, notably Britain, will be less than adequate (going away to find some evidence for this in a minute).

And what happens if a missile and an anti-missile missile collide in the air above another country?

And yes, the purpose of SoSW does appear to be the consolidation of the position of the US as the sole superpower, able to act outside its territory with absolute impunity. The pretence of giving protection to allies is a sweetener which will have absolutely no effect in practice, since the US will be able to give or withhold aid as it sees fit - and will not need to be governed by concern for treaties or diplomatic alliances.

Unfortunately, given that the US will develop the MDS anyway, there seems little prospect of any alternative - unless you count escalating competitive arms development. So governments are offered a Hobson's choice.

deletia

10:19 / 18.06.01

As I suggest, to look at the MDS as a defence system against missiles is short-sighted in the extreme. If a nation has fissile material and a desire to deploy it there are, as you point out, many ways to do this. Missiles are a useful one, especially if you want to blow up lots of things at about the same time.

But that's a sideshow. The MDS is a significant step towards making control of space a strategically decisive factor in any future engagement.

11:29 / 18.06.01

Actually, according the Frances Fitzgerald's book "Way out there in the blue" (a history of the Reagan presidency and SDI; required reading for anyone who wants an idea of the insanity of some of the USA's leaders during the 80s), space-based missile defense has been ruled out, because satellites would be far to easy for an enemy nation to destroy. There would have to be literally thousands of detector and weapondry satellites operational for the system to work. This is why the US needs forward deployed phased array radars to install any sort of boost-phase MDS,radars that would have to be set-up in allied territory and, radars that would include technology that would abrogate the ABM treaty.

As an aside, while watching the Sunday morning political talk shows, a statistic came up that 60 percent of the US were shocked to find out we had no defense against a missile attack. Were people asleep during the cold war and Mutually Assured Destruction?

11:46 / 18.06.01

i think the simple answer is 'yes'

reidcourchie

12:01 / 18.06.01

Would just like to point out I did not give:-

Fear and ignorance. Regretable, though not the same as corruption and greed.

that as my reason for the MDS. My belief is this is just another cynical way for Bush's supporters in the military/industry complex big contracts.

I don't believe that there are any states left in the world that can pose a significant strategic missle threat to the US.

After the Cold War it was found that Russia's ICBMs were largely un-launcahable (I don't think that's a word) and China is in a much worse financial situation than Russia is/ever was. The Chinese threat is largely an excuse for military spending.

I do agree that any modern nuclear threat would probably come from nuclear terrorism but again I can't see anyone who'd have anything to gain from it except the militias.

15:51 / 18.06.01

quote:Originally posted by Sunday:
space-based missile defense has been ruled out, because satellites would be far to easy for an enemy nation to destroy.

There was an interesting article in New Scientist about all this. Apparently the US are also developing weapons that can be used in space to defend or attack satellites or space stations or anything else. Let me dig out a link if I can...

It's in the subscriber section, unfortunately...

The whole thing about this MDS is more the message it sends, if you ask me, than the actual building of it. I think it's sabre rattling, that the US is asserting it's authority after the laid back Clinton years...I can't believe that the UK are going to host parts of it though, and it won't even cover us. We should be unilaterally against this on so many counts. Still, who cares...

ynh

00:13 / 19.06.01

Ideological justifications aside, the truth of the matter is that the military indistrial complex has probably been pissed off for about 10 years in light of all the reserch and design work that's going unused, and they're more than happy to use their media outles (Westinghouse-CBS-Viacom, General Electric-NBC, &c.) to support it. Bush simply gets in front of a microphone, camera, or both, and makes whatever gibberish statement he can, and it's airable/printable.

The US has already abrogated the ABM treaty, haven't we?

ynh

09:53 / 24.06.01

My most profound "Oh for fuck's sake!" moment of the week:

quote:``I had no idea we had so many weapons,'' Bush was quoted as saying by an unidentified ``White House insider.''

``What do we need them for?'' the president was said to have asked at a briefing, according to the Newsweek report.

Just so y'all can hate us a little more: website

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:53 / 24.06.01

I was fascinated by Putin's 'threat' of an arms race.

I mean, um, gosh. All those unhappy Arms companies. All those sad, sad generals.

No, no, Mr. Putin, don't throw us in the briar patch.

15:47 / 24.06.01

I read this week that Putin has said, 'OK if you want to play, lets play' by saying ok we'll just put lots of dummy warheads into our missiles. Thereby increasing the difficulty of your intercepting a real warhead by a large factor.
Its relatively cheap to do, compared with the expense of missle defence.
*sigh* If he wants to throw money at the miltary industrial complex, why not make space rockets, space is cool. Ho Hum.

17:36 / 24.06.01

Take one puppet son of a former CIA chief. Add one former KGB chief. Mix them together, and what do you get? A new cold war.
Well that's a shocker...
Anyone else find it worrying that the Pope has started going round saying sorry to everybody? What does he know that we don't?

reidcourchie

08:47 / 26.06.01

Originally posted by invisible_al
"If he wants to throw money at the miltary industrial complex, why not make space rockets, space is cool. Ho Hum."

I agree, so does Burroughs and Bill Hicks. Space as a new Metanarritive.

Originally posted by JB
"Take one puppet son of a former CIA chief. Add one former KGB chief. Mix them together, and what do you get? A new cold war.
Well that's a shocker...
Anyone else find it worrying that the Pope has started going round saying sorry to everybody? What does he know that we don't?"

It's at times like this I tend to think that someone is organising this all. It's either that or I begin radically lowering my opinions of people inteligence around the globe. (And they weren't awfully high to begin with.)