Missile Defense System

[Ice]

I think the development of this is good because if a country like North Korea ever launched a primative nuke at us, we would able to shot it down. I understad it's useless against someone like Russia because of the newer technology and the sheer number they can fire.

EDIT:

Here is a site with information on the Missile Defense System:

http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/html/mdalink.html

[Duke Malcolm]

Ahem, what?

I believe the U.S. is planning a European Defence System to shoot down missiles from the Middle East...

[Ice]

Ahem, what?

I believe the U.S. is planning a European Defence System to shoot down missiles from the Middle East...

I'm sorry, I assumed it was common knowledge. I'll edit my post to link you to a site with information.

[Lemur]

Ultimately such a system will be a necessity. I question the timing, the technology, and the sheer pork-ishness of the current attempt to create a missile defense system. Even controlled experiments have been mind-numbing failures. If we're going to sink hundreds of billions of dollars into a system, I would love to believe that we can make it work.

So my vote is "waste of time," for now. Too expensive (currently), too unrealistic (currently), and too easy to spoof (currently).

[solypsist]

in the future all wars will be low intensity conflicts with suitcase nukes, if any. this is a waste of time and money. i wonder how many bridges-to-nowhere in alaska are attached to any funding bills for this?

[Duke Malcolm]

I'm sorry, I assumed it was common knowledge. I'll edit my post to link you to a site with information.

No, no, I was of the impression that the Missile Defence System was already in places. I wasn't sure if you were trying to say that you needed one, or trying to show that you should keep it. That's fine, though. The link is handy. Ta.

[Avicenna]

Does a US citizen who doesn't, never has, and doesn't plan on living in the USA ever count?

Anyway, there's no need. America is a few trillion in debt, has the most powerful army in the world, is on its own on far away from any major powers and usually fights aggressive wars.

[Vladimir]

in the future all wars will be low intensity conflicts with suitcase nukes, if any. this is a waste of time and money. i wonder how many bridges-to-nowhere in alaska are attached to any funding bills for this?

You're an amazing man. Whenever you post here my eyes either roll out of my head or burst (babes).

[Lemur]

Why should your eyes be rolling? He's right about the pork. Just a quick search turns up some beauties. Who knew that a $6 million subsidy for Hawaiian sugar cane growers was essential to the Missile Defense Program?

[Vladimir]

Why should your eyes be rolling? He's right about the pork. Just a quick search turns up some beauties. Who knew that a $6 million subsidy for Hawaiian sugar cane growers was essential to the Missile Defense Program?

Read the bold. That's quite a prediction.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I wish could get it right cheaply. China is still... China. An effective missile defense system would be pretty sweet.

[AwesomeArcher]

Better safe then sorry. It is as simple as that.

[spmetla]

I support the development of it. It's too primitive now to be deployed en mass but they should keep working at it until it's at least reliable and accurate, then deploy it en mass.
I support the US's unsaid goal for nuclear dominance. although suitcase nukes are always a possiblity I just hope that the countries that the US needs to worry about don't have that capability yet and those that do (France, UK, Russia) are at least semi friendly enough with the US to not give that technology away.
And as for low intensity conflict, I too envision that most conflicts will be for the most part low intensity but that's no excuse to leave yourself unprepared for the conventional aspect of a war. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 would have been a lot harder if the military wasn't setup for a conventional war and it's even harder to fight a low intensity war without heavy equipment, especially when casualties are an issue (no draft in place). The US just needs to update their warfighting plan for lowintensity conflicts and train for it as well. Also the CIA needs to improve it's on the ground intelligence gathering capabilities much more, the Iraq war showed that fuzzy satelite photos and one or two sources on the ground aren't reliable enough to depend on, and the inability to inflitrate terrorist organizations is a huge problem, Osam should have been caught long ago.

[doc_bean]

It's a waste of money, but if that's what you guys want to waste your money on go ahead. It will lead to Russia and possibly some other places developing more sophisticated missiles, and since the shield doesn't work on primitive carrier missiles, I'd say it's a pretty bad plan from a strategic point of view.

Right now we are simply not technologically advanced enough to make it work. If I were in charge I'd keep a missile defense system in the back of my mind and support technology that has applications now, but can in the future contribute to making a better defense system. I certainly wouldn't announce we were working on one...

And like other people pointed out, the chance of it actually ever being useful is slim. Russia claims to be pretty advanced with its scramjets and i'm pretty sure China could get their hands on them if they wanted to, either by espionage or their own development, pretty soon China will have the biggest pool of engineers in the world, a lot of them having gotten their education in top universities around Europe and the US, compare this potential to the way the US use its defense program for pork belly politics and things don't look too good for you.

[Major Robert Dump]

Didn't answer, I'll tell you why:

Yes, its a good idea

No, its been in development far too long, when it started its idea was far ahead of anyone elses capabilities, and we still havent produced jack shit in progress. Come on, man, we've been lining people's pockets, pull your heads out of your asses. We coulda paid Pepsi as much money to make us one 20 years ago and it would have been done by 2000 and had a fekking jingle and logo the kids would love.

[Divinus Arma]

This is another weapon of mass retardation. M.A.D. policy with modern nations coupled with pre-emptive strikes on terrorist nations is good enough policy for me.

[Keba]

That is the problem with Mutually Assured Destruction, if one side develops a completely foolproof countermeasure, what stops them from simply blowing up the enemy, safe in the knowledge that nothing will be reaching them?

While the Missile defence would good against smaller nuclear power, last I heard, the Russians have finished development on some fancy armored missile that is, supposedly, immune to countermeasures. Also, volume would beat the system very likely ... as having several tens of thousands of missiles would probably just swamp whatever defences you did set up.

So, it's a touchy situation. Develop the system and risk sparking nuclear war, or not develop it and risk getting shot at by every madman with an ICBM.

[The Black Ship]

It's a good idea. It's goal is to stop the "rogue state" from lobbing a nuke or missle-based WMD, not to swamp the Russian or Chinese arsenals.

Militaries world wide are funding development programs, and indeed purchasing a rudimentary capability - see Japan's Aegis/SM-3 program, or the European theatre based ABM innitiative. If it's worth protecting military forces in theatre, why isn't it worth protecting civilians at home?

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I would agree that in case of a missle crisis, it would be good to have a defence system, but it seems we've already done quite a good job coming up with some.

The U.S. Navy, in cooperation with the Missile Defense Agency, today successfully conducted a ballistic missile defense demonstration involving the intercept of a target missile in the terminal phase (the last few seconds) of flight

Also, there are only a few countries we have to be worried about that would use missles against us. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a complete waste of time and needs to be completely disbanded, but maybe direct some funding elsewhere maybe?

[The_678]

I'm a little tired to read all those topics right now but this issue has always annoyed me a bit. I think the Missile Defense System is great and should be done. I remember our Idiot Gov't at the time earlier said they didn't want a part of it and made a big deal with the Americans about it. Now they realize it's potential and are begging to get back in. I would like to have Canada under a shield. What's the big problem with it?

[Lemur]

What's the big problem with it?

I'm having trouble tracking down the original article, but anyway, in The Boston Globe on May 11, 2000, two MIT physicists, David Wright and Theodore Postol, proposed some straightforward ways to defeat a missile defense shield. Among their proposals:

• Delivering a biological agent in up to 100 "bomblets" carried on a single ICBM. At the moment of separation, they would overwhelm the NMD kill vehicle by sheer numbers.
• Disguising a warhead by encasing it in a mylar balloon, and releasing a number of empty balloons as decoys.
• Enclosing the warhead in a shroud cooled by liquid nitrogen, so it becomes invisible to the heat-seeking technology used by the kill vehicle.

They concluded: "The reality is that any country that is capable of building a long-range missile and has the motivation to launch it against the United States would also have the capability and motivation to build effective countermeasures to the planned defense. To assume otherwise is to base defense planning on wishful thinking."

If I can ever track down an online version of the full article, I'll post a link. (I grabbed the above quotes from a site I don't like much.)

[GeneralHankerchief]

I think the US should have other priorities, even when it comes to security.

Mainly they should develop a system that inspects more than a small fraction of all cargo coming into our ports. That is a more immediate threat to us than missiles.

[KafirChobee]

General Hanky, has it right.

But, if you want to look seriously at the development of this starwars - umbrella - system. Then go to a barn. In each corner stand a friend with a slingshot, at the count of go each fire attempting to strike the others rock in mid-air. Now, consider that those rocks are needles and that the barn is 5 acres of land - and that you must hit the needle before it comes with in 50 yards of the surface.

Star Wars is a scam. Just as the Nike missles were in the 50's; they gave us the warm fuzzys that our government was protecting us from something they couldn't (except through diplomacy - something the present administration has no clue about how to conduct). As far as effectiveness? I have yet to talk to an engineer that believes with todays (or the 24th centurys) technology that an effective MSD can be perfected.

But, if it makes you feel good .... and makes some corporations richer - wtf.