Still Hating America.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Who is arguing to the contrary today, or are you rehashing arguments from the 80s? I haven't heard much debate on this of late, but the debate in the 80s was mostly over MAD versus other strategies.

Are you kidding? Ever since the end of the cold war there has been constant calls for the end of funding for SDI (including on this board). Why do you think Ty and Adder are debating this? Why does every time an SDI test fails it is posted on this board as a "see I told you so..."?

You would think this would be one area every rational human being in the United State could agree on, but it is not. Like I said, my theory is that since SDI was originally proposed by Reagan a large swath of Democrats and liberals will always be against the idea, no mater how much sense it makes, simply because of who proposed it.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
Are you kidding? Ever since the end of the cold war there has been constant calls for the end of funding for SDI (including on this board). Why do you think Ty and Adder are debating this? Why does every time an SDI test fails it is posted on this board as a "see I told you so..."?

You would think this would be one area every rational human being in the United State could agree on, but it is not. Like I said, my theory is that since SDI was originally proposed by Reagan a large swath of Democrats and liberals will always be against the idea, no mater how much sense it makes, simply because of who proposed it.

I happen to like toys, and view the march of technology as unavoidable. In a world where MAD prevails, SDI could upset the equilibrium and make the world more dangerous; I'm not sure MAD prevails anymore.

Reagan's star wars program was, for the most part, a conscious rejection of MAD and a switch to a concept of winnable nuclear war; that made about as much sense as the Rumsfeld Doctrine, especially given the time and technology. But, as I said, the march of technology is unavoidable, and we're not in a MAD world, and this is technology that will progress somewhere. And, in retrospect, I'd give Star Wars this bit of credit -- spending like a drunken sailor on defense played some small role (less than many would claim, but still some) in the break-up of the Soviet Union.

But if I'm budgeting, I'm expecting the rogue country to bring in the nukes via suicide bomber, since the delivery mechanisms to cross either the Atlantic or Pacific are probably a tougher thing to build these days than the bomb itself. And that would affect my priorities.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I happen to like toys, and view the march of technology as unavoidable. In a world where MAD prevails, SDI could upset the equilibrium and make the world more dangerous; I'm not sure MAD prevails anymore.

It obviously ended with the Cold War. It was a strategy used with the Soviet Union. Builing a missile defense system today will not "destablize" anything.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy Reagan's star wars program was, for the most part, a conscious rejection of MAD and a switch to a concept of winnable nuclear war; that made about as much sense as the Rumsfeld Doctrine, especially given the time and technology. But, as I said, the march of technology is unavoidable, and we're not in a MAD world, and this is technology that will progress somewhere. And, in retrospect, I'd give Star Wars this bit of credit -- spending like a drunken sailor on defense played some small role (less than many would claim, but still some) in the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Once the Cold War was over MAD was no longer the strategy. So ever since the end of the Cold War MAD has not been relevent to the discussion of SDI.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy But if I'm budgeting, I'm expecting the rogue country to bring in the nukes via suicide bomber, since the delivery mechanisms to cross either the Atlantic or Pacific are probably a tougher thing to build these days than the bomb itself. And that would affect my priorities.

Does that mean you would end research on SDI? Don't you prepare for both options? In addition, nuclear bombs have to be armed. Bringing a nuclear weapon that is not "armed", arming it in the United States and then setting if off is extremely hard to do. Every panel I have seen on this issue the experts always say the suitcase bomb scenario is extremely difficult to pull off. A dirty bomb is much easier, but that would do infinitely less damage.

In addition, bringing that much radioctive material into the US is hard to do undected. It is not as easy as it sounds. Also, it is hard to threaten to use a suitcase bomb. Once you make the threat then the US could prepare for it. Without SDI there is no way to prevent a nuclear missile from hitting the US. Therefore a missile is a much more effective tool for threats and extortion than a "bomb in a suitcase" (unless of course if you already have it here).

There is simply no rational or reasonable argument for ending funding on missile defense. Yet many Democrat Congressmen and Senators argue for just that. It is just sour grapes from the Reagan administration.

[Spanky]

Andrew Roberts was on CSPAN books notes "he wrote "A History of the English Peoples Since 1900". He said one of the big questions of world history is what if Hitler had not declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor would the US have declared war on Germany?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
Are you one of those people that think the success of the patriot missiles in shooting down the SCUDs in Israel in the first Gulf War were actually staged?

(a) The Patriot missile system isn't suitable for defense against ICBMs (as you know).

(b) IIRC, the Patriots enjoyed some limited success in that role (GW I), but a Pentagon reevaluation showed that the initial reports of their success were exaggerated.

Not that they were "staged" -- but that (perhaps for reasons of public morale in Israel) the Patriots got credit for every miss or malfunction in those antiquated and dilapidated SCUDs, so the the number of missile kills were inflated a good bit.

S_A_M

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
There is simply no rational or reasonable argument for ending funding on missile defense. Yet many Democrat Congressmen and Senators argue for just that. It is just sour grapes from the Reagan administration.

Between your desire to disagree with everything I say and your reading comprehension issues, you're a hard man to agree with.

I'd spend some money on missile defense and on all kinds of other technologies. How much? I don't know, but a not insubstantial amount - the idea of a JV with Israel that SAM suggested sounds like a good idea, given their interests.

But is there a reasonable argument for ending funding on it? Yes, I believe there is, though I wouldn't buy it myself. But I wouldn't dismiss others quite so easily. And I wouldn't be so quick to characterize others' arguments as quite so insincere. You come across as far more dismissively partisan than those you are saying are dismissively partisan.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
The whole argument against SDI is that it is a pipe dream that can never work.

Captain simplicity strikes again!

The argument is over whether it is feasable in the near term and at what cost.

The gulf war, which was just within ten years of the start of SDI showed that missiles could be shot down thereby showing the futility of that whole anti-SDI argument.

You do know that the Patriot was a (mostly) failed AA missile, not an outcrop of SDI, right?

You have gone way off the straw-man deep end this time.

If their success rate is ten percent, can't you just deploy ten times the amount of Patriots?

I'm not even going to respond to this one. But I thought it was amusing enough to see again.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
It obviously ended with the Cold War. It was a strategy used with the Soviet Union. Builing a missile defense system today will not "destablize" anything.

Wow, that was a lot of bang for the buck! SDI ended the cold war all by its lonesome?!

I suspect there are a few Lithuanians who might disagree with you.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Adder
You do know that the Patriot was a (mostly) failed AA missile, not an outcrop of SDI, right?

In Massachusetts, we believe the only more successful federal program than the Patriot missile was the Big Dig.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
Are you kidding? Ever since the end of the cold war there has been constant calls for the end of funding for SDI (including on this board). Why do you think Ty and Adder are debating this? Why does every time an SDI test fails it is posted on this board as a "see I told you so..."?

You would think this would be one area every rational human being in the United State could agree on, but it is not. Like I said, my theory is that since SDI was originally proposed by Reagan a large swath of Democrats and liberals will always be against the idea, no mater how much sense it makes, simply because of who proposed it.

Or it could be that even after being hugely stripped back from the original pipe dream, it still doesn't work.

I think we should spend reasonable amounts researching it, but I think we would be nuts to think that this is a meaningful piece of the defense strategy.

And, moreover, we should realize that it is just yet another escaltion, and its usefulness is likely to be short-lived (see, e.g., China work on anti-satellite weapons).

[Adder]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I happen to like toys, and view the march of technology as unavoidable. In a world where MAD prevails, SDI could upset the equilibrium and make the world more dangerous; I'm not sure MAD prevails anymore.

Reagan's star wars program was, for the most part, a conscious rejection of MAD and a switch to a concept of winnable nuclear war; that made about as much sense as the Rumsfeld Doctrine, especially given the time and technology. But, as I said, the march of technology is unavoidable, and we're not in a MAD world, and this is technology that will progress somewhere. And, in retrospect, I'd give Star Wars this bit of credit -- spending like a drunken sailor on defense played some small role (less than many would claim, but still some) in the break-up of the Soviet Union.

But if I'm budgeting, I'm expecting the rogue country to bring in the nukes via suicide bomber, since the delivery mechanisms to cross either the Atlantic or Pacific are probably a tougher thing to build these days than the bomb itself. And that would affect my priorities.

I am not sure that MAD is as dead as you suggest. Obviously, it is no deterrent to stateless terrorists, but it is alive an kicking to pretty much every state in the world. Which is why the ones that we don't like are all so busy trying to get nukes.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Adder
I am not sure that MAD is as dead as you suggest. Obviously, it is no deterrent to stateless terrorists, but it is alive an kicking to pretty much every state in the world. Which is why the ones that we don't like are all so busy trying to get nukes.

I'm not sure how much life MAD has in it, but nuclear strategy has not been a big focus of mine (conventional warfare is so much more fun!).

But it strikes me that Russia's dilapidated, rotting carcasses of ICBMs probably aren't a sufficient deterent to, on their own, keep the US from launching a strike against them if we decided they were the evil empire and had to go. The fact that Russia doesn't have much we want, has little remaining influence in the world, and is a nice tourist destination probably has more to do with us letting them live. That and, of course, the fact that we're a democracy not given to pushing buttons for the sake of building large, frozen, radioactive empires.

Yes, MAD may have some meaning to a North Korea, or within a regional theatre, like the Middle East, but I don't think it has that much meaning to the US per se.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I'm not sure how much life MAD has in it, but nuclear strategy has not been a big focus of mine (conventional warfare is so much more fun!).

But it strikes me that Russia's dilapidated, rotting carcasses of ICBMs probably aren't a sufficient deterent to, on their own, keep the US from launching a strike against them if we decided they were the evil empire and had to go. The fact that Russia doesn't have much we want, has little remaining influence in the world, and is a nice tourist destination probably has more to do with us letting them live. That and, of course, the fact that we're a democracy not given to pushing buttons for the sake of building large, frozen, radioactive empires.

Yes, MAD may have some meaning to a North Korea, or within a regional theatre, like the Middle East, but I don't think it has that much meaning to the US per se.

Ah, yes, I agree. MAD means little to the U.S. right now, given that there isn't anyone out there that is a credible threat to our existence. But the threat of American reprisals is still, and always will be, the only real constraint on the behavior of N.K, Pakistan and Iran.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Wow, that was a lot of bang for the buck! SDI ended the cold war all by its lonesome?!

I suspect there are a few Lithuanians who might disagree with you.

I never said SDI ended the cold war. I never even implied that it contributed to the end of the cold war. I just pointed out that the MAD strategy ended with the cold war, so the argument that we shouldn't pursue SDI because it might destabilize the MAD scenario became invalid after the end of the Cold War.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
Or it could be that even after being hugely stripped back from the original pipe dream, it still doesn't work.

I think we should spend reasonable amounts researching it, but I think we would be nuts to think that this is a meaningful piece of the defense strategy.

And, moreover, we should realize that it is just yet another escaltion, and its usefulness is likely to be short-lived (see, e.g., China work on anti-satellite weapons).

I don't think war with China is ever going to happen. We are just to intertwined economically. If a country has hundreds of missiles to throw at us, and especially if they develop MIRV technology, they will be able to get through our defenses. The system is for a country that just has a couple of missiles. But that list of nations grows all the time, and the possiblity of a lunatic getting a hold of a long range balistic missile or two grows all the time.