National Missile Offense
Today’s discussion about National Missile Defense was pretty intense, but even Avi the Roofer, John from Cleveland and Todd from Florida seemed to agree at least somewhat with Pete that the idea is off-kilter.
Here is how I knew what Russia says is its actual reason for opposing an American missile shield, from a Congressional Research Office document:
If a nation could intercept missiles launched in retaliation, particularly if it had diminished their numbers in its initial strike, it might believe it could launch a first strike without fearing retaliation. Knowing this, the nation without the defensive system might conclude that it had to launch preemptively, before losing any of its forces in an initial attack. Under these circumstances, stability would be lost and a nation might have an incentive to launch first in a crisis.
Now ask yourself, if the US government has relayed such a cogent argument, why won’t the mainstream media ever expose that simple reasoning?
NMD is not just a waste of money. And I’m not convinced it could never work as advertised (or, like I said, Russia wouldn’t be so upset about us wasting our riches on it). But it surely does sound like Russia may respond by developing a system of counter-measures, China will beef up its nuclear ICBM arsenal, and then we’ll have to keep building and developing this system.
And US corporations will keep getting rich off the Star Wars fantasy while our national economy sinks into a pit and we can’t afford food or health care. What else could we do with $10 billion a year?
I was able to hear about a hour of your show today Pete. I have a simple question Pete. If NMD system is a offensive weapon what do you consider the Virginia Class Submarine program and the CVN aircraft carriers?
I had an oppertunity to here your show in repeat. That shit that woman was trying to sell is garbage. It really makes me upset when that group can’t get their shit together and no one calls them on it. Our president and a vast majority of his pundents believe that terrorist are our biggest problem. Isn’t that why we’re fighting this war, spending hundreds of billions of dollars, mortgaging our country and selling our kids future for. This bitch is just another case of fucking greed, that willing to use scare tactics to line her pockets. I hope that you keep doing the work that you do and I’ll continue to listen to you, thanks.
Big Bro, this is why your above statement is not going to be picked up by the mainstream media.
We are supposed to only build a very limited anti-missile system. A full scale attack from China or Russia would easily overwhelm it and render it useless.
Remember that the interceptors can not take out the ICBMs. They can only hit (and not 100% of the time) the payloads carried within the missiles. Most ICBMs carry MIRVs which are “multiple independent re-entry vehicles”. This means that one rocket can carry many warheads and/or dummy warheads.
Essentially, since I am too tired to extrapolate because I spent the last 7 hours in the hospital, the goal of this program is to simply stop the launch of a couple of rockets from a rogue nation. It is completely unviable against a large scale attack. We’d still have permanent orange afros if Russia pushed the red button.
This defense system will not de-stabalize the world. It can not attack SRBM/MRBMs or anything dropped from a plane, launched from a sub, or detonated by some terrorist from Durkadurkastan.
John,
Well said. I hope your seven hour visit was mostly waiting (as opposed to treatment).
Pete & Brian,
1. Why on earth should we take Putin at his word? I know Bush looked into Pooty-Poot’s soul and saw a good man, but I have no faith in his pronouncements of character after his words on the Kennedy clan just after his first term began (what kind of man was Joe Kennedy?) …
2. While I agree right now another 10 billion dollars seems wasted on missile defense and agree that these type programs can and do generate legislative inertia (the companies that profit then lobby for greater largess), I don’t think they are powerful enough reasons in their own right to oppose further funding.
By the way, here’s a story from a fairly straight source of government news which details the budget request, along with some items being funded and more critical estimates of the costs.
Dr. Wright noted today that a)the intercept works, but b)they haven’t planned for countermeasures. What was never explored was the actual details of the system, which it turns out is more than just interceptor missiles.
The Director of MDA spoke just days ago at the 6th annual conference. watch the video here. A complete overview is given of the NMDS. A press conference after a test in Oct 2007 is here.
I’m going to watch it tomorrow and comment.
Well, I’m skipping around and just watched video of the interceptor sensors detecting 4 objects around the warhead, then selecting the warhead as the right target. The MDA director said we can defeat simple countermeasures and are progressing on dealing with more advanced cm’s.
I also recalled Pres. Bush’s first speech on NMD (before 9/11/2001) seemed to indicate he wanted to work with Russia and share technology for mutual protection. Read the last 6 or so paragraphs in particular.
Alright…here’s the problem as I see it.
Lets say we develop an ironclad missile defense system. Someone shoots a bottle rocket at us from a rowboat off the coast of Oregon, we’re able to shoot it out of the sky before it pops.
And lets say we have a person with a nuclear explosive who is determined to detonate it against the United States and doesn’t care a bit about how we’ll turn around and render their country into a plain of radioactive glass.
They are going to take one look at our impenetrable missile defense system and say “Hmm, well we can’t get them with a missile, I guess we should put it on a boat and hit a harbor city or maybe we should smuggle it into canada and drive it into Detroit. Good meeting everyone! Same time next week?”
If you’re enemy protects themselves against a form of attack, you use another form of attack…you don’t admit defeat and go home. A Missile Defense System will protect us from Missile Attack. It won’t protect us from what they’re actually going to do with their nuke when they realize a missile attack is a waste of their time.
Seems logical to me…
Travis, you make a good point as well. When you build a defense against everything imaginable, something else will hit you.
If you are immunized against every disease known, will you never get sick? No, in fact, the disease itself will evolve (well not evolve because there is no such thing as evolution).
In essence, a really strong missile defense will spark an arms race. This is why the past 3 administrations opted for a limited missile defense. It can counter a possible missile or 5 from a rogue nation.
Thanks John, hope you feel better man
Im not the sick one. My mother had a complete knee replacement. Instead of dealing with the pain, she said that she’d rather give birth…. as a 63 year old.
Yikes! Well, good luck to your mom then man…hope she’s feeling better.
Mutate- the virus will mutate to penatrate and reproduce within its host.
We need a system to protect us, but spending that kind of money on something that is not worthwhile is silly. Brian is right, we have better use for that money than spending it on an empty promise.
It’s important to have something to protect us, we all protect our personal property: car alarms, locks on all doors of our house, a fence to keep others from coming into our back yard, so why not defend our country from intruders? We cannot assume that others will not attack us, 9/11 is a great example, even though it wasn’t a country that did it, just a group of radical pricks with ill feelings toward the US.
Martin,
“empty promise”?
Even the anti-NMD guy, Dr. Wright, said the intercepts worked. Perhaps I misunderstand - what is empty in which promise?
You’re missing the point Todd…the system could work like a dream and it won’t really matter. If we have a missile defense system our enemies are not going to attack us with a missile. They’re going to do one of a number of other very effective ways.
The money would be much better spent on intelligence efforts to prevent things from getting to that flash point. I’m sure you’ll say this isn’t a perfect failsafe either and I’ll agree with you. However, I would say that a proactive solution is better than a defensive solution that only guards against a specific form of attack.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The empty promise is the name of the article Brian has a link to in his comments on the last paragraph. Read the article, I enjoyed it.
By the way, I love Gainesville, a very nice place to visit.
Travis,
You said “If we have a missile defense system our enemies are not going to attack us with a missile“.
Does it then also follow that if we don’t have a missile defense system our enemies are going to attack us with a missile?
If a missile defense system takes such an attack off the table of available options, that’s one less thing and that’s good, isn’t it?
Not being attacked with a missile is certainly not a bad thing. However, what this thing will cost to protect all of our boarders and cities is a bad thing. And since all it will do is shift the attack to another sphere, I don’t see it worth the cost. How a nuke is delivered is trivial compared to the nuke itself.
The point is, if an attack is coming it’s going to happen where we’re vulnerable, not where we’re protected. If we had the funds to protect ourselves from every conceivable form of attack I’d say go for it!
But we don’t…so lets focus on efforts aimed at making sure the attacks don’t happen. Our intelligence agencies could hire and train agents to infiltrate and subvert or any number of things that you and I aren’t privy to. Just some thoughts, I’m hardly an expert on foreign clandestine operations.
You definitely pay attention to this stuff Todd, so I’d love to hear where you think we could be improved in that arena.
Martin,
I did read the link - I guess I was asking, in light of Pete’s anti- guest, Dr. Wright, saying the intercept system does work, what makes the promise ‘empty’?
Missile Defense can only be judged on its ability to stop inbound ballistic missiles. By definition, it isn’t intelligence gathering or WMD smuggling interdiction. Of course it will fail to stop any attack which isn’t ballistic missilery!
I just think the argument that ‘BMD won’t protect us because it won’t stop a [insert non ICBM here]’ (eg, suitcase nuke) is absurd on its face. BMD protects us if it takes ICBMs off the table from enemies which might use them. The anti- side seems to be unable or unwilling to claim otherwise. So it seems agreed we have the tech to intercept and destroy ICBMs and are well on our way to improvements to meet additional challenges.
Its like a guy who lives in say, one of the bad areas of Detroit, where the risk of being shot (directly or randomly) is very high. Suppose this guy and a few of his friends stand up to the armed gangs to make their neighborhood safe and are targeted for doing so. Should he listen to his wife bitching about the cost of body armor and bullet proof windows to defend family members from gunshots based on the argument that the thugs can still kill him by an up close stabbing or explosives?
Most of the ground work research has been done. It is now time to deploy, assess and improve upon the various BMD systems already developed.
Mutually assured destruction isn’t a deterrent for individual suicide bombers, it is the path to glory and honor. It may be bigoted to say, but I don’t trust the culture which produces such individuals and has such disregard for innocent lives. NMD takes it off the table for attacks on the US. Global Missile Defense (which the article discussed) is a bit more involved, for the USA Corp has never shared nuttin’ without some kind of strings attached, but it does provide an opportunity to shield our cousins of many nations across the pond.
Finally, I think the US has increased spending in all the other threat areas. The nature of missile intercept technology brings a high price tag. You have to pay for the talent which creates or improves upon the application of technology to current weapon threats.
The other threat avenues matter and are being addressed. On a case by case bases, is anyone here claiming the US government isn’t spending enough to meet those threats? If so, what aren’t they spending? How much is enough?
Travis,
You said “The point is, if an attack is coming it’s going to happen where we’re vulnerable, not where we’re protected.”
I agree.
Are we vulnerable to ICBM attack? If we are, then we need to plug that gap, right?
If we aren’t, does that mean you are saying we are invulnerable to ICBM attack? If not, are you saying there is no conceivable way a determined enemy could acquire or develop ballistic missile technology and use it against US soil?
I agree with you whole heartedly that if an ICBM gets shot at us, we’re royally screwed. Will you concede that if we do lock up the ICBM vulnerability someone intent on attacking us with a nuke will just do it some other way?
I’ll do you one better! I’ll even agree that an missile detonated a couple miles above a city is probably among the most devastating attacks possible with nuclear ordinance.
My point…and my only point…is that this is akin to going into a sword fight wearing only a helmet. Sure, you’re protected if you get stabbed in the head, but if you’re opponent has a brain in their head, they’re not gonna stab you in yours. You’re gonna get it in the gut.
I think we can also agree that we have nowhere near enough money to concoct various programs to protect ourselves completely from every conceivable attack.
So…again…rather than spend this money on a very specific shield to a single threat, why don’t we spend it on prevention through our intelligence agencies?
Without sounding like a complete tool, lets hire more Jack Bauer’s!
The issue as per usual is not as simple as to missile defense or not to missile defense. Russia is by far the greatest threat before us today. Most people don’t realize this because they’re so focussed on the things that might affect us in the next year or two. Russia still has 5-10 years before it becomes the greatest super power in the history of the world and it has never been interested in democracy or fairness. It’s ruled by a mafia and everyone who makes any money in Russia is in one way or another mafia tied. They have no scruples, no conscience, and no ambition to make the world a better place. Just ignorant greed (think Bush administration but but raised several orders of magnitude).
I agree that the conversation should not be about missile defense because that’s neither here nor there, but the fact that we continue to overlook what manner of threat this nation is going to pose to us in the near future once again shows how little we (the US) understand about the world at large.
Hey! Did you guys hear Pete’s giving away Battlestar Galactica swag on his show on Rawdog 103? I’m talking boxed sets of the last Season!
Pete! Snag some of that swag and give it away to your loyal 110ers! Those Rawdog punks don’t know loyalty, they’re switching back and forth between the other 3 comedy stations during commercials…I do that, but only when you run those hacks Frank Caliendo or Jimmie Fallon.
Travis,
You act as if the US Gov’t is paying for NMD at the expense of all other defensive/interdictive measures. The US ramped up defense spending to meet a threat, the extreme version of which involves mushroom clouds and mass destruction of life and property.
Your analogy doesn’t hold because we aren’t going into the fight with only a helmet. We’ve also got night-vision, listening antennae, super sophisticated surveillance satellites, sensors of various kinds, steady DOD research dollars and body armor.
Are we still vulnerable? Sure.
But that doesn’t mean we should set aside decades of research which has produced technology that works to effectively shield ourselves from long range attack. While we are building up the long range shield, we are also looking to inward threats.
Which brings up a very important point, especially as it concerns this argument that we should be looking for other threats. Yet that is exactly what the Bush administration did with the property US Telecom companies provided, in the way of phone to phone connections and durations. Not actual calls, just records of which number connected to which other number. The NSF then ran sophisticated pattern matching to discover networks. In this manner, I believe reading somewhere that an official testified that they did in fact discover and disrupt plots in place and moving forward from this phone data.
The so-called ‘warrant-less wiretapping’ controversy is also material to this critique of NMD - Bush haters want to have it both ways - he’s a scary monster for having a program monitoring international calls which is designed to be nimble and lawful (I swear to god, I’ve heard the hearings and read federal statutes extensively, if you want to try me on this, bring it) - or he’s a military industrial complex tool who is ignoring other means to discover and interrupt our enemies’ plans!
The CIA has used waterboarding 3 times, providing proof to Congress in secret Intelligence Committee hearings, of the plots disrupted by the information yielded with those extreme measures. By the way, I’m prepared to yield on the point that it constitutes ‘torture’. I just find it acceptable when I ask WWJBD? That is how I judge which forms are acceptable under what circumstance…
But I digress.
The bottom line is that we are spending the money and deploying manpower in many varied ways to stop our enemies. ICBM gaps should be plugged, especially considering the progress we’ve made in the last 25 years of SDI research. We are too far down the road to quit and have one less thing to worry about.
Todd, I was making a statement about the article. It can work, that’s fine, but the fact that it will work only if attacks come from the air is another, as mentioned above by many. If we are to have systems in place to guard us against all possible enemies, we might as well have a moat around the country, which will make all those pesky minutemen smile. Of course, we are not thinking of an underground attack, so we must elevate the entire country as well.
Having a better way with which to communicate and get along with other countries would be a better strategy, but not one this particular administration has looked at as of yet.
If there is a willing person, they will find a way. Take the nail clippers not being allowed in air travel: nail clippers make great wire cutters and wire strippers, and if I were a terrorist, I could use them to take wires from the bathroom to make a detonation devise once I boarded a plane. The old lady who was not allowed to take her crochet needles was for her safety; while she is not likely to use them against the captain and highjack the plane, someone else can overpower her and use the needles for that purpose. And we know what can happen if a plane is highjacked.
Sure, we know there are lots of ways to attack us, but we also know the ICBM tech genie is out of the bottle and that we can seal up that gap in our defenses.
We did alot of talk talk with N Korea, got them to agree to stop pursuing enriched nuclear fuel by promising well regulated nuclear power tech. They lied. They continued their program.
Talk talk is only as useful, ultimately, in what one can bring power-wise to the table.
Talk softly and carry a big stick.
Damn, didn’t get to tell Pete he should pull some of that Rawdog Battlestar Swag over our way, but it’s cool cause John from Cleveland won one of the Season 3 boxed sets…
John? Congrats man…and I am swallowing my jealous bitterness as we speak. God damn I love that fracking show, but then again I’m a shameless geek…
Geek pride yo!
Travis,
If you are such a geek, get uTorrent, browse to isohunt.com and download some HD rips. Be sure to use Peer Guardian, though. And search for the Community Codec Pack to watch ‘em.
Yeah, I’m a pirate too…with a cable modem…but hey, everyone likes free swag!
“talk talk” is a phrase from one of the great libertarian science fiction novels.
Anyone know what novel?
If you want an idea of how a private legal system might work, you’d find an example in this novel.
T.C.Boyle
Nope
OK Todd, you win, tell us all the name of the novel. While I don’t read much science fiction, I may read that one, it sounds interesting.
I made a nice comment about Gainesville the other day, and another one will soon follow if I get the name.
Best sci fi book ever was Ender’s Gate… but that is WAY off topic here.
I am so glad that this discussion about ABMs didnt degrade into another Bush hatefest. Any idiot can realize that this program has taken years to develop.
Sure it costed a bunch of money, but most of it had already been paid for. Why not just finish the job?
Hey Martin,
I meant to comment on your complement of my fair town - thank you! There are few like it. This area of FL used to be known as ‘the Eden of the South’, especially due to the crystal clear rivers and springs that surround this area.
Next time you are in town let me know and I’ll buy you the beverage of your choice!
The author is Robert A. Heinlein. The book, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It is a great story, chock full of libertarian goodness!
I had disremembered the use of the word “costed”, glad you were able to bring it back to life and use it properly. Most people use the present tense of the word.
John,
After 9/11 Bush ramped up spending on the varied NMD programs. Much of this new spending is for deployment costs. They now have to build revised versions of the test equipment and get it all working.
It should be noted that these interceptors do not get the ICBM ‘a couple miles’ above the target. From what I recall from the press conference I linked above, it is between 100 and 200 miles where the intercept takes place.
Martin, are you channeling Bush with your malapropisms?
My fingers are used to typing certain words and will do so, even though my brain is telling them otherwise. For instance, “an”. I type “and” when I mean the former, without realizing it. Spell check doesn’t get that!
Thanks Todd, I will buy it and read it.
I don’t make it to Florida too often, but we may vacation there sometime this summer, my wife and kids have never been to Florida, I make it there for conventions and such.
I look forward to having a microbrewed beer with you. I like to support the locals as much as possible.
Todd, Most ICBMs are multi-stage rockets. The interceptors actually hit the targets once the payload has separated from the launch assembly.
I don’t usually criticize people for bad grammar or spelling, unless they are belligerent critics of the stooopididy of others. I hate hypocrisy. I hate it most when I realize I’m being hypocritical.
Martin,
We have a great place for local brews - Market Street Pub.
John,
Yeah, I saw that from the video. The stages are discarded by the time the ICBM hits its apex. I was answering something Dr Dre’dle wrote earlier about the damage being worse a couple miles over a city. (you couldn’t tell?)
Martin,
With the dollar being so weak, I hope more Europeans and Asians get the Florida Fever. We haven’t had any foreigners being rental car jacked in quite some time!
No, I am not making fun of anyone’s spelling or grammar. John from Cleveland used the word “costed”, which is the past tense of the word “cost”, disremembered is also a word, it means to forget, therefore I had forgotten the word costed since most people don’t use it.
so sorry for my lack of efficient grammar and spelling today. I am wiped out from wake up, hospital, work, hospital, sleep…
Is it the past tense of cost? I thought the word meant both depending on context.
Martin,
I didn’t think you were making fun of anyone. I was just making a general statement.
25 years ago, a 6 pack of mini donuts cost me fiddy cent.
Today a 6 pack of mini donuts costs me a dollah.
25 years ago, a 6 pack of mini donuts costed me fiddy cent.
Today a 6 pack of mini donuts cost me a dollah.
These sentences contrast how much a certain item cost then and how much it costs now.
Does a thing ever cost in the present tense?
Are you done yet?
Yes. I was musing, that wasn’t meant to offend.
Here’s a nifty little NMD issue map: http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/recent/MapNMD.pdf
Stalin visits Putin in a dream and Putin asks, “How can I maintain power?” Stalin replies, “First you must kill 10 million Russian civilians, then you must re-write the constitution.” Putin then asks, “How can I just re-write the constitution?” Stalin replies, “HA! I knew you wouldn’t question the 10 million!”
lmao!, that’s hilarious.
Costed is the past tense of the word. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the sentence when John from Cleveland used it, he used it as an intransitive verb, and the past tense as a verb is costed, therefore I think he used it correctly. Maybe it’s transitive instead of intransitive. Too many years since I was in school, I’m 43 already for hell’s sake.
Anyway, just because the word is used past present and future the same does not make it correct, it means most people use it incorrectly. But I have been wrong more times than right, so I have a feeling someone will write a message telling me how wrong I am.
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