Matt Yglesias in The Prospect
This is madness. We re spending billions of dollars to defend ourselves against ballistic missiles that don t exist. What s more, the defense system doesn t work and never has. At best, it occasionally kinda sorta passes rigged tests. I m a never say never kind of guy, but the odds of it ever working seem bad. The technical challenges are daunting: Building a missile that can reliably hit another missile is simply very difficult. Missiles are small, move very quickly, and are difficult to launch within the time frame necessary to intercept one that s already in the air. What s more, unlike, say, computers or telecommunications, the general field of aerospace engineering hasn t seen any significant advances in decades. Even if we do manage to build a system that could identify a missile launch, track the object, and fire a counter-missile missile, nothing in the current plans is prepared to deal with any possible countermeasures or decoys.
At this point, pixie dust would be more useful.
Well then. Hurry out and tell the Democrats that they need a platform of no missile defense! What with North Korea and all, sounds like an idea that ought to resonate.
If you want aweapons system without developmental headaches, you want a slingshot.
Dugger
I don’t know about you, Dugger. but that trac-ball always pinched my fingertips. Wait a minute, doesn’t that game always end in Nuclear Armageddon?
That second sentence will be millstone around Yeglesias s neck for a LONG time.
Beginning when? Will that be before or after the Bush administration declares ‘victory’ in Iraq?
Not if you preface it with a game of tic-tac-toe.
That second sentence will be millstone around Yeglesias’s neck for a LONG time.
Beginning … last week! Maybe you didn’t notice, but NK fired off a missle. You think Kim-Jong Ill thinks about his program the same way libs think about missle defense?
Russia has missiles that actually work. China has missiles that actually work. Are you peeing your pants over theirs, too? You know, there is a weapon for the North Korean situation, and it has proven a hell of a lot more effective (and cheaper) than “missile defense” in protecting the world from nuclear holocaust: DIPLOMACY. It takes many forms; sometimes it is all smiles and handshakes, sometimes it involves public saber-rattling concurrent with back-room deals.
The two main hang-ups with DIPLOMACY are that it’s only effective in the hands of those mature and courageous enough to wield it, and it doesn’t do much for facilitating massive flow of public cash into useless boondoggles.
I reckon the big question for all us political animals is this: are we a bunch of idiotic chickensh-ts who think beating our chests and hurling insults from behind a really expensive paper wall is a solution; or are we grownups (with spines) who aren’t afraid to sit down and haggle with weaker ‘adversaries’?
come on farris, don’t you know america was made great by liberals screaming…”I give up!”
You lefties should be so proud…..
What s more, unlike, say, computers or telecommunications, the general field of aerospace engineering hasn t seen any significant advances in decades.
I don’t agree that this is true…but it’s certainly NOT true in one particular area of aerospace engineering: guided missile technology. The ability to track a target with radar, predict its path, and guide an object to an intercept have all benefitted from the explosive growth in computer capability. The challenges identified in this post are not insurmountable.
Furthermore, the point that we are developing this system for “a threat that doesn’t exist” is a non-starter. The threat WILL exist. This stuff has to have time to mature, after which such threats will be neutralized. But hey, until then we can always contribute to the effort by complaining!
Ahem…that’s “Ability Plus Motive”…something ate my plus sign.
Alex…
Threat = Ability Motive. It is extremely unlikely that either China or Russia would launch an unprovoked attack on us. At some point in the future, if that balance changes, our missile shield may be much more robust…if we continue to develop it. At the present time, it so happens that the country most likely to launch a ballistic missile our way is also the country most likely to launch only one or two of them…just right for the current state of our infant defense system.
are we grownups (with spines) who aren t afraid to sit down and haggle with weaker adversaries ?
Why don’t you take your own advice, you foulmouthed fool?
If we followed your logic we would still be living in the dark and communicating w/ smoke signals. The lightbulb and the telephone took years and several attempts to perfect, and they are still working on ways to improve them. Missile defense is the same thing. Iran and NK are not going to stop trying to find ways to do us harm, we shouldn’t stop trying new technology to defend us.
Also, please find a better source than Yglesias. Are you that lazy?
Rex, it’s as simple as the reason people display Beware of Dog and Home Secured by ADT signs on their property: Advertising a security system is, in itself, a deterrent. Certainly not 100% effective, but it’s better than hanging a sign that says We Got Nothin’. Come on In!
I just want to know what we’d have developed on the alternative energy front if we’d spent 128 billion on it. I guarantee that it would’ve been more effective in preventing wars that might end up in nukes than that fucking “missile shield” is. Star Wars is just an opportunity to put a lot of money into the hands of defense contractors.
Not only that, but alternative energy could very well help us wipe out minor little inconveniences like the trade deficiet and the budget deficet, because we could sell that sort of thing to everyone in the world for a very tidy profit.
Well, yes, I realize that Iran poses a different threat that MAD is not necessarily effective against because of the armageddon they wish to bring, one that may even require military intervention (MAY, I said) but NK? Lil Kim over there is an arrogant pompous blowhard, and while I wouldnt put it past him to destroy lives, He’s the last kind of person to willfully take himself out like that. He’s just launched recently just to whip his Taepodong out of his pants and wave it around at people. But then thats just my opinion.
And Farris, hanging up a sign that reads “we may as well have nothing” isnt much of a deterrent, particularly if they realize that to hit any one particular target they’d only have to launch maybe a few extra missles, a few decoys, etc. Every publically available report on the failure of the “shield” to pass even the specially rigged tests explains why it wont work, where its massive holes are.
I guarantee that it would ve been more effective in preventing wars that might end up in nukes than that fucking missile shield is.
And you know that how?
Note to all: Perhaps one of you should refer to Herman Kahn, the “creator” of mutual assured destruction.
Herman Kahn
It is immoral from almost any point of view to refuse to defend yourself and others from very grave and terrible threats, even as there are limits to the means that can be used in such defense.
Many people believe that the current system must inevitably end in total annihilation. They reject, sometimes very emotionally, any attempts to analyze this notion.
Here’s my whole thing. NK cant shoot our missles out of the sky and neither can we shoot theirs. Same with Iran, Russia, everyone else. So, everyone knows that if they launch a nuke at us, we’ll launch one at them, per Mutually Assured Destruction. Now, nobody really wants to be destroyed in a nuclear blast. That goes for leaders and for their people. The only groups of people (a term I use loosely in this situation) who could possibly be this bat-excrement suicidal are likely the Al Qaeda terrorists, but they dont really have the capacity to launch a nuclear missle to hit the other side of the earth. A dirty bomb is the most likely scenario if they go nuclear, which missile defense wont stop, but considering how much damage they know they can do with a few boxcutters, they may think it will never come to that. My problem with missile defense is not that the system doesnt work (which it doesnt) but that it doesnt even seem like there’d be a situation where it’d have any effect at all.
Lets walk through a hypothetical. NK launches a dozen nukes at the US. Best case scenario, the missile defense system manages somehow to actually shoot them all down. What happens now? We point and laugh? No, we’ll fire nukes at them. Theyre not idiots enough to have launched everything they have in one volley either, so once ours are in the air they fire again. Nukes flying in both directions, eventually annihlating (did I spell that right?) NK and several US population centers. Thing is, NK gets destroyed whether or not our shield works, and they know this, so why on earth would they attack when they gain nothing?
And yes, I realize that armor with several massive holes in it is still theoretically better than no armor at all, but when you have a couple dozen arrows flying at you at once, youre not actually going to say “well at least 10% of me wont get killed”
Rex-
You assume we are dealing with rational people. Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are not rational. Ahmadinejad said that the main mission of the Islamic Revolution is to prepare for the arrival of the Twetfth Imam. His mission is to bring about Armageddon, I think we should do everything in our power to prevent him from accomplishing his goal.
Rex…
Lets walk through a hypothetical. NK launches a dozen nukes at the US…
Far more likely: NK launches four long range ballistic missiles, just to prove they can. Two are aimed at Hawaii and two are aimed at Alaska. Early data from immediately after launch indicates that they will reach their mark. We have no indication that there are warheads on these missiles.
You’re the President. What do you do?
Rex,
MAD was envisioned to work between the big massive superpowers of the cold war era who had somewhat clear understandings of the true capabilities of the other side. Even within totalitarian dictatorships like the old USSR and red China, there was a big enough government bureaucracy to ensure that some sane voices would be heard. Can we really say that about NK. I don’t think so. You assume that he Kim will be rational enough to understand what YOU understand. That may not be the case and in the case of NK, no one is likely to tell him anything other than exactly what he wants to hear.
He may simply decide to do something, that to us, seems irrational. I want an umbrella, even a leaky one, to protect against the poor judgement of people like him.
And if you ask me, I would sacrifice other DOD programs, if required, for missile defense. Full production of the Raptor, for instance.
Still waiting on a response to a previous question. Sorry to re-post, but Ollie is ignoring me.
How would you fight the war on terror? Please enlighten me.
Rex,
My impression of Kim differs. I don’t think he has a ’suicide wish’ either, but I’m also convinced his elevator does not go to the top floor.
Dugger
I don t think I m that much smarter than the average dictator.
I also don’t think you’re smarter than a “semi – senile” Ronald Reagan (whatever that means), who, as it so happens, was not the creator, nor did he even “dream up” the ABM system.
“We have recently seen a means of attacking our country that involved little more than (we are led to believe)”
Did you take his class?
ot
NATIONAL SECURITY NEWSFLASH!
Novak speaks out on “plamegate”!
Rove still has job!
Valerie Plame and family still safe, still go to soccer games on sunday, and shop at Safeway on tuesdays without assassins tracking them.
No attacks on US soil since Plame was “outed”.
The Republic survived lefties, and Rove is still not “frog marching”….
You may now continue inventing more non-stories…..
People should remember where the idea came from. Not a scientist, but a semi-senile Ronald Reagan, who thought that if he imagined it, then it could be done.
What it turned into was a cash cow for political contributors who realized early on that it doesn’t have to work. If a ballistic missile strike is launched and the system fails, then who are you going to complain to?
As I pointed out during the Reagan administration, a ballistic missile is the least effective, most expensive and most easily discovered means of delivering a nuke. As I pointed out then, anyone who had one and wanted to deliver it to the United States could just hide it in a bale of cocaine and Ollie North would have it delivered to any city in the United States.
I can think of dozens of unstoppable means of delivering nukes that are not subject to interception by ABMs even if they worked, which they don’t and would leave no trace of their origin. I don’t think I’m that much smarter than the average dictator. We have recently seen a means of attacking our country that involved little more than (we are led to believe) box cutters. One suicide bomber in a speedboat launched from a ship in international waters could deliver a nuke precisely on target, eliminating all the problems of designing and building conventional missiles.
We are spending a huge chunk of our loans from China defense budget on a weapon that doesn’t work and doesn’t have to work. No amount of failures in testing seems to be enough to abandon the program, which is now in its 20th year with no sign of progress. No wonder the defense industry is so happy about it.
repack if it is so easy and untraceable, why isn’t LA a smoking hole?
don’t you think there are two or three nation-states who would love to destroy the economy of the US?
The Wright Brothers heard the same thing, so did Henry Ford , Alex Bell, Goddard, Von Braun, Bill Gates, etc, etc, ad infinitum. “It can’t be done!” “It’ll never fly”, “no one is going to give up a horse and buggy”
Luddites, never liked them much….
Sorry, I must have fallen asleep. When did the topic shift to the War on Poverty?
“Luddites, never liked them much& .”
Hilarious. Once again, the pedro flip flop:
On missile defense he’s go go go! Damn the physics full speed ahead!
On researching and developing alternative energy sources he’s just another gloomy gus:
“the fallacy here is that fundamental physics problems are going to be solved by brute force& .it doesn t work that way … Unfortunately Ollie s hero is Superman, and I doubt he ever took a real science class in his life, yet he believes we just aren t trying hard enough to overcome these fundamental physics issues& .well& not exactly ollie.”
Way to maintain consistency there Doc.
Wow, OW, you throw down some idiot bait, and your wingers come a-runnin’.
I would take Frank’s advice, and continue to haggle with these weaker adversaries, but it appears they have nothing of value to offer in the transaction. These smackdowns are getting too easy, and the wingers just keep coming back for more. It must be a personality disorder, or something similar.
Anyway, it is rather entertaining to see them line up their spurious justifications in support of one of the biggest war profiteer scams ever. Mark my words: “missile defense” will never work, except in the heads of the wingers and the bank accounts of the contractors. What a bunch of idiotic chickensh-ts.
Yes, pedro, because any “progress” on missile defense was accomplished by the ultra cheap method of putting a 100 monkeys in a room with a chalkboard.
its totally consistent paul, its just that you don’t actually have an understanding of science.
I am completely in favor of research on alternative energy sources. The projects are being funded to the tune of billions of dollars. I don’t believe there is going to be an “a-ha!” moment though, and I don’t believe the problem can be solved by “getting a bunch of really smart guys in a room”.
Missile defense is doable, and in fact has been DONE. The technology exists, TODAY, to make it happen.
Alex, thanks for your completely fact-free, “Post-Lite”.
(Alex, shaking a finger, looking down his nose at us and exclaiming in his best Ebenezer Scrooge voice)
“It’ll never work I tells ya, never work!”
thanks for the input Alex, now back to cleaning the slurpy machine…
Whoa, AlexC. You really put all of us “wingers” in our place. It’s like, dude, you TOTALLY owned us!
But you know what your post needs to achieve even higher levels of snark? That’s right… MORE COWBELL!
No paul, it wasn’t. It was a problem with a real, physically possible solution that can actually be described quite nicely, and is in any college physics textbook.
Alternative energy solutions are waiting to be described, and require a fundamental reworking or at least a better understanding of partical physics. I note that you are not in that particular field of study, are you? No, I believe you getting a degree in watching movies….
Fixed the link: MORE COWBELL!
I’m sorry pedro, I totally forgot about your learning disability. I wasn’t talking about warp drive. Is that better? Does it make sense now?
No? Let me help you out some more. I was talking about solar power, wind power, ethanol and other biofuels, hyrdroelectricity, hydrogen, nuclear power etc. etc. Are you trying to suggest that all of these alternatives exist in the strictly theoretical realm? Are you kidding me?
Solar power, wind power, nuclear power ethanol and hydrogen fuel cell technologies are all there, right now, working. Improvements are needed, of course. And yet you attack the “luddites” who assail missile defense as unworkable while attacking supporters of very real and workable alternative energy technologies as science fiction fanatics. You’re a hypocrite pedro, face it.
Solar power, wind power, nuclear power ethanol and hydrogen fuel cell technologies are all there, right now, working. Improvements are needed, of course. And yet you attack the luddites who assail missile defense as unworkable while attacking supporters of very real and workable alternative energy technologies as science fiction fanatics.
Yes, those technologies are available now, but from an engineering standpoint, none of them is likely to replace oil in the foreseeable future (although the drawbacks to nuclear power are more political than anything else).
Should we continue to fund development of these (and other) technologies? Absolutely. This should be our top priority, along the lines of another “Manhattan Project”.
Should we continue to develop and perfect an ABM system? Yes. Even if the system can only handle a small number of missiles at a time, it’s still valuable. As noted above, it acts as a deterrent. It introduces uncertainty into an enemy’s plans (i.e. if he lobs a half dozen missiles, which one(s) won’t get through?). And since the current (and likely near future) threat is from a small number of NK or Iranian missiles (as opposed to the 3000 missile threat of the cold war), having an operational ABM system it is far more realistic.
Apparently you guys missed the GAO report that said Bush ordered a bunch of development and testing stages be rushed or skipped to hastily deploy a working system. Of course it only works on paper, the actual system is useless and now a huge waste of taxpayer dollars becuase of said shortcuts. Clap louder guys.
I mean really, if you truly thought missile defense was a necessary expense, could you at least ask for a system that works instead of a bunch of crap taped together and painted to look shiny?
Meister Doctor Professor Alex said it won’t work, and that’s that.
He oughta know because he’s a… a… a….
Midder said
“Apparently you guys missed the GAO report that said Bush ordered a bunch of development and testing stages be rushed or skipped to hastily deploy a working system.”
I missed it too – as you stated it.
Again, please, let Democrats try and run on “get rid of missile defense” platform.
Please. (Four more years to appoint conservative judges!)
Dugger
Apparently, for the Democratics, the best defense is no offense, or defense…
“Exactly Drone& ”
And yet, pedro, you’re on record as being opposed to a “Manhattan-style project for alternative energy. See the quote above.
yes, for the reasons that I have explained previously ( and explained, and explained and explained….)
But good for you paul, you didn’t call ANYONE an idiot in one of your posts!
Thanks buddy…..
Exactly Drone….
There are fundamental physics problems in eeking more efficiency from solar power, etc.
Now, if you are suggesting we take half the SDI money and build Nukes…well, hell, I am all for that. A couple more nuke power plants would be quite welcome right about now…oh and while we are at it, how about a couple of more oil refineries? Wait, you say we tried that and the tree-hugger leftists refused to let it get passed the panoply of government regulation set up to prevent them?
Q’elle suprise….
“yes, for the reasons that I have explained previously ( and explained, and explained and explained& .)”
Hey idiot, you said that “alternative energy solutions are waiting to be described.” I listed five that aren’t only “described,” they actually work. They may not work on as large scale as needed, yet, but they’re well beyond the theoretical stage.
Zython: Even you don’t know what you just said.
Wait a second, let me get this straight. Conservatives believe that warrentless wiretappping and numerous other illegal government projects that infringe on our civil liberties are important for keeping us safe, but a functional missile defense system is unnecessary. I guess you guys believe that a U.S. government project doesn’t keep us safe unless someone gets unnecesarily hurt in the process.
Basically, I believe that when talking about a multi-billion (trillion?) dollar missile defense system, we should not have to settle for less.
sorry to see you fell off the idiot wagon so quickly paul.
But you got me dead to rights. I should have said workable alternative energy solutions…
Guilty as charged.
But, my now corrected point remains…..correct.
“White Sands missile test phenomenal”
http://www.lcsun-news.com/news/ci_4044160
Frame…
- It’s interesting how you pit the current system against future targets.
- Virtually every weapon or defensive system invented to date has had a countermeasure developed against it. That’s why we keep developing new technology.
I’m struggling to understand how today’s successful test is either irrelevant or–fingers crossed–bad news. Somebody help me out here.
Zython: Even you don t know what you just said.
It may suprise you to learn this, but not everyone is as stupid as you. When you grow up, you’ll understand that.
What I’m saying is that its a bit hypocritical for the cons to rally behind “security” to the point of infringing on the civil liberties of law-abiding U.S. citizens, but when it comes to whether a multi-billion dollar missile defense system actually works or not, they’re willing to settle for less.
Words that you may need to look up in the dictionary are:
hypocritical, infringing, civil liberties, security, U.S.
“That s why we keep developing new technology.”
DUH! I’msimply pointing out pedro faith that we will overcome all difficulties in missile defense with time, money and brains while he flatly rejects that the same is possible for alternative energy technologies, Indeed, he seems unable to accept that we already have working alternative energy options that are improving at a steady pace: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/about.html
Where does hypocricy enter into the ABM issue?
And, if I only knew as little as you appear to know, I wouldn’t be ragging on anybody else.
Look up
hyperbole
bull
shit