Comet Wars
I don't know about you, but this story fired my imagination. It is the stuff of which science fiction movies are made.
My first reaction was sheer awe. But my second reaction was, "Hmmm, I guess Star Wars wasn't such a completely ridiculous idea after all." And in this case, I'm not talking about the movie.
Before I get a million, "You've got to be kidding, you idiot!" comments, let me just say that I Googled "Star Wars Reagan" and came up with about a million hits, the first twenty of which I checked out, and all were totally negative about the program. The technical and financial problems seem, to say the least, formidable (although I wouldn't consider Frances Fitzgerald to be an objective judge of this particular situation).
The purpose of this post is merely to state that I wonder whether the comet probe success has any relevance to the task of missile interception.
Already, though, Star Wars hasn't been a total loss. See this for the story. Since the BBC said it, you know it must be true; they wouldn't be giving the program credit for anything if it hadn't been fully earned.
posted by neo-neocon @ 12:25 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Hit a comet, hit a missle, or so my old Granny used to say.
Can't let this go without a comment on the so-called politics of missile defense.
Although a grunt by nature and nurture, I had the misfortune to spend a year in Air Defense--Nike Hercules, to date myself--and I knew a good bit about the situation.
I was able, therefore, to follow the discussion with some modest technical familiarity.
In meetings, I would describe the facts, referring to my background. It was fun. Inevitably, I was called vile names.
Liberals. Gotta love'em. Why, I don't know. Or maybe I don't.
(Just a note: if I were seeking objective information, or a broad spectrum of opinions, on strategic missile defense, I probably wouldn't do it by googling the most famously derogatory term for the concept. Some pro-SDI'ers have picked up the term "Star Wars" in the years since it was introduced, but it's still more likely to be seen as part of a denunciation of the whole idea than not.)
Brian. Suppose we solve NK and discover its missiles are elsewhere?
The point of a defense against a massive attack is not to put us in a bowl impervious to any warhead at all, but to make an adversary unsure if he could decapitate us prior to our launching our massive attack. It supports deterrence. If an enemy thinks he can get away with something, it becomes necessary to prove, by war, that he can't. Better he not believe it in the first place. So, while Russki warplanners might be inching toward the conclusion that they can overwhelm our command and control and decision-making capacity in the first attack, adding a defense system into the mix makes their conclusions more tentative. Less likely they'll try something we'd all regret.
Doesn't mean we won't be hurt. Does mean they will be. Means they know it, which is the important thing.
Since we approaching the point at which non-state actors may well have missiles like the NK's recent ones, or some version of the SS20, we have a problem. If something comes at us from the Kamchatka peninsula--which, we can presume, is only lightly controlled by Russia--which country do we turn to glass? From the desert near the intersection of the borders of several Middle Eastern countries? From a ship in the Sea of Okhotsk? Knowing we may hesitate, would a terrorist try something? He'll be gone, at any rate, by the time the thing takes off.
We're passing the point at which deterrence is the only solution.
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