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Space War 2017: US v. China
A reader writes "The Air Force recently performed a war game set in the year 2017 featuring space warfare, according to this article in the Washington Post. Between hypothetical 'red' and 'blue' countries, which the article conjectures to be China and US, "...the game assumed that the heavens will be full of weapons by 2017. Both Red and Blue possessed microsatellites that can maneuver against other satellites, blocking their view, jamming their transmissions or even frying their electronics with radiation. Both also had ground-based lasers that could temporarily dazzle or permanently blind the optics of satellites.""
No - damn it. Insurance will get me money to get a new one in a few weeks, though. But it still sucks.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
NO, no, no. I do not characterize other nations as "phoney baloney". If you'd seen Blazing Saddles, you'd get the reference.
My comment was to the effect that politics exists to serve the people in such a manner as to keep the regime in power, thats all. American politics, Chinese politics, Sri Lankan politics. Doesn't matter.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
There's shitloads of junk up there that "solar winds, atmospheric drag and other factors" haven't dealt with yet... I like the lazer idea though.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Your quite right. You hit the nail on the head there.
;p
The media, always more concerned with the latest "Survivor" show, fails once again to inform the American public (and we Canucks who pay attention) about the power shift in outer space.
No longer is peaceful NASA to be the first agency to populate outer space... now, the American Military will. Yiokes!
Not to be off topic, but Space Command, who has been given the power in outer space, is a big cyber war outfit too. Remember this?
...
The Space Command, headed by Air Force Gen. Richard Myers and headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo., also will develop cyber attack capabilities starting in October 2000, a senior U.S. military officer said.
So much for the Star Trek model.
______
jeff13
Umm, get real. All the permanent members of the UN have ballistic missiles. Including the French, British, Chinese.. And the US/Russia.
The fact is the media is biased aginst any system that the military develops. The XM-1 program later developed the M-1 Abrams MBT which is the most successful heavy combat tank the United States has ever produced. The M1-A3&4 is just a work of art. However the press lambasted the system before the A1 was out. Much like they are lambasting the V-22 and the MV-44 systems. Oddly this disinformation works for the military as it affects the opinion of World leaders about U.S. combat strength.
As for what systems Rogue states would use, how can you discount the missile as a potential system? It is crazy to discount that. North Korea aleady has Canada and the Northern part of the U.S. in missile range (over the Pole baby) and demonstrated this by firing a missile over Japan.
People here make George W. Bush to be some enemy of the state, of personal freedoms and what have you. It is all liberal bullshit in my opinion. If he was half the dictator people portray him as he would have started the bombing campaign against Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China and everywhere else that would be drastically improved by the glow of atomic warfare. However, he is no Saddam Hussein or Quadafi or Ayatola so he is rightfully taking the defensive approach.
Wouldn't that be a hoot? But I have a hard time seeing George or Bonnie as pacifists, given how they like to wave guns around.
Amazingly enough, that wasn't me. Maybe one of my peeps.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Both of these are pulled from FAIR's 1994 article, "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error," which can be found here
The solution looks pretty simple to me: orbit a bloody great net, going in the opposite direction. Sweep up all the cruft, and the momentum drops enough that the net de-orbits itself helpfully and burns up.
Well, despite over a decade of trying they have yet to come up with one that can shoot down a non-surprise attack by a single missile that doesn't use anything much in the way of decoys, countermeasures, etc. That makes me question whether or not it would really work.
Yeah, like a rogue state or terrorist would actually use a missile. They'd just smuggle the the bomb into the country and plant it near their target. It's not as though doing so would be very difficult at all, and all that trillion dollar technology will prove completely useless. It's a total boondoggle.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Saved the world? If that idealistic fool Wilson hadn't butted his way into World War I, then we would have had a far more equitable peace treaty thus preventing the humiliation of Germany and the rise of Hitler. The allies would have been able to send much more aid to combat the Bolshleviks in Russia and thus prevent the rise of communism.
We may aswell surrender now, we'll become automatons ourselves.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
The US has also become the epitome of arrogance. Only a few do good for good's sake. Most do good for their own sake; whether because they believe they will benefit either financially, morally, or spiritually, it is still for their own sake. Way too many also try to impose their own control over whoever they help. On top of all that, the US really needs to get its own house in order before expecting the rest of the world to "do as we say, not as we do".
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Surely blue vs. red is just a dress rehersal for the final show down between windows and linux - with windows represented by Big Blue, and the linux forces gathering behind Redhat.
Didn't blue win the war game?
Stupid like a fox!
Okay, here's where "Peace by having no weapons" is a bad idea.
It is generally human nature to be greedy. Especially for those in power. (Why would they try to gain power if they didn't WANT power? Not many people try to gain power for the better good. Those who want power badly are usually the ones who receive it.) Once they have power, they want more. When you are in charge of a big country, the only way to gain more power is to conquer other countries so that you can control their resources.
The nice guys say "Look, we're nice, we will destroy all of our weapons, so that we can not hurt you. You do the same, and we can all live in harmony." They have the best of intentions, and really want peace. The not-so-nice guys agree at first, so that you will destroy all of your weapons. However, while the not-so-nice-guys are playing nice, they are hiding all sorts of weapons in some secret bunkers, where no sattelite could find them. Once the nice guys weapons are gone, not-so-nice guys say, "Actually, we were kidding. Now you have no weapons, but we do. So, unless you feel like dying, you will submit to us."
Just because you or your country has good intentions, that does *not* mean that other nations do! Never let your guard down when it comes to international affairs! Not unless you want the U.S. to become a socialist state.
I may not really like the system here, but it's better than standing in line for hours for a loaf of bread. A nice, happy global society sounds like a good idea, but until there are NO evil people in the world, it will not work. I'm sorry to dissapoint you.
The military will have its own power sources when needed. There are plenty of resources, it's just a matter of where they're distributed. California simply did a bad job, by restricting consumer price but not cost.
You'd think they'd tell you if that were true? I suggest you reread the article.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
Because history has proven most humans are idiots?
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
Even without satellites intentionally blowing up, debris is already a problem. One good space battle, and the Earth will have a junk layer too thick to navigate. Then you can kiss all space travel good-bye until they figure out a way to clean it up. Maybe somebody will figure out a way to deorbit massive ammounts of junk all at once. The first idea that comes to mind is releasing enough gas in orbit to slow down the junk, but maybe that isn't practical. At any rate, if they factor debris into this I bet they will determine that it isn't worth destroying this particular battlefield.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Microsoft is Blue as in blue screen o' death.. not big blue..
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If God Dropped Acid, Would he see People???
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
and destroy you! Just like we took out california, Canada is next!!!
Ok, you're right on two out of three -- the French and the Chinese seem to have deployed ICBMs with nuclear capability. Mea culpa. The British haven't, though -- one less thing to worry about, I suppose.
MAD of course still stands as the real reason that nobody has ever tried to attack the USA (or Russia, for that matter). Whether formulated as doctrine or just assumed, the ability of a nation to counterattack with overwhelming nuclear force is perversely what has kept the world turning.
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, there is a story about how the Israelites went into Palestine, and God commanded them to go attack a certain village, and kill every last man, take the women as slaves, etc.
This is a lesson - because it sounds just horrible, expecially when you take into account that a few years earlier, the 10 commandments (Thou shalt not kill) were given. But if you think about it, it's a lesson. Really, that's the only way to defeat an opponent. Thorough genocide. If you let ONE of them live, chances are, they'll breed, and tell their kids about what happened, and generations later, you have an enemy that really hates you - and another war. Or nowadays, even if you kill them all, chances are, there's members of that ethnic group in another country you can't get to, so in order to do a thorough job, you basically have to take over the world.
This is the lesson of WWI->WWII, which was really one extended long war, if you think about it. We (US/Allies) tried to apply that lesson to Iraq, and have met with limited success. But when it comes down to it, the only other alternative is genocide. And who wants that? Um, the bad guys? You wanna be a bad guy? Or maybe it would be best to just live in peace.
What that means for the Jews, and whether they *belong* in Palestine/Israel, I have no idea, I don't want to get into that here - but to me, when I read that Bible story, that is what I learned: Violent conflict, is ultimately futile, unless you're willing to walk down the genocide path. And the genocide path is no good either. So maybe it's best to just try to learn alternative methods of conflict resolution.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Actually, war in many ways is a purely psychological exercise- you are attempting to create a mental state - defeat - in the mind of the enemy commander. This can be achieved many ways. The best commanders often used manuever to confuse, befuddle and exhaust their opponent, and only when the time was ripe actually committing to battle.
Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul, and Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaign are examples of this. Grant focused on killing enemy soldiers, and the Viet Cong used guerilla tactics to demoralise their opponent. (Of course, the one time they tried to fight on our terms, they were nearly eliminated in the Tet Offensive. From that point on, the war was fought mostly against the North Vietnamese.)
Whatever tactics are used, including destroying the enemy's toys (a factor in the Gulf War), the goal is to create that perception of defeat in the mind of the enemy.
Battles in space may consist of attacks on the opponent's assets, which, only if successful, lead to more conventional warfare on Earth. If the Iraqis had been able to blind our spy satellites, jam the GPS system, or intercept and block our communications; the Gulf war would have been a bit different. Luckily for us, they did not have that capability. If we had known that they could deny us our space assets, we might not have intervened. Similarly, if we the capacity to protect our space assets, and deny the use of space to our enemies, they will be much less likely to be aggressive.
Space is the ultimate High Ground, and if you can use it to your benefit, and deny it's use for the enemy, you have an strong advantage. Sooner or later, our military will realise this, because the Chinese certainly have.
Save a tree. Eat a beaver.
maybe they only sell the cheap plastic garbage to us sucker Americans and keep the "good stuff" for themselves?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
naw, increased morale is cheap.
Give them shore-leave in San Francisco, and $100 of GI money. Blowjobs=morale.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Sending the inexperienced underequipped troops as a first wave is also an excellent tactic against landmines. So Iran proved in it's war vs. Iraq. It's why Iraq resorted to chemical warfare, to stop Iran from sending waves of children across the battlefield to sweep mines out for the real troops to follow.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
the usefulness, effectivness or feasability of a Missle Defense System isn't the issue. the first discussion that must occur is whether or not building a MD System is ethical. i believe the answer to that question is "No, it is not ethical."
first off, it is in violation of the Strategic Arms treaties that we not only signed but drafted. its a slap in the face to the rest of the world. "yeah, we signed the treaty and now that we have the upper hand, we're gonna break the treaty. whatcha gonna do about it?" that's a bullsh1t attitude and will only serve to further undermine our already waning national credibility. of course, the U.S. has a long history of violating treaties just ask the American Indians.
secondly, the Strategic Arms treaties were specifically designed to avoid an arms race and now we will be nullifying that effect by *initiating* a new arms race. don't we have better things to spend our money on?
I will tell you something: For the last 4,000 years, Chinese soldiers have never fought more than 100 miles outside of China's current borders.
In the past 200 years, however, American soldiers have fought on every continent except Australia.
Which country is the aggressive one?
Well, China is the only choice left for the "big bad superpower enemy".. Makes for good grand melodrama, but I agree, is probably not very correct.
My prediction is that the next major war will be fought against a number of united Arabian and African countries. Fundamentalist Islam purely hates the US. The Chinese just want to sell us crappy toys.
They're designations nearly always given to any abstract simulation of a military scenario. Wargamers commonly use them in scenario descriptions that aren't dependant on particular armies being used. (i.e. it could be British vs. French, or North vs. South, or Egyptian vs. Hittite) Yes, it's convenient that the US is referred to as "blue" and China is communist (therefore "red.") But that's not why the colors were chosen for the simulation. Basilius
They recently stopped requiring the Officers to learn how to use a Sextant at Annapolis.
If the radio navigation system goes down, the Navy becomes just so many tugboats.
Hay thar.
Um, who exactly believes that "User #508" is a troll account?
And what made that message a troll anyway? Paragraph 1, which was mostly correct and preceded with "I'll bet"? Or paragraph 2, which was right on the money?
I consider myself a pacifist, but I'm also a big proponent of space exploration. Having to weigh the two options, I'd rather have another arms race that results in more exploration of the moon and other such things in exchange for some Cold War scares...
I post links to stuff here
I honestly don't see this type of war for the future of mankind. Without trying to sound morbid, the whole point of war is _not_ to blow up your enemies' toys, but to kill the opposing legion's fighters.
Wild Cherry Pepsi is superior to Cherry coke from it's better tasting Pepsi base to the additional cherry flavoring. But hey, taste is subjective so drink whatever floats your boat...
It is essential for the US military to have a strong space presence. Why is it that would-be aggressors are scared of the United States? Because they know we have the best military hardware in the world and some of the best-trained soldiers in the world. They understand that wars are very political until you get into all-out fighting (i.e. WW I/II). Saddam knows we can't just go in and kick his ass. That would be uncouth for such a developed nation. So besides playing politics in a touchy situation, what can we do? Launch satellites into space to do the covert work the media doesn't need to know about. Right now we have satellites for reconnaisance, but not attack. There are many hurdles to overcome, but it needs to be researched and put into practice. Then people need to be educated about it -- the cold war proved that deterrence is the way to win wars in a situation where a slip of the finger on the big red button could reduce the planet to a smoldering lump of carbon. Maybe I am biased. I am, after all, in the US Air Force myself. I love the military and would like to see a better defense system, as if our current one wasn't good enough. And before you flame me for being in the military (if you think that's a bad thing, I'm sure SOMEBODY does), know that I am an ex-Katz geek. Now I have access to military hardware to get back at those bullies from high school, and anybody that flames me :-)
Opinions are like bungholes, everybody has one and they all stink.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
1) We over-throw democratically elected governments
2) We sponsor right-wing death squads in Latin America
3) We don't honor our international commitments
4) We support brutal dictatoships. (That's right -- guess who helped finance the Iraqi war against Iran, before Saddam Hussein conveniently turned into our enemy?)
The list could go on and on, of course, but I should wrap it up before my electricity goes out (damn brown-outs!)
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Or, is that Freespace mission?
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
The missile defense system first championed by Ronald Reagan is not a bad idea. There's just one problem: it's not possible. The arguments you hear for it or against it revolve around the question of treaties. Software, as we know it, is just not reliable enough to run this stuff. Identifying and tracking missiles in flight - hundreds or perhaps even thousands at once - is beyond what we know software can do. The treaty problem is a red herring, if you ask me.
A crash program to develop and implement a missile defense system, a Star Wars system, is destined to become a prime example of wasteful government spending and corporate welfare. Sure, the studies and research that will be done will conclude it is possible, but only because that's the conclusion that they will be mandated to achieve (see "Carnivore review team"). Huge profits will be made by firms that get the contracts. You can build all the lasers and pulse cannons and boosters and kinetic energy warheads you want. But if you don't have the software to run them all together with 100% reliability and safety then all those other things mean NOTHING. If it were practical I'd be behind the idea. It's not.
Another thing in the article I found amusing was the "information warfare" aspect. Come on, does anyone seriously think key military command and control computers are going to be vulnerable to state-sponsored script kiddies, for God's sake? What worries me more than battles in space is the absolute clulessness of our elected officials and the gullible nature of the population at large who will be hoodwinked into thinking that these things are even possible. Should we be concerned abuout protecting our assets in space? Yes, absolutely. Should we study these things? Yes, absolutely. But we shouldn't devote huge resources to a pie-in-the-sky project that will never work.
Sounds like fun, they should see it to a games company
where Bart and Lisa go to military school. The commandant's closing address is:
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you."
fnord
You're not Russian, man!
;-))))
You don't use transliteraion correctly
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
-Moondog
High-altitude burst is definately optimal.
but a ground burst sure does something too.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
hm - Waco?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think Lockheed is also under investigation for fudging early test results. This was intended to be nothing more than a huge defense contractor pork barrel boondoggle. How convenient for Lockheed that the bad guys have nuclear missiles. Let's just make some campaign contributions here, have the politicians get nervous there. . . etc. repeat as necessary.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The US primarily thinks about itself and the beliefs and the goals of this country are the right one. The benefit that other countries my have are only side effects of the US getting what it wants. Plainly said the US was not pro-German, pro-France, or pro-Britain instead they are pro-US. Of course, other countries are not much better.
Come on, the first fucking man made object in space was a weapon. Sputik was propaganda, an international psychological weapon, boosted into orbit by an ICBM.
This is a game of survival of the fittest, on a cultural and ideological level. Perhaps it seems that the US cultural meme is paranoid, agressive, etc. But look how far Microsoft has come with that same mind-set. Peace is a nice idea - but as long as humans rely on resources for survival, we'll be playing that Darwinian game, because basically, we're all still animals, whether we accept it or not.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think that would actually be the five people who did vote to give us Dubya as prez-duh-dent. As for the rest of us, the majority voted for the other guy.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
and Antarctica?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Except that's not really feasible except over someplace without any electrical equipment whatsoever...because even a small atom bomb will create an EM pulse capable of taking out the electronics below it.
The idea is to intercept the ICBM somewhere off the coast of North America. That way, the EM pulse won't screw us up, and any radioactive debris will fall into the ocean. Not good, but a hell of a lot better than having 30 million people get nuked.
I didn't think Bonnie was into waving guns around, for most of the book, she played with George's gun, though...- ------------------
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I bent my wookie
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I bent my wookie
A Bugg
First
Tss, tss, tss. It smells of gross prejudice and flamebait. A few more years of occidental-like mass-consumerism in China and you'll have a hard time to find any "automaton" left there. I'm not having any wild-eyed illusion in the progress of democracy in China. But human nature is same everywhere : people care much more about cleaning one's car on Sunday morning and thinking about this cool HDTV DVD-R one's saw last week at the mall, than waging hi-tech or lo-tech war on its neighbors every now and then.
Bourgeoisie is nothing glorious but, at least, it's a peaceful state of mind and a very contagious one. That also applies to the Chinese (and by the way, they're humans too).
You also dismiss the essential fact that all wars are fought for, first and foremost, economic reasons, WWI and WWII included. Wars are not fought for "freedom" or "principles" but as matters of power. The good news are: economic powers are now transnational (and China is stepping in WTO right about now) and don't have much leverage or interest to push nations at war. The bad news are: economic powers are now transnational and don't give a shit about nations, especially third-world nations. See the situation in Democratic Congo (formerly Zaire) and US mining interest there.
I don't see, long term, the US and China going at each other throat because it doesn't make any economic sense, except if the US start panicking at a growing Chinese economic power, strong enough to say "fuck you" on trade matters or so. The only serious wars I can foresee are between nations and corporate conglomerates. Ooopps ! Wait a minute. Would that means that the US are actually becoming the #1 global danger ????
Second:
And Nuclear weapons are dying. States are now so used to Nuclear weapons, that it is taken as read they will never be used. Every state has become rational and technological in this regard by definition - otherwise they would be unable to develop Nuclear weapons at all.
Not everyone has a few thousand vectors, ready to go, stashed somewhere in its attic. It defeats any conceivable defense system. And, me thinka that the argument "I blast your ass in gaseous by-products down to the last leaf of grass on your territory the next you piss me off" is still and will remain a fairly strong and convincing argument in the face of many wannabe uber-rulers. I therefore see a continued bright future for having vast quantities of mass-destruction weapons.
I'm not happy at all with the alleged return of conventional warfare. I'd rather have conventional disarmament than nuclear disarmament. To see the US taking the conventional road IS the scary thing. It makes (limited) war actually possible.
I therefore respectfully dissent and state that your argument is moronic and anally retentive.
My $0.02.
Just as an aside, I believe there are more Native Americans alive today than there were before Columbus arrived in North America.
I'm certainly not excusing all the past crimes of the US. The US has done some pretty scary things, too, although I tend to think they're currently nowhere near as bad as China.
Of course, I don't live in the US.
The idea was that it took a certain amount of time to mobilize the massive amount of troops and material on the railroads. If your enemy started mobilizing and you did not, you were screwed. So you had to start your mobilization timetables going if the other guy looked like he was. etc, etc, etc... So they weren't 'set up and ready to go', but the mechanisms for mobilizing them were.
"Freedom in cyberspace'd be fine and dandy if we happened to live there."
A few likely scenarios are as follows:
...
1. China sends over Red Army in civvies on local boats, with hidden explosives and other weaponry. Result: Taiwan is now a Chinese province.
2. US invests in ABM - after 20 years of investment, still has only 90 percent kill ratio against a missile not using countermeasures. Against countermeasure missiles, best result is 30 percent. San Francisco glows in the dark
3. US continues to rely on Internet and GPS and satellite networks. China or Japan or Germany or France gets mad at us, uses "space junk" satellites to take out our network and cyber army to hack our networks with DOS sleeper attacks. US falls apart, whole world glows in dark.
4. Space aliens show up, turn off all networks. Bush used as chew toy by alien subcommander. Waste for military expenditures drops dramatically, economy grows at rapid pace and all world problems solved. Well, except for the AIDS virus, which kills off the space aliens, but now we have cheap colonies in the galaxy.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Only because the chinese army is tradionaly of VERY poor quality. They built the great wall to keep out mongols and others because the leaders of the day knew that the army, while the largest in world (even then) was patheticaly trained and equiped. Still they are horribly trained, and, contrary to media propaganda, horribly equipped and orginized. And I don't remeber the Great Antarctic war, could you refresh my memory?
Ah, so what happens if [enemy] develops missile systems in orbit? or establishes missile launch sites in Central or South America? Or Cuba for that matter, which (if I remember correctly) would be able to get a missile over American soil before an anti-missile nuke could intercept it?
Is that one of the reasons the system got canceled?
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
Do ya think we're just going to let them go?"
You're british aren't you.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
This is sometimes the case, but definitly not always the case. Look for instance at the United States versus Japan, while it could be argued (and I know it will be) that we were more suicidal than Japan was, I would have to bring up the fact of the Kamakzi fighters and the manned torpedos and then hope that would count them as a bit more suicidal than we were. We defeated them, though it took a whole lot of effort to do so.
No matter how fanatical an untrained and unarmed person is, he is not going to be able to defeat a fully armed and trained army, that's just preposterous.
Actually, isn't our official policy that the Mainland is a bunch of rogue provinces?
And if we have to go to war, I'd rather we went as a heavily armed paranoid superpower. What is the the better alternative?
Hay thar.
100 years from now (sooner I hope, but hey..), a space colony decides it no longer wants to have anything to do with ole Mother Earth any longer. They cease to pay taxes, 'nationalize' any local holdings of earth-based corporations, and generally declare themselves a new entity.
Do ya think we're just going to let them go?
Think this scenario is unlikely? Well, I put it to you this way: Nations fracture when a sizeable portion of their population feels that their government no longer works for them. And I very much doubt anything here on Earth would do a good job of governing a population living in space.
So like it or not, one way or the other, space warfare will occur, whether it is between nations or corporations. And it's always an advantage to have the most effective weapons (effective being a highly mission-specific thing).
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
Next time we will realize that Activision's Battlezone wasn't only a wild, despicable story. Perhaps it may be next year's headlines.
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
While an interesting read, the Washington Post journalist writing this story seemed so boondogled by the hype issued by the Air Force that he lacked almost any level of critical assessment.
The article gives the WWII war in the Pacific as a prototypical "success" of wargaming. Yet it failed to point out that the largest engagement of the US military in the Cold War era -- Vietnam -- took the US military by shock. No one would have anticipated that a dedicated group of guerilla resistance fighters in a small Southeast Asian country, facing against up the US, with its superior firepower and complete dominance of the sky, could have kicked the pants off the US military and sent them scrambling back home with their tails between their legs.
The implicit assumption of the whole 'Space Wargame' concept is that space warfare will play a critical role in the next big US conflict, necessarily against another space-faring nation (almost certainly China or Russia). Yet the history of the Cold War has taught us that the most serious threats do not come from the other superpowers, but from the small guy. It was true for the US in Vietnam, and true for Russia in Afghanastan. Each of the large projects mentioned (missile defense, space plane, earth-based satellite defenses) will cost astronomical sums of money to develop. Yet their use in a full-scale conflict against a small nation would be of limited use. As critical-minded citizens, we should question whether such large ticket items will necessarily lead to greater security for the US, and greater stability for the world.
The whole story reminds me of the downfall of Sauron in Lord of the Rings. He had surrounded himself with the deepest layers of security against the prying eyes of powerful magic.Yet only in the last few moments, as two hobbits marched up Mount Doom, did he realize the futility of his decision...
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
I don't think they're necessarily reading too much into this -- the WP has generally been one of the more reasonable newspapers when it comes to military journalism.
I'd presume that the journalists who wrote the article probably did a bit more research than just "reading into" the use of Red/Blue. Remember -- this was a military operation, so any official word (or even hint of an official word) that this involved China could provoke some seriously anti-diplomatic reaction from them (as it is, they're not terribly pleased with the US military after the Embassy carpet-combing incident)
Having been involved in the journalism field, I'd guess that the reporter probably got very good word that they were indeed referring to China (from an unnamed source) but on the condition that it remained as vague as possible.
(The reason they chose China probably has to do with the China / Taiwan interactions (i.e. tensions) -- though one could probably make a similar argument for Russia / every little guy they mess with.)
nlh
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
What would be much more realistic is to use an interceptor with a very small, clean nuclear warhead. If you only have to get within 200 metres, things get a lot easier. I think that was the original plan back in the days of Star Wars, but it got killed (most likely for political reasons).
Except that's not really feasible except over someplace without any electrical equipment whatsoever...because even a small atom bomb will create an EM pulse capable of taking out the electronics below it. That was actually going to be made into a weapon at one point (by both the Russians and the US...remember Goldeneye? That system (or something similary) was being planned in the Soviet Union before it fell apart). The US also had a similar plan...an easy way to take out TONS of electronics, without the fear of the thing being shot down.
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
Also realize, often the best defense is a strong offense. (A strong defensive line won't do jack for you in a football game if your offensive line is a bunch of 90lb. wusses. That is, of course, under the assumption that those 90lb. wusses don't have tasers, but that's another story entirely.)
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
If the USA is to have a hope, it , like the stag, must cultivate a spirit of self sacrifice among its civil service and citizens.
So, essentially what you're saying here is that in order to defeat China, the USA must become a totalitarian state itself, cultivating a "spirit of self-sacrifice"? It wasn't a "spirit of selfishness" that killed millions in Russia, it was "sacrifice yourself for the good of the people."
In such a war, I might fight, but self-sacrifice would be the last thing on my mind. I'd be fighting for myself, and any person I actually care about. The last thing in this world I'll sacrifice is my self and what I hold dear.
A nice, happy global society sounds like a good idea, but until there are NO evil people in the world, it will not work.
How can you be sure of this. There are evils in our country, and yet we have 50 states that generally submit to the authority of the federal government. Why couldn't Earth act as one big country, making decisions together while leaving "states" with some level of autonomy?
I'm not saying this is very likely to happen, but I don't see why it's impossible. The EU is already starting to look more and more like one big country. I could see large groups like the US and the EU forming, and then eventually joining into one giant country.
Not that this is necessarily the greatest idea. One of the benefit of having different countries is their different laws. Want to smoke pot but the US won't let you? Move to the Netherlands. Want to be a neo-nazi but Germany won't let you? Move to the US. Want to live in a gun-free society but US has lax gun laws? Move to Great Britain. I don't know if losing this variety would be all that great a thing. Still, I think it could happen.
Well, Teddy Roosevelt did have the "speak softy but carry a big stick" foreign policy...
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
as of September 26, 1997 the treaty remains in effect.
6 01_pentagon.rm ), but quite a few of Bush's national security team have made similar comments)
That was the view several years ago, but in recent years that became a bit foggy. The Bush Administration now appears to have completely moved to the position that since the Soviet Union no longer exists, the treaty is no longer in effect. (Secretary Rumsfeld touched on this a little last Friday (see: http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/kdrive/c2k012
How many of the "automatons of China" have you met?
Have you actually seen what it's like there right now?
Did you know that they have open markets, that they publish books criticizing the government, that they mock Maoist-era politics openly on TV sitcoms? That they have local elections - with better voter turnouts that those in our glorious US of A - and that they are converting state-owned enterprises into private corporations?
Prejudiced, media-fed, black-and-white views of the world are NOT what we need to further global peace. We need to show understanding and a willingness to inquire before we slander and condemn.
Yes, the USA has done it before - did you hear about how Kissinger single-handedly killed the peace talks in Vietnam and sent 50,000 American our age into the grave? Is that the kind of "resolve" that we should show in order to defeat those inhuman red Commie bastards?
American Democracy is dead. Long live American Democracy.
ALSO, if they don't care about you knowing why did they invite the press?
The interview or briefing or whatever it was could have been designed to disseminate the information (or dis-information) to other parties; not necessarily the American public. When the B2 flew over the stadium in Tampa yesterday, I thought about the secondary message it sent out to potential adversaries: "Hey, you guys want to mess with us? CHECK THIS BABY OUT!"
>>lastly, a Missle Defense system violates the Strategic Arms Treaties. this in itself is reason enough not to build one.
Actually, a missile defense system would violate the ABM treaty, not the "Strategic Arms Treaties". Which, is technically no longer legally valid, since the US signed it with the Soviet Union, which no longer exists, as stated here. (courtesy of lexis nexis).
The ABM treaty prohibits "strategic" defense systems, but permits "theater" defenses, the difference being one of scale.
IANAL
-skip
That we will not be able to watch the whole operation on CNN?
Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco come readily to mind as does the war on drugs.
Yes, those were pretty fucked up, too. Not excusing those, but, at least in the case of Ruby Ridge (and Waco, I think), the victims were armed.
The W-88 neutron bomb warhead was copied from the United States and we mostly certainly have at least a hundred loaded into our missiles right now.
I very much doubt the US has any of them armed or loaded into missiles. What would be the point? It's not like the US wants to invade anybody. Yes, the Chinese stole the neutron bomb from the US (although they claim to have invented it themselves). What's your point?
The US, in it's typically arrogant fashion, has rattled its saber against China several times as well, like in 1996 when it sent 2 carrier groups to the Taiwan strait. Finally, do you really want the US government telling those Japanese-wannabe traitors in Taiwan that, "Hey, defy and provoke China all you want. American soldiers will pay the consequences."
How arrogant of the US to offer to help out a fellow democracy against a much larger aggresor. What traitorous bastards they are, wanting things like democracy and freedom.
There isn't such a thing as a "clean" nuclear warhead. All nuclear weapons use either uranium or plutonium as a trigger and the radioactive byproducts from fission cannot be minimized and will not go away. Plus, you are talking about two nuclear devices exploding at the same time in the same place high in the atmosphere. That will so healthy.
Oh yes, it's so much better to have the nuke blow up your own fucking cities than be destroyed over the middle of the Pacific. And, for your information, some nuclear weapons are cleaner than others, in that they use up more of the fissionable material and produce less fallout. Also, the incoming ICBM would not explode in a nuclear fashion, it would just be damaged and fall into the ocean.
If you want to say all immigrants of Chinese descent are traitors, why don't you come out and say it directly? Then maybe the people in the forum will see you for the rascist bastard you are.
I'm not racist, and you're the one who called certain Chinese traitors (see your Taiwan comment). The vast majority of immigrants--Chinese or otherwise--are loyal citizens, and I have quite a few Chinese friends. My point was that it only takes one spy to do damage... If you think it is ridiculous to worry about this, perhaps you should consider how the Soviets and the People's Republic of China "acquired" their nuclear technology from the US. You might also want to look into a company called Lorel, and how the PRC aquired ballistic missile technology.
What I do hate are communist-sympathizer assholes like you.
Yeah, it's real nice to know that we are provoking yet another arms race.
How is building a defensive system provoking an arms race?
And the part of the article that was left out:
...And thus concludes the latest round in the ongoing Air Force Space Command Deathmatch. In the finals, we'll see the young upstart Private Rocks going up against General Bigname to see who is truely the master of the world in 2017.
I wonder when a copy of this game will hit the shelves...
Grei
Where exactly did I try to whitewash the Chinese system? A specific quote please. I was merely trying to point out the hypocritical way most Americans go about treating China. I never made a single comment for or against the policies of the Chinese government. And I was born in this country. Isn't it interesting that while I'm a citizen in the full legal sense, I still can't be trusted because of my last name?
Some thoughts that no one else seems to have mentioned:
.5 seconds. Even the military knows that war is a bad thing. On many of the air force hangers I've seen there are signs saying "Peace is our Profession". The military doesn't want to go to war. It wants to make sure that if YOUR ELECTED LEADERSHIP DECLARES WAR then we will win. Don't be pissed at the military about war or spending, be pissed at all the people who didn't vote in the last election and thus gave us W for a president.
No one in the game said "Red attacks Blue!" they said "Red attacks BROWN, who asks for help"
Who is brown? Taiwan? Kuwait? India? Japan? I would say any of those countries and many others would be deserving of help if they had to ask for it.
This BULLSHIT about war games being a waste of money is amazing. After humanitarian efforts, war games are the most important thing the peace-time military can do! If the military doesn't think, "what if?" how do you expect the military to plan a defense? Or are you the guys the ones who play CounterStike like it was DukeNukem, die immediately and leave me to try and get the job done while hopelessly outnumbered?
AND ANOTHER THING! The military leadership doesn't give a fuck what the slashdot community thinks of their games any more they the community cares what military leaders thing of C++ vs C. The military leadership isn't qualified to comment on that any more that most of us are qualified to comment on intelligent use of military funds. If you want to post a contrary comment, excellent, but don't just bitch "That's Stupid" when you've thought about your response for less than
ALSO, if they don't care about you knowing why did they invite the press? So any potential enemies know we're studying space based combat and (hopefully) decide not to persue the idea with as much vigor as they might have if they thought we were completely unprepared. That's why you put big naval ships by a potential target. Just to remind a potential enemy that it's a lot less painful to be friends.
Ok, that's enought venting for me. Sorry to all of you who think my comments are obvious.
The odds of a Nuclear weapon being used by 2010 are about 45% and an armed conflict between US and China by 2010 are about 34% according to Ideosphere, a reputational betting pool.
When things got going (with the assasination of the German chancellor, as I remember) , everybody reacted to everybody else's reaction (technical response only, of course) and -- by the time people realized what was going on -- a huge stack of troops was suddenly committed to battle/battlefield support.
By that point, logistical pressures made war almost inevitable.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
How about Global Thermalnuclear War? Anyway. Never underestimate humanity's ability to create and destroy very expensive equipment all for the purpose of seeing who has a better equiped army. This whole thing reminds me of something Regan did called "Star Wars", shooting missles out of the sky with ground and satalite based lasers. It never went over because of the cost. Humanity needs a wake up call. Destruction is not a good thing at all! We need to stop fighting or we will destroy ourselves.
It was Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria that was assassinated while in Serbia by Gavrilo Princip, a member of The Black Hand. Here is more info on the event.
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Dyolf Knip
There is a fantasy movie where two boys, one boy has a specially made cloak of invisibility, must fight a man who either has a heart of stone or can turn people to stone. Please, does anyone know the name of his movie?
Ah, so what happens if [enemy] develops missile systems in orbit?
Hence the need for killsats...
or establishes missile launch sites in Central or South America? Or Cuba for that matter, which (if I remember correctly) would be able to get a missile over American soil before an anti-missile nuke could intercept it?
Ever heard of the Cuban missile crisis? You guys went through a lot of crap before to avoid that scenario. I imagine you would go to great pains to prevent missile launch sites from being established there.
Cause it would involve them stopping the smoking of pot, putting the ferret back in the cage, turning off the Dave Matthews/Grateful Dead/Phish CD and learning something about science.
It would also involve these people getting out and doing something productive, rather than whining at people who do.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Its too bad that war is the extension of politics, but its the truth. If you want to see war go away, first change human nature, then you'll be able to affect the necessary changes in the political arena to make it a non-viable extension of politics.
There are no evil countries, but there are evil people. No one seriously thinks the Germans are evil, genocidal people. But face facts, the Nazi Party rose to power and killed a lot of people. The Russians weren't evil but Stalin's Purges killed a whole lot more people. Countries aren't evil but people sure are.
This isn't about "my country is on the side of God and yours is a haven of godless commie scum". This is about people that see a way to create a future for their families and more importantly, their regimes. If the fathers of the nation, its leaders and those with the power, decide that its the only way to ensure that they can keep their phoney-baloney jobs (to quote Mel Brooks) then its what they'll do, and you're kidding yourself if quoting Ginsberg will stop it.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
You can't just up and move to whatever country you want to...Europe especially has extremely restrictive immigration laws that only allow very few people per year. The USA will pretty much take anyone (hint: claim that your government oppresses you, even if they don't) however.
C'mon, someone mod this up. It was funny.
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Dyolf Knip
I am always amazed that people still believe the baloney you spout. First of all, the Soviets violated the ABM treaty before the ink was even dry. Secondly, the Soviet Union, which the treaty was signed with, no longer exists. Thirdly, the ABM treaty had a provision for unconditional withdrawal with a six-minth notice. The fact that we haven't yet withdrawn proves beyond any doubt that that we in the US are complete fools.
By the way, if you want me to read any response, please email me. I don't have time to follow this nonsense.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
I was merely trying to point out the hypocritical way most Americans go about treating China.
For your information, I'm not American, nor do I live in the US. Fuck you for making that assumption.
I normally try to be civil with people I disgree with, but you unjustly called me a racist, so you can burn in hell, asshole.
Why couldn't all of this weaponry be blasted out of commission by a radical pacifist organization heaving a hefty electromagnetic pulse?
When you got the media virtually telling China "We don't trust you. We think you are going to attack us" what do the chinese have left but to live up to this misconception and put weapons to their disposal, perhaps only as a defensive move, but knowing the US it will "clearly" be an offensive.
I am sick of word war. Sick of the idea that there are evil countries. Sick that the US itself is not truly willing to believe in peace.
It is a sad sad thing. And I am only 19 years old. Good work, America. "Go fuck yourself with the Atom bomb," as Allen Ginsberg put it.
I dunno, I'd rather have something in place capable of shooting missiles out of the sky in case someone BUYS non-nuclear or nuclear based missiles from China and points them at us, than have nothing at all. The idea of someone smuggling in a bomb has merit, but what are we supposed to do when that [insert well-funded terrorist group] decides to just shoot missiles? Put on a pot of tea and go out onto the porch and enjoy the show? Your arguement is that we do nothing at all to defend ourselves-- my arguement is that we DO something. Even if it's failing right now, atleast the research has been put into place and the efforts are moving forward; just because it won't shoot something out of the sky today doesn't mean it won't in the coming months and years as the technology evolves.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Or American...
You do know that when Cuba 'nationalized' all industry ONLY American refused to accept the 'repayments' made by the Cuban Government to the foreign interests... America has had it 'in' for Cuba since...
NASA is already concerned about orbiting space junk, most of it travelling at several thousand miles per hour. even a small screw becomes a satellite killer at those speeds. there are several programs already underway to create orbiting garbage collectors and nasa is currently tracking all orbiting junk above a certain size. sorry i can't site any references off the top of my head.
your calculations only consider the total volume but orbiting debris does not move syncronously, it moves in all directions and the criss crossing of orbital paths makes the problem significantly more complex than a simple volume calculation.
we still have orbital breathing room but that room is shrinking. the probability of a significant collision is great enough that NASA is taking preventative measures already. in short, the problem is a bit more pertinent than you make it out.
Right the first time, give the man a cigar!
I swear, reading a detailed history book is about the most depressing thing you can do. It's like 4000 years of "Mankind's Dumbest Home Videos".
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Dyolf Knip
Why oh why does everyone seem to hate the US? Because we saved the world a bunch of times this century? Because we had the balls (and the economy) to face down the Red Threat? Who was the arsenal of democracy? France? Nope, most of them actively collaborated with the Nazi in the Vichy Regime. Good old US 0f A. Who had the military might to move 750000 troops around the world and bitchslap saddam? And the worse part is, we ask for NOTHING in return. We are one of the last crusaders left, doing good for good's sake. But hated we are nonetheless. You seem to hate the US, tell me, why?
A national missile defense system WOULD work, however. They may send 'fake' missiles for us to shoot down, but atleast the system is in place in case of a surprise attack or an unprovoked attack.
Plus you need to keep in mind, our missile defense system ISN'T being put in place to keep China or Russia from attacking us-- it's for the smaller countries or terrorists that may have access to nuclear missile technology, or other kinds of missiles. CNN interviewed someone speaking for the NMD, and they pointed out that in it's current incarnation the system wouldn't be able to block a full attack by China/Russia. It's only intent was to defend against rogue states or terrorists.
With this in mind, it wouldn't stop China if they went all out; but it would atleast limit the amount of damage they could do. If they circumvent it, oh well, but atleast it's an early warning for us to know that they're planning an attack immediatly (afterall, we'll reset the system with new rockets fairly shortly, correct?).
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Why bother with such sophisticates like missiles and navigations when you can load up a ship with a good size nuke and park it next to NY. Drop off your suitcase nuke in the middle of a big city, etc.
There is a substantial amount of data to conclude that the United States knew an attack was coming, but let it proceed in order to galvanize pro-war opinion in a country that wanted nothing to do with a conflict across an ocean.
2: The Nazis Invade Russia
The Nazis Invade France
The United States was not involved directly in combat when either of these conflicts took place. In fact, there was a substantial pro-German constituency in the United States when the invasion of France was launched.
i want 10k Chinese rolling into St. Louis. The heartland. We've got 500K people with rifles, uzis, m-16's. We won't get taken. It'll be a turkey shoot. NOBODY TAKES THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! NOBODY!
...consider that the Chinese military has publically discussed plans to neutron bomb Taiwan. How's that for fucking horrific? Do you want another holocaust?
I agree with you on several of your latter points, but i'm afraid i must denounce you as historically blind in this particular statement. America has used exactly these tactics to attain its current position - namely mass slaughter of japanese civilians without warning. Two cities were gutted. Why were those millions killed?
It's amazing that a nation threatening to exercise those same methods is then labeled a monster. Hypocrisy in action.
Some people here claim that a National Missile Defense (NMD) is technically infeasible...What would be much more realistic is to use an interceptor with a very small, clean nuclear warhead.
Also, they've been trying for a couple of decades now for something that will take out hostile missiles, surpise attack or otherwise. I hate to break it to you, but these people are most likely a lot smarter than either of us and have probably put this idea to the test. The fact that a working missile shield isn't yet up and running attests to the inadequacy of this simple strategy.
Er, sorry about that... blame Florida.
If you really want us to like you, invade Quebec. Please.
Ah, asking for some good ol' U.S. of A. disaster relief? Well if you promise not to let any more Bin Ladden bombers through Victoria, we'll think about it.
And take Celine Dion.
No thanks.
Oh, and could you bring some Cherry Coke with you? It's impossible to get up here, and that Wild Cherry Pepsi is shit.
Ok, we'll trade for some Squirl Peanut Butter.
Also, would you mind getting California to pay us for all the electricity we gave them?
Not until they pay us for the power they took!
Now that I think about it, I could use some good Mexican food... Maybe California can pay us back in tamales...
Aw, we'll let you come down to Yakima for the Mexican food. Just be sure to stop at the outlet malls along the way. And stop driving slow in the left lane too! How would you like it if I actually drove 45KPH on the Granville Bridge?
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Joe Hamelin
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I will turn the question back to you and ask why you think the ABM treaty should continue to be propped up when we can unconditionally withdraw within six months. What is the point of a treaty that only serves to tie our own hands behind our back, preventing us from even trying to defend ourselves? Do you honestly think it will slow down the Russian ABM program? Be serious now! The only effect of the treaty is to help the Democrats stop our ABM program.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Damn unfortunate name for a career military guy, eh?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
And when was the last that Europe came running to the U.S.? World War II, some 50 odd years ago. And before that, when was the last time? Oh, never.
You Americans lend one piddly offer of assistance and you think that you saved world. By the time the first American troops hit the beaches on DDay, the Russians were well on their way to winning the war in East. Whether or not the Americans had helped in Europe, the Russians would have still been able to walk through downtown Berlin in 1945.
We are capitalist warlords, and I GODAMN LIKE IT.
In most circles the lack of progression beyond barbaric tendencies is not something to be proud of.
Don't get me wrong, I like the U.S., but ignorant yahoos like you project an extremely negative image.
Maybe now instead of actually blowing each other up, we can just play war games.
Or we can have the to presidents (kings, dictatores, etc) just play thumbwar!
And don't think that the show is over yet. Someday some historians are going be going over some textbooks reading about our lifes and thinking "Gods, they were stupid".
They're being a little optimistic about SDI, now, aren't they? When I see evidence to suggest we'll have our Magical Laser Satellites in the next 20 years, I'll believe it. And the point of war, from a modern standpoint (assuming it's US v China) is to destroy everything your enemy owns. Someone fires the first (nuclear) shot, and we all die.
You know that saying, how you always kill the one you love? Well, it works both ways.
be proud that momma's son did well, and takes care of her in her waning years
still
blue = US
red = China
brown = Taiwan
seems fairly plausible, doesn't it ?
-- the cake is a lie
Well, if we did get an SDI, then they would just pump up their ICBM production and warhead production, to the point where any SDI became inneffective. Then Russia would get nervous, having a neighbor w/ enough nukes to sterilize their country, decide to hold onto their ICBM's, and the whole START treaties would be put on hold. The only positive outcome I see is if this generation of 'Star Wars' does what the previous generation did, or threatened to do: spend the Commies dry. Of course, it helped that Reagan was crazy enough to scare the Russians into pissing themselves, and that Russia never really developed its civilian infrastructure. China is pushing domestic development hard, since stealing from a rich country is so much more profitable than raping a poor one. And even I'm not that scared of Bush, and my sister was preaching worst case 'Roe vs Wade stuff' at me...(make no mistake, a true turnover of Roe vs Wade is a scary thought...My Mom had a friend in med school die from back alley abortion stuff... But even Bush isn't that big a jerk.)
So, is SDI cost effective? I dunno. If it's really just to block 'rogue' states, then the best way to diffuse tensions is to offer to share it with the other big nations... needless to say, we ain't offering to share with China or Russia. So, it's really just going to fuel an arms race, IMHO. I'm divided over the merits of an arms race (richest nation wins! but, are we still going to be?), but I'd have to be cautiously negative. Unless they do another Tianamen (which was partially a mistake on Deng's part... some people misrepresented what the students were demanding, i.e., revolution vs reforms... those people responsible weren't excoriated, but their careers are now in smaller dominions) I'd say, no more money on space lasers. Zap tritium and work on the fusion problem instead.
Wow. I've spent more time responding to a troll than I should. Over an hour, I think. Oh, and yes, that last remark about space lasers is flippant, I know the current thought is anti-missle missle systems and whatnot, but it captures my mood and opinion. Bye now.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
If the USA is to have a hope, it , like the stag, must cultivate a spirit of self sacrifice among its civil service and citizens. It is the only way that America will get the resolve to win. The USA has done it before - lets see if it can do it again
No, my dick is bigger than yours. Yeah yeah America! Yeah Yeah America! Whoo-Whoo-were #1-Were #1.
Lets instead hope America dosnt go rushing off to display its supremecy and start a war with China. Lets instead hope America learns some self control and pulls back the reigns of Imperialism that the rest of the world has been trying to throw off for the last 50 years. Lets instead hope for a peacefull, sound, prosperous, healthy, vibrant, happy future - not to 'Start then Win' some fucking big-dick contest... do you think people in China dont care about the same things you do? The world is not about Nationality but about class. American Business & thier Mouthpieces spend alot of time pumping Yankees full of nationalistic propaganda so they never realize they are in the same boat as every other proletariat on the planet - 'the problems' relate to economic class, not birthplace.
I'm surprised at you, Archie! If Clinton did sell those nuclear secrets, wouldn't Congress be immediately sold on having the National Missile Defense System?
:)
Me? Well, I am looking forward to leading my minions from the depths of Hell in the conquest of Earth
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
Oh come on now! This has to be a pseudonym.
Not A Sig
Anybody here remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre? A government that will kill its own citizens (many of them students--like most Slashdotters) is a government to be feared. Brown is obviously Taiwan. China has rattled its sabre at Taiwan a number of times already, so this scenario is entirely realistic. In case you think it wouldn't be worth interfering, consider that the Chinese military has publically discussed plans to neutron bomb Taiwan. How's that for fucking horrific? Do you want another holocaust?
Some people here claim that a National Missile Defense (NMD) is technically infeasible. I agree that there are problems with the idea of kinetic-kill interceptors--it's very hard to hit a target moving at several times the speed of sound. What would be much more realistic is to use an interceptor with a very small, clean nuclear warhead. If you only have to get within 200 metres, things get a lot easier. I think that was the original plan back in the days of Star Wars, but it got killed (most likely for political reasons).
As for space war, that's entirely realistic. Just consider how reliant on GPS, spy satellites, and sat-communication the US is, and how much of an advantage those capabilities give the US. Throughout history, wars have often been decided by intelligence and communication. Back in the earlier half of last millenium, battles were usually decided by the vanguards of the respective army. If your vanguard lost, you wouldn't know where the enemy was, and you would have no recon screen. The same principle applies even more strongly now.
Hacker war? Definitely. The targets don't have to be military installations to cause severe damage. For instance, the US Army uses FedEx to transport spare parts a lot of the time. Messing with banks and financial institutions could also seriously affect the will and ability of the US to fight a war. Tom Clancy has already thought of a lot of this, although he usually blows the details when it comes to hi-tech.
The warriors in the "hacker war" won't be your average script kiddies, and they won't be limited to the usual attacks. Lots of software development is done in foreign countries or by foreign immigrants, and, while the vast majority of these people are honest, it only takes a few to plant backdoors in dangerous places. These "enemy hackers" also don't have to be attacking from somewhere within country X--they could be within your own borders. It's worth noting that China uses a lot of open source software--maybe they're concerned about these kinds of vulnerabilities.
Of course, even script kiddies can do serious damage, as Microsoft recently found out. Imagine what a few thousand script kiddies could do if given a year and co-ordinated planning... Biggest DDoS you've ever seen, coming from everywhere all at once... While that attack was causing general chaos, the true 1337 h4X0rs would do the real damage.
It's nice to see that the Armed Forces have started thinking about all this.
China are supposedly "running out of room" in China, so some people are saying they'll need to invade somewhere soon.
The Brits, on the other hand, need saving from the USA - with every UK politician it seems proud to be seen with Uncle Sam's hand down his pants, they welcome the destruction of countryside to make way for the USA's missile defence early warning stations. If our land can make the USA a safer place from Those Who Would Question Capitalism then you're welcome to it!
But the worst thing is, we're all out of new colors. I hear that brown is the new purple, but in my book blue is the new red.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
Actually, nuclear weapons is a misnomer - they're really less weapons and better called deterrents. I believe the actual use of a nuclear weapon defeats the purpose - the threat of a thermonuclear device is far, far more influencial than the use of one.
If you want to know what combat in space would be like, don't play war games. Just read Ender's Game. Who needs sattelites when you have 0g laser tag?
Stupid like a fox!
You're forgetting the real reason these games are held: so the pentagon can justify spending upteen gajillion dollars on the technology whose usefullness is "proven" by bad simulations.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
1) To explore a new paradigm of potential conflict which may or may not actually manifest itself at some point in the future. The USAF simulation of satellite warfare is an example of such a simulation. We don't really know if there will ever be satellite combat, but the technology is moving in a direction that might make such combat possible in the future.
2) To prepare for combat or other operations in a known conflict paradigm. The USMC conducting war games in San Francisco recently is a good example of this. Urban warfare happens all the time - Kuwait, Bosnia, Somalia, you name it. We know we'll at some point get involved in a fight in built up terrain somewhere, so we prepare for it.
Now let's look at the role of the military. The US military's primary role is to defend US interests (the physical safety of the citizens of the United States, its economic interests, etc, depending on your political views, one could go on in many directions). The military does not decide when and where it fights. The government does.
But when the government calls on the military to fight, it had better be ready to fight, or there will be calls of "damn, we pay them all that money, and they were caught by surprise!"
Cases where simulation of type 1 followed by type 2 might have been helpful:
1: Pearl Harbor ("nobody would ever try to attack Pearl, it's armed to the teeth!")
2: The Nazis Invade Russia ("Comrade, those Germans are preoccupied with France and England. They won't be turning east for at least another couple of years!")
3: The Nazis Invade France ("We have more heavy tanks than the Germans, and we have this fantastic Maginot Line!")
There's nothing worse than saying, "Damn, we never thought that might happen!" as you bury your dead.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
But you're missing the most important point, which is that doing something costs money. A lot of money. We have poured billions and billions of dollars into missile defense since Reagan first proposed it and gotten basically nothing out of it. And even if we did get something from it, it wouldn't actually do any good, because it can be avoided by smuggling a weapon into the country on a ship, truck, train, airplane, etc. So instead of pouring our money down a bottomless pit, we should spend it on something that actually has a chance of doing the country some good.
That could be tax relief, social programs, basic science research, education, national debt reduction, or the like. Any one of those is likely to result in more net good for the country. Or if you don't want to take it away from defense spending you could put it into conventional forces, better intelligence against rogue states and terrorist organizations that you're so worried about, or biological threat detection research (which actually has some promise). Any of those programs would probably help national security more than NMD. Or you could put it into foreign aid and diplomacy so that there are fewer people out there pissed off enough to try blowing us up. That would probably be a more effective threat reduction than NMD.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
"It's only intent was to defend against rogue states or terrorists."
terrorists won't use a missle. they'll bring their bomb in a briefcase or a truck, just like they did in the World Trade Center bombing.
secondly, the deterent to prevent countries from launching a small scale attack is our threat of a substantially larger retaliation. remember M.A.D.? now all of sudden, that's not good enough. we're in iminent danger of attack regardless of our retaliatory capabilities and we need a missle defense system in order to be safe? sorry, i don't buy that at all. the system is designed to protect against attacks which will never occur.
lastly, a Missle Defense system violates the Strategic Arms Treaties. this in itself is reason enough not to build one.
While I sometimes question the accuracy of Ananova, they are reporting that Iraq has two nuclear weapons at their disposal. The rules are changing. We can basically bomb a nation (Iraq) into the stone age, and somehow a few years later they have the bomb. Security is not what it used to be. Everything is a threat. I'm glad the military is looking at how technology can be used in the future of wargames. The more and more simulations they do the better prepared we can be for situations like this. And it seems only fair to assume that we would eventually have to have a 'space-corps', as the space installations of the future will have as much stratigic importance then our factories and military installations do here on Earth.
The Internet is generally stupid
Soldier: "SIR, 5kr1p7 k1dd13 Second Class, SIR"
Officer: "What objective are you and your team working on?"
Soldier: "SIR, we're attempting to h4x0r the Blue's Gibson, SIR"
Officer: "What progress have you made?"
Soldier: "SIR, We have successfully 0wn3d one of the systems connected to the primary objective. The password was CPE1704TKS. We should be able to gain access to the target from there, SIR"
Officer: "Excellent work, son. Carry on."
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
Does it mean that Native Americans must be grateful to invaders for being allowed to have children?
True, good ol' Dubya is going to be more of a hawk than Clinton was, but he's only been in office for about a week, so I would guess this war games scenario is something the Air Force did for internal reasons, not as something to be widely publicized for propaganda purposes.
Still, I think we're likely to see China-as-an-enemy posturing under Bush rather than the China-as-a-market stance we had under Clinton.
hoser: Slashdot reader since 1987.
The point of back alley abortions being mentioned is that you know someone dies there. The mother. And frankly, I don't think God does put the soul into the body until it can survive outside the mother's body. If He put it in at conception, I'd have to conclude He was a cruel bastard, given that what, 1 in 5 pregnancies result in miscarriage? And whatever else I know, I know God isn't a cruel bastard. Life is cruel, yes, but He does His best to lessen its pains. He has touched me personally at times to prove it, so I say here,stop slandering my God!
Yeah, I really think you're a troll, given your AC status and hastily written style, but if you aren't, there's some thoughts to chew on...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
couldn't a said it better mahself
somebody mod this idiot up. i think they have something here...
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
No, he was killed in BOSNIA. But the Black Hands who assassinated him were Serbian.
hate all us "Anglo
Not true - they dont 'hate' us. I know plenty of Quebecois and none have said "I hate you because you speak English". There is not racist crap like that going on.
There are people in Quebec who feel that Quebec would be better off independant. That may or may not be true. But Canada is a tolerant culture that values real democracy - it is our duty to listen and discuss the concerns of the Quebecois, this 'English Backlash' you display is childish and ignorant. Would you prefer we start an armed conflict and have people start riots in the streets?
Quebec Nationalism, in some strange ways, is a testement to the strenght of Canada. Where else do you see people discussing real political ideals in a respectfull and mature manner? Where else do you see people using the strenghts of democracy to make political change?
In the end, Quebec will not seperate - and it will be a great stunning victory for all Canadians. Maybe the rest of Canada should listen to the Quebecois to understand what they desire instead of acting gruff and cynical.
Sometimes things are moving in a way that I think that might be more of a possibility than I'd like.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
If the blue team plans encompass their attacking the computers of Red, and the opposition, have the considered the possibility of non-military forces (called the Light Blue and Pink) trying to be patriotic and aiding their military by arranging their own private attacks in un-planned support?
Imagine: a Light Blue script kiddie attacks an important node in Red's system. Red take this a sign of aggression and retaliate. Blue are then forced to respond to a reponse for a trigger they did not personally pull.
Alternatively, the attack could come from Green, someone who wasn't involved in the Red/Blue conflict, who has no particular favouritism. In the initial stages of an intrusion it can be difficult to tell the source of the damage.
Plus with the US reliance on commercial carriers (in the case of space access) one wonders about their dependence on IP carriers. Can I damage the enemy by destroying or deactivating a HUB (MAE or similar spring to mind)?
... and today's pet project has
So the EMP effects from nuclear missles detonated in space in the 50's and 60's didn't happen? Wow! It was all a bad dream after all... Thanks Washington Post!
It strikes me that if war games can be played using satellites (and micro-satellites and what-not) the military must have a model, or at least something on paper, of what they're using. I could come up with futuristic weapons, but they won't say China has them in 2017. This means we could probably start shooting enemy satellites down in the next 5(?) years, if they get built right away. Cool stuff, go Air Force.
No sig for you.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no isolationist and I support foreign aid for all kinds of moral and ideological reasons. However, plenty of regimes have demonstrated their willingness to take US aid with one hand while giving us the proverbial finger with the other. Not that this is surprising; they are simply acting according to self-interest. Still, it always seems to come as a shock to those in the US who cling to the romantic notion that if we give away enough money, everyone will play nice.
<shameless asskissing>
By the way, your posts throughout this story have all been interesting and well argued. Nice work.
</shameless asskissing>
with humpy love,
with humpy love,
humpmonkey
Seeing this article was just horribly depressing.
Oh goody, our space weapons will beat their space weapons. How about no damn space weapons at all? We do not need another arms race, but that is exactly where stuff like this is heading. How about we try to work for a lasting peace agreement with China et all and work for a function global society? hrmph...
How exactly does one "use" space? Can you, say, open a can with Space? Will it wash your car? If you pay Space reasonable wages, will it work in your athletic shoe factory?
Perhaps this may delay the peaceful *exploration* of space (though the smart money's on "It never gets off the ground"), but as for the "use" of space, nuh-uh.
You know that saying, how you always kill the one you love? Well, it works both ways.
Vot my vchera hohlov dushili-dushili ;-)))
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Glad you said something about the NMD. It's a dangerous, dangerous thing, and it's easy to understand why. China currently has a couple of dozen ICBM's with nuclear warheads - a useful deterrent against a possible American nuclear attack. If we were to develop an NMD that could credibly defend against an attack of that magnitude, what would China do?
Build more fricking nukes, that's what.
The NMD would contribute significantly to nuclear proliferation. It sounds great in theory, but if you do the math, you'll see that it would actually be a destabilizing influence.
It seems unrealistic to me that a microsatellite would be carrying enough fuel to be manueverable enough to actually block the view of another satellite.
Using radiation to "fry" the electronics seems much more plausible, as a burst weapon could be charged from solar collectors.
Well, kind of. The unarmed person can be part of a wave attack, the person in the front gets a rifle, when killed the guy behind him grabs it up and continues on.
I beleve the Russians had to do that in some WW2 battles.
There were also the woefully under-armed folks who found one of the USA Libberator45 drops, a single fire 45 pistol GM made two a minute at the height of production. It came with an instruction comic book that showed how to sneek up behind a lone german and shoot him in the back, and then take their much better gun/rifle.
Fanatisam is a force multiplyer. So is training. So is equiptment. If you had a shotgun, and 1000 people who wanted to kill you had nothing but sticks, I'm pretty sure your going to die. You'll be able to kill a lot more of them then they will of you, but they can rush you in great enough numbers that you won't be able to reload fast enough.
Unfortunetely, one country cutting its military will not stop war. It will cause that country to lose them, though.
Nobody -- including every officer of the military I've met -- likes war. However, wars are at times necessary and appropriate.
Do you really think the world would be a better place right now if the Americans and British had been unarmed during that "brutal first 65 years"?
liberal news orgs == gospel truth
conservative/libertarian news orgs == lies and fabrications
Gotcha! Thanks.
almost certainly China or Russia
Dont forget those wily Peruvians. They dress funny. They dont wear any deodorant. And they only have ONE! McDonalds!!!, even that is only there for the US Military base.... lets not forget about them... next thing you know they will be Godless Commies(TM)
We shouldnt forget that everyone thought China was going to kill the citizens of Hong Kong by now. It never happened. China is much smarter than many users of this site realize. Remember, everything in China is open source... their copyright system is quite antiquated (warez is the norm). China is basically an open source country... something Slashdot never mentions.
"Smokey, this isn't Nam, there are rules." -Walter
Words from the horse's mouth, provided by Babelfish.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
as of September 26, 1997 the treaty remains in effect.
/ mi ssdef/abm_mou.html
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/factsheets
"The United States of America, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, upon entry into force of this Memorandum, shall constitute the Parties to the Treaty."
it seems that you're advocating the breaking of this treaty. perhaps you could explain why you believe that is a wise course of action?
Science fiction, by Poul Andersson, called "Kings for sacrifice", when nations agreed to battle in space instead of scorching Earth.
;-)))
Or "Fury" by Henry Kuttner, when battles were performed outside of the living space not to damage it.
I know, it's too early for that kind of technological advances for all warryng states, but it's nevertheless an option for the future, unless humankind will learn how to control its aggression (let only ones who never flipped off a sucker who cuts you off or blocks the left lane throw a stone at me
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Beacuse it's America. We like our meat red, our tits big, our idols stupid and our enemies dead.
--God, guns, guts The staple diet of religious nuts
This may have been mentioned already, but the ABM treaty ended at the same time the USSR did. No country... no treaty..
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Interesting. However I don't think that the situation in the middle east will lead to a global conflict. If we look to what has happened recently in the former Yugoslavia and parts of Africa as a model, I think that the US and the EU will try very hard to contain any conflict. This could very well involve sending troops to beef of the border guards of neighbouring states. Several countries from the EU, as well as the US, and even at times Russia (and the former USSR) have been working "towards peace" in the middle east for at least the past decade. Ofcourse this has nothing to do with humanitarian issues and "peace." Stability in the middle east allows stability in the oil prices and hence the world economy. Furthure more racial conflicts like this always have the potential to spill over into countries where there are immigrants from the countries involved. While having Sharon on the scene dosen't help, it isen't going to be the spark that starts the next global conflict.
If we could only get the next level of technology to allow all future wars to be carried out in space by satellites and robots, so that those who want war can fight out their space games, and allow the rest of us to do the important work that will move the world forward. Someone please explain to me why shooting and explosions are still being talked about in the world we live in. Don't we really have much more important things to get around to? It seems so irrelevant and wasteful.
What amazes me is that in all 200 of these posts virtually no-one thinks this hole idea is bullocks.
Doesnt anyone think the better answer is peace?
Does any American really think they have to 'defend' themselves from someone else? Let me tell you if you are American: The rest of the world thinks America is the most Militarized Aggressor on the planet. Bar None. I would hope more Americans would be objective about the desire to build more weapons. Didnt anyone tell you people would prefer prosperity, happiness and peace vs war? Why would America (and Americans) so consistently decide to extend and prolong the brutal first 65 years of the 20th century... cant we fucking move on?
Purple: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and TRW.
Orange: The rest of the planet.
Looks like we lose again!
We are seeing the next paradigm in weaponary. States are developing high tech conventional weapons that will operate in space and be able to strike out opponents hardware in small brushfire wars. There will never be a WWIII. If the US were to take on China, they would instead test each other, like rutting stags, without going the whole hog and destroying each other.
In any war, the contestants are trying to determine who's vision of freedom will prevail. In the case of USA V China, the Stags may well clash, but it is the most determined, the most suicidal of the two that will win, just as in real life. I very much fear that America has become weakened, in terms of its resolve I must stress, whereas the automatons of China will be able to behave in the brutal fashion required to win the contest. If the USA is to have a hope, it , like the stag, must cultivate a spirit of self sacrifice among its civil service and citizens.
It is the only way that America will get the resolve to win. The USA has done it before - lets see if it can do it again.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
The SDI seems to take the stance that:
We need to do something about it.
This is something.
Therefore, We need to do this.
Which, of course, is absolutely useless.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
You got it wrong, Einstein said he wasn't sure how WW3 would be fought, but he knew that WW4 would be fought with stick and stones.
Why doesn't the US hire a team of l33+ and crack the system and have complete control over the whole outcome. Seems like a good idea to me.
.
Hey! I just spent a few weeks in Montreal. Loved every minute of it....Agreed, we invade tommorow!
Yeah, and the US also 'knew' that we would have moon bases by now. They also 'knew' that computers would never get any smaller. I personally think that it's sad that in the US at least, technology is pushed by military...I know that's not entirely true, but often in history the civilians got the stuff after the military. It would be good for commercial space travel, which is sad that to get this we have to be at 'war' with another nation. We need to create peace on Earth before we can ever hope to reach the stars.
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This space reserved for valid arguements, not pointless ramblings.
??
Foreign Aid is not a waste of money! In fact is much more useful then SDI. Foreign Aid is the first and sometime the only defense for our nation and its much cheaper then SDI. Just think about it. Nations that has foreign aids will be more opean to our ideas and in most cases will help use get what we wanted because money talk and bullshit walk. SDI is bullshit if you didn't get it.
I respectfully disagree. It is worth discussing both whether the system is ethical and whether or not it would work, since both are necessary before proceeding. If anything we should discuss whether it will work first, since that is a technical issue that at least in theory we should be able to decide fairly conclusively. Ethical issues, OTOH, are much more a matter of opinion, so we're not likely to arrive at general agreement on which to make a decision. IOW, we aren't going to decide based on ethics, so practical considerations will inevitably be involved and we might as well get started on them now.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Disclaimer: I am not Native American, or even partially decended from them. I just have high respect for the idea of poetic justice.
Hey, anyone wanna see if we can get The Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home) turned over to the Cherokee? That rat-bastard single-handedly created the Trail of Tears, and violated his oath of office (to uphold the Constitution) in doing so. From a website on the Trail of Tears.
Worst President we ever had. And let's not even discuss his competence, or lack thereof, esp. regarding the nation's economy. Yet Tennessee schools still take kids on tours of The Hermitage, like he's someone to be proud of, being President and a Tennesseean, instead of a blight on our national character. How does one start a campaign? That home of his needs to be burned to the ground, and the land given over to the Cherokee. Whether they build a museum or a casino, I don't care, but any memorial to him should not stand in the purported 'Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.'-------
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Say that to a world war II veteran, and i hope you get all the bad karma you deserve with it.
"If you want to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut off its head? [...] Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how --- or why --- he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much, the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people --- 'older and wiser heads,' as they say --- supply the control. Which is as it should be."
"We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die."
- Heinlein (Starship Troopers 1959).
How we know is more important than what we know.
This outcome is just as rigged as we believed the mindcraft-results to be a few years ago. Only this time the research was sponsored by G. W. Bush ...
...
There goes your money, colliding 10 kilometers above earth with a virtual nothing
I have one thing to say:
Join the Notional Missile Defence initiative!
Yet it failed to point out that the largest engagement of the US military in the Cold War era -- Vietnam -- took the US military by shock. No one would have anticipated that a dedicated group of guerilla resistance fighters in a small Southeast Asian country, facing against up the US, with its superior firepower and complete dominance of the sky, could have kicked the pants off the US military and sent them scrambling back home with their tails between their legs.
The level of dis- and mis-information out there is astounding... apparently, this poster has never heard of Operation Rolling Thunder, wherein the restrictions placed upon bombers were lifted and a MASSIVE campaign against North Vietnam was effecively being waged. However, due to political wrangling and the agitation of the Chinese/Russian/etc., Rolling Thunder was suspended and the conflict in Vietnam was evetually turned over to the South Vietnamese defense forces, who were woefully ill-equipped to withstand the onslaught of the communist-backed north.
But it's all a crapshoot anyway. Rumsfeld will most likely try to develop NMD, with the same results (read: shitty) that have come from previous tests.
I just can't believe that Roger Staubach is the secretary of the Navy.
2)Our efforts in Columbia are a continuing source of frustration and embarassement. Even the Army Times had an article of this guy trained by US troops who went on to become first a war hero, then a human rights violater. Now, how the hell do you screen for morality, the Times ask, if even their own country can't decide if a guy is a hero or a criminal. Frankly, being a Columbian soldier is probably as difficult and thankless a task as being an American one in Vietnam, and it's our drug policies that allow such a corrupting amount of wealth to be earned by the drug lords. The Average American finances both sides of the drug war, with recreational purchases funding the bad guys and taxes going to financial aid for the good guys...and the foot soldiers and peasant farmers get caught in between.
3)Hey, don't knock the UN! Let's see- World Wars started under League of Nations: 1. World Wars started under UN: 0. Granted, nukes have more to do w/ it, but they already have a better track record;)
4)Well, dammit, I can't argue w/ apathy. If you're just gonna dismiss our 'little mistakes,' then why are you getting so hot and bothered when others overlook our oh-so-large contributions to world happiness. You can't demand praise, but you can ask for and recieve constructive criticism. Why not try it?
Frankly, whenever I think about it, I get really upset w/ America. And yes, I'm American. Like, why is it that we don't do more? And forget about any foreign aid, and whatnot. I'm talking appreciable percentages of the American economy. Most Americans will live and die in America, probably w/o setting foot in a third-world or even second world country. Hell, most Americans won't go anywhere they don't speak English. And when asked about what they do to help, they'll shrug and say something about 'leave that up to government', or worse 'can't do anything about it', or worst of all 'wouldn't do any good. They'd just have more kids'...
Jesus Christ! How about Tithing? Could you imagine what 10% of the American economy could do for the world? I'm sure it would create a hell of a birth control education program, if you just decided to work on that end of the problem, in a bleakly cynical way. We could provide a dozen cities with clean water for everyone each year. Housing for them all simultaneously. Continue for a decade, and discover a cure for malaria with the pocket change. The acts of charity possible boggle the mind.
But no, we'd rather spend money on new televisions, or, if we're really pious, a new church, probably w/ stadium seating instead of those old uncomfortable pews. Add a few cup holders too, if you don't mind, and maybe a concession stand or two. sigh....
I guess I'm just fed up w/ selfish human nature. No other nation would really do any better, really, if they were given our geolographic isolation and our wealth. And they probably wouldn't do any worse, if they had the same roots in western civ. And ironically, we have a blot on our human rights record compared to even the other western civilizations: the death penalty. As a cynic, I think there are people who, as the southerners so elegantly put it, "need killing", but in practice, only poor people get the death penalty. No millionaire, no matter how depraved his acts of violence are, will ever be executed. He might not even be convicted. (*cough* O.J. *cough*) And in any case, Europe thinks we're crazy for having the death penalty. It gives us a human rights record as black as Israel, or worse is some eyes. And confuses the hell out of our friends. (brits, canucks)
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Yeah. Isn't there a treaty still in force that was specifically designed to prevent militarization of space? I have forgotten what the full deal was, but this isn't a great idea, really.
Everything above may well be poorly-thought out / spelled. Blame the beer, not me.
There hasn't been a US war worth fighting in aeons now, and I can't see there being a worthwhile one in the future. My generation stormed the beaches at Normandy but decided to prop up Nazi West Germany after the war. Hmph, no one asked me, I tell you.
You know, I laughed when I saw kids burning their draft cards in the sixties. Sometimes, I did more than laugh. Sometimes I hurled insults, fists, and even other stuff at them. Damn pipsqueaks didn't know what it meant to bleed for your country. For my country. Jimmy's never coming back, but these kids got to smoke their pot and shrooms and bras and whatever else they could fit in their pipes and mouths. It made me sick.
But not every war is worth fighting like 'Nam was. I'll even admit, 'Nam had its problems, and they weren't problems you could sweep under the front-porch's rug, neither. Deep issues, but I wonder whether those kids were right, now. I'd hate to learn something from someone half my age, but I have a closed mind, sometimes. It's not just that we had it better back then. Stuff was more real. You could taste your fried eggs on toast, and you didn't have to have someone slice your meat for you. I'll even let you in on a secret: the world wasn't black and white back then, no matter what those Hollywood films try to tell you. It's all lies and serpents.
Why should we fight China? What does China have to offer in conquest that we can't already obtain by getting them to immigrate? We already build better domestic Chinese food than they've got.
Read the rest of this comment...
Actually, Germany got screwed at France' insistence and over Wilson's objections. IOW, the unwashed degenerates brought it on themselves. Had France shown any sense and built a legitimate defense instead of the Maginot line, followed by going to sleep, getting conquered, and ending up collaborating in the Vichy government...
No, I'm not bitter. I merely consider roughly 97% of Europe to be unfit for occupation by human beings.
You are of course completely full of shit. The reasons that nobody has ever shot a missile at us are two-fold: MAD, and the fact that /nobody/ other than the Russians has the technology to get a missile into our airspace.
Pay more attention to the real world and less to the Tom Clancy hoo-ha, eh?
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Role 2d6, move your satellite 6 hexagones, next comes the attack-fase. Add two attack-points for heavy laser. Add one defense-point for deflection mirror.
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Privacy is terrorism.
...that our military is thinking about these things. Any future enemy of the US with 1/2 a brain would do well to try and take our space-based systems away from us, through any means available, eg) attack of ground stations, jamming of GPS signals, etc.
And people thought the world was getting safer...muwhaaaaaa!!
Can we get some evidence on that?
You know that saying, how you always kill the one you love? Well, it works both ways.
Sure, unless I have more cars (or repair money) then you, and am willing to spend it to keep you the hell off the street.
You can win a war of equal exchanges, or even losing more money/men/whatever then the oponent on each exchange. You "just" need to be very determined and/or well funded.
Look at the USA WW2 tanks. They couldn't even hurt the German Tiger tanks unless they got a shot to their back, but we had so many of the damm things we beat them anyway.
Look at the Vietnam war. We killed more of them then they killed of us. Buy a fairly wide margin even. But we wern't willing to keep dieing to win, and they were. We lost.
He has written a lot of good fiction, but I'm not sure how much is relivant to forming military doctrine. "A Letter Home" was really entertaining, but we wouldn't have won the Gulf War (or at least not with as little loss of our lives as there was) if we had payed any real attention to it.
I think China already has missiles that are targetted at Washington. Search it on CNN or ABC, it must be somewhere.
Quebecers are very nice to Americans, but they hate us "Anglo" Canadians. Everybody will be better off if you invade them...
Hell, Maxim even did an article recently on how great Montreal is.
Which are conjectured to merely have separated the 2 teams so you could tell them apart. You have to do that to run a drill... Pretty common, and some pretty outlandish drills are pretty common. I wouldn't wager that we are betting that this is the martian army, china, or even a mountain militia.
Eh...
Yeah, diversity sucks, so hard to cope with.
:-)
It's not the diversity, it's the fact that they demand special treatment, and whine when they don't get it. Then there's the fact that they hate all us "Anglo" Canadians... We've tried to accomodate them, and it just doesn't work. Your turn now
Loony, as Brits/Aussies/Kiwis/Monty Python fans know, is slang for nutcase...
From dictionary.com:
loony adj : informal or slang terms for mentally irregular [syn: balmy, barmy, bats, batty, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crackers, daft, dotty, fruity, haywire, kooky, kookie, loco, loopy, nuts, nutty, wacky] n : someone deranged and possibly dangerous [syn: crazy, looney, weirdo]
you have a good point. my wording may have been too polarized. i was simply trying to move the ethics issue up in awareness because it seems to be something that gets little or no attention.
and i unfortunately have to agree that ethics will likely not be the deciding factor.
"I hate to use the word 'paradigm,' but mind-set changes are happening here," added Maj. George Vogen, who helped run the game. "This is the next step in seeing the growth of space into its own right."
So now growth in any field is measured by how much it can be militarised? *sigh*
I understand that this guy IS a Major, and this comment WAS in the context of wargames, but I still think that the mindset holds true in a much wider realm, and that's a bad think in my mind.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The world has been a fairly stable place for the last 50 years and it would seem that it is being taken for granted. I don't buy that at all. There is far too much unrest in the Middle East. Especially Isreal. A situation could flare up and next thing you know the US is at war. The military has to be ready if we are to survive.
The US military is the best in the world. (see: Persian Gulf War) But before the US, there were the Brittish, The Spanish, The Roman, The Greeks, and others. They all had the best of their time for one reason or another, but they all fell because the times had changed and they didn't change with them. If the US wants to stay on top, it has to constantly prepare, anticipate, and change.
Here's a great non-military example. The steel industry. The US was on top for a long time. Then technologies became available that made its huge bulky steel mills slow, expensive, and inflexable. They didn't change with the times and now they are defunct. Another good one is the ice industry.
In the not too distant past, Ice wagons use to deliver blocks of ice to people's houses for use in their iceboxes. This ice came from up north, cut out of frozen ponds and shipped all over. Even as far as Asia, even though only a small percentage of the ice survived the trip it was still able to turn a profit. But technology came in the form of industrial cooling systems. Now you could build a large ice making plant right there in the city. The ice cutters up north went bankrupt. Again, technology brought smaller and smaller refrigeration systems until you ultimately had a refrigerator. The ice making plants went bankrupt. In this example, each predecessor failed to realize what the change meant to it's current strategy and failed to change with it. Therefore, they passed on.
The US is trying to see what future technologies could do in this sort of battle simulation so they can anticipate the changes and stay on top. Plus, they can quickly identify how to use new technologies as they arise. "...remember when Blue lost to Red in simulation A1234? This new technology over here may change that if we use it that way over there..."
War games are not a waste of time or money. War is not a waste of time or money, if it is not taken lightly or waged for the wrong reasons. As Mr. X says in JFK, "Politics is power, nothing more." A countries ability to influence the world is directly related to its ability to make war. If the US allows its war ability to wane, so shall its political influence and then the US will soon find stronger nations are dictating terms to it.
Moreover, they knew the threat of a monolithic Oriental Communist Empire was a boondoggle. And so, Eisenhower took steps to keep us out of the region, and just ignore the damn French whining. And then came a man called Kennedy...
Sigh. I don't know what to make of Jack Kennedy. With Cuba, his ignoring the hawks certainly saved the American fleet,(Cuba had the tactical nukes ready) and possibly prevented WW III, but with Vietnam, he pissed away probably as many lives as he directly saved... Oh well, if you look at the history of Nations, they tend to go along flexing their muscles until they run into something too big for them to handle.
Britain: The Great War.
Germany, Japan: America.
America : Vietnam.
If you look at number of casualties, our brick wall wasn't that painful. I still don't know if Russia has hit its wall,(Afghanistan? Chechnya? The next 20 years of Chechnya?), but I think China's will be Taiwan, if they aren't careful. But relations have been thawing, so maybe if the world's lucky, it'll be internal tensions, or east Turkestan or something...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
You say the 17th century chinese army was powerfull? The only major battle fought by them was in Korea against the japanese Warlord Hideyoshi. The chinese lost. Lets see, in 1839 they took on the British, and lost. Then in 1856 they took on the French and Americans, and, yes, they lost again. Then in 1894 they lost all of Korea to the Japanese. I don't see any victories in there, do you? As for knowing how they are trained and equipped, anybody can subscribe to Janes Defence Weekly (I do). Anybody can visit www.strategypage.com. I do. Anybody can read. I do, and unless your country has banned books or something, get a good military history book (Keegan and Dunnigan are excellent), and read. P.S. In America, we don't watch eurotrash tv, we have our own entertainment industry. (The lucky of us here get BBC America, but that is another story).
Nah, it isn't a waste when the people you give the money to give some of it back to elect your friends and pay for your next campaign. Remember that we've got a Bush in the White House again.
Nobody reads Santayana anymore.
Surely blue vs. red is just a dress rehersal for the final show down between windows and linux - with windows represented by Big Blue, and the linux forces gathering behind Redhat.
It's on topic cause it's on slashdot
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
I have a friend who likes to argue that war is necessary and inevitable. I like to argue that it is neither, but very probably considering machoism and miscommunication... blah blah blah... I don't like this subject.
I want some cheese.
Isn't the Brown Taiwan, not Britain?
Obscure.co.nz - Dance music in New Zealand
I half-agree with you. The US is constantly getting grief for anything remotely military it does. They should go back to a bit more of an isolationist stance, and only meddle when either their own interests are directly at stake, or their allies are threatened and ask for help.
Where I disagree with you is on disarmament. I'm a firm believer in peace through strength. Consider two scenarios:
A) If you attack the US, they will retaliate by telling you you're a bad man, and asking you to stop in a real nice way.
B) If you attack the US, you will be instantly disintegrated by airborne lasers, and have your molecules turned into interstellar spam.
Under which scenario do you think people are more likely to screw with the US?
The Libertarian (as in the party) view on this matter is to build up defensive capabilities (including a National Missile Defense), and stop pissing off other countries by meddling. If they screw with the US, their leaders find a TLAM-C cruise missile flying down their chimney. Otherwise, they're free to do whatever they want.
Sometimes violence is unavoidable, and the most humane approach is to end it as swiftly as possible through overwhelming force. Other times, that large force will act as a deterrant and prevent conflict in the first place. Don't be another Neville Chamberlain...
You're right, it costs money. I'm glad those economics classes weren't wasted. =) Again, someone smuggling something in is nice, but we have checks in place to stop that already-- airport security, border patrol, etc, etc. All of which are expected to get more funding under a Bush administration than Clinton gave under his.
The thing is, and I've tried to make this point and have either failed, or had it fall on deaf ears-- WE NEED SOMETHING FOR MISSILES LAUNCHED FROM ROGUE STATES OR TERRORIST REGIMES THAT AREN'T INTERESTED IN PEACE. Osama Bin Laden is a prime example of someone, who, if he could get ahold of the technology or some missiles, would not hesitate to launch them at our country. Your arguement that the technology still doesn't work is a baseless point; a lot of our modern 'marvels' wouldn't exist unless the money was poured into it for research and development. Things like the internet, the creation you're using right now, was funded by the military. If we followed your logic, this sort of spending would never have been made. Especially considering the internets original use WASN'T so we could banter back and forth on a web-based message forum.
A missile defense system has been a money losing proposition so far, but for the past eight years under the Clinton adminstration it hasn't really had much funding or been given a fair chance to prosper. Under Bush, I'm sure we'll not only see the funding increase and have future successful tests, but one day an actual defense against random unprovoked attacks by people bent on attacking us on 'holy' grounds.
Crossing our arms, giving money to the needy and funding other domestic issues isn't going to save us from anything if an attack like that described above were launched.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Good post. Too bad almost no one cares about this issue. Can't understant that.
The economy fared very well under Clinton, but I think the country lost something intangible at the same time.
You're ALL wrong. It wasn't Austria, it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
"Gotta go, I'm having an old friend for dinner."
Frankly, I can't imagine countries doing that kind of thing to each other. All's good in love and war, yes, but when both countries lose from such ridiculous tactics then their is no longer a point. If I kept intentionaly crashing my car into yours and you did the same, don't you think we'd fast realize that we're both wasting one another's money in fixing our cars and agree to stop? Politicians may be pretty numb in the head, but they do have SOME sense.
The reasoning behind this? We'd make it stop. There'd never would be a war where stuff like that happened. They spent our money on an exercise that is based on practicing for something that just won't happen. It's like schools doing drills for nuclear bombings back in WWII: ducking under your desk won't do a thing if an A-bomb lands nearby - you should be more worried about the radiation because if you're close enough to the blast that it might hurt you, the rads will definitely kill you. In other words there was no point in the duck-and-cover thing and there's none in this either...
I suggest that the higher-ups in the military that plan this read some of Isaac Asimov's work - he wrote a good one about something like this.
The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...
SIG: HUP
The Viet Cong and NVA lost every major battle against US forces. However, with the majority of the populous against the US, Vietnam was a losing cause. The US lost about 68,000 people, while the opposition lost far, far more soldiers (and sadly many more civilians as well).
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
It's only useful with our friends. With our enemies, such as N. Korea, it's just blackmail (as in "KEEP sending us aid forever, or we'll build this arms plant").
Feed a stray dog, and it'll come back for more. And what happens when you stop feeding it, if it's big enough to bite you?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Did you actually just say airport security and border patrol?? Do you have any idea how many tons of drugs get into the states in a given year and you think that it would be hard to smuggle in a briefcase?? If you guys would just accept that you're hated because of your truely bastardly foreign policy during the cold war that fucked up so many smaller countries. Get over this idea that it's economic "penis envy" that has everyone pissed off, it's more likely the guns and well trained fascists that were unloaded on them, killing a few thousand peoples mothers and fathers. This was repeated in sooo many countries. It's amazing with all the information out there that you poor bastards still have no idea about your own history. I'm sure that's the reason you're baldfaced militarists. I'm sure you think you're right, that you help everyone, etc.. but you really need to dig deeper than foxnews. Understand the root of your outward hostility to everything. Then maybe a few generations from now you won't be dumping so much of your tax revenue into things that go boom that you have a trailer park nation of uneducated dupes polishing rifle stocks and living on food stamps. Scuse the vitriol but lordy these posts get so skewed that I think I'm on bizarro net.
I have to laugh at the stupidity of the current Star Wars incarnation. The way the system will work is basically public already, and the countermeasures against it are so absolutely obvious that all you need is one issue of Scientific American to figure out how to render the system useless. Basically you need balloons with little 10W heaters inside to fly alongside your warhead while it's outside the atmosphere. Anyone with the technology to make an ICBM can do this in a weekend. And that's if the system works correctly, the chances of which are close to zero.
TRW, one of the main contractors in the project are being tried for fraud because clear evidence has come up they were systematically lying about the effectiveness of their decoy detection system. Basically they said it works and it doesn't. In the latest test a single missle was supposed to be shot down but the interceptor didn't even make it out of orbit. If it did, countermeasures that would cost an enemy on the order of $10^5 can totally disable this $10^11 system. This, plus we piss off people with missiles who were willing to honor the START treaty which we will now unilaterally invalidate. I am absolutely shocked by the stupidity of this plan. I wish I could blame the Republicans, but the truth is, Gore wanted this too.
Great geek project for 2010: Once the system is up make an ICBM and launch it from somewhere using the simple countermeasures we know the system cannot handle (the ICBM requires fancy science; the countermeasures a well-stocked garage). Be kind and don't actually send any warheads; just fancy fireworks. This would actually increase world stability because your payload would get through all the interceptors and the world could rest knowing that the US really can't stop their missiles, restoring the delicate ICBM stalemate we have now. Plus, (say) Washington would get a free light show! The hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been paying for tuition or medicine will still be wasted, though.
I'll eat my words if in my lifetime this stupid system actually stops a missile, but I'm not holding my breath. Remember that the kill ratio of the Gulf War Patriot missile (against technology that was already second class in the 50's) was exactly 0%. That's right. Not one interception--and ICBM warheads are an order of magnitude faster than SCUDs. (This information did not become public until long after the Gulf War; Some SCUDs broke up in mid-flight on their own so we thought we hit them.) Meanwhile Rumsfeld said pretty clearly in his confirmation hearings that he wants to shell out the money for SDI even if it fails again in the upcoming tests. This even when 50 Nobel Prize winners signed a petition claiming that the current missile defense has no chance of protecting anything and can only aggrivate tensions.
I'm not making this up. If I were less lazy I'd find links.
Pissed off,
Spork
Ok. They are pissing off many other coutries and organizations with their "I'm the ruler, I'm right, others have to serve my way of life." attitude. Just think of climate conferences.
But why the hell anybody should want to attack them? To rule them?
If any sane person had to do something like running an American election campaign for just for getting the illusion of ruling them, it would refuse to do.
To extinct them?
Damn, it is quite agreed, that genocide is bad, bad, bad (with the exception of Ruanda, where the UNO and Nato (thus the US)watched without doing anything, because a war would be unpopular and Ruanda is not of importance). And it would be a pity for not having all those intelligent Americans in the world who know their country is just sick.
To force them to spend some charity to the rest of the world, as lowering energy consumption, giving away control of the main DNS servers or explaining baseball rules?
Nobody merely wants that. It's just not worth the efford. Even if they had no army at all.
Just imagine an evil half hungered Korean to convince a Hillbilly it is good to give him some food.
Or Fidel trying to take Miami. (BTW Guantanamo runs out next year?).
They all want just a normal relationship. But the general lack of American diplomacy is just coming from the fact, that they never had to come along with real superiour fellow.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
Ok... so we have a war in space... but what if aliens come and see us fighting?? You know what they say about inter-galactic politics, "first impressions last". If aliens come and see us fighting amongst ourselves, they may consider us a hostile and threatening race and decide to wipe us out.
Scary stuff.
Yeah right. Mexican food in Yakima. I hear it's good in Enumclaw, too.
CA rules! You know what they say: If ya can't beat 'em...- ---------
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I bent my wookie
Solution? Obviously, we'll need a few hundred billion more to "fix" the system. I'm not the world's biggest conspiracy theorist but this seems too convenient for the defense contractors and the party they bought out. They basically have decades of guaranteed money and don't need to to achieve any results at all. Actually, failiure extends their contracts. Wow, and everyone was getting mad that the Democrats might misspend our tax money...
Also, in time of war, would the commercial satellite operators really say no to "Red" using their systems, if the contract said so? I just get a feeling that the "Blue" government would provide some sort of incentive/threat to get their domestic commercial sats not to carry "Red" traffic.
And come on, we're not in the Cold War anymore. The commies arn't going to come and invade, and the Brits won't need any saving. Get some new bloody colors...
Dan.
Cue The Sun...
Go to the DARPA site on "Ultra Electronics: DARPA Nanoelectronics" at:
http://www.darpa.mil/mto/ultra/
You will see that the US Military IS taking an interest in Nanotechnology.
Here's hoping that the one shaping up between China and the US gets us a permanant foothold out there beyond earth orbit. (Without killing us all in the process)
All those itanium satellites have found a new role as the suicide bombers of the 21st century. We'll just start changing their orbits to collide with enemy sats (or de-orbiting them into the enemey's nation...)
(that's not supposed to be serious. I'm sure the future will prove it otherwise)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
I very much fear that America has become weakened, in terms of its resolve I must stress, whereas the automatons of China will be able to behave in the brutal fashion required to win the contest.
r uck-dragging" SOB's on the planet, if not THE most. Think about all the violent crime we have here in "tha 'States". I don't recall hearing about many children in China shooting their school full of holes because someone laughed at their pink folder and their Donnie Osmond Lunch Box, but it's starting to happen pretty often here.
Obviously you didn't grow up in the ghetto like me or you haven't seen many Hip-Hop videos lately. America always has been, and always will be full of some of the sneakiest, trickiest, most under-handed, back-stabbing, lying, cheating, fornicating, gambling, cocaine-snorting, "people-tied-up-and-attached-to-the-back-of-the-t
And have you ever heard of a "buck fifty"? If not, that's when someone walks up to you and slashes you across the face with a razor for no reason other than the fact that it's "fun". I don't know dude, you've still got to convince me of that one.
Of course, the Chinese DO have those human rights issues like the torturing of their prioners and such. Hmmm...
The framerate was poor and jeeze, no BFG in sight.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Washington Post probably got a hint from someone... US propaganda has been working for a while to make China look like the next big threat to the US. It seems that the US has to define itself as the shining knight in opposition to the evil monsters, and after the cold war there has been a lack of evil monsters.
I expect relations between China and the US to deteriorate over the next few years. Soon there'll be another cold war -- that's what people in the US know and are comfortable with.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
You are, of course, correct. I bow in supplication to your superior wisdom.
--
Dyolf Knip
The recon satellietes that the Air Force and CIA operate allow us to observe our friends and enemies from afar, day or night. These 'birds' are impervious to any weapon currently deployed.
Um, no.
A hobbyist's rocket with a box of nails on the top, and you can kiss any LEO satellite goodbye. The spy satellites are all in LEO - you can't get decent image resolution from any higher.
The magic here is that you don't need to achieve orbit to wreck a satellite - you just need to get something up to orbital _altitude_, and let the satellite smack into the shrapnel it spreads around before the shrapnel falls back to earth. It takes 30 MJ/kg to get into a stable orbit. It only takes about 3 to raise a rocket to orbital height. This is very, very easy.
At some stage, one of these MegaCorporations (Red)will decide that it wants a country, probably the brown one. China (Blue) will be the most powerful nation left, as the USA will have been sued by Red and will have to give all it's weapons as payment. The people, and their skills, will be sent to China in order to protect the world from the spread of UltraCapitalism...
Hmm... Looks like the start of a Bruce Willis blockbuster :)
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Because then "the United States would go from a world super-power to a third world nation overnight." This would let Max and the other Project Manticore kids escape and have various adventures each week. Dark Angel. Tuesday Nights on FOX. And it would also defeat any sentinel hunter-killer squids sent out to stop matrix-hacking hovercrafts. You know how ecoterrorists hate to harm biomechanical squids.
I'd guess huge EMPS only wipe things out in science fiction. Doesn't magnetism decrease by the cube of distance? The earth's magnetic field doesn't erase disks or satellites. Sounds like you'd need several more orders of magnitude to harm satellites with EMP.
It's really more like the Borg not noticing a few mosquito bites.
If China ever gets their act together, they'll far outstrip the US. Fortunately, getting their "act together" means becoming free and capitalistic, at which point there won't be any conflicts of significance between them and the US.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
"Which country is the aggressive one?"
That could be a trick question. The answer could be "Both", or "Neither". Conquest is still aggressive even if you decide to do it 100 miles at a time, over 4000 years. Using the phrase "outside China's presnt borders" hides that past borders may have been smaller.
Those two points of comparison don't really tell us about aggression or motives of the individual actions- but it does suggest a certain sense of isolation on China's history. That the United States has been involved in military actions nearly worldwide does not necesarily imply it is aggressive- but it does suggest that the United States cares more about the world as a whole than China.
Now, as to range: 100 miles is as far as a Chinese soldier (or their weapons) will go, you say? I wonder if they'd go farther than 100 miles _upwards_ into space? Would China only deploy satellites that are in geosynchronous orbit over the Chinese mainland? Do/will they deploy military satellites in orbits over all parts of the world? When a country's military satellites are floating over someone else's backyard, they are outside their own borders- and inside someone elses'.
Unfortunately, this may prove a reality. ...not neccesarily for the US, but for desperate nations. Recall that the article stated the only part of the WWII Pacific battles not predicted were the kamikazi subs. This is exactly what you are describing. When blue is beating down red, red may decide to knock out some of blue's more vulnerable satellites by ramming them with kamikazi espianage satellites.
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Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as you'll no doubt remember, was the counterpart (and counterbalance) to the Russian Warsaw Pact. Since capitalist democracies have a bit more staying power than communist dictatorships, NATO still exists. While they might not support us in every singe military engagement, chances are that when push comes to shove the member nations will honor their treaty obligations to support us.
Who are they, you may ask? There are 19 NATO members (including the US of A), and they are: Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S.A.
In addition, there are 46 EAPC members, which are nations that are friendly towards NATO, though they may or may not be obligated to support us militarily. These countries are the 19 NATO members, plus: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the Republic of Macedonia, Tadjikista, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Now, many of these countries may not have significant militaries, but my point is, we have more allies than you might think. The road to economic power runs through the West, and so most of the former Soviet Union nations are doing all they can to cozy up to America and Western Europe.
Anyway, hope that clears things up a little
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I've been saying that Iran or Iraq is not the problem. Once China gets their tech, they will be a force to be reckoned with. Bush says we will "protect" Taiwan. Hmm. We can kick the shit out of China now, but in 30 years I don't know
When the US and China fight in 20 years
Did I miss something? Why all the absolutes about 'we will fight China'?
I think the interdependence of our economies will grow so extreme as to make war with a country like China simply imprudent. Let's face it--we fight economically prudent wars. If we have significant business interests in China and the rest of the formerly unfriendly world, war would actually cost us more than it would ever benefit us. Not to mention we have more US citizens in these countries than in any other time in history--as do they have in our country. Who would let war happen? Battle will continue to happen Cold War style; we aren't a divided enough world to fight anymore. Satellites will be used to spy on business deals rather than mass troop movements.
Story about other USAF Sapce Battle Laboratories and fun things they're upto and thinking about.
Cue The Sun...
How do you stop somebody from offering anon. email, Web space to child molesters, recipes for tacNukes, and the secrets of the intelligence community when their server is in orbit? Fry it with a laser or particle beam weapon.
The real question is, will it really take 16 years for this to happen? Why not burn Billy Gates' birds outa tha sky?.. that's what *I* say.
We thieves, we liars, we vandals, and poets. Networked agents of Cthulhu Borealis.
Yep, Sarajevo, Bosnia.- ---------
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I bent my wookie
No, I actually meant like it *didn't* delay those things. Sarcasm, pal.
You know that saying, how you always kill the one you love? Well, it works both ways.
Is it a citation?
Actually, Soviet Union did it in thew Second World War.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
China vs. US? Actually red vs. blue has been used forever by the US military. Blue forces are always "good guys" and red forces are always "bad guys". It could be China, it could be Russia, it could be anyone.
I think the Washington Post is reading WAY too much into this (but if it gets you to view their web site, I'm sure they don't care)....
You mean those Iridium (motorola) satellites dont you ?
This is true but doesn't make it right when you have homeless and jobless people in your country.
--
Steve Jobs: We're better than you are.
Bill Gates: That doesn't matter.
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
Does anyone know who builds the systems that run wargames like this? Would it be internal to the military or do you think they'd contract out for the software (or at least tool sets to build the software)? That'd be a pretty cool job setting up this sort of thing!
To add my voice to what others are saying, we didn't lose Vietnam due to inferior combat capabilities, we lost due to lack of will. America killed more of their soldiers than we even sent, and we had far more people to send. The fundamental problem was simply that they were willing to fight to the bitter end, and we weren't. If Vietnam had been doing something that truly required a military response (I'm not quite sure what, because there aren't really any neighboring states for them to invade that we cared about, and they didn't have any minorities to put in camps), then we could have beaten them.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Includes such gems as (from the Gutenburg text)
the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.
Whether to concentrate or to divide your troops, must be decided by circumstances.
Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.
The US Air Force is wasting taxpayer's money on these fancy-shmancy 'simulations', a copy of this book for every man will surely ensure victory.
There are plenty of other "different people" throughout Canada. Try visiting Vancouver to see true multiculturalism at work. You'll notice that there are no language police and no special culture protection laws.
You're free to be different culturally, but you should get the same treatment from government as everybody else. Nobody should be "special" legally.
I'm not separatist, and I see Québec's nationalism as a way to put presure for the change.
Western Canada is pretty sick of you guys screaming about separation as a way of blackmailing us into giving you yet more stuff. If you'd actually look outside your borders, you'd see that Canada consists of every other province getting screwed over by Ontario, and that you are by no means alone in that respect. Just so you Americans know what's going on, the Liberals (our majority government) are basically Ontario's party. Strangely, Ontario seems to have this bizarre belief that what's good for them is good for the country, so they accuse other parties of regionalism...
I'm all for more power to the provinces, but it shouldn't be limited to Quebec. Also, I'm tired of my tax dollars going to subsidize your weak economy (yes, BC and Alberta pay substantial transfer payments, a good chunk of which go to Quebec).
So go ahead, vote yes in the next referendum. We won't be blackmailed, and you can find out what Canada has done for you after it's all gone.
I love to play war games myself!
There's Counter-Strike, my personal favorite. Day of Defeat, a new mod for HL. And Quake! These war games are fun!!!
On the other hand, what if we held a war and everybody came?
We need to create peace on Earth before we can ever hope to reach the stars
The principles we use for our current space travel, as used by the space rocket, were developed by the Nazis as weapons (V1 and V2). There are many spin-offs that travelled from the military to commercial. Competition is a key driving force in moving our civilisation forwards. Do you think the USA would have put a man on the moon in '69 if they weren't competing with the Russians? I agree peace on Earth is a goal to strive for but let's not dismiss some of the positive benefits our 'baser' human instincts provide us with. You may think it 'sad' but we are still only human. With a bit of luck nations will carry on playing one off against another to prevent one getting powerful enough to make it worth their while invading (or have I played too much Risk?)
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
How about a good game of chess?
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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=14283
R TI CLE_ID=16805
R TI CLE_ID=20685
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c um ent11.11.1998.6.html
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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?A
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?A
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a36f1c2a23558
http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/HotMike/do
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a374f3e8d2755
http://www.cobweb.net/~hkahl/arc5.htm
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyN
Thats just a few, to prove a point. Open your eyes.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Find an Enemy: Check! China.
Imagine and Sell a Military Weakness: Check! Space Based Warfare.
Buy Arms: Check! Definite Increase in StarWars programs.
Justify Arms Spending by showing Evil Enemy intent: Check! Propaganda about the Evils of a Totalitarian China.
Start War through (obvious or non-obvious means) to Consume Weapons, Justify Further Spending and Prove Evil of Enemy: Pending.
So - now that a fearfull, racist leadership has re-entered Washington, how long will it be before they start up a war with these Evil Commies(TM)?
This is not Flamebait.
I can't agree with the absolute end date, but this does bring up an interesting point. Did the Defense Department take into consideration a variable for diminishing resources? The threat of dwindling power is certainly rearing its ugly head... and that seems like it would certainly interfere with slinging satellites around.
bona-fide sludgesicle man,
bona-fide sludgesicle man,
pub
What they're talking about is Shriver AFB east of Colorado Springs. I guess you could call it isolated but for the three or four hundred signs pointing the general/specific direction to the Air Force Base.
Oh wait, are we saying that the Air Force held war games on Space at "Gasp!!!" The U.S.A.F Space Command's headquarters? I'm shocked. Totally shocked.
The Air Foce base wouldn't be quite so isolated if some Arabian Prince didn't own all of the land between the Air Force base and Colorado Springs.
Beware the wood elf!!!
...They got paid to play Missle Command all day?
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
I wish we'd stop spending (tax-payers) money on more interesting ways to kill each other.
" You don't have to look too far to see the 'bigger-dick' foreign policy plan in action. It goes something like 'what?!? they have bigger dicks?!?! BOMB THEM!!!' And of course the bullets and the bombs and the rockets are all shaped like dicks too. I don't quite understand that part yet, but it is part of the equation."
Apologies to George Carlin.
--
Steve Jobs: We're better than you are.
Bill Gates: That doesn't matter.
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
Why did this get mod'ed down to zero? Have you no shame!?
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
I've been telling everyone I know our next war will be with China. There is no agressor out there. After Russia bent over to the US with Reagan, it was apparent that China was our only last cold war enemy. After reading this, our future war may the /.ers versus China. If you get my point.
www.swankhome.com
China is a prime candidate for supremacy in the 21st century. Although their culture is supressed and chock full of propaganda, their society can be very production oriented, like the US in its rise...
Sorry for the offtopicness, mod it down if you like.
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Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org will!
Meech Lake...Does that belong to france or something goofy like that...I heard somewhere that france still has territory in canada (quebec I would think). Is this true?
There are Bank computers that handle thousands of transactions a day. Millions of dollars slosh around the networks as if it was water. Billion's of solitary acounts are updated daily by computers to reflect intrest earned. Acountant software tracks ammounts of money down to the 10th of a cent. Air trafic control plots hundreds of flight paths in some regions of the world, and your saying that modern software CANNOT, see the easily recognisable sig. (most non spec. missles coudld be spotted miles away by a blind man) of a missle and do somthing about it, wether it be shoot it down or sound an alarm? Some Goverment buildings shift around Gigs of information in just a day, getting to the right person in a incredibly timily matter (I read somewhere that the Pentagon go's through a terabyte of paper work in a matter of day's), and you think that modern software can't handle it?! I think, or better yet, i know it can do that, and any one who thinks otherwise, should check the facts, which state otherwise. -I'm sorry for the spelling, just apologizing in advance.
Space is not peacful. It has not been for 50 years.
The Russians (FSU) have gone far beyond simple "spy satellites" - they have gone far beyond SIGINT and ELINT birds...
You have no concept of the shenanigans that they have tried.
And no - i'm not talking about that stupid movie Space Cowboys. I'm talking real world.
As for the Chinese - well, lets just say that they are not (yet) as brazen about this as the FSU has been... in fact the ROW (rest of world) is pretty tame comparitively.. however, its mostly because they have gotten into the game late, and I give the Chinese only a few years before they are right there with us.
The Air Force's mission inculdes the exploitation of air and space (not bounded) to further the interests of the United States... and to protect our interests against all enemies, foreign and domestic. No use of space would be outside the scope of the AF.
There may be one or two of you reading this like i am.. behind a couple of X-07's... And if you are, you know what I'm talking about.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Inquistive minds want to know, and I don't have a copy of the National Enquirer...
Ah well. At least this may advance space travel. Wars (and preparation for wars) have always advanced technology some - planes, computers, jet engines, rocketry. etc.
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Maybe instead of spending 123^12 Billion Dollars on a Star Wars program America could start spending more money on Diplomacy. Start a international effort to sign a "Global Agreement to Ban Arms from Space" Treaty with the rest of the world.
Problem Solved.
If one of these 'rogue states' happens to not sign and starts putting up arms - they would be doing so against the policies accepted by the rest of the world. Which is MUCH Less likely to happen.
The only thing Gauranteed in this: If AMERICANS rush to militarize space - 5 other countries will do the same... why not try and PREVENT war from the outset and 'Give Peace a Chance'.
This comment is so ignorant it is nearly flamebait. Those tests that the Itanium did so poorly on were conventional code. They did not test any IA-64 code because they said they couldn't find any to test. Judgeing the Itanium on how well it runs conventional IA-32 code is like judeging an Athlon by how well it runs emulated PPC code. I.E. very very stupid.
Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
If you want to see war go away, first change human nature,
You are very wrong - people want peace above all else.. you site Germany which was a result of a Cult of Personality and Charisma, where as Stalin's evils were a corruption of ideals (Communist) to mask Fascism. The world is a dynamic place - we have had alot of war and conflict in the 20th century. I think many times people had whipped up xenophobia to their advantage - be carefull or America will grow into a Jihad like the world has never seen (which is my vote btw).
As for "If the fathers of the nation, its leaders and those with the power, decide that its the only way to ensure that they can keep their phony-baloney jobs"
You do realize that allot of the rest of the world use America as an example of HOW NOT TO RUN A COUNTRY (myself included). When you characterize countries that are not "cookie cutter replica's" of America ideals you try and dismiss them as 'phony baloney' - this is nothing more than American Hubris, really one of the major problems with America. Americans are convinced they are the most powerful, prosperous and free people in the world - and they have no problems telling everyone that... none of those things is really true (outside of possibly 'powerful') but to try and discuss that with an American and you run into a wall of Jingoism and Nationalism that truly scares me. Americans should start seeing their civil lives and community as a dynamic force - to be changed, altered, and molded for the better - and STOP adhering to your 'God Justified Right of America" that is growing into a Religion.
There really is no way to keep knowledge of tacnuke construction and the like a secret. Look at what the credit card companies tried to do with magstrip encoding; now any determined young post-h4x0[Z kid can encode their very own Visa, and the tech to make the physical card has been out since the 80s.
Probably, the only effective way of keeping these sort of things under control is to either restrict the materials or strike somewhere else entirely, such as with heavier penalties for child porn and the like. Just a suggestion, given the fact that the current system fails by your definition of success.
You know that saying, how you always kill the one you love? Well, it works both ways.
is to assert certain political and/or economic conditions upon your enemy(s). Many times in history, so called 'peripheral battles' were decisive in affecting the overall progress of the war. An example, in ww2, Axis submarines and submarine tenders roamed freely in the southern atlantic, from where they could inflict masive losses in the south atlantic itself, or sortie up to the caribbean and have some fun there. It was not until late 1942 that the Allies placed a single squadron of long range aircraft and a few small escort vessels in Brazil. This tiny force wiped out the Axis threat in the southern atlantic, which never amounted to more then 5-8 submarines and maybe a surface raider or tender. The point of the battle in space is similiar. In and of itself, space has no value. But denying use of it to ones enemy is of paramount importance because of the nasty things that can be done from space. (Spying, communications, lobbing the odd weapon earthward). Even if the chinese only manage to get one or two 'killsats' into space, it is imperitave we dedicate superior resources to secure the use of space for the US and our allies. I dunno if we actually have any allies left though, except Great Britian ;)
So cheering a country that is not USA and its Stars and Stripes is counted as a troll. Nice.
Cheering any country in a war is trolling.
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The ends are ape-chosen, only the means are man's. -- Aldous Huxley
Just remove everything! It's the best thing since the pocket fisherman! And now, our host, Ron Popeil!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Nuke them now! Nuking was, is still, and will always be the solution. Nuke them till they glow and be done with it!
I can't believe I said that.
For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
You're going to put out someone's eye with those things.
More likely some top brass just found a copy of Total Annihilation on Best Buy's $9.99 shelf...
Chelloveck
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I started drinking cherry coke again after discovering that the 1 in 7 chance of winning a bottle of coca cola seems to be more like 5 out of 7 with cherry coke. I've won a whopping 8 in a row. I'm a sucker for mostly free things.
It's inevitable that the Americans would be performing these future war scenarios. Recently the Americans have changed certain laws to enable the control of outer space to fall onto the shoulders of a military organization; Space Command.
;p
Now you know why NASA never gets money. They don't kill enough people!
Check 'em out: http://www.spacecom.af.mil/
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jeff13
This reminds me a LITTLE too much of the concept of Starkillers, the sci fi story series I started writing about a year ago. We're seeing the concept that things will get ultra-high-powered in the weaponry, but we won't change the way that we're acting...the problem is, when I started writing Starkillers, I thought I was making this stuff up.
Check out Starkillers for free, www.gladsport.com/starkillers
Does it mean that Native Americans must be grateful to invaders for being allowed to have children?
No, it means that a warlike, conquering race of people (the so-called "Native Americans") was in turn conquered by a different, warlike race, who happened to be quite a bit better at it, with better weapons.
Stop whining. It's not like the Native Americans were living in peace and harmony with each other and nature. They killed, raped, kept slaves, etc. The European invaders were just more organized about it.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
It was Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Serbia. That's right, stupid little Serbia that has been in the news so much in the last decade.
10 years ago, a 1ghz computer would have been impossible..
Just because it was impossible 10 years ago or hasn't been done yet doesn't mean that it won't be done in the future.
Computer can help solve a LOT of problems.
How can someone create a simulation of events in 2017 and not take nanobots into account? Nanobots are destined to become operational within the next five years, according to the Foresight Institute. They will completely undermine the assumptions that went into this simulation. These people obviously just don't get it.
Obviously you never read the abcnews link
e ws /espionage990509.html
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyN
Heres another one
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/zehr.html
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
At least as kids we had the calming placebo of a nuke shelter; now it will be worthless, since satellites can read your mailbox to verify your name and then narrowly target your house/shelter.
whoever made the implication that somehow space-war will be a "kindler, gentler" war is, pardon the expression, building castles in the air -- do you think They (whoever they may be that decade) will knock out Our satellites and then say, "okey-dokey, we won 'cause we ruined your bourgeois DSS reception and now your society will crumble! there's no need to also bomb your cities, invade your land, or anything else that might actually subdue your people" ?
Since SF literature is full of pertinent novels, let me offer what is perhaps the most likely one, given human capacity, no, tendency for setting up the very systems that will destroy it:
Fiasco, by the masterful Stanislaw Lem. the characters are so humanly infuriating, and the M.A.D.ness so inexorably self-perpetuating, it could only be true.
i can understand the reasons for wanting to militarize near-space to protect ourselves, but history shows unequivocally that armament only leads to more armament, and merely puts us one step closer to the real "War to End All Wars". i dunno. sometimes i think we deserve it.
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Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
Despite the occasional whining, I think Canada generally still likes the US. Granted, it would have been nice if you could have spared us the month of crap about your election, but that's water under the bridge...
If you really want us to like you, invade Quebec. Please. And take Celine Dion. Oh, and could you bring some Cherry Coke with you? It's impossible to get up here, and that Wild Cherry Pepsi is shit. Also, would you mind getting California to pay us for all the electricity we gave them? Now that I think about it, I could use some good Mexican food... Maybe California can pay us back in tamales...
while written 30 years prior to this supposed conflict, this classic is topical and as always, dark and on the money with his enduring Ijon Tichy character leading the way....