Slashdot Mirror
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.""
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.
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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
-Moondog
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.
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.
Why couldn't all of this weaponry be blasted out of commission by a radical pacifist organization heaving a hefty electromagnetic pulse?
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.
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
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"?
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.
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...
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...
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
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)....
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 ;)
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...