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US Military Plans Space Combat
MacDork writes "Wired news is reporting that the US Air Force has documented its plans to shoot down "commercial spacecraft, neutral countries' launching pads -- even weather satellites" should the need arise. From potential Chinese militarization of space to commercial spy satellites their reasoning seems obvious, but there are just as obvious consequences of such actions. Just glancing at the PDF, I don't see any plans for the aftermath..."
Neither don't I. Just like I doesn't see any plans for editors to ever edit a retarded submission.
The problem with space combat is many fold a) You piss tons of people off. b) You open the opportunity for others to blow up your satellites. c) You have missiles in space. Come on now, I thought that finished up a while ago. d) It's expensive! e) I'd rather the military jam the communication signals from spy satellites than start launching rockets
Space junk will be the least of our worries if we make it a habit of shooting down everyone elses technology from space.
I swear, especially under this new administration, America has taken on the roll of big brother / playground bully to a degree I'm not comfortable with.
Yes we need to be afraid of attack. Yes we need to protect ourselves. No that doesn't mean we have exclusive rights to space.
If we start shooting down China et al's space technology, the next target will be painted on our foreheads, and every other soveriegn country on earth will have their fingers on the trigger.
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sounds familiar
..
i guess dubya is consistent in some things
vodka, straight up, thank you!
I find this notion preposterous - the US has a massive number of satellites for the purposes of espionage, and general usage that they are trying to prevent other countries from doing. Lead by example, not hypocrisy. If I was the leader of a country that had a satellite shot down, or the head of a corporation that had their spacecraft blown up if it was entering US airspace (and by this, I mean under 100km) and had submitted a suitable may-day, then I would be looking for retribution. The same goes for Nuclear Weapons - how come the US seems to be the only country that is allowed to build them? Russian nuclear missles are being destroyed left, right and centre, the British and French are happy with just a few, yet the US happens to have several THOUSAND... Hypocracy is an awful thing.
I'm not anti-US, by the way, I'm just anti-US government. And that doesn't make me a hippie, that makes me British...
Just becuase we have the ability to do it, doesn't mean we'll use it. We have hundreds of nuclear missiles in the ground all across the west, but we don't use them. That doesn't mean we should get a rid of them. It's better to be able to do this kind of stuff and not use it than to need it but not have it. And besides, we've worked on this in the past, it's not like this is a new idea.
This is just another transfer of Federal tax dollars to Boeing and TRW with no real defense benefit.
Why did the US go to war? Because Iraq was thought to have weapons of mass destruction... What are in those silos? Weapons of mass destruction.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
So... if this is put the other way around, it goes like this: China can decide that they must keep their perceived "space superiority" and exercise their "freedom to attack" in space. China will want to kill the devices which aid the adversary, and then they'll go and blast five US satellites and a shuttle (with crew inside) to pieces in orbit.
I think that would be totally unacceptable.
That's why I also think it would be totally unacceptable for the US to think of doing similar things at all.
Like it says in the article, in a modern world, an orbital war would leave the world deaf and blind. We rely too much on satellites for communication, remote sensing, surveillance, everything. Only fools would play with such a risk.
I do not moderate.
I'd say the Air Force has thousands of plans for all kinds of different contingencies. This is just another needle in the haystack. War in the modern age is based on information more than pure might, and the side with the control of the information will win.
;)
That said, I think that releasing this information to the public may cause tension polically between us and other countries. Everyone already knew it, but you just don't talk about some things. I'm sure there's plans to nuke children in Africa, for instance, but you don't talk about that because it's better for everyone if we don't have to think about such possibilities...
An interesting thing also, is that our society is quite vulnerable to attacks such as these. Imagine the damage high-altitude air burst EMP weapons could do to our digital economy. Everything from money to the title of your home is based on the old ones and zeros now which tend to be a little more fragile than paper and ink..
There are downsides to technology and it's really imperative that everyone tries to get along in this day and age or we risk going back to the turn of the century in a few hours.
What with the new laws in place now, even a few whackos in the upper echelons of the government could give orders and literally turn off the world in a few minutes and all military electronics are typically protected from EMP, whereas your average consumer stuff ISN'T.
And of course there are already contingencies in place if such a thing happens.
Interesting side note, I was reading on one of those crazy whacko conspiracy sites about something called "TACMARS", which are basically tactical markings on signs and stuff that you wouldn't normally notice but could be used by people to organize movements in the absence of sophisiticated computerized mapping and logistics systems. They mentioned something about those bright reflective tags you sometimes see on the backs of road signs, and how you'd use a quadrant system (left corner, right corner, etc.) to make a code which gives someone directions covertly. Interesting ideas, even if it's nutty. Do a search sometime.
Anyway, the point is, we live in a very fragile age, and the people we (Americans) pay to worry about such things do.
Whether they are bad or good of course depends on how you vote next month
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I wish they would spend just 10% of the time and money that spend on making a better war machine into making sure that they don't have to use it.
This is just my perception, but it seems we spend hundreds of billions for solving a problem that could have been avoided with a few billion dollars and a little diplomacy.
For example, with the Iraqi mess going on right now, it seems that we could just have let the Iraqis overthrow Saddam when they tried dozens of times. A lot of times, all it would have required was for the CIA to just not tip him off. Even when he officially became bad (after Kuwait), there were several opportunities to remove the embargo and help the Iraqis to revolt, but we vetoed every time the UN suggested it. I don't want to go too far into this, because then it would be off-topic...
Once a situation arises that requires this type of action, the aftermath isn't quite the most pressing problem. This is for if a hostile government or a hostile group has taken control of launch pads or satellites to install their weaponry or spy systems, and the US is at war or cold war with them. That situation would be so rare and so dangerous that we really shouldn't be worrying about the political and biological aftermath, let alone the resulting space junk -- if we ever have to use such a plan, the damage from the whole war will be so terrible that we probably won't be going back to space for a long while.
Michael Crichton's fictional account The Andromeda Strain mentions plans for nuking non-Soviet-controlled areas (even neutral cities) should they become infected by a biocontaminant from outside earth, because the worldwide threat from such a contaminant would be high, and the chance for global nuclear war is low enough (less than 50%). At that point, the danger of nuclear war is less than the danger of the contaminant surviving and spreading.
And I think most people don't realize that the US has plans for just about everything - they had recently released (under the FOIA) plans for invading Canada. We'll probably never go to war against Canada in at least the next 200 years, but I'm glad we're prepared in case something should go terribly wrong. We probably have to have plans to defeat every country (including a secession of US states) and almost every hostile structure of weapons, etc., if the need ever arises. This is only a small part of that. And I'd guess they also have separate plans for dealing with any severe political aftermath.
This is war planning. There are schools for thinking up plans incase something happens. For the vast majority of the plans, even if the conflict comes, they are not used.
I get Air and Space Power Journal and I can tell you that war planning for space has been a staple of the US/NATO and Soviet planning for decades.
It's not unusual for satellites to die for unexplained reasons. Earth orbiters are pretty reliable lately-there have been a whole lot of them and the environment is reasonably well understood, but it's still a harsh place to make stuff work, and there are things that you can't predict that can take out a satellite. And given what a pain it is to recover them, or even send someone to take a look, it would be hard to ever know why your satellite quit working. If it's in a low enough orbit it might even come down pretty quickly after control is lost, not leaving a whole lot of evidence...
It's conceivable that you might notice from a ground telescope that some other satellite has moved into a nearly intersecting orbit, but I suspect that a lot of spy satellites (independent of who owns them) are in similar orbits to each other anyway.
Its refreshing to see that people are starting to see this side of the US administration, that the rest of the world have been shouting about for so long.
Trying to become international police without actually giving a shit about any other country really isn't winning the USA any favours.
The sooner the voters realise this and the sooner they vote that mentally retarded warmongering piece of guano out the whitehouse, the better.
oh, right. mutually assured destruction made people feel awfully safe
get rid of the nukes and retared solutions such as mutually assured destruction are no longer needed. fancy that
vodka, straight up, thank you!
They probably have plans for an alien invasion, Canadian sneak attack, and another Civil War. It doesn't mean they are likely to be used, only that they are trying to plan for every contingency.
Sheesh, if on 9-10-01 they had made plans in case terrorists hijacked multiple airplanes and ran them into skyscrapers, there would be someone here complaining they were bloodthirsty and paranoid. If you are afraid of war in space, pressure your political leaders to refrain from doing so, don't whack the military because they are preparing for the worst.
Also, the world seems to know a lot about Americans, but the Americans don't seem to know an aweful lot about the rest of the world... What gives!?
Actually, the rest of the world pretends they know a lot about Americans, while most Americans don't bother. Watching our TV shows does not give you any great depth of insight into American culture any more than my watching anime makes me an expert on the Japanese.
Humanity will just put down the guns already...
are we that insercure that we need to blow eachother up becasuse we can't agree with eachother?
even the 'right to bear arms' is insane. why, in any civilized world, should people need weapons?
Now, i know we're not living in our star trek utopian age at this point, but you figure humanity would wake up one day, look at the state of the world and just say 'ok, what the heck are we doing to ourselves?'
putting money into war takes away from advancing humanity. sure, technology gets a boost... and we have hundreds of new ways to incapacitate people... what an achievement.
I say pull the carpet from under the corrupt bastards in charge and actually work towards 'REAL' peace, and not just perpetual war.
This is not the greatest
Look, we have a military to defend ourselves. We use it for other things as well, and that you can critique a particular administration on, but our military in general is around for defense. Well a large part of that is contingency planning, playing what if games so you've got some plans if one actually happens. You do not want something to happen and everyone to go "Hmmmm, we didn't think about this, we're not sure what to do."
War in space is becomming a possibility, thus our military needs to plan for it. Doesn't mean we are going to go randomly shooting at other satalites, just that we'll be ready should the shooting start. We don't want our military planners to stick their heads in the sand and go "We'll just hope it doesn't happen."
It's the same thing as our nuclear contingencies. No sane human wants nuclear war, however that doesn't mean we should just pretend the possibility doesn't exist. Our military has plans as to what to do in the event of one, and the plans are different for different types. Hopefully, they'll be be nothing more than hypothetical documents, but I'd rather we have a plan than just pretend like it can't happen.
This is the same thing. RTFA. The Air Force is NOT saying "let's just start shotting down satalites for fun." They are saying "In the event of a war, where satalites could be used against us, let's have a plan to eliminate them." This is no different than other nations working on ways to jam/counter GPS, and working on their own navigation networks as to not need to rely on the US for it. It's not that they want to fight the US or destroy GPS, but if push came to shove, they want to have some contengiency plans.
Please, RTFA and get a little perspective. Our military plans for just about everything all the time. We even have plans in the event of a war with our allies. It's pretty much unthinkable, but again, better to have a plan. Having a plan doesn't mean using that plan.
I have a plan for what I'd do in the event of a home invasion, fire, etc, etc. Doesn't mean I jsut go around randomly implementing the plans. I just think things through so that if something dangerous happens, I can just follow my plan (which Ithought of while I was calm and rational) rather than run around and panic and try to come up with something (when I'm excited and alarmist).
No double standard at all. A lot of people seem to believe that because we use our military and diplomatic powers to keep other nations from developing advanced weapons of mass destruction, while simultaneously keeping them ourselves, we're somehow being hypocritical. We're not. This isn't a matter of fair trade or some other political or economic issue. This is a matter of a whole lot of people (American and otherwise) finding themselves suddenly dead.
The U.S. military's job is to defend US. That is, to defend the U.S. citizens that pay for it. Period. We never promised the rest of you that we'd defend you, or for that matter that we'd even be nice to you: we have, on more than one occasion but was because doing so was in our best interests. Keep that firmly in mind when you talk about double standards. We have no obligation whatsoever to disarm ourselves, particularly in the post-Soviet era where more and more unfriendly and decidedly erratic nations are acquiring atomic and biological weapons.
The rest of the world seems annoyed that we won't let it have thousands of thermonuclear devices, ICBMs, bioweapons and things of that nature, but you forget one thing: we've been down that road and don't want to go there again. The Soviet Empire collapsed, and left behind a nuclear legacy that will continue to haunt us (all of us) for years to come. No-one really knows where all of Russia's warheads are to this very day. See, we a. don't believe the rest of you when you say you aren't building these things and b. wouldn't trust you with them anyway. And, honestly, if you look at this realistically and get the anti-American sentiment out of it, you don't want Mutual Assured Destruction to be a major component of United States foreign policy again either. If the world ever finds itself in another Cold War it might not get out of it alive. And when you think about it, we really aren't out of the woods yet.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
To be honest, if I was voting in America, I would vote Bush. Bush may have been a crap decision, but Kerry is just a slightly less experienced Bush, who is riding on the fact that he served in Vietnam, and won't stop talking about war in general. That's why I liked Al Gore, why I liked Bill Clinton, and why I like Howard Dean. They're genuinely nice people, who wouldn't be taken for a ride. Al Gore was at least partly responsible for the internet we have today, so he's got to have at least SOME sense! At the current time though, I would vote for neither, and there isn't an easy place on the net to explain to we, foreigners, about the third party (no pun intended) candidates.
US Air Force has documented its plans to shoot down "commercial spacecraft, neutral countries' launching pads -- even weather satellites" should the need arise.
News must be very slow lately... seems like all these places are just stating some obvious stuff in order to fill up their pages or put something with today's date on it.
Of *course* the US Air Force have has these plans for a long time now. Why in the world would this be something just now "found out"? Is this supposed to be some new scuttlebutt just "unearthed" (pardon the pun)? Is there anyone out there who *didn't* think the USAF had these type plans for decades now?
"We have hundreds of nuclear missiles in the ground all across the west, but we don't use them."
They *are* used; as weapons of terror.
The atmosphere of terror created by threat of their use is their actual value.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
When did the US buy space? I must have missed the news...
,9/11 is gonna look very small compared to what might come next.
Then americans wonder why most of the world is so pissed off at you as to be willing to crash a couple of planes in to some towers.
If the U.S government doesn`t start realizing that the world (and space now) is not their personal playground
(The link leads to a page about space junk)
If we're ever at a point where we're shooting down Chinese satellites, I think that "space junk" will be the least of our concerns.
Here goes my Karma...
Before Slashdot goes off half cocked (what? to late?) realize that this is a plan... if...
That's what the US military does best... generate reems of useless paperwork full of plans so that if the need arises.
Would you have them ill prepared? You DO have a DR plan for those mission critical servers, right!?! Same thing... dig through the military archives of pointless studies and you will find alot of plans just in case something goes awry.
Now... IF the US starts shooting down satelites on a regular basis then feel free to Flame On!
My $.02 (not adjusted for inflation).
JKS
I
...when the US government can no longer afford to spend 320 billion dollars a year on the military.
Bush doesn't care about the consequences of his actions. Mission Accomplished.
Fry: Stop the cloning. [Smashes up the Clonomat]
Farnsworth: Oh, sure. Smash the *smart* guy's machine.
That's what all idiots do.
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This incessant need that humanity has to pave over one another of our race, in the dominant ideology, needs to come to a crashing halt (before the crashing really begins to occur over our heads and ultimately comes falling down upon said heads.)
There is obviously a need to set minimum operational standards for societies around the world, the failure of which to meet, inducing global sanctions and a loss of global participation. That said, we need to have room for a diverse and broad expression of human thinking, perspective, and culture. It's inside of that diversity, that the flexibility of our race shows up. Our ability to address change and challenge is a direct reflexion of the breadth of our thinking and our ability to imagine possible solutions.
The society we now live in, in the United States, is becoming dangerously dogmatic, and our arrogance is leading us to choices which will have terrible reprecussions for our children and our children's children. We need to find a better way to interact with people than blasting and bludgeoning them. Even in our greatness, we can be destroyed by our ignorance and hubris. Creating a safe world for all children will take a far site more than turning LEO into an mine field.
Genda
That treaty doesn't say any such thing. You are apparently referring to Article IV without having bothered to read it. Allow me to post it in its entirety:
Kindly note that there is no prohibition on non-nuclear, non-WMD anti-satellite weapons being used in orbit. Further note that "orbit" is not a "celestial body", and therefore not covered by the second paragraph.
But hey, you got to take an obligatory swipe at the current administration, and you got modded all to hell by a bunch of people who didn't read your link either, so it's all good, right?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
What does this administration have to do with it?
Everything.
The message this administration sends to the world is "We'll decide what's best for the world, we'll decide who we do and don't invade, we'll decide whether it's right for you to have nuclear weapons (which we have in unfathonable amounts), we'll decide whether it's right for you to have long range weapons capabilities (again, we have more than anyone), etc etc etc".
We want the entire planet to play with a different set of rules than we play with, and do it with a smile on their faces. And if they don't, they'll be next (once we get out of Iraq in 2037).
The entire Cold War took place because 2 super powers had plans. Neither side acted on them, but they had them, and it turned into one big pissin' match.
The more we try to keep the battlefield uneven in the world, the worse this will become. Space is no exception. And this administration is worse than any other in this regard. Just ask anyone besides Tony Blair.
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Work to develop anti-satellite weapons has been underway for decades with Russia and China taking an active role in research and development. Perhaps someone can explain to me why this makes the United States and George W. Bush evil/stupid?
Do you think it's a good idea for two potential enemies to have a capability that could cause catastrophic damage to American interests and the Americans just close their eyes to it?
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
You wouldn't be the leader of a country for very long with that approach. You'd end up like Saddam Hussein. I'm willing to bet your role model is North Korea's dictator, who is still in power despite thumbing his nose at the US for quite some time. But he's not declaring "full and all out war". In fact, he's not taking any direct actions against the US.
:3 (keep in mind a girl doesn't need to enslave men to treat them like slaves!)) I consider this to be my inalienable right, and all those women should lack this right because I can get away with it and they can't. Now, if you disagree, what are you going to do? Arguing won't change my mind, no matter what you say. I'll just tell you to think about your breathing. When you focus on it, you must carefull control your breathing, or else you will suffocate. If I'm a sovereign state, no laws have the authority to stop me. The only solution is to use force (military, economic, political, or anything else, but some sort of force) to either make it impossible for me to keep slaves, or create other problems for me so that it won't be worthwhile anymore.
Funny that you should mention what one sovereign state "should" be able to tell another. The whole point of sovereign states is that they answer to no one, and do what they please. If you want the stop a sovereign state, you either have to create internal pressure to change what that state wants, or oppose it with enough force (of any kind) to make sure fooling around isn't worthwhile.
It might seem "unfair" that one country makes the rules for another while violating all of those rules itself. But there is no possible solution to this problem. By definition, there is no authority with the right to order sovereign nations around. So the nations can do whatever they can get away with. The emergence of a benevolent tyrant alleviates the problems this system can cause, but it's only a temporary solution. Any permanent mechanism would need to make the sovereign states accountable to something-which means taking away some of what makes them sovereign. A world government that co-opts some of the powers of the currently sovereign states could do it, but who is this world government accountable to? If you don't like their decisions, too bad. You can't even leave the country to get away from them. That's why we don't have a true world government. There is an actual need to use military force to oppose those whose ideas you strongly disagree with.
For example, I believe that several hundred beautiful women should be my slaves. (to those of you who read my profile, draw your own conclusions
The equation is exactly the same between nations. Except that instead of hot sex, we're talking about hot lead. And lots of explosives also heated. yeah. It sounds like war, death, and nuclear annihilation are among the parent poster's goals, but most of us don't really care for that sort of thing, so we have to use military force to keep people like pigscanfly.ca from gaining enough power to kill everyone.
Isn't it true other countries cannot take pictures of other countries (like the US), according to the US, but it's fine and dandy for the US to take spy pictures of others?
/. is full of utter stupidity and ignorance - starting with Taco and working its way down.
Wow, you're truly stupid, as are the moderators who modded you up. A huge proportion of the arial imagery available today came from old Soviet spy satellites. What other stuff have you heard? That there's going to be a draft soon?
Christ,
EXACTLY.
...Depite the whining, bitching and moaning otherewise. To entrust your security to the word of potential advesaries is simply assnine. Clinton trust N.Korea and see where that got him. The best way to prevent them from even thinking about shit is to make sure they they see the massive hammer looming over their heads. Such a massive hammer was the only thing that kept the other half of Europe from speaking Russian.
According to some of these people, you'd think we set off nukes every other week in small neighboring countries just to excercise our imperial domain over the rest of the world. I mean come on. In over 50 years of deployment, we've only used nuclear weapons in one campaign and against an enemy that had initiated hostilities and had been at war with for 4 years. Not only that, we had them for over a decade before anybody else, including the Soviet Union, without excercising anything close to Pax Americana. I know we're all enamored with the current mindless propaganda, but the record speaks for itself-- We will develope big fucking sticks and we will make sure you know we have them, but we never use those big fucking sticks unless you absolutely deserve it.
Besides, compared to keeping a fleet of nuclear rockets, it's got to be tons cheaper to simply drop steel 'I' beams from orbit. You can have one inplace in less than an hour. And less permanent environmental damage. I'm not saying there won't be, just minus the long term radiation hazard.
Really now. If the US was going to wack you, you'd have been the 52nd state by now.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
a haven for suspected war criminals.
That's a remarkably accurate description of the UN itself. I mean, what can you say about an organization that places Sudan on its Human Rights Committee?
Firstly, I fully agree with those who note that these are so called contingency plans. It would be incompetent for the US military not to have them. Every nation of a suitable size (and above all, budget) has contingency plans. China, Russia, the UK, France, India, Pakistan... They all have plans about what to do when the shit hits the fan.
However, and this is the sticking point, the comment in the article about the consequences of the US building a large anti-satellite and possible space-earth bombarment weaponry is that the mere existence of such weaponry forces potential targeted nations to respond with their own ability to target US satellities, and this is precisely what China is doing.
With the demise of the USSR there was only the USA left in terms of superpowers, and the USA hasn't exactly been humble about using that power of late, and the potential danger that the US would strike at Chinese or European satellites will force those countries to look for ways of defending their property in space.
While I doubt that the EU will ever have enough of a budget or the will to build a defense against the US, I am positively certain that China has both the will and the budget to do so.
China also has one big advantage on its side and that is time. The Chinese are under no pressure to match the USA today, since they will not risk going to war with the USA right now, but they have the time to develop a large arsenal of space weapons and deploy it over time without the huge seesaw problem of US budgets going up and down depending on who is in power.
Most likely I think the Chinese are aiming for a long term matching of US military capability, in the region of 20 to 40 years from now, and the chances are that they will achieve it too, simply because they have, due to an authoritarian system, the ability to focus on long term projects that the US doesn't.
I think that eventually, towards the middle of this century, the Chinese will probably have the role of second superpower that the USSR used to have.
I don't know which is funnier, the notion that Europe would ever fund defense at US levels (with the resultant sacrfices required by the welfare stare), the notion that Europe would ever be able to do anything but what it's done since the end of WWII (namely: kow-tow to whoever has the guns, be it the US, USSR, or now, increasingly, Muslim extremists), or the notion that somehow a united, militarized Europe would actually threaten the US, or be seen as threatening by the US.
Given the US's perfect 5 and 0 record against European adversaries (Revolution, War of 1812, Spanish-American War, WWI and WWII), and the fact that European cultures would likely have to fight in the same kind of culturally sensitive way that the US does (and our recent adversaries have not -- eg using human shields, not wearing uniforms, crashing civilian planes into sky-scrapers, etc.), I think a US v. Europe conflict would be over very quickly.
I understand this is going to quickly get modded -1000 Anti European, but common. Realisticly, Europe does not have the political will to ever stand up to the US in any significant way.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
How typically naive, I guess you get your 'news' from Fox. http://www.kucinich.us/dkdu.html
I feel so safe under that hammer of yours.
Depends how you define 'major'.
Maybe if I lived in a third world country I'd say 'lots' (because I'd likely have lost family members to war).
If I lived in suburban USA I'd probably say zero (because the only war I'd see is on TV and it happens somewhere else).
However, you miss the point of the nukes. Its not about fighting 'major wars'; its about keeping *people* under control by terrifying them with the prospect of nuclear war.
The so-called cold war was, in effect if not in intent, a collaboration between the USA and the USSR.
Both parties maintained a state of M.A.D. and thereby held their populations (and those of other nations) in fear for their lives.
This is the aim of the nukes; not the blast damage they could inflict but the psychological effect their existance has.
This is why their proliferation is so frowned upon by the powers that already have them; because it would dilute their usefulness as weapons of pure terror.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Personally, I like the idea of having a shield that would keep us safe from incoming missiles. However, that statement makes the assumption that the system works. I believe that with enough research and development it could.
There is however a flaw. If I have a system that can knock down 10 missiles that is an incentive for my enemy to produce 11 + missiles. So if we get ourselves into another cold war these systems could result in the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
It might protect us from a terrorist organization launching a missile in the unlikely event that they could get one. The real threat, however, is that a terrorist group might get the materials they need to construct a small nuclear devise and then sneak it into one of our poorly guarded sea ports. They could place it in a cargo ship heading to whichever major port city they wanted to destroy.
So we've got to make some tough decisions. Where would our money better spent?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
First off, I am not a hawk, and I think that warfare should only be used as a last resort. However, I am not some sort of peacnik idealist that thinks love solves every problem. The unfortunate truth is there are some people that need to be made dead to make the world a better place.
I think it's great that the military is writing documents like this. Sure, there is a treaty in place to keep space de-militarized. But, I pay taxes to have the military keep me safe. It they aren't trying to think of ways to keep me safe from every concieveable eventuality, I'd be pretty annoyed. The only thing I find suprising is that this paper wasn't dated 1957. I'm sure as soon as NASA figured out that we can shoot monkeys in space, the air force was working on ways to keep us safe from Russian space monkeys.
Just because people are thinking about solutions to potential problems doesn't mean we are planning on conquering space in the name of Emperor Dubyah. This article strikes me as a bit reactionist and alarming. To the thinkers in the military who spent time to start working out solutions to potential problems before they are occuring: Good work guys, thanks.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Yes. Well John Ashcroft is a bit of an arsewipe. I wouldn't be quoting him and expecting to win the argument. As for the content of the quote itself: fucking bullshit! All those American youth that are dying in Iraq each day
I can see some value in their goals. Keep in mind what the Jews have done to the Palestinians, and the fact that the PLO is a Palestinian organisation, and you begin to realise the forces at work here. I'm not saying I'd line them up and exterminate them, but I wouldn't judge the Palestinians too harshly for wanting to. The Jews have brought that one down on themselves.
Says who? The Pentagon and the World Trade Centre buildings were very good targets, and were hit with precision accuracy. Compare these attacks to the 'shock and awe' campaign in Iraq that killed tens of thousands . And consider the very fucking NAME of the 'shock and awe' campaign, and then tell me that what the US is doing isn't terrorism. In contrast to this, the September 11 attacks were extremely well targeted, and had minimal casualties ( I SAID IN COMPARISON ).
Now once more for the slow among us: I don't support either of these acts. I'm just pointing out the hypocracy in the US's stance. The Islamic terrorists choose their targets well and minimise casualties. As I hinted in my previous post, if I were them, I'd target the PNAC offices when their next meeting in on, and leave the so-called 'innocents' alone. They would get MUCH more support world-wide if they did this. But they don't. They are somewhere inbetween this and what the US does. The US employs terrorism far more than any other country or organisation - and they do it officially, and even call it things like 'shock and awe'.
I don't think I'm missing the point of terrorism. I think you're demonising the other side and pretending your side doesn't engage in terrorism itself. It most certainly does.
I wouldn't call your record in the War of 1812 spotless. You could argue that you didn't lose it, but you didn't come close to winning it.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
A couple of corrections. The War of 1812 wasn't a true US victory. The US fought hard and had a number of significant victories, but at the end of the war, Great Britian had successfully invaded Washington DC and more relevantly was in the process of invading New Orleans. Andrew Jackson's victory wasn't the end of the story there. A key reason the UK stopped was because they had tremendous debts from the Napoleanic wars.
Second, in the wars where the US fought significant European forces (ie, only the two World Wars), the US had great support from European allies. For example, we didn't enter the First World War until very late when Germany was almost exhausted anyway. In the Second World War, the USSR did the lion's share of the fighting and dying and the UK was totally committed. Even though most countries were under German control, there were still significant numbers of Europeans from these countries (particularly, Norway and France) fighting in the allied side. And of course, a lot of troops from the Commonwealth were involved (eg, Canada, India, South Africa, and Australia).
It's extremely doubtful that the US would get support from Europeans in a war with the EU. I certainly wouldn't write Europe off so easily.
Ok, let me get you on this one.....Bush spends 42% of his time on the ranch or golf course? How about this...the President probably puts alot more hours then you and even when he's on the golf course he's working. Sometimes he is woken up in the middle of the night. Sometimes he's told while reading to some kids that 2 airliners crashed into the world trade center. Sometimes when he'd like to take a run on the white house lawn he has to have 4-5 secret service guards with him. He probably can't even take a piss with out a Secret Service agent standing either in the room with him or right outside. So who the hell cares if he decides to go take the afternoon and go shoot 18 holes? You don't think Kerry would do the same??
Bush had nothing to do with Al Qaida coming to power. Osama and his lot was pretty much created by countries who only taught their kids the Quran and some very basic skills and nothing else. In Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other muslim countries, there's alot of young muslims with no hope thanks to their government's way of bringing them up. Sure, they may go work in the oil fields for pennies a day and the sheiks and governments get all of the profits. Many of these countries do way more to protect the elite then people accuse the US of doing.
Read the 9/11 Commission report and it will open your eyes. 9/11, the bombing of our Marine Barracks in Beruit and the Cole all happened under democratic and republican administrations and you can't blame any of that on Bush he's only been in office for about 4 years.
Bush has done more to NOT make us a target then to make us a target. The actions he has undertaken have done more to prevent another 9/11 then to create another one. I ain't saying the war on terror is over. Far from it. But thanks to Bush, he has Al Qaida on the run and we have captured Saddam Huessien who, besides the no WMD's found...yet...deserved to be taken out.
Al Qaida was a cause before Bush even took office. Osama issued his fatwa when President Clinton was trying to get out of his problem with Monica and it probably did not even get a word on CNN. Osama and other extremist Muslims already had a following before 9/11 and before Bush took office. Osama and his followers hate us because they just hate us. We are the infidels in this world and he wants all of the world to be muslim. Part of his hatred has to do with our presence in Saudi Arabia (even though we were defending HIM!) during Gulf War I. The other part is just because 90 percent of us are Christian or something other then muslim. Blaming Bush for any of this is just like blaming him for the internet bubble. I can point to what he has done after 9/11. He has freed Afghanistan from Taliban rule. He has caused the capture of many terrorists close to Osama. He has captured another dictator, Saddam Hussein. Sure, he has not got Osama....yet....but how are we to know? To me, if we had killed Osama, why would we let anyone know? Osama may already be dead but we would not announce it right away because doing so would be worse then him living. Osama wants to be a martyr for his religion and by us letting the whole world know, it would achieve what he wants.
In any case, Bush did not really want to do some of the things he did....he did them because we asked for something to be done. The Patriot Act, while not really accomplishing much, it has pacified some people.....even if they don't fully consider it's implications.
It is you who is under that rock....read the 9/11 report. It's very enlightening.
Gorkman
Or they'll get a warning, a resolution, some grumbling, another warning, another resolution, some grumbling ...
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
The US certainly won't invade Europe. What advantage would they get?
No, the US is strong-arming itself just because it is AFRAID. It is afraid of the rest of the world, generally because people are afraid of what they don't understand, and if there is something the americans are severely lacking, is the ability to understand others. The same comment goes for the british, too, and is exemplified with theyr half-hearted all brakes-on adhesion to the European Union.actually a lot of people from other parts of the world read american books, which gives a lot more insight into american lives than movies do. and yes i've lived in europe, america and i grew up in west africa and there were very few things that surprised me when i got to america. He was basically saying that the average person in other places in the world know a lot more about american than the average american knows about any other country in the world. And we don't pretend to know a lot about america there's nothing to gain for doing that. On the other hand there's a certain kind of swagger (or so it seems)it adds to your steps when you say (in a manner of speaking) "fuck the world". No one makes you guys out to be stupid but please when you're elevated (by virtue of riches or military might)humility goes a long way in making you likeable. And before you go ahead and say we don't owe the world nothing remember that no one/nothing/no empire lasts forever. And a lot of what you guys grew on as per technology came from immigrants enrico fermi/einstein and co. So please read some history and learn that a strong man doesn't need to be agressive around people he can beat, but he does need some friends because you never know what tomorrow would bring.
All straight things must come to a bend
Yes thanks for transcribing the republican talking points.
Let's see how far you are under a rock.
Why did saddam need to be removed? Why did he need to be removed before any other two bit dictator? Why wasn't a no fly zone, constant bombing by the US, and a huge team of inspectors not enough to control him? Now that he is gone why are we still there? Why are we building over 10 military bases?
Is the world a safer place today then it was before we invaded. Are there more terrorists today then before the invasion?
Was the freedom if Iraiqs (people you didn't give a shit about before the invasion) really worth 200 billion and deaths of tens of thousands of people.
evil is as evil does
And the missing link? Since both of your posts are spot on, but they've both left out the missing link.
The missing link is that because we're separated by two oceans from any potential front with the USSR, we had to develop a mobile military. We paid the same USSR tax in military strength as the EU, in fact it could be said we paid much more than they, considering how much of their defense in the event of Soviet invasion would have been fought by American forces stationed in Europe. In any case, both continents were developing military to fight the same enemy from their bases, it's just that our base didn't have any hostile countries advanced enough to fight us while the European continent is shared by our former mutual adversary.
Come on, I know you guys have played enough Civilization to grok this pretty easily. First you hope you're on an island big enough to support 4-6 cities. If so, then you destroy any civilizations that might be there. When that's done, you build a mobile military. Your navy is more important than your ground forces. OTOH, if you're on a large continent with multiple civilizations you have to build land-based military, and when it's time to build navy you frequently have to build the cities first, and then build them up. Starting off landlocked is the worst way to start, obviously the US has an advantage in that respect.
Like what I said? You might like my music
You successfully invaded our capitals in the Revolutionary War, too. We fought a good chunk of 1812 after losing DC. We weren't that attached to it, yet. And the New Orleans invading force kind of got decimated.
(Technically after the end of the war, but neither side was notified in time.)
They can't even defeat Iraq and are overstretched over there already. You think they could take the EU, who do actually have WMD?
The more disturbing points are assuming that the EU are warmongers like the US.
At that point, it is no longer a commercial airliner, but just a hostile aircraft. A target.
Another question is: is it a good idea to shoot down a giant plane over a crowded city?
You have to remember that the USSR was not a Communist state: it traded extensively on the global market. As such it was more accurately described as State-Capitalism and was certainly not in support of socialist revolutions that could remove valuable trading partners.