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Do We Really Need Space Weapons?
tcd004 writes "The U.S. military is developing technology to disable, jam, and even destroy enemy satellites. But are space weapons necessary? No, says Michael Krepon, director of the Stimson Center's Space Security Project. He argues that developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapon race.
There will be no need to worry about weapons based in space...someone will just send a ship up and steal the whole satellite.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Keep in mind that most successful ventures in space (and all the major ones) were driven by a space race with heavy military overtones. Such motivation worked once and will work again.
Not just that, but it would certainly help breath new life into the NASA. Let's face it, NASA is currently being crushed by its own beauracracy.
It may not be long range space missions to Mars and such, but it will certainly help move space flight from where it currently is at the edge of the envelope. The same thing happened with aviation in WWI and WWII. The US and other military powers invested hevily in making aircraft more common place and exploring the variety of roles in which they could be employed. This made aviation safer, more commonplace and in general made the public more aware of it. If the same happens to space flight, only good can come of it.
The simplest argument:
Who are the most plausible opponents in a war in space?
Note that these countries are almost uniformly our close allies, our essential trading partners, and fellow democracies.
Do we really want to militarise against our friends, diverting funding from protecting against clear and present and active offensive enemies?
Do we need to defend ourselves to the best degree possible in times of war? Certainly, we do.
Do we need war at all? Certainly, we don't.
Is war inevitable, space weapons or not? 3,000 years of history says it is.
Which is more practical, pretending that war won't happen or accepting that it will? With the latter being more realistic, we may then follow through with the most effective defense and proceed with developing space weapons.
We've always been in some weapons race, though not necessarily at the pace of the Cold War. Space weapons won't initiate any Cold War-esque weapons race as much as any of our other weapons have. They're not holocaust devices like nukes or any NBC weaponry. Without anti-satellite weapons, we're back at traditional warfare. With those weapons, we only take it outside of earth.
Space weaponry if anything will reduce war to a battle of communications and intelligence, where space coverage matters more than occupying ground. With troops and conventional weapons reduced in importance, satellites will be the main casualties, as long as they directly affect the ground war below.
People seem to forget or ignore the fact that deploying space-based wepondry goes against the ABM (Anti Ballistic Missile) Treaties signed by us and the USSR. Bush has already broken these treaties in testing many of his toys. Does no one care that he has such disregard for them? He has stated that the treaties are too limimting and therefore aren't in the best interest of our country, a fact I wholeheartedly disagree with.
today is spelling optional day.
Space weapon race doesn't promote Human Occupancy in space. All they need is something in the space to shoot down or jam other satellites or fighter jets.
I'm already thinking that something like this could lead to things like they needed to have in planetes (manga & anime), debris cleanup crews and such to keep space in useable condition for things like commercial high-speed transport and such. from that picture, it looks like we've already got quite a dangerous amount of debris up there, and space weapons would probably increase that exponentially.
Today, you have to do research or your grand children will be poor farmers. Sure, NASA is FUBAR. Start another agency and give the money to them. If you stop space research for a couple of decades, China will own you.
Cut something less important. Say, only start serious wars. Sure, a democratic arab country would make the world a better place -- but there has to be a cheaper way!
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
The .mil figured out decades ago how to push enemy sats out of orbit using decomissioned sats that have some thruster fuel left.
The problem isn't littering space which, as you point out, is pretty much a non-issue.
The problem is poluting low-Earth orbit, a narrow sphere around our planet. Putting even the most malicious space-based weapons somewhere in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri is no big deal. Ading a bunch of items to an already crowded area including the ISS, most shuttle flight paths, communications satellites, etc. would probably not be the best idea.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
First off, parent and grandparent are wrong. Neither the military, nor government agencies have been able to make major infrastructural changes in our country. It's always been industry. Don't get me wrong, the military and the government have, on occasion, done a great deal to get things started (think darpanet), but it's always been the free enterprise system that's balooned those things to global significance (think cisco and intel).
On the other hand, the article was wrong too. According to the article: "But once we go down this road, there are no guarantees that other countries will play by our rules. Hey, guess what? There's no guarentee they'll play by our rules even if we don't go down this path. If I were china and I didnt want the US to use some of it's coolest weapons, I'd take out GPS. I wouldn't even have to try very hard as the US has shown me just how to do it back in 1985 with fighter jet launched anti-satallite missles.
But finally, the premise is wrong. Why would the US launch critical military infrastructure (the GPS) without protecting it? When have we ever done anything like that? The US had squadrons of stealth fighters before we ever admited to having them. We're obviously capable of building very large, very expensive infrastructure clandestinely and then denying that it exists. I don't know for a fact that we already have space-based weapons, but when you add it up, it makes a hell of a lot of sense that it's already a done deal.
TW
The existence of a weapon means the possibility of being killed by the weapon, regardless of all other considerations. The first person to make the weapon is responsible for any death ever caused by the escalation thereof. There is zero excuse.
So the first guy to hit another guy with a stick is to blame for all the
bludgeoning deaths in the last 10,000 years? That's one of the most ridiculous
arguments I've ever heard.
*sigh* back to work...
If you get tons of debris 40,000km up, who has the most satellites there to lose?
You think north korea would care as much? China? India?
It costs a lot more to defend a satellite against this than to destroy a satellite. It's also not too hard to disguise a killer satellite as a civilian satellite (but this would have to be in a "normal" orbit travelling in the same direction as other satellites- makes it a bit harder to be very damaging).
I don't see why one should spend so much money on space weapons. A few dozen _cheap_ satellites with explosives and hard to deflect shrapnel (glass?) can make tons of orbits useless. How it could work - someone just has to stop broadcasting the relevant keepalive signals, or broadcast a "trigger" signal and the shrapnel satellites will blow up and wipe various orbits within a day.
So your mucho expensive space weapons better be parked in different orbits or be capable of moving significantly. And you better be able to decide and use them quickly.
If stuff happens we'd probably lose use of the prime orbit regions, for quite a long time.
It's like MAD but in space.
Let's take a poll. All those in favor of USSR dominating the world raise their hands...thought so.
Interesting straw man, but it doesn't answer the original question, namely, "is the US the most violent nation in the world?" There needn't be an either/or choice among the US/USSR. It is very possible that a world system could have many strong powers, but none overpowering any of the others.
Depending on how you define violence, it very well may be. Some of the countries in central Africa are giving us a run for our money, but I'd think that over the past few centuries, we take the cake in total combat deaths inflicted. Wether or not you agree with the aims of the missions is another question altogether, but on straight violence, I'd have to agree with our good friend Willem (768540).
ok, ya got me. Teaches me to make blanket statements. I'm thinking now of other examples as well, but they all come with a very significant private component. Even the presense of private road crews working in a competitive environment is neccessary to keep our current roads in good running order.
TW
Perhaps little has changed except that the rest of society has progressed. Enlightened as it was back then, the Muslim empire was savage and brutal by today's standards. Much is made of how well they treated the Jews, but also realize that they made Jews pay a special tax just for being Jewish. They also desecrated and destroyed the vast majority of synagogues in areas they conquered. The area known as Saudi Arabia today once had a large Jewish population. Muhammad ordered these Jews exterminated, and to this day his edict of "no Jews allowed" keeps the peninsula pretty much free of Jews.
Much of the world looked at horror at happened during the Sudan during the 1990s, as the Muslim north raped and pillaged the Christian south. This is what the Muslim empire led by Muhammad typically did in order to expand. it looks pretty bad now, but was the typical "modus operandi" back then.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"There's a book out there called "Don't Think of an Elephant" that describes the current Replication tactic of "framing" issues."
Yea, Lakoff sure has figured out the trick of those wily Republicans. Perhaps the Democrats could do this too? The abortion thingie could be called "Pro-Choice" - after all, who can oppose "choice"?
Higher taxes? Let's call that "social justice". Justice is good, no? Fancy writing law from the bench? Meet the "living, breathing constitution"...
Laserbeams, smaserbeams, Don't worry about laserbeams, they just will not do the job. Get your biggest fancy-smancy laserbeam, and shoot my house, from space, your luckey to melt a little bit of tar on my roof you putz. The thing to worry about is big rocks, Holey-moley, somebody drops a 250 Kg iron-nickel rock on the house from orbit now we gotta problem. Hits the ground pretty hard, looks like a 15Kt nuke. Put it in a high-elipticle orbit, give it a little nudge at the right time and down it comes, almost striaght down on top of you at over 17,000 MPH, can't see, can't stop, house gone, city gone. Thing leave no radiation, no finger-prints and looks just like any other 250Kg asteroid in a NEO!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The only reason is that they do not have enough shovels and don't have permission to search in Syria.
Yeah. Uh huh. The administration who sold the world on WMD doesn't have enough shovels to look for them. Why don't you do yourself a favor and read Kay's testimony yourself? He had all the resources he wanted. He conclusion? We made a big, big mistake on the WMD issue (he still supports the war, though).
The fact was that these WMD's existed.
Yes, they did. In 1991.
They were used
Yes, they were, in 1982-1987. When we were supporting Iraq against Iran.
and this is documented.
Not only is it documented, but the Reagan adminstration blocked a call for ceasing weapons sales to their ally Iraq at the time.
There is no documentantion of the destruction (or use) of the remaining stockpiles which had been previously inventoried.
Quite true, but there is ample *evidence* in every line of investigation. There was no documentation that Oswald shot Kennedy, but there's plenty of evidence.
Inspection/patrols to ensure and monitor compliance were part of the cease-fire agreement after the first Gulf War.
The heck it did! Quit making stuff up. One thing it did call for, I may note, is a nuclear-free zone in the middle east (*cough* Israel *cough*)
Iraq had no right to ignore it based on silly "spy!" claims.
A) The majority of the Security Council was in agreement with them in that the US and British had no right to be there.
B) The US *was* spying on them, not only through the No-Fly Zones, but through the inspection teams (to the disdain of many of the inspectors, who saw it as sabotaging their work). I already gave a ref - need more?
Attacks on these peacekeepers were entirely illegal and unprovoked aggression.
1) Read the bloody resolution
2) Read France, Russia, and China's comments on the subject (the majority of the SC)
3) I already gave refs documenting the extreme examples of provocation, including direct, deliberate, admitted attempts to goad Iraq into war.
To stop these attacks alone, the allies had the right to whomp Saddam's terrorist infrascture as hard as possible.
The "terrorist" issue was well referenced in the last post (same response to your next snippet, cut out)
The "attacks" you mention were retaliation for attacks against Americans which had already occured.
I *seriously* hope you're not one of those delusional "Iraq did Sept. 11th" nuts.
Blix's own reports detailed large infractions.
I bloody quoted Blix for you! What more do you need, him to tell you in person? The US media only reported the infractions and played them up. Blix himself stated that they were minor, and all of them were resolved. Now, if you want to talk about major, unresolved infractions in the middle east...
How many lies must be told to defend Saddam? There is nothing true about this.
Nothing true about it? He was bloody killed over it. He was the very reason that the Iraqi biological program was exposed. Look, deny reality all you want, but that's your own little fantasy world you'll be living in.
If they were eager to end the embargo, they would have welcomed inspections.
In case you forgot history, they *did* welcome inspections.
Well, duh! Realize that there is no difference between inspection and spying.
The heck there isn't! One has a goal of finding WMDs; the other had the goal of assassinating Saddam and uncovering his conventional forces and how best to defeat them.
Under the cease fire agreements at the end of the first Gulf War, Saddam had no right to complain.
To complain about *spying*? Point to me the "US gets to spy on anything they want in Iraq to pursue the
I wish people would stop comparing JÃnsi to God. He's good, but he's no JÃnsi.
Depending on how you define violence, it very well may be. Some of the countries in central Africa are giving us a run for our money, but I'd think that over the past few centuries, we take the cake in total combat deaths inflicted.
So I take it that the commies in the USSR, China, Vietnam, etc. starving tens of millions of thier own citizens to death doesn't count as 'violence'?
In addition to 'powerfulness', I think you really need to consider the type of government a country actually has. I personally would rather be a citizen of a first-world democracy than a third-world genocidal dictatorship, but then I suppose that most people prone to histrionics see the two forms of government as being morally indistinguishable, or else see democracy as being morally inferior.
Not to worry. Someone will detonate a cargo of a 10 million ball-bearings, imprisoning us on the planet a couple of thousand years.
.. if we unilaterally start to weaponize space, any nation or group with a ballistic missle can (and one probably will) do this. We would be denied space, for pretty much any purpose, virtually over-night. It's a shame our illustrious leader isn't smart enough to figure this before he starts wasting our money and squandering our opportunity to keep space a common resource.
Seriously
The prudent interpretation would be that they interfere when the UN is on to something and they cooperate when the UN is on a dead end.
Consider this: You are Sadaam, and you wish to deter a hostile superpower from removing you from power. Given that building WMD could be costly in terms of money, resources, and international goodwill, wouldn't it be better to make people wonder if you have them? If you build them, it might give the west a reason to invade, since you are then a threat to them. If you don't have them, the west might invade since there isn't any deterent. The best plan is to prevent any resolution of the question either way. FUD isn't just a weapon for mega-corps.
An alternate interpretation would be that they interfere when the UN is on a dead end to create disinformation. You don't stay a dictator for long by being stupid...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You confuse what was known at the time the decision was made with what was known a year or more after the decision
I do no such thing - please cite where I do that (your quote, about David Kay, has nothing to do with what was known beforehand. David Kay was, and still is, a pro-war hawk; he was, but is anything but now, a believer in present-day Iraqi WMDs)
In truth numerous intelligence agencies were saying
The intelligence agencies of our pro-war allies? Obviously - in fact, many of them got their intelligence from us and the British. The rest of the world was strongly disagreeing (you wouldn't have known by reading only the US press, of course). Many of our claims were an ongoing source of morbid humor in the European press due to how obviously trumped up they were - the "Uranium from Nigeria" claim, the "Aluminum tubes for centrifuges claim", etc. Even a rudimentary knowlege of the subject made it blatantly obvious that these things were fictional (I can go into details if you would like). Comes out after the war, that our intelligence agencies thought they were garbage, too, and yet the White House kept repeating this trash. And our biggest source of information? Chalabi and Pals - the Iraqi National Congress, headed by a multi-count felon embezzler who used the invasion to secure himself and his allies major government positions.
It's not like nobody was saying this was going to happen before the war. Of course, again, reading the American press, you'd hardly know that.
Excuse me, at one point the U.N. teams left because they were not permitted to do their job.
False. You refer to 1998, right before Desert Fox. Butler himself has stated that he removed the inspectors for their own safety 24 hours before the US bombed the country (link provided earlier in this thread).
You mentioned that Saddam destroyed stockpiles. Why did he not do so under UN supervision?
According to Kamel, at least, Saddam wanted to retain his knowlege base, not let the world know how far they had gotten, and wanted to leave his neighbors guessing.
As time progressed and the inspections became more and more stringent, they reluctantly found themselves having to give up on keeping how much they new and had from the inspectors; of course, it was too late by then. The first teams of inspectors in Iraq found strong resistance to their tasks. The reported resistance steadily declined with each successive inspection regime, to where after the last round, Blix reported only minor infractions, mostly related to Iraqi concerns about US spying to get targeting for the war. It's rather telling how far Iraq came, from complete obstructionism to destroying their best missiles due to a technicality (they were only overranged without a warhead and guidance system - some were even destroyed the day before the ground assault) while an invading army sits right next door preparing an invasion.
The WMD question has not been discussed rationally in a while
Perchance, since Bush's hand-picked inspector concluded that, and I quote, "We got it very, very wrong"?
I wish people would stop comparing JÃnsi to God. He's good, but he's no JÃnsi.