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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.
I disagree.
Space is essentially worthless until it is militarized.
Nothing worthwhile is left unguarded.
A space race would be a good thing, in my opinion, because it focuses the much-maligned military-industrial complex on a worthy goal: human occupancy in space.
It may be more efficient to send up the sleek craft of the X-Prize and other private ventures, but heavy lift will probably only come with military ventures.
Getting to space en mass via the military will doubtless cause distress to many who feel that space should be kept pure, untouched by the dirty and unwholesome aspects of human existence.
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.
I think it's up to the US taxpayer to put a stop to this insanity. I have a feeling that the US is gonna laugh at the Chinese & Russian efforts to legislate this, possibly causing a cold war in space. Hell, the Cuban missile crisis is nothing compared to some serious strike capabilities in space with a far greater range than some archaic missiles on a carribean island.
Besides, who appointed the USA to be the supreme ruler of space? Surely disabling a satellite orbiting some other nation's (high) air space could be construed as an act of war similar to say, spyplanes in a foreign country's airspace?
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
except that someone eventually will develop space weapons - it would be the height of arrogance to assume that just because the u.s. backs off, everyone will - and we really don't want to get a late start in that race.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
The Army reading list
Keep in mind that there are people in the US government who own or consult for or are in some way related to the big business of providing military equiptment to the government. Of course they want this it's great to win a race, but it's even better to sell everyone shoes.
This is why we need the snooping powers provided by the USA-PATRIOT act. All we need do to foil the plots of satellite-stealing villains is track the purchases of large numbers of silver jumpsuits and miniskirts. An ounce of prevention...
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All you need to do is take a look at what country or countries would lose the most if space-based communication and localization functions were lost during a crisis. Actively working to increase the risk of such a scenario is self-defeating and shortsighted (I would like to use the expression "utterly stupid" but people may take offence).
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Two of the biggest drives behind innovation are:
1) The military
2) Sex
The sooner we get both of those going into space, the sooner we'll get some decent progress in spaceflight technology.
Who is going to keep these weapons safe? These will have to be remotely fired, and with the state of system security these days I don't trust the government to keep their satellite weapons under control.
A little bit of game theory shows why developing space weapons makes sense from the point of view of any one country.
Certainly, a "conspiracy" of ALL countries agreeing NOT to develop space weapons would be in our collective best interests. But no one works in terms of collective best interests unless it also maximizes their own best interests.
Suppose for a moment that a "conspiracy" (or to make the terminology better for this case, a treaty) existed between all nations that "prevented" the development of space weapons.
Any one country who secretly deviates from that treaty has a LOT to gain.
Thus unless the United States can trust other major powers (China, Russia, EU, Japan) NOT to develop space weapons (which it cannot), the best way to leverage its position is to develop its own space weapons first.
Am I totally opposed to space weapons? Well, not really. Krepon's arguments include:
... about $200 billion ago.)
1) North Korea and Iran don't have space programs. Space weapons would be useful against only Russia and China.
2) The US is the world's most important rule maker or rule breaker. We should set an example and develop a code of conduct.
My response to (1) is that militarily, it sucks to get leapfrogged. You don't want to get passed because of complacency. As for (2), bad actors tend not to follow rules anyway, so will the conduct of the US really shape the behavior of the rest of the world? (I would guess that many outside the US would hope not.)
That said, the opportunity cost for space weapons is *huge*. It feeds into the whole asymmetrical warfare concept -- the US can disable satellites but can't stop an insurgency that everybody saw coming except the secretary of defense.
Furthermore, even within military spending there are better places to spend the money than space weapon deployment. More unmanned systems, better infantry-level support, or faster mobilization (so that the US doesn't build up a force and then claim it's so expensive to keep them there that we have to start the war *right now* -- there were people who said we couldn't wait through a summer
But the best place to spend money, in my opinion, is accelerated research that supports reduced reliance on oil. (Yes, I'm a Thomas Friedman fan.) I wouldn't mind a grant or two to a brilliant poli sci researcher who could figure out how to sell the public on a large gas tax. (and mitigate the effects on the poor?) I think most economists would say a gas tax (or more generally, a carbon tax) is the most efficient way to spur adoption of renewable energy sources. Otherwise, you're hoping the government can pick technological winners and losers. (While reps are getting nice contributions from the farm lobby.)
Irrelevant. Whether or not developing space weapons is a surefire way to launch a new space weapons race does not answer the question as to whether or not space weapons are necessary.
Space weapons have nothing to do with security and everything to do with generating a fresh revenue stream for the military/industrial complex.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Sorry but the old USSR already built and deployed space base weapons. They deployed orbital ASAT systems in the early 70s and even armed one of their manned space stations.
The idea that space is weapons free is a myth. If you do not think that spy satellites are not weapons you are just nuts.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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?
We must develope this basselope-based weapons system. Rumors are that the russians have a basselope of their own. Do you know what that means, boy? A BASSELOPE GAP!!!
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.
And how are we supposed to ward off a cylon attack without space weapons?
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.
Quote from the article:
MK: Weaponizing space would be very unwise. No satellite has been the subject of a direct physical attack in the history of warfare. Whatever we do sets a precedent that others will follow. We depend so heavily on satellites to protect lives and wage war with a minimum of collateral damage. Attacks on satellites would mean that wars become a whole lot more difficult for our forces in the field and a lot more harmful to noncombatants.
So in short, you can reduce the efficiency of the US army by taking out their satellites. Since other countries are denied access to space, this would be a good tactic for such a country. They will be more dependent and more trained in a war without satellite information, and will be enabled by such a move to get the upperhand in a conflict.
I think the US better invest in protecting their own satellites since they are the softpoint.
PS Disabling satellites by large lasers might work since you could fry just a few components like a photo optic chip, the rest of the satellite is packed in a heat blanket to reflect sunlight and thus a laser will just reflect of that too (at least most of it, rendering it pretty useless, if the atmosphere didn't do that yet)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
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.
there is a podcast called overclocked that had an entire podcast on this topic a few weeks ago, it was pretty interesting...worth a listen.
http://overclocked.libsyn.com/
If there were weapons systems that had to be placed in space in order to protect space assets than I suppose there might be a good argument for space weapons. However, that is simply not the case. I cannot think of a single potential threat to military or civilian satellites that cannot be countered from the ground more effectively for orders of magnitude less money. Really, the only argument for putting weapons into space is that it seems cool and would be intimidating - I'm tired of our military spending money this way. More accurately, there are a group of people in the present administration who believe that it is important to 'unfetter' the U.S.'s hands from any treaties or taboos in the event that somewhere down the line there will be something useful with this stuff we need to do. This is not wise. The taboo is actually valuable to us, because having explosions go off in space ends up creating debris fields which threaten present assets in space (which could be disastrous in Geosynchronous orbit) - and the U.S. is the country with the most military and civilian assets in space. In short - it costs more to use space weapons, it is less effective, and it removes a taboo which is primarily protecting U.S. space assets. Until those factors change, seems pretty dumb to me.
Because we all know how well banning weapons has worked before.
The first attempt I can remember was when the Pope tried to prohibit crossbows. The most recent is the Japanese ban on firearms - which worked quite well until Admiral Perry showed up.
Clear, Dark Skies
Follow my logic here:
Without Space Weapons, there would be no Star Trek
Without Star Trek, there would be no Captain Kirk
Without Captain Kirk, there would be no Geeks
Without Geeks, there would be no Slashdot
Without Slashdot, I would stop wasting time at work
So: No Space Weapons = No Geeks = No Slashdot = A Raise in our National GDP
Therefore: Profit!
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I have a feeling that the US is gonna laugh at the Chinese & Russian efforts to legislate this, possibly causing a cold war in space.
"In space, all wars are cold."
-Michael Scovetta, Slashdot, 8/8/2005.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Haven't you heard? There is no USSR.
'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'
At least you admit it is a fact. Too bad you do not like it. Treaties which ban entirely-defensive efforts are certainly not in our interest.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Plus, as everyone knows, if we don't have space weapons, we can be conquered by aliens who only have a stick with a nail in the end.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
spells it out nicely. Members/contributors of the PNAC include Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, David Wurmer, and Scooter Libby.
The above document spells out the blueprint for world dominance, starting with seizing the oil in Iraq. It goes on and pushes for space warfare. Ugly document written by ugly people.
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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...:-( )
Well, if Michael Krepon, the director of something called the "Space Security Project" for something called the "Stimson Center" says we don't need space-based weapons, that pretty much settles the issue, doesn't it?
I mean, he's an EXPERT!
It sounds like he might even be an expert on SCIENCE and stuff!
What more is there to discuss!?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The .mil figured out decades ago how to push enemy sats out of orbit using decomissioned sats that have some thruster fuel left.
Weapons in space is inevitable. Looking at militiary history, it's also logical.
100 years ago wars were fought as ground wars.
When planes first appeared in warfare, they were used simply for data gathering -- They would fly over the enemy position and the pilot would report his observations.
The military soon realized that if they could knock out their enemy's use of aerial surveylance they would realize a huge tactical advantage and Air combat was born.
The same thing holds true with satellites. The launch of the first communcations / spy satellite ensured that one day someone would develop the ability to neutralize enemy satellites.
We don't have to like it, but it is inevitable.
then we all should know how the concept of frontier explortation has unfolded over history. When the early European explorers found our little rock over here, the first thing they did was check it out. The next thing they did was build a military presence on it. It is only logical to assume that the human exploration of space will follow the same human pattern as before.
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?
So we develop space weapons. They develop space weapons. We all develop space weapons. We decide to blow the 1,800 satellites out of the sky in some sort of stellar turf war.
What nobody has considered, is the gravity of the situation (literally, or lack thereof). Now you have billions of little pieces of satellite material flying around in all directions without any gravity to stop them.
You think some foam sticking out of the bottom of the shuttle has problems now, try plucking it out of there with billions of pieces of metal, plastic, glass, wire and other satellite debris flying around you in all directions at 16,000 miles per-hour.
Sure, some of it will orbitally degrade into the atmosphere, but much of it will not, and it will continue to fly in all directions at full-speed, until it either collides with something to slow it down, or it deflects off of something (such as the other billion pieces of debris) to change its path.
Forget going to the moon, other shuttle launches, Mars missions, all of it. Not without some major retrofit to the hull and other materials used in the manufacturing of them (i.e. adding weight, potentially).
Yes, lets all just blow ourselves out of the sky too, and keep our upper orbital atmosphere a nice fence of shrapnel traveling at thousands of miles per-hour.
Maybe they'll have a web-based interface and we can slashdot the satellites/weapons by hosting some dorky 'I built a toaster oven out of legos' pages up there.
It could prevent a nukelurr tourist attack!
What if W gets a JS error when he clicks the LAUNCH button?
Perhaps Iraq hid them in space - once we have such a ship that can steal the satellite we'll have proof that the war had some justification.
Agreed. Furthemore, his arguments (as presented in the article anyway) only seem to address space-to-space weaponry. His reasoning of "it's only useful against other spacefaring countries, and it makes too much space debris" doesn't apply to space-to-ground weaponry.
There is really no way to avoid this. We all rely on communications for both public and military needs. The speed and in-accessibility of orbital platforms make surface based defense of orbiting satellites almost impossible. An orbiting weapons platform in space is almost untouchable except to other orbiting weapons. This means that if another nation put a weapon into orbit that could launch on another nation or take out their satellites, that nation would be helpless unless it had it's own orbiting weapon. Imagine the havoc that would be wreaked upon us if we suddenly lost satellite communications. No long distance, no TV, internet would be affected, we would effectively be rendered helpless. People would fall into mass hysteria without communication with the outside world. Think "Trigger effect" but on a national scale. I hate weapons. I hate war. But I have to be realistic about the whole thing. It's going to happen. You can either be prepared for it, or pretend it's not a problem.
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.
way to remove the context from that statement. here it is in full:
"MK: Weaponizing space would be very unwise. No satellite has been the subject of a direct physical attack in the history of warfare. Whatever we do sets a precedent that others will follow. We depend so heavily on satellites to protect lives and wage war with a minimum of collateral damage. Attacks on satellites would mean that wars become a whole lot more difficult for our forces in the field and a lot more harmful to noncombatants."
this is a forward looking statement [eg 'sets a precedent'].
your statement that it is inaccurate because it has not happened in the past is a gross mischaracterization of what is actually being said.
sum.zero
... that international law and treaties is of no concern for the United States...
Outer Space Treaty of 1963
Yes, I know those "space weapons" will (officially) not be nuclear. Have a look at article 8, however. I doubt the US wants to pay for foreign satellites, development and launch costs.
Overall, I think if the US would finally stop bullying the rest of this planet around, they would be a lot more liked.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
Space Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case Against Weaponizing Space (Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003).
Paperback: 133 pages Publisher: The Henry L. Stimson Center (April 1, 2003) ISBN: 0974725528
**insert favorite profound quotation here**
Why only space weapons? You can make the same silly argument about all kinds of weapons. We should not develop new kinds of tanks because that would lead to a weapons race in tanks. We should not develop new kinds of warplanes because that would lead to a weapons race in planes. ....
The fact is that if these new weapons will help us in war, then we should build them. If not, then we should not build them. Let's judge the weapons based on their technical merits and not on some fantasy of a NEW weapons race (there always was and always will be a weapons race).
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?
Leaving aside the GP's (apparently) incorrect assessment of the M-I Complex's fortunes...
"People like you (Liberal Democrats) have made defense contracting a hard place to break even, much less make a profit! I suggest you go learn a little something about a field you obviously do not know a single thing about, other than the name."
And how is that a bad thing?
You seem to be implying that it's something they've done wrong, but I can't see a much more progressive step for the world than making it economically unviable to get rich by enabling the deaths or maiming of millions...
Let's be honest - the US is never (at least, not before the Big Post-Bush Economic Collapse) going to be unable to afford weapons to defend itself.
Given your country's always going to be safe and well-supplied, what's wrong with making it damn hard for people to acquire wealth and influence by profiting from human misery and suffering?
Frankly, it'd be a better world if weapons were totally unnecessary, but I'll settle for now for them being merely prohibitively expensive.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Space has been militarized, but not weaponized, that is to say the military is using space, but there are no weapons in space. This is somewhat analogous to the internet - in that the military uses the internet, but there are no known military weapons for use on the internet that aren't available to the public. To respond to a previous poster's comment on spy satelites as weapons, I've used google maps, and I wasn't able to blow anything up.
That being said, space weapons that actually attack targets on the ground are highly unlikely. Space based lasers would have problems with - cloud cover, large amount of fuel required (600 lbs if I remember correctly) and easy defence (a large pool of water over the building, thick ceilings). Kinetic weapons working on the principle of Force = Mass * Acceleration, instead of explosive power aren't that much more effective than conventional weapons. Add to all that the cost of defending these specialized weapons leads another arms race, that thankfully no country really wants to run.
As implied in the article satelites are the real vulnerability, because they provide such essential communications technology. However, the threats aren't there yet. So, nothing against the Air Force, but they need to be focused on the real issues and threats of today, not Buck Rogers time.
It does when ASAT weapons come into play. As the need to defend oneself from satellite-borne weapons increases, the likelihood of developing a weapon capable of taking them down also increases. ASATs are difficult to do, but not impossible, and the nations most likely to need defense against satellite-borne weapons are the ones that already have (US, Russia) or could develop (UK, France, India, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, North Korea) ASAT missiles.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
North Korea doesn't have the economics or science to be involved in a space race.
Sure, the Chinese have space ambitions, but they suffer from the same economic and technological hurdles... they want to put a man on the moon to stir national pride. Why the hell would they want to spend billions in Star Wars when they already have numerical superiority? In a conventional ground war, hi-tech technology is not decided advantage.
I like your McCarthyism though - keeps Boeing going.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
"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"...
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
Thank you! It amazes me how often I point that out. A belief that everything done by our government is done for our benefit is part of a certain mindset. People really believe we are the best, most righteous nation on earth, that everything we do is good and just, that our Republican leaders are all good and just and righteous God fearing Christians with the country's best interest at heart.
To question any part of this belief system induces a state of acute anxiety in these people. They have based their whole ego structure around a belief that they are good people who are part of a good country. To call that into question is to call their very concept of self into question. This explains the ferocity with which they defend their beliefs, and the difficulty in comprehending something even so simple as the idea that our leaders may be acting selfishly in regard to oil.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You call someone a troll and an anti semite. I say that when you act a certain way, you look like an idiot. You are quiet obviously engaged in name calling, while I am trying to provide constructive criticism. You like most people probably don't want to look stupid in front of large numbers of people, and like most people are probably unaware when you do. I'm merely trying to help, so that in the future you can come across as intelligent rather than a dundering chowderhead, which is how you come across now. No insult intended. I'm not saying you ARE a blithering idiot, merely how you LOOK to others. I will even provide some tips on how you can appear less like someone of impaired intelligence. Provide sources and actual quotes to back up your suppositions. This lets people corroborate your facts and see that you are telling the truth, not just spouting made up bullshit.
Hope that helps!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
1) Pro-war hawk, Bush appointee, former devout WMD believer, and head of the WMD search David Kay acknowleges that no such weapons existed at the time of the invasion. The search teams are no longer operating.
You confuse what was known at the time the decision was made with what was know a year or more after the decision. That is quite revisionist. In truth numerous intelligence agencies were saying Sadaam still had WMD, some of these agencies belonged to very anti-war governments, Germany for example. Believing that Sadaam had WMD was a quite reasonable and prudent thing to believe.
The IAEA and UNMOVIC heads themselves described good cooperation from the Iraqi government.
Excuse me, at one point the U.N. teams left because they were not permitted to do their job. You are referring to an exceptionally narrow timeframe and missing the big picture that Iraq sometimes cooperated and sometimes did not. 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. You mentioned that Sadaam destroyed stockpiles. Why did he not do so under UN supervision? Clearly he wanted people to believe he still had WMD. He assumed it would enhance his ability to "negotiate" and provide a deterrent. Given the UN's spotty record, being suprised by his nuclear program and later his bio program, it was prudent to believe be a bit cautious with preliminary and politicised UN reports.
In general you confuse to separate issues: "Does Sadaam still have WMD?" and "Is an attack on the west imminent?". The WMD question has not been discussed rationally in a while, it had become a political wedge issue wield for political gain. Sometimes wielded by those who agreed Sadaam had WMD at the time, just like Bush, and some who even voted for force at the time. If you fail to consider the politics you will never truly understand events and will be easily manipulated. The left is as guilty as the right.
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!