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U.S. Deploys Orbital Communications Jammer
kpwoodr writes "An interesting article at the Washington Times makes note of a recent satellite launch by the U.S. It seems we have put a jammer in space that will allow us to disrupt enemy communication systems at will. From the article: 'The U.S. military is bracing for future attacks in space, and the Air Force has deployed an electronic-warfare unit capable of jamming enemy satellites, the general in charge of space defenses says. "You can't go to war and win without space."'"
Man has killed man from the beginning of time, and each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die. Why should the future be different?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
tcd004
Ghetto terrorists don't have satellites. That's why they win asymmetric battles against musclebound national armies. Because all the Qaeda have to do to get the US to spend $10,000 dealing with an "incident" in Afhanistan is send a guy to a rocky outcropping and plant a yellow flag with a Koran verse.
1 Qadea asshole: $1.75:day
1 Prayer flag: $0.13
1 US counteraction: $10,000
Victory: priceless
When the US invests money to increase peace with satellite deploying rivals, we get increased wealth in our global economy (of which the US has the leading share). Or we can invest the money preparing for war with them. Of course we have to invest some in warfare preparedness. And equally certain is the necessity of investing in peace. Or we won't get it. Who wants to be kinda safe in perpetual war?
--
make install -not war
Guess they haven't been paying much attention to Iraq.
No kidding. I think it is worth rereading Sun Tsu and noting that he had more timeless advoce-- that at least one reading of The Art of War indicates that victory is primarily political and secondarily military. This is the problem in Iraq (though it may turn out to be an unsoluable problem).
Note that in Iraq in Vietnam (against the US), in Afghanistan (against the USSR), and in many other places, you can see plenty of examples where individuals who felt that they were defending their homeland were able to take on technologically superior forces and eventually wear them down to the point where it was politically problematic to continue. The same may be happening in Iraq today.
This general's statement only works when everything else is equal. It might work in a situation like Kosovo where we were *helping* those who were defending their homeland. But had we gotten sucked into a land war in, say, Serbia, it would have been far different.
I don't think the parent was a troll. I think he should be modded up insightful.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
No. Why do I say that? Because even countries like China, as bad as its rights record is, is seen as more popular and less of a threat to world peace than America. (especially check out that second poll - it really drives home what the world thinks of uss)
We all like to think of ourselves as the good guys. Most of the rest of the world doesn't see it that way.
Also, I can kill you with my brain.
Uh, from whom, exactly? Al-Qaeda isn't known for its lethal space program as far as I know, and I got the impression that a large part of the US saber-rattling (and actual stabbing and hacking) of the last few years was to get the point across that 'If you mess with us, you'll regret it.'
So who's going to attack the US from space? Only a moron with nothing to lose who also happens to have spaceflight capabilities, and that's not exactly a large number of countries.
The Russians? Admittedly they currently pwn spaceflight, but on American dollars - they can barely finance their own operations right now. The Chinese? They don't need to attack militarily, because they're taking the long-term view and happily taking on the outsourcing of everything the US manufactures and buying up the trillion-dollar national debt as a bargaining tool. Iran? India? Pakistan? Don't be fucking ridiculous. Maybe the evil French are going to use an Ariane-5 to launch a Death Star over Washington...
You must think in Russian.
Well, at the risk of getting modded down to oblivion, that's because China *is* less of a threat to world peace than the USA (which, on another note, is not the same as America - you're just one American nation among many).
What has China done in the last 50 years or so that would threaten world peace? Hmm, they're occupying Tibet. Certainly not good, but hey, you have started *two* wars under your current president alone already (and there most likely will be a third one in the next few years, too).
Of course, if I had to choose a place to live, I'd choose the USA over China any day - there's no doubt that China's a fascist dictatorship, while the USA are still a pseudo-democracy, at least (at least you can still choose your poison there - unless the elections are manipulated, of course). But when you're talking about *world peace*, these things don't really matter (sorry), and the USA are clearly the bigger threat, by far.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Didn't anybody read? There ain't no Death Star. Where did "satellite launch from the US" come into things? Oh yeah, it's Slashdot, foolish jumping to conclusions for nerds.
This "unit" is a group of trained people, most likely on the ground or from the air, who shoot electronic jammy things at ground stations which link to enemy satellites, or enemy ground stations which themselves are jamming US satellites. The US wants to keep its satellites, and since it has more capable and more expensive satellites than competitors it would rather not get in a "you blow up mine, I blow up yours" competition since the endpoint negates US advantages. They want to "I blow up your jammers so my satellites work again."
Stupid fucking neo-con.
... not by a fucking long shot. Democracy isn't the act of turning out on voting day and putting a tick against one lowlife arsehole instead of another lowlife arsehole. The 2-party system that has permeated the so-called 'democratic' nations is a joke. And you're an idiot for criticising other people's state of affairs while living under such a 'democracy'.
I'm no Muslim, but I know enough about the Muslim world to know that you're full of shit. The Prophet Mohammad taught and practiced democractic principles his whole life. The Muslum world had democracy until they fractured into a number of branches and started bickering amongst themselves.
Shit happens. Look at the US. You call that a democracy? I don't think so
You proabably would like to score some points off the fact that there hasn't been democracy recently in the Muslim world. But in fact that's due to imperial interference in the area. If the west would fuck off out of there for long enough for the people to kick out the US stooges and warlords, then perhaps a democratic process could begin.
"Human beings have taken war to every other realm we've ever explored[...]"
Well, ermm...maybe it's time we changed with this attitude?
This reasoning is pretty self-fulfilling, after all: why should one resist war, if it's deemed to be 'normal' and a great way of doing 'meta-science'? The acceptance of the unavoidability of war, makes war more likely.
Ultimately, the world is what you make it, nothing more, nothing less. And sure, agression is part of human nature, but that doesn't mean we should not limit it's effects, nor that we have to accept all it's expressions (we don't do that in our society neither, after all).
Is this naive and doomed? I wonder. Part of me seems to agree with you: it's so well entrenched in us humans, it will be difficult to actually abolish it completely. Another part thinks that maybe it's not all that bleak after all. Our societies, at least in the West, have increasingly become 'soft' in this respect. Where people used to be not much bothered by killing anymals for pleasure, now we do. Let alone we would still condone mass-murder on civilians (ok, the usa still does it in some sense, but it's rather 'collateral damage'; they don't go out of their way to actually shoot civilians.) In the middle ages, they had no problems killing out whole villages, including all children, and being proud of that. These days, at least in western societies, that would be deemed unacceptable.
And, look at Europe. for gods' sake, this has been the battleground for the most vicious battles and wars during ages and ages. every goddamn king and country has fought numerous times with eachother, and there wasn't a year without some war being waged somewhere in europe - sometimes lasting decennia. And we've got two worldwars too. But...things seem to have changed; we don't subscribe to the idea that war is inevitable, anymore. We actually unify peacefully, instead of emperialistically. No wars are fought (well, within the EU, at least), and political and economical ties make it increasingly unlikely there ever will be another major war in Europe. (Well, you never know what the future might bring, but it DOES become increasingly unlikely if one extrapolates the currenjt trend). In short, diplomacy replaced warmongering. And if that succeeds here, in such a formerly war-prone continent, then it can succeed everywhere.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"We left Korea. We left Vietnam. We left Kuwait. We left Somalia and Kosovo. We're going to leave Afghanistan and Iraq, too, when the job is done. Do you see a pattern here?"
Yes, I see the pattern that you got there in the first place. Since WW2, no other nation, heck, not even any whole continent, has started as many wars.
Even the USSR was a lot tamer by comparison. Yes, they tried to beat up Afghanistan and set up their own puppet government there, and had a brief tour through Hungary to the same end. The USA did that to two countries during the current president alone.
Defining it as being the good guys just because you just got there, shot a bunch of people, secured a puppet government and some fat concessions to USA-based corporations, and left, is like saying that the school bully is really the good guy there because he just beat people up and took their lunch money. Didn't take them into slavery or anything, right?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.