Obama's Proposed Space Weapon Ban

eldavojohn writes "Obama's proposed ban on space weapons is a complete 180 from George W. Bush's stance on them. Space.com looks at the two sides of the issue and quotes Michael Krepon explaining, 'The Bush administration rejected space diplomacy. We refused to negotiate on any subject that could limit US military options. We have a shift from an administration that was very dismissive of multilateral negotiations [as a whole], to an administration that is open to that possibility if it improves US national security.' You may recall discussing the necessity of space based weapons and Michael Krepon from 2005."

Comments

Saves money, too

[Kupfernigk]

As I recall, the US economy got a boost from reduction in arms spending post-Communism, in the Clinton era. I remember discussions in the UK before that on how Japan benefited commercially from not having a significant military, meaning that not only did they not have to pay for it out of taxes, but engineers who might be making missiles could work on things like better cars.

To generalise wildly, countries with large military R&D spending and manufacturing tend not to be good at consumer products. Military "GNP" is akin to making lots of expensive goods and then putting them all on a bonfire.

In the present case, Obama can achieve several things: reduce the cost of government, please the bluer segments of the US, and perhaps give Bill O'Reilly and co heart attacks. Potential triple win for the new Administration, and no-one gets hurt.

Re:Saves money, too

[hey!]

To generalise wildly, countries with large military R&D spending and manufacturing tend not to be good at consumer products.

There's no evidence to support such a broad generalization. For example, the country that brought you the Stealth Bomber also designed the iPod.

That doesn't mean that spending more on defense than all the other countries on the planet put together does not have an impact on our general competitiveness, but that impact is complex. For example, high tech military R&D encourages people to go into engineering. On the other hand, the firms or divisions of firms doing military engineering aren't doing much directly relevant to consumer products, and the practices aren't very transferable to consumer products. On the other hand to the other hand, military R&D and engineering supports infrastructure useful to all kinds of R&D and engineering, such as engineering schools and basic research.

There's probably at least a score of "other hands" to consider in a generalization like that.

I would venture one alternative explanation. This explanation doesn't explain everything, but it is certainly worth thinking about. The fact that we spend so much money on defense technology reflects our affluence. We are so wealthy that we buy the military equivalent of luxury goods. A Honda Accord is for most situations perfectly adequate for commuting, but many people who can afford it prefer a Mercedes. Likewise, we might not necessarily need one all weather ultra-flexible (and complex) defense system where two cheaper ones might do, but whether or not it is truly cost-effective, there is no doubt that the more complex system is a tour de force.

The relevance to consumer products is this: they're expensive to make in a country that can afford a bomber that can fly from the US Midwest to the Middle East to 100,000 lb of ordnance. And in consumer goods, while you can make lots of money with luxury niche products, the greatest gross figures are in catering to the masses.

It is always the high end of the low end that you have to watch, which is why Linux equipped Netbooks are such a threat to Microsoft's monopoly. It's not doom, it's just a beachhead on the edge of their profitable territory that they can neither afford to occupy, nor leave unoccupied.

Re:Childish

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Finlander I don't agree your view of the Muslims hate Europe because they hate your freedom. I think the issue is more materialistic then cultural or emotional. The bottom line is they hate Europe because Europe is richer. By Europe I mean not only EU but also US. Actually I should even call it Christendom as oppose to Muslim world. Also there is the element of exploitation of Europe those countries. Maybe Finland as a country did not do that but England, France etc. those countries did their fair share of colonialism in Middle East. So this issue of Muslim aggression is not something that is started yesterday it has its roots all the way back to 1800.

weaponizing space not so nice

[jollyreaper]

This is a game we can't afford to play. The cost of wrecking satellites is trivially low compared to the cost of replacing them. I would put space warfare on the same level as chemical warfare, if not in terms of human cost but damage done to the treasury. In WWII, both sides had the gas masks in case the other side used it first but neither did for fear of the chemical counter-attack. And this is in a war where carpet-bombing cities was considered an acceptable tactic.

Here's a question: years ago I read that a poor man's ASAT would be a booster capable of reaching a retrograde orbit on the same orbit as the target. It doesn't contain a guided kinetic kill video, just a big bucket of sand. The sand is released after the orbit is circularized and it becomes a giant, fine-grained shotgun blast that will destroy any satellite on the same plane. Is this one of those hoary chestnuts that just isn't true or is it very plausible?

The other question which I know is serious and yet unanswered: how much shrapnel would be left from an unrestricted space war? Would we be denying ourselves the use of certain orbits for hundreds of years? Low earth orbits will see the junk slowed by the atmosphere and burn up in time but high orbits would be free from the drag and could be there indefinitely. Would it even be possible to armor satellites sufficiently to survive the debris or would we have screwed ourselves but good?

Re:Childish

[je ne sais quoi]

I've been trying to figure out how to tell people that Obama is a man who happens to be black, and because of this hysteria, he has arguably been given far more trust than any president should be given.

The rest of your post I more or less agreed with, but I differ with you on this comment. Were you asleep during the last 8 years? Or did you just fail to notice that the majority of American people trusted George Bush Jr. to invade a country on completely false pretenses. Moreover, often those that questioned that line were denounced as traitors. Not just the government, we the people allowed this. I'd say the American people trusting Obama has nothing to do with the color of his skin, it has to do with that the American people are gullible, they treat every president that way at first.

Re:Childish

[oodaloop]

but comments along the lines of "They hate us because we are free" speak much truth.

Bush gets so much criticism because of statements like this, but it is very true. They see our freedom as the antithesis to Sharia Law and responsible for our moral decay.

Examples

[Kupfernigk]

OK, then explain why it is that Samsung and Nokia are eating Motorola's lunch in mobile phones, VW, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota and Honda seem able to make better designed and built cars than the US, US white goods are generally inferior to those from Bosch, Electrolux etc., most LCD monitors come from Korea, Taiwan or China, laptops get designed in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, the Long Island railway runs on imported French trains, most printers come from Japan, China or Korea, and how long is it since Kodak was last a major camera maker (though a lot of their Retina models were actually German.) As for the UK - well, we have massive military R&D per capita and our consumer products, such as they are, are obligingly made for us by foreign owned firms.

As for your knowledge of WW2 history - I'm sorry, it is utterly inadequate. Apart from the possibility that, had Britain defeated Hitler in the mid-30s the main language of Europe would be Russian, what makes you think the US, which was pretty pro-Hitler at the time, would have let us? Roosevelt had to overcome some pretty entrenched attitudes to give the UK the limited support that he did.

If you read the European history books, you will see that the 30s were pretty much a diplomatic failure. Had the West had the support instead of the fence-sitting attitude of the US, had Britain and France properly supported Austria, Poland and the Czechs, and had Weimar been supported instead of undermined, would Hitler have been allowed to form a Government? We will never know, but one thing is clear: despite its military buildup, Germany lost.

Re:Examples

[jc42]

One of the more spectacular takeovers of American production happened back in the 1970's and 80's, in the solid-state electronics field. First the Japanese, then the Koreans and a few others, discussed openly how they were going to do it. Their argument was based on an uncomfortable fact: At the time, developing a solid-state manufacturing facility cost on the order of $1 billion US dollars, and required about a decade of building, training and testing to get it to the point of producing working products. They observed that American management was no longer capable of making decade-long investments. Managers were judged on this quarter's results, and "long term" mean looking at most a year into the future. Americans could no longer build electronics plants, because managers of such investments would be fired within a year due to their zero profitability. So, the Asians argued, anyone who was willing to invest in 10 years of development time could take the entire business away from the Americans who had already done the basic research.

They were right, of course, and this argument still works. American firms invest in short-term marketing research, and make small tweaks to their products that can be profitable right away. Any manager that pushes for longer-term, more expensive research or development will be out of a job before the investment pays off.

There was also a good Help Desk cartoon yesterday about how US industry works these days.

Re:Childish

[edward2020]

There really are no existing bans on space weapons. Really the only legal limitations are a prohibition on placing nuclear weapons in orbit (hearkening back to the days of the Soviet's fractional bombardment system) and one concerning military bases on the moon.

Maybe you're talking about the ABM Treaty? If so, you realize that since Bush withdrew that it is null and void?

In so far as actual threat from space-based weapons - I'd say that the major developments in that area concern ASAT weapons and micro-satellites. Both areas where the US and China have demonstrated some capability.

Re:Childish

[cenc]

The problems in the Muslim world have very little to do with the West. They are same reasons that communism and just about every other evil form of politics takes hold, poverty and ignorance exploited by politicians. The Muslim world is so extrema because their poverty is so extrema. More exactly, the income gap is so extrema across the Muslim worlds. The west is a scapegoat for criminals to stay in power. It is not that much different from say Venezuela, Bolivia, or say the Nazi party and the Jews, Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinians and Isreal. The enemy of my enemy is my friend principle is most useful in politics. Look what it did for the Bush administration.