The Argument For a Hypersonic Missile Testing Ban

Lasrick writes Mark Gubrud has a fascinating piece arguing for the U.S. to lead the way in calling for a ban on the testing of hypersonic missiles, a technology that the U.S. has been developing for decades. China has also started testing these weapons, which proponents optimistically claim would not be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Russia, India, and a few other countries are also joining in the fray, so a ban on testing would stop an arms race in its tracks. The article discusses the two types of hypersonic technology, and whether that technology has civilian applications.

Comments

Incredibally stupid argument

[gurps_npc]

The argument is at heart "Don't develop these weapons because they will be good at killing people and I personally am not smart enough to come up with a civilan use that doesn't kill people".

It is the kind of idiocy that makes the military industrial complex laugh and call you names.

There are good reasons to ban weapons - but not just because the weapon is good at killing people. To those in the military, effectiveness at killing people is a reason to BUILD the weapon, not ban it.

Chemical are banned not because they kill people, but because they are likely to kill civilians and your own soldiers as much as they kill the enemy. They also people and damage valuable land after you win.

A similar argument applies to biological weapons, land mines and nuclear weapons.

There is NOTHING in this article that would convince a soldier to ban the weapons. Instead, any military person, upon reading it will of course demand that we spend lots of money figuring out how to build hypersonic missiles.

If you dislike war, ban it. But you are probably not naive enough to try that. You would lose the argument because such an attempt has many many flaws. Well guess what - trying to ban weapon research because the weapon is too goo is just as naive.

WORST of all, your naive and foolish attempts make it much harder to ban the weapons we actually CAN ban - land mines, chemical and biological warfare.

Re:stopping who?

[CanHasDIY]

False.
Bans have worked well many times.

Yea, like Prohibition.. oh, wait, that was an abject failure... OK, then, drug prohibit... no, wait, that's a failure, too... maybe gun bans? No, no, people still kill each other with other weapons, so those don't work.

I guess what I'm saying here is, [citation needed]

Let's uninvent the spear while we're at it

[gelfling]

Because nothing works like wagging your finger and pretending something doesn't exist.

Re:stopping who?

[Ralph Wiggam]

Those things have absolutely nothing in common with what we're talking about.

The only similar agreement was the nuclear test ban. When you test a nuclear bomb, it creates an earthquake that everyone can detect. A hypersonic shockwave is easily detectable by satellites.

The deterrent to breaking this treaty is that you would definitely get caught.

Re:Ban when you are done testing?

[mythosaz]

There's no ban on China (or anyone else) on building supercarriers.

Re:Ban when you are done testing?

[Mal-2]

I never understood this. There's no need to "bust bunkers" You just need to collapse the entrance, problem solved.

Every entrance? Are you sure you got them all? You've never been inside and your recon tools only look so far under the surface. Are you still so sure?

I'm not on the side of war, but at the same time, there are times when a "hard target" has to be taken out, and having an option that isn't nuclear (or horribly poisonous like depleted uranium) is a good thing.