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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.
Sounds fair...
So we can follow the ban and everyone else cheat?
So this comes along just as Russia drops the word "Nuclear" to remind everyone that they have them.
Are you naive enough to believe the Russia would bother to show up to negotiate about this?
One also wonders what the people of Ukraine think about such a well timed suggestion.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
That's Ha Ha Hao.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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.
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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.
I think the big issue with these weapons is that they *will* become nuclear payload delivery systems, and as first-strike weapons they would be very hard if not impossible to stop (not that good defense industry $$ won't be spent trying). First-strike weaponry generally enables the crazy/unstable countries and their leaders to exert their will over the rest of the world, while not exactly providing much in terms of benefits to larger, more well nuclear established countries.
Banning this kind of testing isn't new - we did have a nuclear test ban for several decades [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
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One rule I try to remember is to never make a rule that can't be enforced. With nuclear bombs, there is seismic and radioactive evidence, so you can know if somebody is breaking the treaty. I doubt that such a thing exists for hypersonic missiles.
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]
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Because nothing works like wagging your finger and pretending something doesn't exist.
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.
A "ban", eh?
Good actors would comply, bad actors would not. Then bad actors would have them, good actors wouldn't.
And that's ... better? How?
And then what? We send them a sternly worded letter threatening to send another sternly worded letter if they do it again?
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Moreover, testing was at a less critical phase. Nuclear test bans weren't going to get rid of nuclear bombs, or even necessarily improvements in them. It would just slow them down. If they had followed them in the first place.
What has been somewhat more effective is using various means to keep more nations from joining the nuclear club. But that is because getting the details right (the first time) is kind of hard, especially when sabotage is involved. I suspect you'll see a similar trend here, with the big players getting them and then trying to stop the smaller players from getting them.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
The 1958 treaty fell apart for a variety of reasons, The 1963 version was a success.
Do you have any citation for your assertion?