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Anti-Ballistic Missile Weapons?
Rolan asks: "With the recent development of Anti-balistic Missile Technology, and it's obvious ability to be expanded to an Anti-Satelite/Spacecraft Weapon, I've begun to wonder what exactly happend to the treaties we made reguarding these weapons. Specificially I know that, during the cold war, we made treaties with the USSR that prohibit both parties from developing such weapons. Has the disolving of the USSR Nullified/Voided these treaties, or have we simply decided to froget them? Or is there actually a loop hole that alows these weapons? "
That happened to me today. Windows Media Player was downloading a codec it didn't understand and installing it that's all. You probably do need to reboot for it to take effect.
Thankfully I think most countries (read: countries, not terrorist groups or crazy dictators) know that an strike against the US would mean complete annihilation... and probably the end of most of the life on this planet. That's why, as you alluded to, a strike against Taiwan would be met with conventional warfare by BOTH sides.
America, as a whole, is good. A decent, honest, hard working society that works to better itself from generation to generation. Unfortunately there are elements of our government who have become corrupted by their own power and do not necessarily work towards the best interests of the US as a whole. In a country as massive and prosperous as the USA you will have your bad elements and some of these will even permiate your government. They need to be dealt with and expunged from your society. Those CIA men need to be imprisoned, the economists need to be made to live in their Russia they helped to create, the Pentagon needs to take responsibility for the nerve gas pills they gave troops. As for the Bikini Atoll, it is sad when any country wipes out a tropical paradise in order to test nuclear weapons, but at the time it had to be done. Underground testing was in its infancy and we certainly didn't have the horsepower to do it on a computer simulation. I believe if you look back at your history books, the US isn't the only country with blood on its hands in this arena.. the French were no more kind in their tropical nuclear tests.
"As for the assumption of this technology being manufactored with the former USSR's status as a threat, this is not true."
Right... if anyone makes that assumption maybe that would be a good time to point out that it's invalid.
"The reasons that these types of weapons are being produced is quite frankly that other countries, who took no part in the treaty, are producing nuclear weapons--and our nations must be ready to defend against nuclear attack."
The relevance of that being what exactly? Either the treaty fobids building such items or it doesn't. If you're implying that the treaty only fobids building them witht he intention of defending against particular countries thenn please quote the appropriate sections.
"Keep in mind, the anti-ballistic missile is being designed for one purpose, defense from an air threat. This is not a weapon of attack, and therefore should not be infringed upon by any treaty."
WHAT ON EARTH??? If you enter into a treaty you're bound by it. If you don't want to enter into treaties preventing you from taking defensive action then don't sign. Why would anyone think that a treaty can only concern attacks?
"Would this be a bad thing? Considering the fact that the U.S. is sending their troops in at the world's request, I think not."
Since when did the world request anything? And what does this have to do with invalidating your treaty obligations?
"Also, let's remember, these weapons are meant to be a deterrent. Just because we have them does not mean we will use them, unless of course it is unavoidable. Knowing that your enemy has the means to defeat an attack, makes it far less likely that you will be the aggressor."
What does this have to do with invalidating your treaty obligations?
"Finally, with the break-up of the Soviet Union, many less that politically stable countries and terrorist factions have increasingly been found to have access to cold war weapons of mass destruction. From biological agents to nuclear warheads, both of which can be delivered via ballistic missile. So, it is in every country's best interest to explore means of protection against this threat."
Yes, I can work out that you want to have these items, and doubtless have reasons for wanting them, what is your point? That as long as it's useful to have them it shouldn't matter what agreements you've made? I take it your word is worth nothing.
"The world, as it stands right now, is not a simple friendly place. It is complex. There are conflicting religions, political structures, and morals.
Erm... like it ever wasn't?
"In these turbulent times, with such hatred in existance, each country must prepare to defend their way of life, virtues, and beliefs. As they can no longer depend on another to do so, without political or financial benefit."
Bad enough for the USA, imagine how worse it is for the other countries knowing that as well as all that there's a superppower out there that can't be trusted to stick to treaties freely entered into.
How on earth your comments got moderated up... well yes we have a treaty, but it'd be inconvenient to respect it so who cares?
I keep reading here that the ABM treaty is still in effect with Russia even though the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight. If so, that is only because the US, under Clinton, saw fit to be very generous (not to his own constituents, of course).
Think about what a great deal we in the US are getting by keeping this treaty in force. Gosh, without it the Russkies would have a missile defense within a few months, eh? Wake up and recognize the obvious: the purpose of this treaty, like so many others, is only to restrict the US. But when Iran or North Korea can hit us, imagine what fools we will feel like!
-- Fact: over 80,000,000 people have been murdered by communist regimes since 1917. Did you know that? Do you care?
The UN? What did the UN have to do with the US aggression against Serbia? Nothing.
why do you think the us didn't renew the Nucler test ban treaty I believe it restricted StarWars type technologies
It saddens me to think that so many smart people just don't understand airdefence or guided missiles in general. I hope I can clear up some missunderstandings. 1. The SCUD is a soviet design that was basically a second generation German WWII V2 rocket. The Iraqi's have several different versions all built in the 70's and 80's. It has very basic navigational control and limited range. 2. The Patriot is an anti-Aircraft missile and was never intended to shoot down incoming Missiles! Aircraft have an envolope of a few Mach and up to about 80,000feet. Missiles on the other hand travel quite a bit faster (up to Mach 17) and at a much higher altitude. The fact that the Patriot had some success was a testomony to such a well designed weapon system. 3. To knock out a airplane is easy. Most air to air missiles will explode when it thinks its either close enough but going to miss or when it acually hits. If you punch enough holes in it, the airplane will fall out of the sky. (gravities a bitch) On the other hand, when a missile is in its final phase, its warheads are just doing a balistic trajectory (the B in ICBM)that is they are falling. It doesn't matter how many times you punch holes it is still going to fall. So the only way to make it not explode is if you somehow hit the fuse (about a one inch square) and if it is caring a Bio weapon then all it has to do is get close and break open. (nukes are a bit easier to kill but still would you want to bet your life or the lives of everyone within 50 miles?) 4. Which brings me to something that bugs the hell out of me, People talk a lot about how much stuff like this cost, How much is your city worth to YOU friend?! Not to mention your freedom, your religon, your family and everyone you know. It takes a lot less then you think to make a "delivery system" that can deliver a payload anywhere on the planet. (A laptop, a GPS recever, a GPIO card and some mapping software are all you need to make an autopilot that can hit within 10 yards, and with Nukes "Close Counts!") 5. A few of these posters have wild ideas that these missiles can be used as for anti-sat, Sorry to bust your bubble but spy sats are normal at a VERY high altidude (almost as far as the moon) Besides its easier to just by the information you want from the europeans or some other friendly contry. 6. (I have to wrap this up i have stuff to do) We DO have a few missiles that CAN hit a enemy missile during its Lift and Transition phase (that is before it reenters) and it does so with very high reliablility (its new and we are getting better).
But it was...
Actually, anti-ballistic missile weapons were specified in one of the SALT treaties. The idea was that if a country possessed anti-ballistic weapons then they would have an uprecedented advantage in the arms race, and things would go crazy again. Think about it. If the U.S.A. had a means to defend itself from ballistic missiles then we would be able to kick everyone's butt, Russia would go crazy building new missiles that play Celine Dion at incredibly high decible weapons in order to destroy the anti-ballistic missiles that the U.S. could potentially fire at Russias incoming ballistic missiles. It's that whole, anti-anti-anti-anti-ballistic missile scenario. It would just be more cost effective for everyone to line up and wack each other with shovels. Of course, Russia can barely take care of itself now-adays, so I say we build whatever we want.
I don't know who you think you are, but in your place I would reread the post you replied to. It's far more close to reality that whatever you wrote. And by the way, in case you really want proof of what the post contains, you might want to grab on to a copy of Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.
...
Orwell would have liked your kind
Press release detailing the operational laser.
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chahast at pangaea dot dhs dot org
>Treaties are only as
>good as the honesty of polititions in office.
Perhaps, but then it does seem like the Russian office honour the previous positions of the USSR a bit more than the US honour their own previous positions [which tend to fluctuate a helluvalot].
Do not underestimate the Russians one bit!
Perhaps they tend to submit to a ruling system that does not really work in the long term, but remember that it is still the largest country in the world by a large margin, and has been that for quite some time, and that with several thousand nationalities under its belt. Another name for that is stamina and cooperation.
One can argue that the US is the richest and most powerful country in today's world. But remember it has been so only for the last 50 years, and without competition only for the last 10...
that is not a long time in a historical perspective.
>Oh, the UN? It is a bad joke. The UN is mostly
>controlled and funded by the US.
controlled but not funded, the US is _always_ late and/or missing with their payments to the UN, or haven't you heard?
So, do not blaim the UN if they cannot afford to perform certain programs (such as health or birth-control) up to previously stated terms. US is still the largest financial contributor, and when they dont pay.. well think for yourselves.
>The UN is a
>tool used by US polititions to override the
>US constitiution as is convenient.
To me it looks more like the US constitution is used to override UN laws and also to override international agreements and understandings
Don't expect to see more than 2-4 of the ABL systems in production. In fact, I believe the magic number was 2, but I'm not sure. Look at it this way: The military is re-aligning to become more flexible and responsive (heard the term "light, lean, lethal" yet?) so it can take care of business on two simultaneous theatres. All we need is one in each theatre, and with AWACS and ECM they'll never be found. GPS-directed lasers take out the theatre missiles, and everyone sleeps well at night.
Personally, I expect the US to deploy defenses like the THAD as soon as possible, especially along the west coast and in Japan -- maybe not Taiwan, given the fact that it would almost definitely fall quickly in the face of a Chicom assault. (and we wouldn't want our precious missile tech falling into the hands of the Chinese, would we?) That way we can call the Chinese bluff when they stomp their feet and parade out the nuclear missiles. We can defend the only targets they can strike while we pound them into mush.
The only way to create an acceptable theatre missile defense system, given the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the loss of some of our technological advantage to the Chinese, is to create defenses that are capable of taking out our own weapons. Of course, we don't give these "premium" versions to our allies, just the "regular" versions in the event we need to overcome them later (remember the lesson from Iraq) -- just like we do with military aircraft now.
FYI: To get a good insight into international politics and military/diplomatic matters, spend some *serious* time playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. It really is a microcosm of reality.
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(not an AC, just waiting for my d*mn login info to show up)
and if you use a STRONG laser, you get a couple of roasted birds, and maybe some private plane crashes, maybe gate's jet.
Not true. In Chile, Nicaragua, and other places, Americans were directly involved in the use of terror as a tool for achieving political objectives.
* Russia: We didn't create the gulag system for them.
I was referring to after communism had fell, when Harvard economists tried to "reinvent" the economy in Russia, with disastrous results.
* Southeast Asia:
Don't insult my intelligence - American atrocities in Southeast Asia are well documented.
Try reading "Doubletalk : The Story of Salt I," by Gerard C. Smith. Smith lead the US team during the SALT I negotiations. The book contains the full text of the treaty in the appendix. It's an interesting look into how such negotiations work.
Patriot missiles did not destroy any SCUD's during the gulf war, where destroy means preventing the missiles warhead from hitting Earth and exploding, but they did deflect them from their targets. They were moderately effective at preventing casualties from missiles targetted at dense troop concentrations because the SCUD warheads were deflected into empty areas. They were completely ineffective and counter productive at defending cities since deflecting the incoming missiles from one densely populated area to another densely populated area wasn't an effective strategy and the Patriots that missed would fall to Earth and cause civilian casualties. (oh how I remember the reporters standing around a destroyed apartment building that had clearly been hit by an errant Patriot wondering about what caused the blast since it was too small for a SCUD and there were fumes reported right after the impact - the remainder of the fuel from the liquid fueled Patriot. The Pentagon knew those casualties were from a Patriot immediately but didn't bother to admit it until over a year later.)
Hey moderator, time to brush up on your definition of "insightful." I don't think it means "blanket generalizations containing knee-jerk unsubstantiated crap" That post was an insult to everyone who has ever worked for the Federal Government and knows how careful we are with our foreign commitments, treaties, and promises.
This is ridiculous. There are not "dozens of countries with nuclear weapons". The declared nuclear powers are: The United States, Russia, France, England, China, India and Pakistan. Israel has nuclear weapons but has not said they have them and South Africa had nuclear weapons but dismantled them before Nelson Mandela took office. Iraq and North Korea are trying to develop nuclear weapons but the Iraqi program was set back by their defeat in the Gulf war and the North Koreans are hampered by extreme poverty. The ABM treaty and the subsequent SALT and START I treaties had as their premise that non-proliferation (halting the development of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear powers) would be the primary goal of the treaties and that the declared nuclear powers would disarm. The aim was a world where no government had nuclear weapons and neither nuclear precursors would be produced nor nuclear weapons technology transferred to non-nuclear powers. All this talk of ABM systems is ridiculous since terrorists are unlikely to use anything so traceable and those systems are no defense against nuclear mailbombs, delivery by container ship, smuggling the bomb into the country hidden under tons of cocaine or other extremely effective terrorist delivery systems. The test ban treaty would have been an important part of a non-proliferation policy since the US is the only country with sufficient expertise to do computer modeling sufficient to guarantee detonation on the first use of a new design, but it was defeated by the Republicans for partisan reasons. Personally, I am quite appalled by the lack of focus on non-proliferation as a policy and the complete ignorance of the concept among the American populace. It doesn't help that the term is only glancingly mentioned in the news. I don't think there's a more effective counter to terrorist nukes than solid international non-proliferation and I'm bothered by the focus on ICBM's, yesterday's bogeyman. Torpedoing the testban treaty was the dumbest thing I've seen the Republicans do lately. Of course, their core consituency are generally uneducated, ignorant and susceptible to rah-rah propoganda so I suppose it makes sense from their perspective.
So I guess getting your news from CNN (Clinton News Network) is reliable. I would love for this country to have a missle defense. But our president still thinks like some freak flower child out of the 60's. Get real people. This president has done more damage to our military than any enemy could, and then has our military stretched all over the world degrading its rediness. Let us not forget that this country has enemies that have nuclear capabilities.
I bet saddam kicked himself a few times for the whole SCUD purchasing decision...
All of the SCUD missles are fired by guess. There's no real sophisticated targeting mechanism on these things. You aim and fire and hope you hit something. Keep that in mind when thinking about the effectiveness of the patriots against missiles heading toward "critical targets". It is fortunant we were able to test the unproven system against such a unreliable missile. Had Iraq used more sophisticated missiles our death count would no doubt have been much higher. The patriot is far from perfect but I'm sure we learned alot from that excersize. As for the fellow that stated that the patriot didn't "hit" any of the SCUD - most missiles are proximity missiles - they are designed to explode and spray destructive shrapnel at their target once it gets in range. In that case, the patriot did exactly as it was supposed to do. It blew up close to the SCUDs and knocked them out of the sky. Many of the anti-aircraft missiles can be over 60 feet away from the target and destroy it in the explosion. This isn't a defense of the patriot system - it was largely ineffective at protecting civilians in Israel and may SCUDs got through. But it was all we had at the time, and it did give us a chance to learn and hopefully build a more effective system. Treaties like what we had with the USSR could actually get in the way and the next time more lives could be lost because of it. Russia is not Iraq, and we have more to lose from other nations than from a broke and largely ineffective Russia - we need an adaquate defense from missiles be they long range balistic missiles or simple short range SCUD type missiles. Hopefully we won't have the need to use this technology, but given our history as humans, it's inevitable we'll go back to war and having a good and effective defense is crucial to our survival... I can understand treaties to limit the production of offensive weapons, but to limit our ability to defend ourselves against offensive weapons that could easily come from other nations not involved in the treaty is foolish.
Folks I happen to work on the NMD (National Missile Defense) Testbed. The system as currently defined would have no effect on the old MAD policies. Its defined to handle rogue launches (i.e. Sadam or the N Koreans or some terrorist gets hold of 1 or 2 missiles and launches them at us).
Were a mass launch to occur (WWIII) the proposed NMD system would be quickly swamped.
The former USSR deployed ABM around Moscow in the early '70s, in complete disregard for the ABM treaty. And, of course, they violated every treaty they ever signed.
For the U.S. to have the technology to protect its citizens from attack by *arbitrary* parties and not deploy it is sheer stupidity. I think the idea of deploying the technology and allowing the Russians access to deploy it themselves is a perfect idea.
Yes it sounds silly - but the concept was called MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. If neither side built any defenses, they where assured to be destroyed by the other sides counterattack. I.e. there was no point in starting a nuclear war, as you would yourself be destroyed. Sounds a bit warped but it worked.
NPR had a discussion on this just last week.
The treaty is most definately still in place, however there is a clause that allows one of the parties to nullify the agreement if it is found to be in said countries national security interest.
So, Yes, the US could nullify the agreement, but russia would NOT be happy with this, considering the US also just failed to ratify the nuclear test ban treaty.
One of the reasons that this part of the treaty came into existance is that, whichever country developed this system first would essentially win the cold war. Thus, without this clause, the cold war would simply escalate. The whole idea of building up more and more arms was to hold onto this delicate balance of power (a silly concept, if you ask me)
The United States has no business nullifying this treaty. The only way in which such a technology should be developed is WITH the Russians. If both had the technology, the balance of power would be maintained, while keeping rouge nations from wielding a nuclear threat.
Um, methinks this comment was moderated down because an Anonymous Coward moderator happens not to like Reagan. It's on topic. Why the flamebait label and the -1? This is setting a bad precedent. I thought all relevant views were welcome here?
"Not all of the USA's wealth or power goes into self interest either. I would imagine that the Israeli's were quite happy that US patriot missiles shot down Iraqi scud missles. The citizens of Kuwait were probably happy when Iraq lost control of Kuwait." The only reason the US shot down SCUDs heading for israel was because they couldn't afford to lose their (the israeli) support. And the only reason tha US interveined in the first place was so that Iraq wouldn't gain total control over a large area and thereby be able to control oil prices. btw. As far as I know, Australia doesn't need any aid from other countries so I don't think that's the reason for them helping other countries out. Mikael Jacobson
The US economy has never in history been as strong as it is now.
I'm not seeing it. Maybe you're looking at your definition of "strong" from the big business side of it. From the low-risk individual investor POV, it's been awful since '89 or so.
Could the development of such a defense system not cause the very thing it is designed to prevent? If those that would launch an attack on the US knew this system were being put in place, would they not want to strike before it is active, before their missiles became useless?
Funny how a game from 1936 worked as the strategy for finally destroying the Soviet Union. Tryly, capitalism defeated communism. And Ronald Reagan should get the credit for destroying the "evil empire" even though it happened during Bush's term in office.
This is for all you naive, apathetic, pacifist, brainwashed lefties out there, living under the umbrella of freedom that OTHERS died fighting for: 1. You don't actually believe the USSR/Russians actually HONOR all those treaties, do you?!?! - they are STILL developing biological weapons. - they are STILL developing ICBMs (stealth ones now!) - they are building a new underground nuclear bunker. 2. Freedom is NEVER free. Never has been, never will be. Only by walking softly and carrying the BIGGEST stick will freedom prevail.
While we're at it, what ever happened to the neutron bombs? (I mean after the USSR started their little "campaign" in witch they made the US look like real assholes for developing the neutron bomb, all whilst developing their own neutron bombs. Mikael Jacobson (ok, it's a bit off topic)
The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction may have been the least expensive way of preventing ourselves and Russia from going at each other with ICBMs, but look at what it has done to the United States. Thanks to the need for rapid response to an incoming attack, several changes were made to the US Government's operation, including the Presidents' being able to declare martial law, and his ability to write directives, with the full force of law, without being screened by Congress. These unconstitutional shortcuts are a major reason why the Federal government is growing unchecked, and are a greater threat to the American people than Communism ever was.
Given an effective defense against ballistic missiles, the American people at least has a CHANCE to repeal some of the authoritarian legislation weighing down on the public. To this end, I feel it is worthwhile scrapping the ABM treaty even over Russia's protest.
If any such 'suitcase nukes' were built, they probably wouldn't work anymore. The radiation from the fissionable material degrades the components and makes the weapon inoperable within a few years time.
I don't know if they work anymore, but I know that the US had at least one suitcase nuke (officially: 1, inofficially: not a clue)
Mikael Jacobson
> I just don't understand why you would ban a ...
> defensive weapon system like this
It's quite obvious really...
a) ABM's did't work for the most part
b) they were increadibly expensive
c) the response from the "other side" was to MIRV their warheads, thus _increasing_ the damage done by an exchange.
d) it forces the "other side" to make _all_ exchanges full out, anything less will be shot down
Essentially ABM's make you far more likely to be wiped out completely in the event of a war, and that's if they worked in the first place.
I gotta disagree with the moderating done on the parent comment of this. It's 100% relevant to it's parent. Stupid moderators.
If we ever *need* to deploy a missile defense system it's probably in reaction to an act of war anyway, in which all those pretty treaties become as worthless as the paper they're printed on.
Anti-ICBM weapons were being devised when Reagan decided to terrify the russians with the 'Star Wars' program. And although a lot of that program was BS, several interesting anti-missile devices were at least conceived back then. We were test firing the Miracle Laser at the moon ten years ago, after all.
As for now, things are much different. Russia likes us now, or at least they don't hate us or fear us enough for America to worry about superpower armageddon. And China is US-neutral, more or less.
Anti-ICBM weapons have been developed, and are going to see a reinvestment in research, because the Middle East is finally becoming nuclear capable. That is an area of the world that still thinks the West is ruled by Evil, and Islam is one of the few cultures of the world that considers war not only acceptable, but even desirable. Anyone I offend with that statement should note that many followers of Islam consider Jihad to be the most important pillar, and the Palestinians elected a terrorist as their leader.
And these same nations that are developing weapons of mass destruction don't sign treaties. So, the US decides to reinvest in research that can defend itself.
Considering the US has not expanded its borders signifigantly since the spanish-american war, and the US military answers to civilian authority, I doubt this kind of weapons research is designed to be agressive.
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/09/26/0731236.shtm l Why couldn't they just develop something similar for theater defense? Or is it that the bullet-type stuff just works in deep space?
As for your explanation that plasma is a gas, well no, a gas is a gas and a plasma is a plasma. These are even classified as different states of matter. Plasma is often contained in magnetic bottles. Can you do the same with a gas?
To avoid me wasting time and typing trying to convince you of something that youve already made your mind up about I submit the following refernces on Plasma, specifically Anomalous findings of Plasma in ion accoustic mode.
V. Yu Bychenkov, A. M. Natonzon and V.P. Silin, "Anomalous Absorption of Radiation on Ion-Acoustic Fluctuations," Sov. J. Plasma Phys. 9 (3), 293 (1983)
M. Waki, T. Yamanka, H. B. Kang and C. Yamanka, "Properties of Plasma Produced by High Power Laser," Jap. J. Appl. Phys. 11 (3), 420 (1972)
and most importantly.
J. D. Sethian, D. A. Hammer and C. B. Whatson, "Anomalous Electron-Ion Energy Transfer in a Relativistic-Electron-Beam-Heated Plasma," Phys. Rev. Lett. 40 (7), 451 (1978)
This article really requires you to RBTL. A lot of the physics doesn't make much sense. Yet there is some truth here. Was it Tesla who disproved the first law of thermodynamics?
Oh really?
I heard rumors about live missile tests...
All of the SCUD missles are fired by guess. There's no real sophisticated targeting mechanism on these things. You aim and fire and hope you hit something. Keep that in mind when thinking about the effectiveness of the patriots against missiles heading toward "critical targets". It is fortunant we were able to test the unproven system against such a unreliable missile. Had Iraq used more sophisticated missiles our death count would no doubt have been much higher. The patriot is far from perfect but I'm sure we learned alot from that excersize. As for the fellow that stated that the patriot didn't "hit" any of the SCUD - most missiles are proximity missiles - they are designed to explode and spray destructive shrapnel at their target once it gets in range. In that case, the patriot did exactly as it was supposed to do. It blew up close to the SCUDs and knocked them out of the sky. Many of the anti-aircraft missiles can be over 60 feet away from the target and destroy it in the explosion. This isn't a defense of the patriot system - it was largely ineffective at protecting civilians in Israel and may SCUDs got through. But it was all we had at the time, and it did give us a chance to learn and hopefully build a more effective system. Treaties like what we had with the USSR could actually get in the way and the next time more lives could be lost because of it. Russia is not Iraq, and we have more to lose from other nations than from a broke and largely ineffective Russia - we need an adaquate defense from missiles be they long range balistic missiles or simple short range SCUD type missiles. Hopefully we won't have the need to use this technology, but given our history as humans, it's inevitable we'll go back to war and having a good and effective defense is crucial to our survival... I can understand treaties to limit the production of offensive weapons, but to limit our ability to defend ourselves against offensive weapons that could easily come from other nations not involved in the treaty is foolish.
Most ( if not all ) of the treaties held with the USSR would have been taken over by Russia, so the ABM treaty signed in the 1970's would still be valid. It originally allowed two defensive sites for each country , the national capitol and a military site ( I have a recollection that this was later reduced to a single site ). The USSR built its defensive missile system around Moscow, comprising several layers of SAMs, the biggest of which were very long ranged ( capable of exo-atmospheric interception ), with nuclear warheads, but there were also mobile ( or at least movable ) launchers developed in more recent years. The US built its defensive site around the ICBM launch fields in North Dakota, but the site was deactivated the day after it became operational , over fears of the EMP effects of detonating nuclear weapons at altitude over the US. ( the USSR wasn't as concerned about this because they had considered this contingency, for example building standards required extensive lead shielding in all their elecrical and data conduits ) Both the US and the USSR/Russia have tried to add a ABM capability to existing long range land based and sea based SAM systems that were not originally built as part of the ABM networks. For example, Patriot, Standard ER and SA-N-6 in their more recent versions can "hit" incoming ballistic missiles. However , as these weapons are typically designed to destroy aircraft, they get to within a certain distance of their target and detonate , rather than a direct hit. The long rod fragmentation warheads they typically carry will not utterly destroy most largish missiles such as a SCUD or the longer ranged "Al Hussein" ( missiles don't have a lot of vital parts once they have burnt their fuel and are in the terminal dive ), so typically the effect is to break the target up. IF the target was something relatively small, like an airfield, military headquarters, or a naval ship, this is probably enough to prevent any damage to the target. But if the target was something big , like a city, then instead of one big lump of metal plus some explosive , you now have lots of little bits of metal from the original missile, as well as the SAM , raining down on the target at high speed ( which causes damage over a wider area ). This means that the city on the recieving end still can get damaged quite seriously, and this is partly why the US GAO considered that the Patriot was 0% effective in the Gulf. ( The other main reason why they consider the Patriots ineffective against the Al Hussein missiles is that they tended to break up in flight in the terminal phase, and it was not always clear if a Patriot hit the warhead, or one of the two fuel tanks that broke off. To compensate for this you might engage a single launch with 6 missiles, using 2 per blip, which causes a lot of secondary fragmentation over the target, probably increasing the damage.) The ABM treaty has a number of areas which it doesn't explicitly address, and the issue of an aircraft based laser system, such as what the US is now developing is pretty much in a grey area. The Russians would like to argue that it is a strategic system, and thus covered by the ABM treaty, and the US would like to argue that it is purely a tactical system , designed to protect deployed ground forces from a Theatre or Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Threat. The fact that the stated operational profile for the Air Laser is to hit the missile in the launch phase at a range of 400km, does support the US position , as few ICBM launch sites are within 400km of national borders, let alone national airspace boundaries. The effectiveness of the laser on a missile in the terminal phase with empty fuel tanks may be very low, although given that they haven't tested it yet , who knows.
From the ground it would be difficult to destroy a GEO, but from a LEO it would be relatively easy to jam communications.
From the ground it would be difficult to destroy a GEO, but from a LEO or other high altitude station it might be relatively easy to jam communications between a GEO and other LEOs.
In the event of a large scale attack, you have two options: attack the missiles during the boost phase or after the boost phase. Attacking during the boost phase (while the missile is accelerating) is technically very hard, it involves hitting a rapidly accelerating target, within the atmosphere, on the other side of the world, within the very short timeframe from missile launch to the end of the boost phase. No-one's yet to demonstrate or even begin serious work on a realistic system to kill ballistic missiles during the boost phase.
Unfortunately, after the boost phase, the incoming missile can spread decoys, launch MIRVs and use other countermeasures, i.e. your number of possible targets goes up by orders of magnitude. The cost of the capability to intercept this type of attack is vastly greater than the cost of the attack, i.e. even if it were technically possible, you couldn't afford to defend against a large scale attack.
So, is the proposed ballistic missile defense system any use against a rogue dictator? Hmm, let me see, if I'm a rogue dictator with a small number of nukes and I want to set one off in the US, or in the homeland of the Imperialist Aggressor of my choice, what should I do?
Do I place my nukes on the tip of a ballistic missile that may or may not get shot down but will certainly act as a huge flag saying "Nuke Me Now"? No, I put the nukes in ships and sail the 12 miles from international waters to one of your cities. Or I put them in vans and just drive there. This method has been proven to work by terrorists the world over, in particular the IRA has demonstrated its ability to deliver bombs weighing several tonnes to the centers of British cities.
Oh yeah, this method may make it possible to avoid retaliation. I'm sure that the wounded country would retaliate against someone, but if I can plausibly deny carrying out the act I might not be the target of that retaliation. Sounds pretty good to me.
So, what is the point of the proposed ballistic missile defense systems? Corporate welfare, as ever, and to hell with international law and security.
YOU ARE A FUCkING AS HOLE
I would imagine that the Israeli's were quite happy that US patriot missiles shot down Iraqi scud missles. The citizens of Kuwait were probably happy when Iraq lost control of Kuwait.
The Gulf war was NOT about helping Kuwait or Israeli. It was about the US telling the rest of the world that it "rules". It was about making a clear statement on how it intends to use it's power in internationnal affairs and rebuilding it's image after it got it's ass whiped in Viet Nam. I dont support dictators but a lot of lies have been told in North American media about Iraki soldiers slauthering babies in Kuwait hospital. It was found out after the war that the whole story was made up. It was pro-war propaganda. The US media is SO full of it. In a way, Sadam Hussain and other dictators are usefull to to the US economy. The whole `boom' of the US's economy is based on the "Bad guy" "evil empire" themes.
The ABM Treaty, while signed, was never ratified by the Senate, IIRC. Administrations following this political debacle simply behaved as though it were in force. There is no "treaty" obligation to continue to obey this agreement, but of course, demonstrated precedence over time has its own standing in international law. I'm too lazy to check this out right now (besides, I'm at work), so take it with a grain of salt, but if I'm wrong, somebody will surely correct me.
WE ARE NOT BETTER. In fact, Our government's policies has always been to lick the US's boots. We exploit third world countries as much as the US does. So does most of the European Union. Accusing others of our own faults is not the way to go.
Ok, when post #3 gets marked "Redundant", we know that "Redundant" should be replaced with "Duplicate" and "Duplicate" should only refer to pressing "Submit" too many times, and it shouldn't cost Karma.
Yes, I know I overused "quotes" in this "post".
Research is allowed but Deployement is not. Putting up a 100 Missile Defense grid and calling it a Resarch should be intersting.
Which part of this is nonsense ? Enlighten me. As I understand it, you had no business being in Afghanistan in the first place and CIA was funding the rebels, who are responsible for the current situation. In my mind CIA is at least in part responsible for the current situation there. So you have no business in a situation you helped create (in fact, it was the largest covert CIA operation) ? Are you perhaps afraid of terrorist retaliation ?
AC>Vietnam- To keep capitalism powerful
>Golf- To keep oil for the US price down
>Kosovo- To stop an upcoming power
WWII: You're right. We're constantly looking out for number one. If we were really decent we would have just ignored it when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. After all, that's what your mommy told you to do when the school bully picked on you. And lets not forget about Germany's occupation of most of Europe and the whole genocide ordeal.
Vietnam: I really don't know much about this other than that the U.S. was trying to keep democratic South Vietnam from being taken over by communist North Vietnam. Evil Americans. Always trying to help out their allies.
Gulf: Ok, so we were interested in oil. For a while I thought this was OK but then I remembered that the entire rest of the world has no use for oil. There was also that little country that was invaded. As I recall Saddam looked poised to invade Saudia Arabia too. The funny thing about this is that prior to the Gulf War Saudi Arabians * hated * America with a passion. I mean, if they despised (I hope you remember all the terrorism that went on in the 70's) us so much why did we bother? Obviously, we have secret agendas and hidden motives. Namely, it's our desire to control the world with an iron fist. Maybe you can be my personal slave when America takes over the globe.
Another thing that should be mentioned about the Gulf. The U.S. supplied weapons to Iraq before (that means we used to like Iraq) Saddam wigged out and tried to conquer the region. It was a very stupid thing to do. And America did it. But if I hear another godamned comment about the U.S. joining to Gulf War ONLY BECAUSE OF OIL PRICES I'm going to be very upset.
Kosovo: Upcoming power? Of course! Why didn't I see it? Why, in ten years the Serbs might have been the dominant force in the world and pose a *major* threat to the security of the USA. Luckily for us we stepped in in time and stopped 'em (damn we're clever). We also managed to stop (at least slow down) a horribly brutal and bloody war that was raging in the country. All in one fell swoop.
This has got to be the tenth "America sucks" post (and easily the lamest - yet they keep getting moderated up) I've come across since I started reading this thread. It seems like the entire world has this vision of American's with a bag of Doritoes in one hand, a Pepsi in the other, a smiling mouth full of pearly whites, and no brain to speak of. It just ain't so. I'm not about to say the states are perfect. Or even close. Is Australia? Maybe I'll move there...
I've read bogus reports about 14 year old Norwegian hackers breaking into "top secret" U.S. military websites and stealing "top secret" military information (like our plans to invade and take over New Guinea) in the B.B.C. Do I think all Brits are retarded for reading that kind of stuff? No (I don't think all Norwegians are hackers either). The point is the article made the U.S. look bad. A lot of people probably believed it. Even though anyone who knows anything about the cracking business knows the scenario is about as unlikely as one of us walking on the surface of the sun in this lifetime.
My point? It's this: half of what you say is untrue. The other half applies to the U.S. as well as the rest of the world. People pretend that themselves and their government are innocent of all crime and scapegoat the USA. You act like we have a violent streak and like to break sh*t. We'll, here I go again, always defending. That's what all this was about to begin with. Missile defense.
Heh, to have or not to have ABM is not a question for USA now. Answer is simple and straight - YES. It is the only way for current US politic. First of all you have to realize that resources of little planet EARTH are not so large, and there is no way to provide high level of life for all people in it. As it was calculated only near a billion of people can obtain this high level of life ( They are called as "Gold Billion"). This arithmetics is symple. Little Part of countries are taking most resources of planet, and they defend their current positions by every possible means. The remaining biggest "poor" part of the World takes role of suppliers of this life to the Gold Billion. It is comprehensible wish of third countries to jump in this Gold Billion, but there is strongest wish of Gold Billion not to accept anybody. So, who are these Gold Billion's countries ? You can simply make parallel between Gold Billion and NATO. The biggest target of NATO is to defends position of it's core countries. It is not a secret that USA stays is in a center of NATO. So, the president of USA is de facto a dark president of the World. And any man who wants to take (or hold) this biggest power have to be elected by US citizens and so he needs to keep level of life of this country ... USA is a winner in a Cold War. This country with another core countries of NATO are winners and they have a wild right to use this victory. After Cold War they have a biggest weapon potential in the World and it will be stupid not to use this. Power is a right. It is a right to break any agreement, and to settle new one. This way all is clear, but you have another factor - technical progress. In a 1945 the USA pays a lot of time and resources to made A-bomb. USSR little bit later needs little bit less resorces. In these days a price for creation A-bomb is very low - and you see, a lot of third countries have made atomic weapon. The only way for USA to remain in a throne is to crash all industry of third countries. You have seen that in last decade. But progress is coming and tomorrow any country will have ability to make atomic weapon by efforts of few students in a local university. The only way to defend is ABM. No question at all. And you all have to understand that this is firstly for your own benefit. So, keep silence ... ---Muller
Remember that _a_ government holds the monopoly on armed force/violence. They get away with it, usually for stability's sake. Since the USA (at least by me) is seen as the worlds policeman, and there is few competition here, the USA can do what it wants.
This will backfire, because of the mirroring principle. This is seen inside the USA (lot's of police, and the highest crimerate in the world:: chicken/egg problem).
The (rest of the) world wants to be able to do what it wants. For that you need to have physical/military power. If you have relatively little of that, you try and make/buy some more. I see Europe and China very capable of that.
I think the USA will keep develloping this technology because the new world order is so uncertain. This seems like the
SECOND COLD WAR
not against anybody in particular.
#include (normally logged in.h)
Remember that _a_ government holds the monopoly on armed force/violence. They get away with it, usually for stability's sake. Since the USA (at least by me) is seen as the worlds policeman, and there is few competition here, the USA can do what it wants.
This will backfire, because of the mirroring principle. This is seen inside the USA (lot's of police, and the highest crimerate in the world:: chicken/egg problem).
The (rest of the) world wants to be able to do what it wants. For that you need to have physical/military power. If you have relatively little of that, you try and make/buy some more. I see Europe and China very capable of that.
I think the USA will keep develloping this technology because the new world order is so uncertain. This seems like the
SECOND COLD WAR
not against anybody in particular.
#include (normally logged in.h)
---
I'm not a real anonymous coward, I just play one on TV.
USSR doesn't exist but Russia does. This is whom the treaty would link to.
-Mark
You see us as self-centered, we see you as jealous.
I guess when you live outside the US and you see us trying to protect our own interests with such vigor, it might be construed as being self-centered. Don't try and pretend that every country doesn't do the same thing, the US just has to do it a lot more.
Just imagine your country has the wealth and power of the US, now amplify the effort your country puts out to protect it's self interests... congratulations, the entire world now thinks you are self-centered.
It's ok to stick up for your own country, but realize that the difference between your country and the US is only a matter of dollars and cents.
A single warhead (nuclear or biological) that hits San Francisco or LA would probably considered very serious. The point of current US ABM research is for exactly this type of situation.
The systems in development are not designed to provide protection against a massive launch from Russia. They are designed to provide protection against a rouge nation with a few weapons. With no ABM system, North Korea could simply demand concessions from the US or they will hit the west coast. Would you be willing to sacrifice LA and then destroy North Korea?
One could argue, of course, that the systems are not that valuable because the warheads could be delivered by other means (suicide bombing, car bomb, etc).
Begging the obvious questions - if its such a big secret - how come you know about it?
Your post makes great comedy, if that was your intent.
On principle, the U.S. would never back down. A nuclear threat against a U.S. city would cause the U.S. to threaten to blow the whole country to pieces if a missile even came close to a U.S. city. Awhile back, North Korea was making noise about launching a nuclear missile at the U.S., to which Clinton and the State Department cooly responded that they would turn North Korea into a "smoking hole in the ground" if North Korea actually attempted such a thing. They were NOT kidding, either. Any nuclear launch against the US by another country will result in the complete and utter annhilation of the attacking country, even one as big as China. Threatening to do so will only make the U.S. more aggressive - if China threatened to nuke LA for U.S. interference and starting sending boats across the strait, I guarantee not one would make it as several U.S. carrier groups rushed to the scene. I do not think they would hesitate to hit the staging zones on the mainland, either. Note that I am not maintaining that this is good or bad, but it is how it is.
Laws are created by nations. Treaties are only as
good as the honesty of polititions in office.
Oh, the UN? It is a bad joke. The UN is mostly
controlled and funded by the US. The UN is a
tool used by US polititions to override the
US constitiution as is convenient. (treaties
take precidence, so make a treaty as desired...)
Only a fool would obey an arms limitation treaty.
If your enemy is a fool, make a treaty!
See what happens when you get your news from Reader's Digest? When was the last time you saw an article in there that was critical of a Republican?
Shyeah, right. You sound like the kind of dude that creates the need for this sort of defense system.
>>Assume that the U.S. intervenes, at NATO's insistance, into another country's small war It doesn't work that way. NATO intervenes at the US's insistance.
It's not that simple. If the US was to throw away a threaty with Russia on the grounds that it doesn't consider it to be USSR, then it would open a door for Russia to ignore it's dept with the FMI and others based on the same assumptions. Since most of Russia's dept(USSR) is destined to go in the US's pockets, I dont think your governmnet will be wanting to put such ideas into Russian minds.
Thank god US is not the only country in the world that has nukes.
Soviet Union does not exist anymore.... how can you have a treaty with a nation that doesn't exist? The USSR was more than russia.... it included 20 other nations as well.
I know for a fact that USSR build such devices. They were dismantled later tough, because the risk of having them get into wrong hands was deemed too great.
It's amazing that noone even bothered to mention S-300/400 series of missiles. Russians have made S-300 some time ago (S-400 has just been 'officialy' launched, and is being produced). Do you know what it's used for!?
S-300 was developed as a "missile hunter". In other words... S-300 will get ballistic missile with 100% accuracy. That's what it was made for - that's what it does. That's why US has bought one S-300 system, so that they could finally make the missile that can blow up nukes (Lockheed-Martin, or whatever you write that name, owes more than 100M US$ to the govt, since they didn't manage to meet the deadline for their anti-ballistic missile).
S-300 has, later, evolved into anti-air system too - with (again) 100% accuracy. S-400 is much more advanced - and can get your favourite AWACS in matter of minutes - on *any* altitude (so, guess what will happen w/ satellites). Yes, S-400 was made against satellites. So simple.
I think that people still don't realize something - fact that US is yelling about its military doesn't means that others don't have advanced weapons. On the contrary... [tell me what do you know about Chinese army? Do you know that they have cruise missiles? 99% of the people don't know that...]
On the other hand, I for sure know that one east-european country was using our favourite 'tempest' technology some 10 years ago (the first time I've heard/seen it related to that country) - by the military. According to source, they've had that technology for much longer.
I think that, at least, geeks should figure out that "we are better" attitude is pretty wrong, since you have clever people everywhere. The rest is the matter of PR, and attitude of your own govt - do they want to make you feel good about what they've made, or do they want to keep quiet and use it when "the time comes"?
Military sucks anyway... Govts too.
I fail to see why you even wrote most of what you did. Who really cares if you have lived outside the US for nearly a year and blurb about the electorate? Am I to suppose you living outside the US gives you a greater sense of our problems? Or we are to stupid back home to realize that fanatics on the left and the right (you must be on the left since you only mention right wing nuts) are a real threat to our freedom. I've lived overseas myself. Three and a half in Germany and over a year in Korea. From what I remember the US is hated and loved depending upon who you talk to. In Germany, many thought we were an occuping force from WWII, others loved us. Some of those being the German babes:-) On the other hand, I was in Germany during the early 80's, which was a pretty hot time for terrorism:-( Most hate the US because we have our hands in everything. I think it is jelousy. Their contries don't have the power to extend their influence around the world and then to back it up with force if necessary. Sorry, that's the way it is. We have the military and financial resources to do just about anything we want. But so have many countries in the past. 2000 years ago we would be complaining about those damn Romans. The US will eventually fall and a new power will rise in its place. Until then, we are the best thing going. In short, I think you are associating with mostly ppl that hate/dislike the US. That feeling isn't necessarily how the rest of the Irish people, much less the rest of the European population, feels about the US.
THAAD is a theater defense and is allowed. Same with Navy High and other programs. Research is also allowed under the ABM treaty. The ABM treaty also allows for a single fixed ground-based site. The Soviet Union (now Russia) deployed such a site to protect their capital. We did not (too much politics in leaving the rest of the country uncovered, no support for that in congress). So far we haven't violated the treaty in the strictest sense or interpretation, but we research systems that would violate the treaty if they are deployed. Somebody have a link for the text of this thing, or better a good summary of what is and is not allowed?
I tried to download the move and windows media player poped up... it waited a while and then displayed this error message... I still can't stop laughing...!!! Windows Media Player cannot open 'mms://155.148.58.131/Mission56'. You may need to reboot to complete installation of a downloaded component. Please verify that the path and filename are correct and try again.
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
For that matter, what good are all our old agreements with old red? I am not much for the technicalities of world affairs, but who do all of our treaties with the former USSR still pertain to?
The fact that we continue to pay billions of dollars in *bribes* to the organized crime controlled, corrupt Russian regime is all the more reason to contiune developing broad based, comprehensive ABM systems - not just minimal threat systems such as the current Raytheon system. We are still totally vulnerable to a massive strike (1000+ ICBMs) from Russia. And it's only a matter of time before China has accumulated an equally large ICBM stockpile (using stolen US nuclear technology).
We can no longer rely on cold war treaties and ideas of MAD (mutually assured destruction) to protect US cities - the fact that the Democrats are finally comming to the table on this, despite a decades long propaganda war against "Star Wars" or the Stragegic Defense Initiative ABM research of the Regan Administration.
The sooner Clinton gets out of office the sooner we can get to work on a total, comprehensive system. And as for the Russians, they need to realize that they are no longer a superpower, but that despite their continued membership on the UN Security Council, they have devolved into a petty, corrupt dictatorship, worthy of little more than our contempt. As soon as we can safley ignore Russian nuclear blackmail, the better. The only problem lies in our allies. With certain members of NATO's demonstrable willingness to export highly sensitive military technology to our enemies (specifically France) it would only be a matter of time before any US ABM system fell into the hands of the enemy. And despite gushing sentiments of sharing this technology in the hopes of ending the threat of global nuclear war, this would only provide the enemies of the United States the means to reverse engineer our systems and possibly develop countermeasures.
So in answer to your question. These treaties are a sham, and Clinton is a fool.
Seriously. I think we all should learn some history, it is part of where we come from and our future. I still read history cause its our hertidge, our shame, our bright momment, our actions and our hopes. I mean we have to learn from the great leaders of the past so that we can strive for a better future.
P.S. - that's a lot better then the old -> Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
The reason the cold-war was "won" amidst all of the arms deals and the arms race was financial. By pumping up US "defense" spending to extreem levels, we -far- outspent the USSR causing economic problems on their end by trying to keep up.
But the U.S. is so much more moral and responsible and grown up now -- these days there is no way that it would deliberately send out smallpox-infected blankets to inflict genocide on its subject peoples.
The SALT 1 treaty, which is what you are referring to, was never ratified by the US Senate, and is therefore not legally binding. Later treaties, such as SALT 2 and STAR 1/2 didn't touch this.
I recall seeing an article within the last few weeks about changing this particular treaty. The reason being that the there will be too many countries in the future capable of creating ICBMs. It may have included some type of tech sharing on our anti-missile tech.
Somehow, there is an uncalled for assumption that nuclear war would be all bad. Perhaps this is not the case. Perhaps nuclear war would cleanse the Earth and allow a fresh start. In OO software design, it is generally agreed that the first implementation should be thrown away. Why not the first cut at ``advanced'' civilization. As I look look around the world today, I see nutcakes everywhere: Chechnya, Congo, Pakistan, Israel, East Timor. Let's wipe the slate clean and start over from basic principles.
They blew up the fuel tanks, to make fireworks, the warheads still fell. ;-P
Yes, the ABM agreements are still in effect. We have offered to re-negociate them with the Russians in return for some concessions on our part (regarding nuclear waste ect.) And some help in dealing with some problems. I am not sure about the research part of it, I do know that space research on this is not acceptable under the ABM agreement and others. The reason why they were first signed is to make it so that the two superpowers could not protect populations and so on, and could not hope to win a nuclear war. MAD or mutually assured destruction is the idea behind that. Just a bit of history for the younger geeks.
These have been around for almost 2 decades if not longer. The Air Force can shoot down a satellite using a special missile and an F-15 (can't remember if it is the C or E (single or two-seater))
The Scud was developed AS a nuclear missle. Until it hits, you can't tell what warhead has been installed. You won't see anything special from it's flight profile.
IIRC, the US designated a site in North Dakota as its protected zone under the ABM treaty. Current talk of an ABM defense involves 2 US ABM sites: one in Alaska, and the one in Dakota. This, of course, would require a clear violation of the ABM treaty [2 sites > 1], so some thought is being given to just one site, in Alaska [requiring a transfer, if you will, of the protected ABM site]. What is most amusing about this situation is the site in Alaska. The mainland of the US could be protected from a single site in North Dakota but, surprise! Alaska's congressional delegation has made it very clear that the US citizens residing in that great state are just as deserving of ABM protection. So we may very get well a single ABM site there, a site which would [for obvious geographical reasons] be a bit more open to a disruptive strike than the site in the Dakota hinterlands.
--an anonymous wonk
I think that Reagan was completely AGAINST signing a treaty that would limit our ability to defend ourselves. The USSR was at the end of its rope, and when Reagan refused to give up star wars (a kind-of similar technology to ABM's), the USSR didn't have much else they could do to counter. Reagan stood strong for DEFENSE. It very well could be a reason that communism fell in the USSR. America should DEFEND itself against whatever might come up. An arms buildup isn't necessarily for a strike. It's for a deterrant (sp?).
There is an excellent article in the Aug 99 issue of Scientific American that talks about the stupidity of SDI. The article is titled "Why National Missile Defense Won't Work." Unfortunately I couldn't find a link at sciam.com.
It goes deeper into the problems with SDI and missile defense in general, and if i remember correctly it casts dobuts about the accuracy of the patriot missiles launched during the Gulf War.
The first problem that these systems have is that they have trouble identifying their targets correctly. Even very smart defense systems have difficulty distinguishing missiles from debris before they pass by. And if enemy missiles are detected, the interceptor has to turn around, accelerate, and determine the other missiles course before it touches down. Then, if by some miracle the system figures all this out, the enemy missile just explodes and scatters its insides at somewhere besides its target.
The point is, with as big of a gamble as missile defense is, the money could be much better spent elsewhere.
And before the nay-sayers bitch about how we suffered in the 90s after living on a credit card for 10 years, that's a load and you know it. The US economy crumbled because we won the cold war. The Soviet Union crumbled and suddenly there was no big bad Red anymore to justify the defense industry so tons of jobs and defense-supporting industries suddenly went *poof!*. Still, Reagan was an economic genius who pulled America out of a nasty slump as much as Roosevelt did with his New Deal, yet did so without expanding government. Kudos to you Ron, you deserve yo have your likeness carved into Mt. Rushmore alongside your fellow greats.
I remember reading more than ten years ago in Popular Science magazine about an anti-satellite missile the USAF developed to be launched from an F-15 at max altitude. This was/is a small high speed projectile (not explosive) that simply slams into the target.
ABMs in Alaska are for N Korean and Chinese missiles which track thru Alaska for least distance to the US.
You forgot:
ACAfghanistan - To fight communism
Which of course lead to the Taleban gaining control of the nation. Now they're not allowing women to work (even Ph.D.s) and killing women for revealing too much skin (or not travelling with husbands). Women without families are beggars, because they aren't allowed to work. Way to go CIA. It's probably worse than Kosovo and you're not doing a god damn thing to make it right. Communism prevented, mission accomplished.
BWS Wrote:
The ABM treaty allows origionally 2 ABM Defense Zones each nation with 100 Interceptors [ABM Missiles] which was reduced to 100 Interceptors at 1 Defense Zone [At this point I belive USSR picked Moscow and the USA picked a missile range but not sure which one].
That would be White Sands.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
The Russian Republic is honoring the ABM Treaty as signed by its political predecessor, the Soviet Union. These weapons were being developed in the 70's by both sides (including a brief deployment by the US of a token missile-based system I *think* was called Safeguard)... and the Soviets were allowed under the ABM treaty to deploy a system defending Moscow (it may still be in place today, but as to how effective it is...). The ABM Treaty forbids the *deployment* of such systems, but development on Kinetic Kill Vehicles for TMD (Theater Missile Defense) and other off-the-wall SDI-era technologies continue to this day under the DoD's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The focus today is mainly protecting in-theater troops as opposed to safeguarding the country (although there is still a push to implement a system to defend against small-scale sorties from rogue nations or accidental launches from the declared nuclear powers). There is now fairly universal agreement among the US weapons labs and the DoD (although Congress has yet to grasp these concepts) that a NMD would be unworkable as 1) the technologies required are still far from bein deployable and would need funding far beyond what the budget would ever give 2) Any NMD would be easily overwhelmed by relatively cheap countermeasures (chaff, decoy warheads, etc.) 3) A missile defense arms race brought on by breaking the ABM Treaty and deploying a NMD system would be strategically destabilizing and thus very bad for long-term US interests.
:wq
You must get very confused on reading your own .sig...
--
Xenu loves you!
why would France be twice as pissed off as Russia?
Once because France is always pissed of by whatever anyone does (but particularly by things done by the US), and once because deploying an ABM system is a really stupid idea at the moment.
Stephan
Couldn't have put it better myself, but I'll put it another way any way. There is two things I believe are rules of government.
^ ~
1) Governments in the world only have the power its citizens give it. Its the authority given by people thing. From John Lock to "The Leviathan" a government has always been the product of the people, and in short amirror of the same.
Is it any wonder where we might get a government that supposedly sits back and laughs at the helpless sheep under its control? Becuase there are people like the origional poster who are so eager to jump on kindergarted ideals of freedom and adolescant knee-jerking against authority. No wonder they think the populas is easy to control.
The most easily lead individuals are the "individualistic" teenagers. I get sick watching MTV and other things targeted at them with there message "We offer something exciting and new" and "You are not going to just follow the croud, that is why you will follow me!" "I agree the world is just too demanding of you, I understand, that is why real freedom is buying our product..."
I used to think I was really something, that I was choosing my own direction. Now I realize I was duped and was being lead around as helplessly as the people I was laughing at. In fact, if anything most of them were really excersizing freedom I don't know how I got it all backwards.
2) No matter how much authority we give the government, there are things it still can't do like take away the reasons drugs are bad.
I too believe that participation is the only way to lead in this world. Its the only way to find out what is really going on. If you don't participate your life is being decided by someone who is participating. It might be unfair, but then isn't there something other than complaining you can do about it (hint, hint).
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~
All international arms control treaties, including this one, have an 'or successor states' clause, which means that all of the states formed out of the Soviet Union are bound by all treaties sign by it.
You misunderstand the current psychological state of Russia, which already sees itself as being bullied by the West over Serbia. If some Russian politician poses this as an issue of 'national pride' Russia will go to the edge over this.
This evident flame bait gets moderated up?
Suitcase nukes:
Minimum - about 26 kg of Plutonium = 57 or so pounds, plus sheilding, electronics, detonation system, etc. = a very fucking heavy suitcase. It may fit in that volume, (IANANS), but I doubt one could "blend in" with regular luggage on an airplane.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The US shot down SCUDs heading for Israel, because NOBODY wanted Israel retaliating with nuclear-tipped Jericho missiles. That would have dragged folks like Jordan, Syria, Egypt and freinds into the conflict, which would also have probably dropped France and Germany out of the alliance, and would have brough much sterner resistence from Russia and China,
In short, it would have been quite messy, and quite likely would have triggered World War III.
Do not downplay the importance the Patriot missiles played in the Gulf war. Even if they had been plywood mockups launched by CO2 (as some seem to be claiming), they did their job, and did it well.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
"Which of course lead to the Taleban gaining control of the nation. Now they're not allowing women to work
(even Ph.D.s) and killing women for revealing too much skin (or not travelling with husbands). Women without
families are beggars, because they aren't allowed to work. Way to go CIA. It's probably worse than Kosovo
and you're not doing a god damn thing to make it right. Communism prevented, mission accomplished."
Shouldn't your initials be "CA" instead of "AC"; for Christianne Amanpour, the US Govt. Shill on CNN who spews this nonsense and gets us involved in conflicts we have no business in? Can you say; "hook, line, and sinker?"
I knew you could.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
"France, Russia, and France"
why would France be twice as pissed off as Russia?
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
There is an article about Polyus at one of the coolest web sites there is: Encyclopedia Astronautica.
the Readers Digest a few months ago. Basically what the article said was, the USSR is dead, Russia is not honoring the old argeement because it was with the USSR. The U.S. Military and Congress want to tear up the whole thing because the Russians are ignoring it and going ahead with development, but the Clinton Administration wont... We can research but not develop Anti Balistic missile technology. The article really made the point that its all being hung up within the Clinton Administartion!
Pretty screwed if you ask me!
All a test banning agreement means is that the US will try it's damnedest not to get caught testing "Star Wars" weapons. They will still develop them as best they can and some will be tested even if only in simulation. If they ever have to _use_ such devices it will be in war and probably against another signatory to the deal.
And as some genius once said "All's fair in love and war."
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I think it's a fallacy to think that most of the countries of the world don't trust us. In actuality, most of the developed countries of the world do trust us, and demonstrate this explicitly with the billions of dollars in trade and investements they make with/in our country. The ones that don't trust us tend to be the very vocal ones that end up on the news (I'm thinking Iraq, Libya, etc.)
As for "boosting sales" through the "occasional confilct", I can hardly see how; the main affect of war is to depress the civilian economy as the govt. spends into debt to build tanks/planes/bombs in the factories which were building cars/civilian aircraft/consumer electronics.
This is just patently wrong. War, and military spending is an economic boon. World War II and the military build-up of the Reagan era taught us that. They may not necessarily be good long-term because of the tremendous debt incurred, but in the short run, pumping that kind of money into the economy makes for great prosperity.
Just wanted to clarify those two points ... D.
Share data. Share code. Share ideas. Share the wealth.
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What the hell are you talking about? ;P
...
h tml t ml
:)
Let me try to take this one (controversial) point at a time:
>Because we lose the trust of the nations of the
>world? Any nation with a clue doesn't trust us
>already.
Ummm... yeah. Those nations may not _trust_ us, exactly, but learning that the US is developing controversial weapons tech. and having the US openly admit to such are two very different things. Although this is almost a strawman argument (argh!) think of it this way:
The US has almost certainly developed bio/chem weapons tech. "for the national defense", even though we are barred from doing so by various treaties. The other nations of the world know this. They also know that, due to those treaties, we will not deploy bio/chemical weapons. The ABM treaty was designed with a similar aim in mind: go ahead and research ABM tech, but don't deploy it because it will upset the balance of power.
>Part of that big business is the military, and
>it's good business to build weapons, defense
>systems, and promote the occasional conflict to
>boost sales.
I would challenge the poster to back that statement up with fact. I very much doubt that it has ever been "good business" to divert large amounts of money away from the civillian economy and then have little way to account to the public for how it was spent. The defense budget, IMHO, is quite simply the biggest money laundering operation in all of history. As for "boosting sales" through the "occasional confilct", I can hardly see how; the main affect of war is to depress the civilian economy as the govt. spends into debt to build tanks/planes/bombs in the factories which were building cars/civilian aircraft/consumer electronics.
>There is no M.A.D. now. If the treaties are
>broken there won't be a war or a nuclear
>exchange. There is no country out there (and it
>would be difficult to find an alliance of them
>even) capable of waging an effective war against
>this country
I can assure everyone that M.A.D, as a doctrine, has never and will never cease to be in effect until the day that every nuke on this planet is dismantled. Russia, I assure you, still has nuclear missiles under their control which could launch within a 15 minute window if the order for an attack is given. [1]
Russia could easily launch a devastating nuclear strike on the US mainland. China is also rapidly developing the capability to field ICBMs which could deliver a "small" nuclear device to the US west coast which IIRC, would still be more
than an order of magnitude more powerful than the bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima (the only real-world "test" of the terrifying abilties of such a weapon).
>and in the interest of the American people (by
>decreasing the likelihood that an ICBM will
>obliterate some number of them).
I have great doubts that ABM technology will ever have the ability to destroy ICBMs targeted at the US. The problems with ABM technology stem from many seprate areas: the difficulty in hitting such a fast moving target, the ease with which the enemy can disguise real warheads so that ABMs target fake warheads flown on the same delivery vehicle, and the large numbers of warheads (or MIRVs) that can be place on one delivery vehicle. [2]
In closing, ABM technolgy has three main problems:
(1) It has, at current, a low accuracy and is therfore unreliable.
(2) It is a very expensive research program which is consuming resources that would be better put to work in the civilian economy.
(3) It will have a destabilizing effect on the current international climate; the ease with which we discard the treaty proventing its deployment will also cause other nations to question our trustworthiness (sp?).
As an additional last point, a nuclear attack, at this time in history, seems unlikely to be delivered by a missile. It seems far more likely to me that chemical, biological, or nuclear agents could be far more easily smuggled into the counrty and then used by terrorists. Yet congress has, until recently, provided little funding to assist with the creation of anti-terrorist personnel to defend us against this kind of attack, which while more dangerous than an ICBM, could also more feasibly be intercepted. [3] [4]
References:
[1] http://www.sciam.com/1197issue/1197vonhippel.html
[2] http://www.sciam.com/1998/0698issue/0698techbus1.
[3] http://www.sciam.com/1999/0499issue/0499infocus.h
[4] http://www.sciam.com/1296issue/1296cole.html
PS. SciAm has also published, in the past, two feature articles which could be of interest here. One of them dealt with scenarios of terrorist attack on a US city by bio/chem/nuclear agents, and the other was a criticism of the ABM program and outlined the reasons why it would be unlikely to successfully provent an nuclear attack from striking its intended target. I could not find URLs on the sciam website for those articles; however, if you really want to read them, try browsing through the tables of contents for their mags for the last 2 years and they should be in their somewhere!
"Let me control a planet's oxygen supply and I don't care who makes the laws" -Great Cthulu's Starry Wisdom Band
Current treaties prohibit the US from deploying any Anti-Ballistic Missile technology because ABM's are considered a destabilising weapon. If we can shoot down incoming nukes then that seriously undermines the deterence that (we hope) would prevent us from launching a first strike. Current treaties DO allow Russia to deploy ABM's, but only around Moscow. I'm not sure why the lack of parity, but it doesn't matter all that much. Durring the cold war we had enough warheads targeted on Moscow (really on soviet Command, Control, Communication targets in moscow) that it didn't really matter how many ABM's they had there.
Now the US is trying to convince Russia to agree to nullify the ABM treaty. At the same time we are trying to convince them to accept drastic reductions in their strategic nuclear force (Start treaties). Obviously Russia is none too eager to comply. It will be very interesting to see how this issue pans out.
Cheers,
Perrin.
-Perrin.
Now I want you to go in that bag and find my lightsaber. It's the one that says bad mother-fscker on it.
Russia is simply the USSR with a new name and Government. So, any treaties made with USSR are still enforce. The Russian people simply elected a new government, and the new government replaced the old constitution...
Ask yourself this:
Do we renegotiate all the treaties we've everytime we elect a new President/Congress (in esance, replacing our gov't)?
Are we planning on renegotiating our treaties with the UK when they reform the upper house of their Parliment in the next few weeks? The House of Lords has been around (without much change) since the 14th century after all...
Interestingly enough, even with an 80% chance per nuke (which is damn good), you still have only about a 10% chance of taking down all 10.
Having lived away from the US for over a year now I almost agree with you. But your perception that the US is a kind and benevolent nation is not shared around the world. People here in Ireland as well as in Europe and elsewhere have a grave distrust in the US. As a citizen and former resident *I* have an even greater distrust. The electoral system in the US is *far* from healthy.
The fact that people like Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh have a following is truly frightening. The fact that people like that could conceivably control nuclear weapons and other elements of mass destruction... well... I find it worrying.
The USA can do good things, but there's nothing inheirant there that forces that. And I fear that people in the US are making poor choices in their reps and public policy. Remember, the German people elected a tyrant, the US can do it too.
Back on topic, while Anti-BM tech isn't offensive (though destroying satellites is certainly offensive), I'm almost positive the US signed a treaty with the former-USSR to not develop/deploy such a sytem anyway. I think the thought process here followed the one law makers use when banning radar detectors.
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why does the name "ross perot" cross my mind here? oh wait, there goes "pat buchanan."
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Considering the USSR no longer exists, one half of the agreement no longer exists. I would assume having an agreement with nobody isn't going to hold.
:)
Other things to consider:
- was it the US who developed these weapons, or was it some other country
- was the 'anti-anti-balistic weapons' agreement made with Russia?
I am ignorant to most of the issues, but I might start somebody who isn't on the right path
-- DrZaius - Minister of Sciences and Protector of the Faith
Are you implying that we are still in a race? I, for one, always like to think of the Cold War as being over. And I really don't remember Russia complaining about anything (yet) or planning to attack us.
The development of any equipment that has something to do with nuclear warfare, including a defense system is a Bad Thing. Remember, the idea of the treaty was that if a good defense was developed, work on a better offense would begin, and so on...
I think that the government is attempting to use the Y2K FUD (isn't that the excuse they used in this case?) as an excuse to spend more tax dollars on the military. Yes, the military is a necessary evil, but this does not justify breaking treaties with large countries.
At one time, the United Sates was the only nuclear power in the world.
I don't believe this is true, though I have no URLs to back it up.
This power put us in a unique position to dictate a new world order. We chose not to.
And we shouldn't have chosen to either. The United States has no right to govern the world, no matter how right (it thinks) it is.
Technically, there was no 'fall' of the USSR. They simplly modified their form of government.
That, and broke up into a large number of different countries, with different governments.
--
Moderate this down as off-topic if you feel like it, but I just wanted to say this has been some of the most fascinating discussion I've seen on Slashdot. Good stuff.
Well, gee. Now what would cause me to be an "ironic cynical fuck"?
Maybe it is our government's policy of doing as it damn well pleases, no matter what happens.
I personally don't get off my ass and protest for two reasons: 1) Every other protest Ive witnessed has had little if no effect and 2) I don't have enough time to correct my governent! Thats what elected officials are for! But they don't appear to be doing their job, now do they?
Well... call me stupid but why wouldn't this protect against Cruise Missiles?
-------------------------------------------------- -
- -- - --
1] The Americans Conducted an ILLEGAL blockade of an Island [Cuba].
It's not illegal to pull a blockaid for any reason or even for no reason at all.
It's wrong but in politics wrong + lame excuse = right
-----------------------------------------------
an interesting aside to this discussion is that after the russians turned their boats around, the moved their subs in.
-----------------------------------------------
3] Kosovo.
I thought that was a UN deal.. shows you how much I know.
NATO exists to attack... It's the United States property pritty much and yeah it's pritty much US aggenda all
the way.
A lot of flowery notions Seriously, but it comes down to a largish defence platform that makes it posable for
us to fry the world 3 times over and fell good we have such power.
It scares me that such is needed, or if not needed... exists.
-----------------------------------------------
this is wrong. nato was set up as a defensive organization. do i have any faith that it will ever be that way again? hell no...the die has been cast. but it doesn't 'exist to attack.'
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
australia has a right to be upset with us. i know that many americans don't want to hear this, but it's true.
as a government, the u.s. does act like a self-centered twit. i don't have any problem with being selfish...but self centeredness is another matter entirely. it doesn't even take much objectivity to see this.
i find it ironic that a country which was settled almost completely by immigrants has forgotten that there are actually other countries out there...and they don't like being treated like states (as in u.s. of a.) any more than the american people like being treated as insignifigant criminals by their own government. maybe this is because so many of these people came here to get away from their original homes that they've just blocked out the idea that they should pay attention...i don't know.
that being said, i'm still not sure that everything which is influencing our position on both the east timor issue and the anti-ABM treaty are readily obvious (particularly the former.) i found the way the east timor thing played out to be exceptionally strange. the u.n. _knew_ there was going to be violence, and yet they made no perceptible effort to protect those people. none.
to address xenex's point, i wish i had an answer for you. about the only i can come up with is 'sorry,' which doesn't do you or anyone else any damned good. i don't understand what's going on myself. perhaps we're better off not knowing...
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
do you really think it would be hard to smuggle something like that into this country? there's alot of unguarded border...not everything/everyone comes in through an airport, regardless of what the current administration/dept. of justice/atf/doa want you to believe.
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
No, I don't think it's hard to smuggle things in- in fact my pet conspiracy theory is that China, Russia probably have nucs in the US. Probably brought in via diplomatic pouch.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
Diplomatic pouch doesn't mean a little bag- it can be almost anything, though I doubt they would actually bring them in through any official channel. Perhaps they snuck them in by submarine- or even in mules like drug smugglers (joke!).
As for our spooks knowing it- I don't think we have as much success in that dept. After all, our spooks don't have accurate maps..
As for radioactive signatures- I don't think either U-235 or P-239 decay with gamma rays. As to whether we can detect them from far away- I would doubt that.. Even if we could, there are vast stretches of coastline where a minisub could deliver a bomb (or the parts) into the USA where we have no one watching.
It would surprise me if there were not any foreign bombs on US soil. It wouldn't be that hard- and if the shit hits the fan, just the threat of a nuc in Manhatten would probably prevent the US from being enthusiastic about Taiwanese independence.
If someone wants to nuc us, they will.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
I believe there are treaties to deal with space based weapons- to forbid them, that is.
I do agree that we should scrap the ABM treaty, though, and deploy the anti-icmb system. When someone wants to nuc us, make them do it the hard way- smuggle it in and drive it to ground zero.
I think we should disarm all our icbms, fill the warheads with Ricky Martin CD's and Titanic Videos and launch a pre-emptive cutural annihilation strike. It's the only way to be sure.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
if memory serves, russia lost like 9 backpack nukes a few years ago.
In fact only Russia is left with nukes. Ukraine, Belorussia, Kazakhstan: all gave up what was on their territory.
It is still more than enough to blew up the whole planet twice.
Defence contractor just want more money. They do not give a damn about reality. I will bet that it would be MUCH cheaper and faster for Russia just to add stealth capacilities to its Topol-M boosters. Most experts agree. Most congressmen are bought by defence contractors..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
.. What prohibits them from loading their nuke on a small plane, borrowed from drug traffickers, and just fly in past all these fancy ABM sites.
Hundreds of small planes make it in every year. It even has not ot be an illegal flight.
The whole concept of this limited ABM strikes me as very stupid...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Actually there might have been a SALT II, but it was never ratified by either side.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
"International law is very clear here."
A more demonstrably incorrect statement would be difficult to comprehend. Actually, the situation is that when the USSR was looking to get busted up the continuation of treaties, acceptance of debt, and recognition of Russia as the replacement power in the UN Security Council were all previously negotiated and, thus far, the respective sides have followed these treaties to the same level as they did in the past.
That said, this is an agreement in principle with no bearing in law. For such a thing to be fully enacted the U.S. Senate would have to had ratified such agreements which did not occur.
As far as the Russians being upset, the Russians will have to get over it. The USA has not broken the ABM treaty and probably will have no need to do so.
Additionally, if American foreign policy isn't governed by "self interest", what exactly should govern it? Oh wait - I forgot about Clinton and the PRC. I guess we should qualify that as America's self interest rather than that of the person doing the negotiation.
This is completely incorrect. Treaty rights don't revert to anyone unless such a thing is specified in the treaty. No one signing the ABM treaty expected the USSR not to make it out of the 20th century (unless they went out with a big bang) and such text was not contained.
:-) ) and a president like Clinton, or any of the major contendors for 2000 would be unlikely to develop the backbone necessary to fend off such a threat.
The reason why Russia is on the UN Security Council is because they negotiated that within the context of the UN where the U.S. Senate has no jurisdiction. For all matters regarding treaties, the U.S. Senate must ratify any changes or else they have no legal binding force on the USA.
Finally, while what you say about our ability to wipe someone else off the planet is certainly true, the real issue is how far we can be pushed before we'd be willing to do so. Consider what kind of reaction the PRC might expect if they can prove they have ICBM's capable of reaching any point in the USA. Presently, the USA's policy is to defend Taiwan against aggression. If the PRC's announce they're getting their province back and interference by us will result in a nuke popping LA, what do you bet we might let them slide in and not fire a single shot at those troop transports going across the straights? Certainly most American's wouldn't be willing to trade LA for Taiwan (as I would
Seriously, I've got $20,000 in confederate money?
The Confederate States of America, having been defeated on the battlefield, ceased to have legal standing anywhere in the United States of America. There was probably an Act of Congress specifically stating this at some point -- essentially it was scrip issued by an illegal authority.
Sorry but when governments go, they're gone- along with any promises they made. The new gov't might say they'll carry out the old agreements, but that's by their own graciousness, and they're by no means bound to those old agreements.
That may be, but there can be wide-ranging side-effects. If you say you're not the same country and spit in the face of those agreements, who's going to loan you money to rebuild? One of the key questions that the former USSR faced was how to divvy up the national debt. This was something of a new situation, and so there were multilateral discussions with the other newly-created "nuclear states" (Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan), leading to agreements to eliminate weapons in all three. At that point the new agreement superseded the old one.
If a country could get out of agreements just by having a constitutional crisis, there wouldn't be much point to agreements. Russia could have said "screw you", in a practical sense, but then they would not have been trusted worth a tinker's damn, for nuke agreements let alone IMF loans. That's the carrot we hold out: participation in the world economic system.
----
Lake Effect, a weblog
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
would it not make sense to have these deployed ?
...
."
,we both spent billions of dollars on these weapons and to have them shot down without delivering their payload would be a disappointment to either side."
...
I cant imagine the thinking that went into this treaty
"it seems both our countries have the capabilities to take out ICBM's before they reach their target
"that would mean our nukes would be ineffective
"there fore we propose this treaty that would ban the use of ABM's to make a continental defense system this treaty would however provide applications to protect your home base and a ICBM silo. to ensure that you can still enjoy the launching and witnessing of your ballistic missile handy work "
I just don't understand why you would ban a defensive weapon system like this
Music the Paint dancefloor the canvas your body the brush
No matter how much Russia threatens to freeze future arms control talks they STILl have yet to actually ratify the START II treaty and thus are merely bluffing. The START III talks, even they ever do occur, will most likely never produce a ratified treaty.
Furthermore the US has already passed a resolution to develop (or increase work on developing, a fully usable system should be available by 2005 or so at the latest, with 2003 the most common projected date) a National Missile Defense (NMD, often referred to popularly as "Star Wars") system so the ABM treaty needs to be renegotiated. Hence the current problems.
> I did a bit of research on Star Wars (the Regan version not the Speilberg version)...
:-).
Star Wars - perhaps you meant George Lucas, rather than Speilberg
Back in the 60-early 80's, ppl were scared that someone was going to push the button and effectivly end the world. Now, it doesn't seem very likely that anyone will touch off a full blow assault with Nuc's. However, what is more likely to happen is a terrorist group, or small nation using portable Nuc's to cripple another countries economy, and/or military powers. Sure ABM's can shoot down a Ballistic Missle, but they don't stop someone from placing a Man portable Nuc in the middle of NY city. Just a thought.
--Hired Net Grunt
In real terms (i.e. how many loaves of bread you can buy) your confederate money is more valuable than it was when issued. Collectors will give you legal tender for confederate scrip, which has a great deal of nostalgia value for southerners, numismaticists, and neo-nazi pinheads.
Like all paper money, your confederate dollars have only the value your creditors believe they have. Old-fashioined, "real" money is formed of rare or otherwise valuable materials - the US dollar is no more firmly backed than your confederate cash.
--Charlie
Yeah, sorry, I know it's a bit off-topic.
--C
Check out an overview of the treaty at European Parliament. Informed (if somewhat alarmist) commentary can also be found at the Federation of American Scientists.
Basically, the treaty limits the signatories and their sucessors (the former SSRs) to a pair of anti-missile defense batteries apiece. When the US signed we were already planning to decomission Talos anyway, and funding had dried up for further ABM systems, so the US Gummint figured they'd gotten something for nothing. Later, Ronald "Ronnie Raygun" Reagan decided to play fast and loose with the terms of the treaty in order to develop the so-called "Star Wars" programs. The strapped chicken fiasco discredited Reagan's plans, but the KEW systems are still eminently viable and would probably be in production today if Bush hadn't reneged on paying the companies who sank millions into developing the old "flying crowbars" concept.
Hey, you asked. Kind of a sore spot with me since I was peripherally involved in KEW 2.x.
--Charlie
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
1] The Americans Conducted an ILLEGAL blockade of an Island [Cuba].
It's not illegal to pull a blockaid for any reason or even for no reason at all.
It's wrong but in politics wrong + lame excuse = right
3] Kosovo.
I thought that was a UN deal.. shows you how much I know.
NATO exists to attack... It's the United States property pritty much and yeah it's pritty much US aggenda all the way.
A lot of flowery notions Seriously, but it comes down to a largish defence platform that makes it posable for us to fry the world 3 times over and fell good we have such power.
It scares me that such is needed, or if not needed... exists.
Seriously, Americans have never obey a treaty unless its to their advantage
I'm not shure why anyone bothers with treatys anyway.. each side is shure the other will break it and rushes to break it first.
Everyone seems fine with folowing any given treaty so long as they think the other side will too.
But paranoia ends up rulling the day and it all becomes nothing more than ink on paper with no meaning what so ever.
I don't actually exist.
My God man! What planet do YOU live on? Do you REALLY believe all of that? Are you really a hippie that just steped through a time portal from the late 60's? Did you learn your world view from Pravda of the 50's? Your argument that an effective ABM system relies upon our "enemies" believing that it works at 100% is just foolishness. Think of it this way: you are some dictator somewhere and happen to have a fully functional ICBM at your disposal. What are you going to do with it? Well, you MIGHT decide to launch it against the Great Satan of the West (i.e. USA).. But are you going to do that if there is a 50% chance that said launch would be a major waste of a good missle (i.e. it could get splashed down before it ever made it to target) ? I mean, I would assume there would be some sort of repercussions for launching a missle at New York, and if you thought for one moment that it wasn't going to get through, you aren't nearly as likely to launch it. The OTHER thing that you might do with such a missle, is to attempt blackmail.. Say something like "If you don't allow me to absorb my neighboring country in peace, New York is going to be a smoking cinder" kinda thing... This also don't work to well with ANY kind of ABM system in place.. I mean, if we have one, and have notice, I would assume that the % of kills would climb, so now, we say: "If you fire that nuke, not only might it not make it, but if it does, your whole country is gonna be glowing tomorrow AM".. Tell me where my logic breaks down. Oh, and by the way, while the B2 is a ship without a mission, the F22 is SO desperately needed it ain't funny. In case you haven't noticed, this country has been going through a military downsizing comparable to what we went through after WW1.. Not a smart move (please look at the history of the world EVERY time we have done this). We have retired or are retiring the A-6, A-10, F4G (Wild Weasel for anti-SAM), and F-14 (no more Top Gun?).. This means we are losing our ability to PROJECT power( an example of this: the F/A-18 is supposed to replace the A-6 and F-14 for their roles: problem: the F/A-18 is a great plane, but it doesn't have any legs, it is also unable to field the Phoenix missle system). If you think that this is unimportant, think about what would have happened in the Gulf War without that ability? Or what might have happened in the 80's with Quadafi ? And the ONLY reason we are retiring these platforms is because people like you want to take that money and pump it back into more government.. Don't EVEN get me started about the failure of government run schools in this country.. That is a whole 'nother rant! Of course, I am sure I am just another Imperialist Pig looking to take over the world.. BAH! O.K., /RANT -] Crow
The ABM treaty actually allows the deployment of two small ABM systems in each country (ostensibly for testing purposes --- the treaty doesn't actually prohibit _development_ of such systems, just the deployment, on a nationwide scale, thereof).
:)]
As others have pointed out, the US is trying to renegotiate the treaty. There's been a shift in the geopolitical perception in this country. It used to be that people thought the ABM treaty made us more secure because, if the Russians knew we had no defenses, it would make them less likely to be worried that we would attack, and therefore reduce the likelihood of a first strike. Now, we aren't worried so much about interstate warfare, where that argument worked; we're worried about terrorists or random accidents. In short, we've gone from assuming that the people firing weapons at us are rational (in which case mutual assured destruction is an effective deterrent) to assuming that they're irrational.
Russia has been resisting the treaty change for several reasons --- the largest being that, for all that they aren't explicitly hostile to us at the moment, they don't actually trust us; and, as they are to some extent a functioning democracy, the leadership would have to explain to the voters why they'd sold out Russian security. This is made worse by the fact that they couldn't afford to develop or build an ABM system; in their eyes, it looks like we're trying to pull a fast one and change the rules so that we can build an ABM system when nobody else can --- which, if you believe in the logic under which the treaty was negotiated originally, is a terrifying concept; once the US has a missile defense, what is to keep it from attacking?
Of course, it's not like Russia can _do_ anything to prevent deployment if we decide to deploy. Our international reputation would be hurt --- but then it's been hurt anyway by other recent actions, so maybe the effect wouldn't be that bad.
Hopefully this will get talked about in the campaign next year, as it's probably one of the more important foreign policy decisions the next president will have to make.
[At last! a chance to talk on slashdot about the stuff I got my degree in!
Actually the recent ABM system shot down a Minuteman III missile using all of the 'avoidance' techniques you mentioned above. And though I have paid little attention to the recent system last I heard (about a month ago) it had a perfect record of hits vs. our best missiles.
- AMW
The same could be said for ANY country. US and USSR, Germany and just about everyone during WWII, etc. It is called DIPLOMACY. Most major powers are still out to rule the world, they just do it a little more quietly now.
Shane H.
Shane
(I mean, other than /. To the chagrin of some, Slashdot is not a reliable source for international, non-tech news.)
In fact, the USG has been haplessly trying to re-negotiate that treaty. We even offered them a significant reconstruction development plan in exchange for an amendment to that treaty. But Russia has stood fast and said no fscking way, so far. This has been here and there in the world news for about a month now.
Of course, despitemuch talk about post-perestroika advancement, Russia is probably quite some time away from developing/implementing any sort of comparable defense system, so a US ABMDS obviously upsets the traditional balance of M.A.D. between Washington and (in its various auspices) Moscow.
IYAM, Yeltsin is trying to rekindle the Cold War's US-Russia animosity in order to reinforce his weak political support, the same way a more totalitarian government might persecute Jews to rally national government support. I dont think anyone is nearly as afraid of Russia attacking the US as we were in the 60s-80s; we're much more worried about India, Pakistan, Iraq, China, and certain other less-than-second world countries.
See also http://www.bullatomsci.org/ .
ob.supersition:
Hmm. Didn't Nostradamus predict that the antiX would spring up out of the East?
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
So, if you go and build anti-ICBM missles, Russia's gotta go do it too to keep the balance of power in check -- and all you've accomplished is wasting a whole lot of money.
It seems like saying something like, "Okay, I agree not to fire at warships invading our beaches." Or possibly, "I agree not to attack bombers that are going to drop bombs on our country."
It just seems silly to me.
Crypt.x
But... government actually making laws so as not to spend lots of money? That part doesn't make sense. And this was during the presidency of Ronald "Star Wars" Reagan.
And what about the government contractors that make the missiles and the anti-missile missiles? Don't their lobbiests see to it that the government spends as much money with them as possible? Since when is the government NOT run by the corporate lobbiests?
Anyway, I'm just a little cynical about the whole thing. I think that the whole cold war was actually just to keep people's minds, eyes, and ears off of something else.
Crypt.x
On the subject of suitcase nukes, the real threat comes not from those possibly built during the cold war, but from those built by terrorist organizations operating today with the support of rogue nations such as Iran. While bringing it in on a commercial aircraft would present a problematic situation for the would-be terrorist, there are many other avenues of entry into our country by someone enterprising enough.
As for the current Russian arsenal, it is still quite usable; unlike the US, who only maintains and when necessary, upgrades, its nuclear arsenal, the Russian military policy is to replace nuclear warheads as frequently as necessary to make sure that their state of readiness is intact. This is allowed by the SALT and START treaties as long as Russia keeps its total number of operational warheads below the maximums established by those treaties. Speaking of treaties, for the poster who seemed to think that Russia needed another treaty in order to inherit the START and SALT treaties, if I'm not mistaken, Russia inherited those treaties because the treaties were in essence made with each of the republics that made up the USSR (that would be the "Union" part of "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"). I'm not a political scientist, but i believe that's how it worked. the only reason we're worried about Russia and not any of the others is that Russia is the only one who still maintains its nuclear arsenal. I guess the rest of the warheads have all been sold to Iran by now...
The USSR no longer exists. Russia assumed all of the legal responsibilities of the former soviet union. Our treaty is now basically with them. Which brings us to the core of the matter, which is what exactly are they in a position to do about it? Very little. The new ABM technology isn't being developed with the russians in mind at all. We aren't worried about the Russians deciding to nuke us, we don't have to because they know they would lose. We are worried about some piss ant little dictator in the middle east getting a hold of a nuke and using it on us or our NATO allies. Same holds true for North Korea. Obviously we would survive and turn that country into a radioactive hole in the ground, but it would be better to stop the incoming missle in the first place. The united states is the alpha dog in world affairs. Developing ABM technology in spite of treaties is simply our way of pissing on the fire hydrant.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Now that the Cold War is over in some sense, the START treaties translate into more or less feel-good treaties. Yet dispite the treaty's lack of real influence, the US Government has yet to approve START II, nearly ten years after it was proposed. But one reminent is that ABM technology is strictly not allowed, including the perhaps fieldable THAAD and Navy High Theater missle defense.
Actually, what happened is that we developed MIRVs, the Russians got MIRVs, which basically meant that to whatever degree we protected our cities, the natural and relatively cheap response was to drop more warheads.
;-) than nuking the reentry vehicles just over our heads, which was great for preserving your military response but not much else. The basic problem with the whole scheme is that was credible enough to scare the bejezuss out of our enemies, but not credible enough that we could ignore the fact it would shift their strategy in favor of massive first strike. Not to mention that the logical response is to shift the delivery methods to alternative means such as cruise missiles or smuggling.
Most sensible people weren't thrilled about the escalating levels of nuclear fireworks being planned for over their heads (I believe the ABM weapons themselves were nuclear), and even the professional thinkers of the unthinkable realized what we were in for was a very expensive maintenance of the status quo. So, we got together and ostensibly in the name of humanity (but more plausibly at the behest of the almight buck) we said, no more.
I think the "Star Wars" program was prompted by some rethinking of the technologies that you could use; perhaps a cleaner faster technology such as a high powered laser or rail gun could be used to intercept the warheads earlier and higher (say, over Canada
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, I detect two or three things in this argument that might be flaws.
First is the main value of an antiballistic missile system, which is to protect nuclear infrastructure, not populations (despite what our politicians tell us). While it is plausible, I suppose that this could work against a rogue state that only has a few ICBMS as opposed to a state like China or Russia who could simply overwhelm the defense (it would be a terrible mistake to underestimate what Russia could do), it ignores alternative means of delivery, such as cruise missiles, or plain old smuggling. The problem with these delivery mechanisms is you can't get enough explosive power close enough to a hard target to do real damage, but it would be relatively easy to get them close enough to destroy populations and economic assets. Imagine one container ship in every major port of the US with a decent sized bomb.
It is plausible that if you destroyed New York, LA, and San Francisco, Amercian society would collapse under the economic strain, not only of the direct response to the disaster, but because of subsequent effects. Consider this example: the trend in technology is to integrate enterprises like banks across larger geogrphic areas; the downside is that the losses these national banks could suffer might well destroy the banking system. What would the effect of even four or five of the companies making up the DJIA going under be?
The second is the supposed economic benefits of spending on the system. John Maynard Keynes once remarked that you could stimulate the economy by taking large number of bank notes, putting them at the bottom of a mineshaft and filling the shaft up with rock and letting companies "mine" the money out. The effect would be rather like creating a gold mine. However, this doesn't make it a rational use of money.
The bottom line is that a policy of civil relations and economic integration with the rest of the world is cheaper, more reliable and more profitable than any kind of ABM scheme would be.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Suitcase nukes were built, at least by the US, along with artillery shells as small as 105mm, and jeep mounted RPG type launchers. You can see deactivated versions of these (along with one of the first Cray 1 computers) at the National Atomic Museum at Kurtland AFB in Albuquerque NM. It's open to the public, and is fairly interesting. I understand that there is a classified version of the museum across the street
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
And yes I would like a "Star Wars" Satelite at my control and let everyone know about it, as to deter external forces from affecting my life.
--bill "Why is it, that all the fools play for the other team, and there are more of them?"
If the US does honor the treaty, I'm making a quick dash 80 miles to the north:Canada.
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
We should continue this policy because the cost of entry into the nuclear club is now low enough for any 3rd world nation and many individuals to afford.
Hmmm.... brings an entirely new meaning to 'blue screen of death' if you get my drift. Though it's a bit James Bond-ian, I hold that it is still a reasonablely plausible prediction.
Of course... it would probably be a dud anyway....
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
It's very annoying to be told how much you're a loser by a gun toting redneck who really enjoyed his time in Nam.
Or that the removal of someone's government and replacement with a military junta really was good for your soul. Nothing to do wih our anti-communist paranoia, honest
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
I've heard horror stories about the postal service, but you're still getting eight-year-old news magazines??
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
It's unfortunate when a "Democratic" superpower plays games.
I don't want to see a 21st century Cuban missle crisis. And as an aside I wish they would mention the invasion of Cuba more when History talks about that crisis. "Gee we invade their country and then they take steps to protect themselves"
Lets please learn from our mistakes..........
But whether or not China has the "right" to invade them is irrelevant - we are still bound by treaty to defend Taiwan.
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
I don't get it.
/anybody/ from protecting themselves /against/ nukes and ballistic missiles. With Russia's crumbling, the risk of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons getting into the "wrong" hands, what I would assume is that we should all have more /defenses/ against them. It's not like we're going to incite a war by attacking somebody with ANTI-ballistic missile weapons right?
Arent' ABMs, AGAINST ballistic missiles. They're purely defensive right? Why would we ever want to stop
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Those little gatling systems are called "Phalanx" (the greek defensive formation)
and they are loud. and very accurate. they're based on a pretty simple system. You have two radars. one tracks the incoming, the other tracks the bullets themselves (tragetory). The computer then moves the gun so that the difference between those two values is zero. pretty neat if you think about it. There's a dutch system that's supposedly better, but I haven't read much on it.
maybe that's not how you spell it. whatever, i'm tired. nap time.
In
WWII- Revenge
Vietnam- To keep capitalism powerful
Gulf- To keep oil for the US price down
Kosovo- To stop an upcoming power
All of these event were to lok out for number 1.
Of course wars are fought for selfish reasons. Has there ever been a war which wasn't?
Australia has been involved with al of these situations
Then I suppose Australia is just as selfish as the US for fighting in these same wars.
we have a little wealth and a little power, but not all of it goes into self interest.
Not all of the USA's wealth or power goes into self interest either. I would imagine that the Israeli's were quite happy that US patriot missiles shot down Iraqi scud missles. The citizens of Kuwait were probably happy when Iraq lost control of Kuwait. The jews in the concentration camps were somewhat overjoyed when they were freed. The countries that receive forein aid from the US are probably grateful for it. The list goes on.
Our country actually cares for others then itself.
Your cynical views towards the US could be applied to your country as well. Maybe your country only helps out other countries so that your country will receive aid when it needs it, this is quite greedy of your country and does not indicate that it cares for any other country, simply that it cares about the aid another country can give it.
well... might as well abolish law.. anarchy rules. If that is what you are advocating, don't complain when you get shot. There will always be some evil schmuck who will be breaking the law, after all..
IMO this is no reason to abolish law. Ofcourse laws/treaties/promises will be broken, but is that a reason to avoid them?
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
These new missile tests sound like something from the cold war. I thought that we were done building up our weapons. These new tests will void any treaties that we had with the former USSR and all of the countries that is has split in to. Most of these countries ended up with a portion of the old USSR's missiles. Some of these governments are not entirely stable and it does not seem like a good idea to incite them. If we wish to restart the cold war then this fine, but I will add that this time we are not dealing with one country but probobly over a dozen seperate countries that all have the capability of blowing us up.
Is it just me or does anyone else find this technology that can be fired at an incoming warhead, track it (even with all the variables involved), and disarm, or destroy, the warhead before causing any damage to the target. I do realize that the testing of this technology was extreamely foolish on the US's part because of all the treaties it poked at. The governments gotta start asking the people their opinions before going ahead and toying around with our safety and general well being. But hey, these are just my thoughts...
~~~ They call me Little John, but don't let the name fool you...in real life I'm very big.
I am not jealous of the US. I live in Canada, and I lived four years in your hell hole called the US. Outside of academia it is hard to find an American capable of thinking for themselves. You do whatever the fresh prince or seinfeld tells you to do. Your world is made up of abusing forign countries for cheap labour. The US could not afford to have every country be first world because the costs of goods would become too high, and the US standard of living would continue to drop.
When will the US pay up its membership to the UN? When it gets a veto. Oh wait, it already _has_ a veto, and it still isn't paying.
"God bless America"
arrogant bloody country.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
The ABM treaties (SALT II, I think) are currently honored between the US and Russia; we are in the process of renegotiating them to allow the ABM systems that are being contemplated here.
It's been in the mundane news media for months.
The Russians are, of course, not pleased, the Whacko Right Wing in Congress says "the hell with them, we'll bomb 'em into the stone age if they don't like it". (NB: Dan Quayle supported moves to make a preemprive first strike against the USSR. Many of his party still support this idea.)
First, a treaty is not a contract in any sense.
Second, and more important in this case, the treaty contains an expiration date, which passed in the early or mid 1980's.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I know this is late, but the above comments require a response.
US law is not clear here at all. In order for the ABM treaty to remain in force the US Senate must ratify modifications to the treaty that designate Russia as the successor to the USSR. Pres. Clinton has negotiated these modifications but does not want to send them to the Senate yet, as in the current environment they would be defeated. Also, the UN did have to take formal administrative action with the consent of the other Security Council members to transfer the Soviet seat to Russia. the Urkraine retained their seperate seat.
As for Iran, I am amazed this comment could get moderated up with such a blatent error. The Shah of Iran sat on the Peacock Throne, the oldest monarchy in the world up to the 1970s. This was an uninturrupted monarchy, the Shah was not installed by the US in any way, shape or form, however, we did sell him weapons and work closly with his government as it oppressed democratic and theocratic (the current gov't) movements.
As mentioned before, the US did build an ABM facility, but immediately decommissioned it.
Right now the money being spent on ABM research is focusing on a limited ABM umbrella for the entire United States (and most of Canada). The key word here is limited. With current technology we could destroy a volley of 20-30 ICBMs at once, but no more, thereby protecting us against North Korea, Iraq (potentially), a renegade sub or base commander in Russia, or China for the next 10 years. A broader system could be built, but the primary defense we are talking about is against terrorism and mistakes, not a full scale attack.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
Nope. There WAS such a treaty -- IIRC, it was called, prosaically enough, the ABM Treaty.
It's purpose was to enable and preserve the balance of power through MAD, by restricting the development or deployment of ABM systems.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
{chuckle} Ahhh, the naive are always so amusing. Everywhere else is just rosy, right? Nope.
* Central America:
- We did not *create* the "death squads". They are locals, doing local work, for governments run by locals, and businesses run by locals. Between the dope-dealing "freedom fighters" financing their murders with extortion, assassination and narcotics, and their corrupt governments, they've largely screwed themselves over. This has pretty much been the case since before Cortez and Pizarro ever landed, with tribal warfare. Look it up.
* Russia:
We didn't create the gulag system for them. We didn't genocide the ukraine, out of spite. We certainly didn't nationalize the agricultural system and massively reduce output. Nor did we ever have a leader who had executed any officer high enough to be considered a threat -- right before a war that was *anticipated* by both sides; nor did we ever conduct live-fire military exercises with prisoners as the victims, ala Spetznatz. Look it up.
* Southeast Asia: We've never used little kids as soldiers by giving them grenades and telling them to run at troops. We've never deliberately accepted massive casualty ratios simply to score political points, ala the Tet Offensive -- a military defeat but political victory for the NVA. We've never used armed guerillas masquerading as, and among, innocent refugees in order to attack troops who are kind enough to offer them shelter.
And so forth. Go learn.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
at the point a country has an effective NMD they for all intents and purposes have this invulerable shield that they can attack from behind. no one want to risk that. right now we are at a balence, albeit a precarious one. no one will launch nukes because they know that one of the other nuclear powers will retailiate, resulting in both parties destruction. the only way in the status quo there will be a nuclear conflict is it a) a country has this "shield" to attack for behind, hence being removed from the doctorine or MAD or b) someone gets very desperate and feels that they have nothing to lose, thats why we have to worry about these rogue states getting nukes
We have the rest of the world walking on our ass. The american people are always worried about what everyone else will think. We are no long the strongest military, and sitting around, worrying, and whining will not help improve the situation.
Russia is violating every treaty ever made. I think if we're gonna sit back and not enforce those treaties, then we should break them ourselves. To our advantage.
Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
I think this question has to do with an article from the associated press that I saw in the Nov. 1 Monday State Edition of the Indianapolis Star. The Anti-Ballistic-Missle system in developement is actually a special laser that would be mounted to aircraft. As to the treaties, I do not know, but I do not think that the US should be expected to conform to these treaties, since the Soviet Union has been dissolved for about a decade now.
Quid rides ignare?
"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work." -Flaubert
> I would rather be on the winning end.
You show a remarkable lack of understanding of the outcome of any nuclear war.
Nobody wins in a nuclear war (except maybe the 'roaches and the rats). There are just degrees of loss. Or perhaps one side glows less than the other.
They don't call it M.A.D. for nothing.
> Once the U.S. is gone, the world nations will > turn on each other, just like jackals in the > desert.
I think that if the US was 'gone', a) there'd be one hell of a party (-: and b) the world's financial structure would require a major rethink.
Other than that, I can't see any major problems.
Of course, if you watched wildlife programmes you'd understand that most pack animals in the desert work together to gather food for the rest.
--
For your original JenniCAM parody: http://bofhcam.org
"It's better
Even if international law is not clear, determination of succession lies within the power of the Executive Branch. And the Clinton has signed a presidential finding asserting that the US views Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to be collectively bound by the treaty (i.e., collectively allowed one ABM site).
Does Congress want to challenge this executive power? It may not be a bad thing if it did because, during the cold war, the president has accumulate enormous power. In my opinion too much power. But Republicans are hypocrites if they launch such a challenge. They have long argued (as recently as the Bush administration) that Congress ought to delegate to the president such powers. In fact, Congress has gone so far as to delegate to the president the power to effectively declare war. In doing this, Congress has blatently ignored the constitution. And because of separation of powers issues, the U.S. Supreme Court has gone along with Congress' abdication of legislative oversight.
Before the Gulf War many Democrats tried to insist that Congress must formally declare war before U.S. troops could engage in positive action. The Republicans vigorously argued against this position, and they prevailed. It is absurd to argue that the president has the power to effectively declare war but not to decide issues of succession.
This was a faux pas on my part. It was late and I was fuzzy on my history. They were in development during the WWII era, however were not buit until after WWII. So, they were/are nearly 50 years old, not nearly 60 years old.
I hate to bring this up because it is so damn depressing but in the world of international politics treaties are just peices of paper. I forget the name of it but after WWI a treaty was actually signed with the purpose to ban all war. Hitler didnt obey the versilles treaty when he built the weirmacht, Japan was once limited in the size of the fleet they could possess(I also forget the name of this treaty), or as somebody mentioned the numerous treaties the usa signed with the indians. I could go on for hours but the point would still be anybody who thinks we havent been working on abm technology for years is naieve, in fact if i understand correctly the targeting software on the patriot missle( used to knock out scud ballistic missles) would be capable of taking out an ICBM with just a few modfications, and the us government has admitted to having these for years.
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
Actually you are off in your interpretation of the Defense/offense dilemma.
1. You cannot launch additional missiles because A: In a nuclear war you would already have launched them all. B: The number of warheads is fixed.
The problem actually comes from the ease in creating systems to defeat the SDI mechanisms. Mylar balloons, aluminum foil, and all sorts of metal garbage can be released during MIRV launch creating thousands of likely target. No one has yet developed a targert descrimination program that is good enough to target actually warheads (under 5000) with dummy warheads (tens of 1000s).
>As well you could use criuse missles which are not suceptible to space based defenses.
??? ICBMs are cruise missiles - Inter-continental ballistic _ missiles.
If you mean short range missiles like the Tomahawk you run into a couple of problems: range, and ease of interception. It is much easier to hit a missile flying through the atmosphere at Mach 1 than space based missiles traveling at Mach 10.
Are you sure about this? I thought that the only ones with missiles during WWII were the Germans.
The problem with the SCUD is they were designed to be short/midrange missiles, and Saddam got Westwern engineering companies to upgrade them to a longer range, but the accuracy was screwed.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
I'm originally from the USSR, but now reside in the US so I have a tendency to think from both sides. As it stands, Russia is in such dire need of US aid that they'll gladly give up any rights they may still have with this treaty. In any case however, the treaty was not made with russia, it was made with the USSR which no longer exists as an entity and therefore can not enforce these treaties. The fact that russia maintains this treaty 'in force' I would guess means nothing to the US or the UN (I'm not a lawyer, but that would be the argument I'd expect from one).
What good are ABM weapons when inexpensive briefcase sized nukes are hidden within our borders by enemies ?
Actually, the Airborne Laser (ABL) is designed to defend against Theater Ballistic Missiles (TBMs), which are by definition not intercontinental. The SCUD is an example of a TBM. So a few (maybe one) ABLs would cruise at altitude above an area with a known TBM threat. This is a lot cheaper than having a whole fleet of them trying to defend against ICBMs, which are now a lot less likely than a TBM launch against deployed forces.
ABL's laser module recently completed testing, see this Air Force News article.
Neutron
I get my kicks above the
The U.S. currently has two Anti-Ballistic missile weapon systems in development. NMD - National Missile Defense is a kinetic energy weapon that after launch finds the warhead as it streaks through the uper atmosphere and destroys it by impacting against it. There was a successful test launch of this weapon system about a month ago. There are pictures of the target Minuteman launching from Vandenburg that the interceptor destroyed. ABL - Anti-Ballistic Missile Laser. This weapon flies on a 747 Cargo plane. It's a chemical laser and has approximately 30 shots depending on the range of the target and the atmospheric conditions between the plane and the target. It is a laser that will melt the skin off the missile and cause it to detonate. This weapon is only effective against theatre ballistic missiles. According to treaty each nation is allowed one site as an anti-ICBM site. The USSR chose Moscow, and has fielded a weapon there for years, and the US chose South Dakota I believe. The US has never fielded a functioning ICBM defense weapon. As I understand it, the Russian's anti-ballistic missile defense technology relies on detonating nuclear weapons in the upper atmosphere. The resulting shockwave will force the payload vehicles away from their targets.
At one time, the United Sates was the only nuclear power in the world.
I don't believe this is true, though I have no URLs to back it up.
Sure it was - when we (US and UK) ended WWII against Japan - the Russians and other countries (including a lot in Europe) got very annoyed because we wouldn't share the secret of atmoic bombs with them and this is one of the causes of the cold war.
The fact that the Russians quickly stole loads of top secret American plans and built there own weapons made the entire thing rather pointless from a defense point of view, but the cold war was also about general technological suprimisy which was a Good Thing.
--
-- Kernel Panic: Error reading
Actually, it was the other way around. The Soviets had come up the first ABM system (deployed it around Moscow). The US threatened to do the same, but instead they both decided to back down. I believe the Soviets were allowed to keep the missile base around Moscow, but there was never any proof it would have worked.
Yes, you are correct, Australia does not need aid. The United
States would need aid alot quicker then we would.
Australia isn't some 3rd world desert country. Sure 70-something
percent of the land may be desert, but WE DON'T LIVE THERE!
Our living conditions and crime rate puts the US to shame.
To then have some foolish person that has never left his
country before speaking unfounded crap is bizzare.
Sure the US has lots of money and weapons, but your
quailty of life is not something most 1st world countries
aspire to, it is something we try to avoid. Whenever
some mass disaster happens in the US (school shootings?)
we hope that we can avoid that type of thing.
Sure, the US may be rich, but I like walking the streets at
night without fear of being mugged or raped. I prefer that to
nukes and bombs.
A little phase that most American probably have not heard
but sums up international feelings towards the US:
"Why do we have America? Because it is a place to keep
the Americans."
Message to whomever moderated my post: I will personally buy you a plane ticket to Moscow, just get your censoring ass the fuck out of my country.
Good day
It doesn't matter how they spend. Most of their scientists have left. Furthermore, the more competent the scientist, the more eager to find a position in Europe, Japan, or US. In such conditions, only a small stockpile can be kept reliable.
Also, although I am not military expert, in light of their recent endeavor in Chechnya, one must wonder if their priorities have not turned to the more immediate and the close-at-hand.
I'm in a Stinger Unit and we've shot down all kinds of missile just for target practice all the time....right up their butts...even when the burners went out....missile to missile hits is not hard at all. And I mean direct hits to small, fast moving missiles.. If fact, it's much harder to miss.. The problem with the scuds was that they were fired upon as they began their descent, speeding up which broke them apart... The Patriots then had two and three targets instead of one. This is also the primary difficulty of a Nuclear missile defense...such things are done intentionally. Also...when the U.S.S.R broke apart, Yeltsin proposed it and the parliament voted and decided who would keep the nukes and maintain the various treaties. But I think that in the diplomatic environment, treaties on paper are merely a manifestation of what they countries would do anyway--remember there is no international police that's going to lock up a country which breaches a treaty... Even UN sanctions and the world court rulings only work when countries decide to support them. Its right of the mightiest--and that's all. Treaties just make things look official. But I believe strongly in the need for such development, regardless.. The DPRK's Rodong and Taepodong missiles are of much improved quality with long ranges and high accuracy..plus, they're far more willing to use them and openly export the technology to "anyone willing to pay." Which has been several African countries (for resale to various Arab countries), Iran, and possibly Pakastan and India. AMM (Anti-missile missiles) need to be cheaper and more numerous. Hell, an F16 could shoot down a nuke if it were in the right place at the right time. --Matthew
The Russians initally deployed 64 Gorgon [American Name, Can't Remember what the Russian name is] missiles around Moscow. I belive most of them were [all I think] removed in the early to mid 80's after the PoltiBuro realized their effectiveness. And it is for the same reason that the USA did not deploy theirs.
Remember: the treaty allowed them to withdrawl with 6 months, notice!
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
I doubt when Chinese does invade the US will honor that treaty
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
Ohhh I see, so basically if we don't critize the Republican party its not a valid source of information, thats a good argument, I really wish I had posted that one. Regardless of the fact that Readers Digest may not be the best source, doesn't mean its not a viable source of information. If you really wanted to get started, lets start talking about sources of information. You know the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and CNN are just the best sources out there. They never lie do they? Of course they rarley critize the Democratic Party so hey its not valid right? Most sources have a bias but it doesn't always mean that that particular source is not a legitimate source to use. Your logic of course would basically consider all news in the world invalid because you know they just don't critize a particular group enough.
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" -Confucius
If a third of the worlds nuclear weapons were shot off, chemicals used in them would totally destroy the ozone layer, killing every plant and animal on the planet. In an enviroment like that 10 to 15 seconds would give you a killer sunburn
Dear Rolan, THe ABM Treaty was and is a historically significant agreement bewteen The U.S. and the U.S.S. R.. It will go down the drain as the Anti-missile technology catches up with the real world. This Agreement bewteen the worlds two super power's was more for style and Russian fear of the old American techonological End Run. What we are beginning to see is the possible beginning of either a renegoaition of the treaty or another Arms Race in ABM Weapons. Russia is right now on the ropes. It could not compete in such an Arms Race if it wanted to. This may or maynot change due to the political situation in Russia. Who can Tell? If we donot cater to Russian concerns at least in some ways we could still have them threaten to give nuclear weapons to say Serbia or Iraq or some other wonderful group with an Axe to grind and no fear or concern who they kill. So there will be noises and rumors and secert weapon programs by the U.S. And the Russians will trust that the agreements we sign with them, won't make their entire nuclear missile fleet obsolete and ineffective too soon. We all have an interest in seeing that as few nuclear weapons are denotaed on this planet as we can. yours truly, Stanleverlock
There's a laser-ish (not sure what wavelength) based device mounted on top of the volcano on the island of Maui (its over 10,000 feet high). It does not officially exist, but ask anybody that works in the area...
Anti missle devices don't have any point for full scale nuclear wars (you have too many targets in too many places and too little accuracy; the earth is climate toast at that point). However they could be useful in stopping a single rogue or errant launch. The problem being since the device doesn't exist, neither does the thing the non existent device didn't shoot at so nobody could be told because obviously nothing happened to no missle by no friggin' laser.
It doesn't really matter what the status is on the treaties made between the US and USSR. The United States doesn't actually honour its promises unless it has the most to gain anyway.
The Russian federation has assumed responsibility for all contracts and treaties held by the former USSR. If they hadn't the whole Eastern European economy would have collapsed, probably taking with it most of the world's economy. In any case, treaties are not null and void simply because a party no longer exists, of course the real issue (with all treaties) is one of enforcement and oversight.
Sorry but when governments go, they're gone- along with any promises they made. The new gov't might say they'll carry out the old agreements, but that's by their own graciousness, and they're by no means bound to those old agreements.
BTW, I've got some DIVX discs that I PAID to have permanently enabled. I've got my contract! It's valid forever right? With whoever takes over the DIVX consortium or buys up the pieces right?
Uh huh. Yah whatever.
The SALT-II agreements were never ratified by Congress (and thus, have no legal standing), but they have been honored by both sides.
Technically, there was no 'fall' of the USSR. They simplly modified their form of government. So all the previous agreements are still in force.
I'm not particularly concerned by the Russian outcry. During the Cold War, they would always insist on banning nuclear testing after they had finished their tests. They're probably just concerned that we're ahead.
In all of these discussions it helps to remember a simple historical fact. At one time, the United Sates was the only nuclear power in the world. This power put us in a unique position to dictate a new world order. We chose not to.
Who do you serve? Who do you trust?
A normal ABM defense would not protect against cruise missiles, which fly relatively short distances close to the ground. The B in ABM stands for Ballistic, as in ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). Such missiles travel a long distance in a high altitude predicable path, and hence are much easier to track and shoot down. They may, however have many separately targetable warheads, so anti ICBM defense is by no means easy.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Regarding the first event described in Australia:
A meteor's observed speed depends on it's speed relative to the earth. If it is travelling at a slightly different speed, and is being overtaken, or is overtaking, the earth, in a similar orbit, a very horizontal, "slow" flight path could be observed.
The explosion that is described seems consistent with something similar to the Tunguska event.
I did a bit of research on Star Wars (the Regan version not the Speilberg version) back in '87 for of all things a college english research paper. What I found was that:
1 - It's very difficult to make a good anti-missle missle (or device - remember the plan for the giant accelerator in Texas?) since the Soviets could easily make missles that are tough, reflective and travel in erratic paths.
2 - Any SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) device that actually worked after a couple rounds of Soviet improvements i.e. reactions to US SDI devices would be much better offensive weapons than defensive missile killers.
Many speculate that this is why the Soviets were willing to agree to a treaty. Regan had a perfect situation - plenty of money for "defense" and a population mostly in support of _this_ defense program.
I don't happen to think that the tests that are going on right now are nearly as significant as what went on in the '80s but I do think that most of these devices easily play a dual role. They happen to be very fast, powerful and precise weapons and the general public doesn't mind testing them or spending money on them. This is what pisses off the Russians.
Who should be the second party to the START treaties now that there is no USSR? The Russian Moffia? They are more organized than anyone else...
You are probably thinking of the Air Force Maui Optical Station on Haleakala. They have lasers for a number of missions, see http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/track/amos .htm. The presence of lasers does not mean they have anti-missile capabilities. It would be a useless location for that type of facility.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The North Dakota site is located in Nokoma, which is a bit northwest of Grand Forks. The site was open for exactly 1 day, then shut down due to the treaty. It's command center is a distinctive pyramid shaped building rising up on a notably flat prairie, surrounded by a ghost town, it's inards being basically ruined due to years of flooding and neglect.
scherry wrote:
I am not aware of a treaty signed with the new Russian Republic that brings over all treaties that we have signed although I wouldn't put it past Clinton to have slipped such a thing in without going to the Senate for ratification.
You aren't aware of much, then. First of all, just because a government changes, don't imagine that their obligations change. The Russian Federation is the inheritor of all the obligations of the USSR, including monetary debt, trade agreements, extradition treaties, and yes, arms treaties. Your silly kneejerk suspicions aside, Clinton can't just sign a new treaty with the Russians; it would have no legal force without Senate ratification (read your Constitution).
I know that lots of the START treaty that we've subsequently signed was continued from negotiations with the USSR but those are new treaties for all intents and purposes.
And, thanks to inviting Poland into NATO, the Russian Duma did not ratify START II. Therefore it has no force as a treaty. The Clinton and Yeltsin administrations are both observing it, as a matter of polite cooperation, but either side could abrogate it at any time.
I could be wrong about the lack of said "continuance" treaty but barring its existence, and from my recollection the ABM treaty was specifically between the two powers and not a general non-proliferation treaty like nuclear testing. That said, the ABM treaty is effectively dead.
As noted, no such magical "continuance" treaty is needed; the treaty would be considered to be in force until a new agreement is reached. The question of making it a general non-proliferation treaty came up at renewal time in 1993 and is part of the current tiff. It may be effectively dead, but there is still great weight in being the country to first break a treaty.
If we don't deploy a system that makes successful delivery of such warheads unlikely, thus drastically increasing the risk that a launch would be intercepted inviting an overwhelming and potentially nuclear retaliation without the intended benifits, its not likely that we'll get out of the next decade without a missle being launched against a major power.
I consider a much more likely scenario to be a regional nuclear conflict, such as Pakistan-India. In any case, whether we deploy an ABM system or not, it's doubtful that it could make "delivery of warheads unlikely". Even if it were an airtight missile defense (and predecessors like the Patriot system don't inspire confidence), the enemy could simply choose another delivery method, such as a Ryder truck.
I don't consider this ABM system worth unilaterally pulling out of existing agreements, especially when it might lead to other negative consequences, like the Russians going back to targeting American cities and going on a hairtrigger nuke alert. What we really need is to find a way (START II would have been one way) to start dismantling nukes so that there aren't as many lying around Russia to steal. That should be our ultimate real world goal. In fact, this is approximately what the Clinton administration is proposing -- helping the Russians finish that Siberian radar facility, for instance.
----
Lake Effect, a weblog
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
scherry wrote:
I am not aware of a treaty signed with the new Russian Republic that brings over all treaties that we have signed although I wouldn't put it past Clinton to have slipped such a thing in without going to the Senate for ratification.
You aren't aware of much, then. First of all, just because a government changes, don't imagine that their obligations change. The Russian Federation is the inheritor of all the obligations of the USSR, including monetary debt, trade agreements, extradition treaties, and yes, arms treaties. Your silly kneejerk suspicions aside, Clinton can't just sign a new treaty with the Russians; it would have no legal force without Senate ratification (read your Constitution).
I know that lots of the START treaty that we've subsequently signed was continued from negotiations with the USSR but those are new treaties for all intents and purposes.
And, thanks to inviting Poland into NATO, the Russian Duma did not ratify START II. Therefore it has no force as a treaty. The Clinton and Yeltsin administrations are both observing parts of it, as a matter of polite cooperation, but either side could abrogate it at any time.
I could be wrong about the lack of said "continuance" treaty but barring its existence, and from my recollection the ABM treaty was specifically between the two powers and not a general non-proliferation treaty like nuclear testing. That said, the ABM treaty is effectively dead.
As noted, no such magical "continuance" treaty is needed; the treaty would be considered to be in force until a new agreement is reached. The question of making it a general non-proliferation treaty came up at renewal time in 1993 and is part of the current tiff. It may be effectively dead, but there is still great weight in being the country to first break a treaty.
If we don't deploy a system that makes successful delivery of such warheads unlikely, thus drastically increasing the risk that a launch would be intercepted inviting an overwhelming and potentially nuclear retaliation without the intended benifits, its not likely that we'll get out of the next decade without a missle being launched against a major power.
I consider a much more likely scenario to be a regional nuclear conflict, such as Pakistan-India. In any case, whether we deploy an ABM system or not, it's doubtful that it could make "delivery of warheads unlikely". Even if it were an airtight missile defense (and predecessors like the Patriot system don't inspire confidence), the enemy could simply choose another delivery method, such as a Ryder truck.
I don't consider this ABM system worth unilaterally pulling out of existing agreements, especially when it might lead to other negative consequences, like the Russians going back to targeting American cities and going on a hairtrigger nuke alert. What we really need is to find a way (START II would have been one way) to start dismantling nukes so that there aren't as many lying around Russia to steal. That should be our ultimate real world goal. In fact, this is approximately what the Clinton administration is proposing -- helping the Russians finish that Siberian radar facility, for instance.
----
Lake Effect, a weblog
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
I haven't read the article, but there is another interesting article four those of you that understand Swedish: http://www.nyteknik.se/arki v99/99-42/99-42-plasma.shtml.
A Swedish scientist, Erik Witalis, designed a weapon that he believes is used in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program. It shoots plasma pellets which starts a small nuclear fusion reaction when it hits the target missile.
...and with that he utterly forgot what he was trying to say.
Does anyone remember the AK47 ban? The law said guns could not be sold as AK47s. With that, along came the AK48s and the AK57s. In any law, there is a loophole. In this case, a loophole is defined as any action which violates the spirit of the law and not the wording.
The US does this and continues to do this everyday. I don't see how this nation could function if the government didn't exploit holes in the law governing themselves.
But, the problem is not the international laws we have made, the problem is that the US is intent on playing big-brother/mediator/faux protagonist in everything it does. I think this stems from the false notion that the US is the last great super-power. The truth is that countries govern themselves well or they fall to someone who does it better.
So, dear Slashdotter, the US in doing dastardly deeds, indefinitly, and there's nothing you can do about it. Sorry.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
BTW, I've got some DIVX discs that I PAID to have permanently enabled. I've got my contract! It's valid forever right? With whoever takes over the DIVX consortium or buys up the pieces right?
I don't know, man...that last part kind of throws your sanity into question...
The Scud was developed AS a nuclear missle. Until it hits, you can't tell what warhead has been installed. You won't see anything special from it's flight profile.
Uh, no. The Scud is little more than an upgraded V-2. It even uses carbon vanes for thrust vectoring. They were originally deployed by the Soviet army in the early 50s. Any nuclear weapon a modern Scud-using state could get their hands on would almost certainly be much too heavy for the scud to lift.
Polyus (I think that's right) was a Soviet orbital weapons platform they did indeed launch in the 1980s. Reportedly the booster carrying it up malfunctioned and it never reached orbit, but still, they tried breaking the treaty first.
The story I've heard is that the Polyus station's final stage was mounted at the very top of the booster stack (one of the few Energya launches) above the Polyus itself, so the whole station had to perform a 180 degree turn before this final stage ignited. This turn did not take place, so when the station figured out something was wrong (ie: it wasn't going to make orbit) it's self-destruct system went off.
Incedently, this was not the only soviet space station to have weapons on board. More then one Salyut station was fitted with a large canon. I don't know if any were ever fired, however.
> The thing is, the threat of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) works great when you've got a small number of nations with nuclear weapons.
In general, I agree with your post. However, one of the things that makes MAD truly mad is the possibility that some madman might get control of one nation or the other.
A. Hitler would have undoubtedly released a nuclear barrage to go along with his "wagnerian" downfall, had he been able to do so. Even if only a few nations have the toys, what's to assue us that one of the nations won't come under the absolute control of a similarly uninhibited loonie?
I reject the unilateral abrogation of treaties, but something has to be done about phasing out MAD.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
...is good point - and it did cross my mind while making the post. However, while I start to drift a bit in my discussion, I attempted to keep the focus on the delivery of these materials by ballistic missles. Alternate means of delivery should be covered by alternate means of detection/deterrence. I started to discuss that, but wanted to keep the post as on-topic as possible with my thoughts.
The only defense is not peace. Peace is a wonderful, garguantuan step, but world-wide peace will never stop acts of terror and hate. There are simply too many people in this world with differing viewpoints. Most are valid - the problem comes when people fail to see the other side's view, and will break the rules of society (i.e., violence) to attempt to bring about the change. But that's another topic for another story...
And to supplement the post a bit:
After making the post, several others have replied that know far more in the way of details regarding the specifics of the treaties than I. The general consensus to Rolan's question is that yes, treaties exist that ban ABM weapons, but the Clinton Administration is currently negiotiating to change/withdraw from those. So in effect, they didn't care when the system was developed, but now that it exists, they're making a token effort.
Don't get up on your high horse here now..
You should know that Russia, although totally
wasted, can still pack a punch.
What is the point of being victorious when
40% of your population is killed?
Besides, the US isn't excactly angels.
The united states is just about the only regime
left in the West, that _still_ has the death-penalty. The US violates an enormous amount
of human-rights every year, and still thinks of
itself as a "free country".
>Tell me where my logic breaks down.
(1) If you were the president would you take a 50% chance that a major American city would be nuked more seriously than having one far-off dictator swallowing up another one? If you lived in a city and found out that the president took this risk with the life of you and your family, what would you think of him, even if you "lucked out"? What would happen if the people of the US found out there was a credible nuclear threat against a major US city coming from this guy, even if it had a 10% chance of succeeding?
(2) If I were the said dictator, I'd quietly slip the nuke onto a container, blow it up in port at NYC, then run my invasion while the US was totally absorbed with rescue efforts.
(3) Its plain stupid to even talk about defending against rogue states without a vigorous program to provide serious economic assistance to Russian nuclear experts. The current efforts are a total joke and should be a scandal.
Just for kicks, imagine taking the money you'd spend on ABM, give every Russian nuclear specialist a pension that allows him to retire in incredibly lavish luxury. Which option gets you the most improved security for the buck?
It should be clear this isn't about national security. It's about political posturing and corporate welfare.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Even though the former USSR is no longer considered a threat, they could re-target the US in a matter of minutes. Let's not forget the biggest threat - CHINA! Thanks to Slick Willie selling us out for campaign contributions, the Chinese can now target and strike locations on the west coast of the United States with nukes. Let's also not forget that we are bound under treaty with Taiwan to come to their rescue if anyone is to ever invade them - and China is poised to strike at any time.
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
The USSR does not want us to develop anti-ballistic missle technology. They consider it a violation of the treaty. However, we want to do it to "protect ourselves from rogue nations" such as North Korea, India, etc... which are currently developing ballistic missles. The USSR does doesn't care, and wants the treaties to stay in effect, but we are developing this technology anyway.
So, what's happening now is the USSR is pissed off at us, and probably doesn't have the funds to develop their own anti-missle defense system, even though we are trying to convince them that everything is okay and they should develop one to protect themselves against these "rogue nations". They see it as a threat because now they can't attack the US as easily. So they are threatening to develop better missles that we can't defend against.
This is pretty serious -- it's a little known fact that the USSR actually has the capacity to toally decimate our country, and still survive. They have an extensive network of underground nuclear shelters in their country.
Anyway, rant mode off. I am getting tired of typing this as I am in "lynx" right now. =)
I agree that the US will eventually use the escape clause (or possibly convince Russia to renegotiate the treaty).
I want to add that the necessity here is due to a variety of issues. I personally do not think that a nation state will openly attack the US anytime soon. As you stated one boomer could give _anyone_ a very bad day. But a terroist attach (probably state sponsered, but not openly) on the US with a CBN weapon in the future is possible.
Ignoring for the moment that the best delivery of a terrorist weapon would probably be a boat with a faked manafest (we are talking terror, not maximum yield). ABM provide a _mental_ shield for our population and politicians.
The problem is with our recently bizarre foreign relations. If I were a terrorist I would seriously doubt the US's resolve to respond with nuclear weapons given CBN attack. I personally don't know what the proper response would be.
Given the situation where a (most certainly state sponsered) terrorist attach on the US with a CBN weapon occured. Our response would most certainly not be immediate. The fog and confusion during and immediately following the attack would prevent any reasoned response (and I hope we are smart enough to avoid an unreasoned response).
Now image the moral delema of the country. One major population center has suffered significant casulties. The nations ire is at a near all time high. The responsible organization is eventually (say as quickly as a week). Now what to do...
Premeditated murder of millions of innocent people to maintain MAD?
Let it go?
I don't have the answers, but I can see us spending a lot of money on ABM to make this (however slightly) less likely to happen in the future.
My name is not spam, it's patrick
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
What a truly brilliant idea to deploy an ABM system despite the treaty explicitly forbidding it. Your Congress doesn't seem to believe there exists other people in the world, that may decide not to play ball. For example the Russian defence minister was heard saying: "If the USA deploys an ABM system, Russia will deploy space based nuclear weapons". What does that mean? It means that after you've spent a couple of trillion $ on a dinky ABM system capable of defending perhaps from a few warheads from say north korea or something similar, Russia will have nukes in orbit directly above your head. Guess how long it takes for it to fall down on you? 2 minutes perhaps, as opposed to about 20 minutes for an ICBM. Ok so probably the minister overreacted, but it's still not a very nice prospekt having nukes above your head is it? And which nation would be stupid enough to launch a nuclear attack on the USA anyway? Most Evil Dictators (tm) realize that with the push of a button, USA can turn their country into a piece of radioactive glass. So instead they would probably opt to smuggle in only the warhead, put it in a truck and having some fanatics drive it near the White House, chanting "Z'rdo K'af' Caosago Mosp'l'h T'loch, Z'rdo K'af' Caosago Mosp'l'h T'loch, N'gha Z'rdo Hoath Adphaht Affa p'lz'n, N'kai Z'rdo Hoath Nyarlathotep, Z'rdo ''-all ollog. Z'rdo ''-all ollog. Ia! Nyarlathotep Fhtagn N'gha n'gah ia thos N'kai!!!" and pressing the big red button. Kinda hard to defend against that with an ABM system, eh?
The only thing which will be accomplished by a national missile defence system is to piss off Russia. The reason is that any ABM system that the US can design would be trivial to counter, by one of many means; dummy warheads, chaff, and various other avoidance techniques. Given the pitiful rate of success of these missiles in trials (something like 2 hits in 18 attempts) it's really not going to be very useful. There was a good article on this in SciAm a while back, titled "Why anti-missile defence systems won't work". Had a damn fine article on Turing, too, but that's beside the point.
NP
Can you sum it up in a word? *No.* In a noise? *Whuuuurghhhhh!*
Who knows, maybe the bombing of the embassy in Belgrade was a hidden message to China that we can nail any smuggled nukes any time we want, and all the other fuss over it is just posturing. Besides, think of the amazing propaganda value of being able to parade a captured Chinese nuke in front of the UN. If we had that the executive would have an absolutely free hand in dealing with China, beginning with a complete trade blockade through expulsion from the UN up to and including a nuclear strike on Beijing. The price of that would be too high for China to pay, so you can be fairly sure they are keeping their bombs safely on their own soil. And Pyongyang... Kim Jong Il may be crazy, but he's not suicidal.
This threat sounds a lot worse at first blush than it appears to be after careful analysis.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
One point consistently missed by the people who keep banging on the ABM treaty is that this isn't a two-superpower world any more. The USSR is gone, the Russians have no stomach for imperialism in Europe (they have their hands full with their own former SSR's), and our threats now include ideological (China, N. Korea), religious (Iran, maybe someday Pakistan) and personality-cult (Libya, Iraq) nation-states. It's never been easier to go nuclear, and we can't go on pretending that the only credible threat is HQed in Moscow.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Many governments, which do not otherwise possess the ability to project military power beyond their own borders, strive to obtain ballistic missile technology because of its capability to intimidate economically and militarily superior opponents. As such, the missile technology represents a potent weapon of strategic intimidation. Ballistic missiles have a number of distinct characteristics that make them a particularly attractive weapon for developing nations. Compared to other delivery systems, ballistic missiles are many times faster than manned aircraft vehicles and have a much shorter flight time to the target, and are thus more likely to penetrate the intended target area. Their high speed also means they are difficult for active missile defenses to intercept. The threat posed by missile proliferation has traditionally been seen in terms of ballistic missiles. Efforts to acquire or develop missile technology have been aimed at obtaining ballistic missiles, and there have been relatively little proliferation to date of long-range cruise missiles. But ballistic missiles do not represent the totality of the missile threat. Modern cruise missiles carry a similar-sized warhead to a ballistic missile of a similar range, but deliver that with far greater accuracy. Moreover, the means to develop advanced cruise missiles can increasingly be obtained on the open market. Given these factors, one may anticipate efforts by proliferant states to obtain such technologies or hardware as well. If they are successful, the threat will be increased considerably.
I remember on that history of the cold war that Ted Turner made, they said that for every dollar spent by the enemy on offensive missiles, you had to spend X times that, where X I think is 6.
It is much easier to develop decoys etc. than means to shoot them all down, or identify the real warheads. And if it can be made to work, (unlikely) it is very dangerous to world stability, as it means a nuclear war is winnable . This basically breaks the mutually assured distruction which stopped the cold war from heating up.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
As I was reading all this very-serious stuff about the ABM treaty, and whether the USA was still bound by it, my part native-american wife was reading over my shoulder. She made a comment on the value of a treaty with Uncle Sam, but this is a family forum, and it sounded anatomically impossible (or at least highly dangerous), so I'd better not repeat it here.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Yes, it's all self interest..... you have a very large stratigic
millitary base in the middle of Australia. However you will
not even help a country that has been fighting along side
you since WWII, and very strongly in Vietnam (1960 Quote
from Australian PM Harold Halt; All the was with LBJ.)
Yes, when Australia becomes a primary force in
peacekeeping in East Timor, the US has nothing to do with
it. Why? Because of their arrogance, and that they are only
looking out for number 1; themselves.
WWII- Revenge
Vietnam- To keep capitalism powerful
Golf- To keep oil for the US price down
Kosovo- To stop an upcoming power
All of these event were to lok out for number 1. Australia
has been involved with al of these situations, yet only
one of them directly affected us. Why? Because we don't
have the wealth or the power of the US, but we have a
little wealth and a little power, but not all of it goes into self
interest.
There is a greater difference between "our country" and
"your country" then dollars and cents. Our country actually
cares for others then itself.
I just realize I made a little error, nothing major. There was only SALT [no SALT I or II] but there was 2 STARTs, START I and START II. [I kind got the # of those two mixed up]. As well, START II was never ratified by the US Congress.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
The Polyus has never been confirmed or denyed by the Russians. The ABM treaty never specified explosives. It delt with weapons that would shot down [Anti] Ballstic Missile [Nukes].
Remember, the AC-33 is not a every effective ABM. I belive the toss time [the time for a nuke to hit US] is anywhere from 3 minutes [Typhoon off coast] to ~20 to 30 for SS-18's or so from Ground Silos. In that time, they have to take off, fly to area [the AC-33 have a limited range for its laser] and shot.
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Play Fair:
Hhh, lets see.
1] The Americans Conducted an ILLEGAL blockade of an Island [Cuba]. Why? Soviets was gonna put ICBM's there? Illegal you say? It was legal for the Soviets to puke Nukes there, but not legal for Americans to blockade it. Assuming it did violate the Non-Profilateration Treaty [The Cuban Missile Crisis was before the Treaty Anyway], then the American IRBM [InterMediate Range Ballstic Missiles] in Turkey sure heck did first.
2] Americans pretty much handed Nuclear Weapon Designed Plans to Isreal despite the NPT which was signed before then.
3] Kosovo. Do I even have to go on? Illegally Delcaring war on another country, and don't even give the NATO bullshit. NATO cannot attack another country legally [or wait, yeah they can, remember? US Controls NATO].
4] Ratification of START II. The START II treaty was signed by both US and USSR, the US Senate never ratified it.
5] The F-15 ASAT Weapon. The Americans called it Anti-Satellite but it is technically an ABM weapon [although a crappy one at that]
Seriously, Americans have never obey a treaty unless its to their advantage
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Actually nukes are the only thing Russia is really trying to keep in working order. They pretty much figured out that they don't have the money to field a conventional force to defend a territory as large as theirs, so they've decided to put their money into nukes to prevent a large scale attack and are using special forces/paratroopers to keep order in smaller border wars. There were a few articles in various foreign policy journals about this, reporting that a much higher percent of Russias defence budget is going into the design and manufacture of new nukes as well as maintenance of its current stockpile.
Scanning 178 replies, I've observed that no one used the phrase ARMS RACE. History is full of accounts of the US and Russia military escalations-they have cost us an unconsionable amount of money, and now we are spending big dollars to dismantle that which we spent so dearly to construct. Madness lies here. Only the arms manufacturers will win. Others have noted the technical futility of avoiding all nuclear devices. I can think of no nation that has the means to build a delivery vehicle that would use one in offense. We will remain at risk from the Bin Ladens of the world forever. They will not deliver a nuke on a ICBM, they will deliver it in a rental truck... Don't waste our taxes, don't fuel another arms race, focus on making peace in the world.
If you want to get a good understanding of how useful having treaties are with the US Government, just as the Native Americans. For over 200 years the treaties signed with the Native Americans by US Government have been violated! Even if we do sign a treaty and obey it on the outside our block ops guys are trying to figure out a way to violate it in secret.
While you're at it, go ask the Russians who let their economy be a tinker-toy for Harvard economists who broke it wide open and then didn't bother cleaning up the mess...
After that, ask the people who live in the Bikini Atoll, who were nuked without warning during the "Mike" atomic tests, if America is "good"...
Maybe if you have some spare time you can ask American GIs from the Gulf War, who were forced to swallow "anti nerve gas" pills the Pentagon knew, based on over 30 reports were very harmful, if America is "good"...
And lastly, ask the ghosts of Ro Gun Ri if America is "good"....convinced yet????
In *Theory* - MAD, or Mutual Assured Destruction is the only reason that the Cold War "worked". If one side or the other had a-missile technology... then the MAD doctrine would have fallen apart (because one side is no longer 'assured' destruction. For that reason, a-missile technology is actually more of a first-strike technology (in the sense that if you have it, you have no deterent against not striking first), therefor the reason for the bans.
In *Practice* - For those of us in So. Cal. , watching the recent exo-atmospheric a-missile test was *really* cool - I can't beleive just how much that thing lit up the sky when it hit the target
Those parties who would purchase such material, notably nations like Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea, could easily use more effective measures for using such material in the United States.
The United States has extremely porous borders. It is not impossible that a fission device could be brought into the United States and used as part of a terrorist operation. Such an attack would certainly be more crippling, as it would not be obvious who to blame (the historical dilemma of terrorism).
Even more likely in the 21st century, is a biological attack using any number of extremely dangrous materials easily available.
The only defense is peace. I know that sounds trite, but really, there is no feasible technological defense to the various offensive measures an opponent could employ.
The Russians were breaking the agreements since day one. Ever since the first treaty, Russia hasnt bothered to fullfill thier end of the bargain. But the U.S. did TRY to play fair.
Well, the Beaurocrats in Washington have discovered that you cant trust Russia (or China, or Saddamn, or blah) to play fair.
Frankly, I dont like Weapons of Mass Destruction anymore than the next person, but the reality is that America has to look out for itself. Most of the other nations in the world resent the U.S. (if not hating it outright) and would go to any lengths to see our downfall. Even by signing phoney treatise and peace initiatives and whatnot in order to buy 'em enough time to stock up thier arsenal enough to do some real damage.
Thats the reality of how the world works. I would rather be on the winning end.
I dont trust any other nations promises of "reducing thier stockpiles". I never have and never will.
In world politics, its every nation for itself. Always has been, and regardless of what weve been told, it always will be. Once the U.S. is gone, the world nations will turn on each other, just like jackals in the desert.
Anyways...my two cents worth.
Schizznick
There is definitely a legal interpretation that the ABM treaty is no longer in effect due to the fact that the other party to the treaty - the Soviet Union - no longer exists. In fact, President Clinton negotiated a series of amendments to the ABM treaty. (These are not related to the current negotiations over the US deploying a limited missle defense). These amendments explicitly name Russia as the successor state to the Soviet Union for the ABM treaty. However, Clinton has not submitted this treaty to the Senate because he knows it will not be ratified. When you hear things about Congress delaying votes on the CTBT, various appointees, UN dues, etc. remember that part of that is because Clinton has refused to submit various treaties - such as the ABM modifications and the so-called Kyoto protocol - that he has signed and is implementing via executive order to the Senate for official ratification. He knows full well that the Senate, for example, voted 95-0 in a non-binding vote to reject the Kyoto treaty. Ah, the games people play.
CNN/Time has this story from about a month ago mentioning that the US is attempting to work with the Russians on this.
My guess is, in the long run, Russia will have to bend on this, as the country's in such a mess, that it hasn't the will to fight over this. When the economy, the corruption, the basic conventional defense, Chechnya, Dagestan, and such are going on domestically, foreign policy will take a back seat. Especially with the first presidential election without Yeltsin running coming up.
Yeah, "What happens to the weapons development during peacetime?" seems like a valid question.
Well the answer is pretty simple. Obviously, they don't stop. Peacetime is only a padding between wartimes and the best way to make sure your enemy doesn't defeat you at the next go `round is to be practicing in the off-season. Does anyone here honestly believe that with the nuclear club opening up as much as it has in the recent years that any nation in its right mind would stop Weapon and Anti-Weapon development?
I, for one, don't think so.
A much more valid topic of debate is whether or not the media coverage just drops off or if the information is no longer submitted for public consumption.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
Actually the SCUD isn't an intercontinental ballistic missile, it just doesn't have the range of a true ICBM. The Treaties were written about being able to shoot down ICBM's capable of nukes, bio or chem that can be launched from any point on the planet to any point on the planet. The SCUD can be shot down with just about any current system, however an ICBM requires much more precision.
I can remember back during the start of the Gulf War, thinking that we should have been wearing full chem gear. Didn't know it then, but if Sadam Hussein had actually loaded his SCUD's with Chemicals, the missile would have been to heavy to fly the short distance from Bagdahd to Ryhadh. Of course when he started moving the missals closer to the border, thats when we started wearing full gear.
IMHO, the treaties of old no longer apply to today. And while it pains me to think we have to break them to protect ourselves. It would be much worse, for us, if we let other countries have the advantage.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
I'm not quite sure if I have this right, but I believe that one of the nuclear disarmament treaties the US holds with the former USSR specifically allows an ABM facility to be placed in North Dakota and nowhere else.
I won't get into the little economic-political debates with any Alaskans on /., but North Dakota does make a lot of sense. First, we're in the middle of North America, providing equal coverage to both coasts. An Alaskan installation would cover Hawaii but wouldn't be able to cover the east coast as effectively.
Additionally anyone who has ever visited northeastern North Dakota has seen the relatively massive Airforce presence in the region. Though most lay empty, the state is dotted with nuclear missle silos, enough where (I think) North Dakota would have been the world's 3rd largest nuclear power if the state had seceded. Then there is the still functioning Cavalier Air Station which watchers the north pole for incoming nukes... And one cannot forget the abandoned but friggin cool Nekoma installation whose purpose actually was ABM. [Picture - Best I Could Find]
From http://www.redstone.army.m il/history/vigilant/chap4.html
Also, from http://www.dlcppi.org/TEXTS/FOREIGN/MISSILE.HTM
So there's the history, at least. BTW, some of you may be wonderinghow I could just pull this knowledge from the ether--The brother-in-law of an ex-girlfriend of mine was stationed at the Cavalier Air Station. Supposedly, he played Quake all day. Makes you feel really safe, doesn't it? :-)
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I expect that we'll just ignore the treaty and deploy, if Congress thinks it's to our stratigic advantage - the US generally has little respect for international law or treaties. (Unless of course some major campain contributor stands to gain.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Well... just so you know, those technologies are about 10% to 11% effective against incoming balistic missiles. So if you have say 10 warheads incoming, that's about a 1% chance you will get all of them. Fun fun.
I know this because my uncle designs the guidence systems for those anti-nuke missiles and laser targeting systems. There are also currently no functioning orbiting units capable of killing a nuke.
Considering that... those treaties that still do exsist won't be too effected.
:-)
International law is very clear here. The ABM treaty signed with the USSR is still in effect. Under international law, the USSR did not die. Some parts of the nation left, and what remained was renamed. But the nation did not disappear. For example, Russia did not have to loose the U.N. security council seat that belonged to the USSR.
Under the ABM treaty, each country is allowed to have one ABM facility. The Russians have built one around Moscow. The U.S. has not yet built one.
The Russians are extremely upset about U.S. actions. The U.S. is moving in a direction that will require the U.S. to either renegotiate the treaty or break it. I sure hope the U.S. does not break it. The last thing we need is a nationalist fascist party to take power in Russia.
American foreign policy is usually governed by "self interest." But American policy makers often make serious misjudgments about what that interest actually is. Recall the US overthrow of a legitimate Iranian government and the installation of the Shaw (this action lead to the Islamic Revolution) and Vietman.
much more than the paper they're written on. Whats going to stop the gov't from just working around this stuff? Lies, cheating, etc? The star wars program was (I beleive) show to be nothing more than a black hole for money, at least by the popular press. I don't think it was, I think they came up with some laser weapons. In fact they do, they used a laser a few years ago to modify the orbit of a sattelite. They could have turned up the power and blown it to bits if they want to. This was actually reported by the mainstream media (not frontpage news, however).
These treaties do a few things. They give the citizens a small amount of false security. They're also like a truce between animals...when you have to males fighting over territory, they'll fight for a while, someone wins, ans they have a kind of truce. But we all know they're going to be fighting again later. Same thing here. The nuclear weapons we've disarmed haven't been destroyed, they're simply disasembled and in storage. If a nuclear war comes along, they'll be ready to go in no time.
The point is this: The US and Russia were used to doing what they want during the cold war. The only thing that limited the extent of their actions was each other, specifically Mutually Assured Destruction. Today, the US stands alone. Many have said the US has lost a influence over the past 20 or 30 years. I say the US certainly has not...it runs the world directly or indirectly pretty much top to bottom. So basically our government does what it wants, like a neighborhood bully. Witness the recent "war" in kosovo. We f'ed that country up for many, many years to come. Has any good come out of it? Absolutely not, the racial hatred is as bad as it ever was.
So what makes anyone think the US cares about what these treaties say? Who is going to tell the US what to do? Who can stand up to the US' military might? No one. The only thing I can think of is a few small nuclear weapons in a truck parked somewhere in Manhatten. Evasive terrorist groups are the only real (or even imagined, for that matter) threat to the US right now. There are no coutries left that can threaten the US.
In 1972, when the USA and the USSR signed the bilateral Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, it was the age of balance thanks to 'Mutually Assured Destruction' (MAD). In a nutshell, since both protagonists could blow each other to kingdom come (and following classical deterrence theory, therefore neither was likely to do so), the introduction of technology that would undermine that condition was considered destabilising and dangerous, so they signed ABM to prevent it.
Onto the late 1990s, when the global ballistic missile proliferation scene and Washington's threat perceptions have changed. Specifically, Washington wants to help two allied nations desperately seeking this ABM technology: Japan (vs. North Korean ballistic missiles) and Israel.
Since the treaty is just a bilateral agreement between two consenting parties, all Washington has to do to give it up is to give notice to the other party (6 months I think), and it is done. It is nothing to do with the USSR's mutation into the CIS, just straightforward diplomacy.
In fact, if you look at things like Israel's 'Arrow' system or the USA's Asian 'THAAD' programme, the ABM Treaty is prettymuch history already anyway.
Hope that helps,
Johan
Jane's Intelligence Review.
That was the origional 1972 Treaty, it was later modified to have only 1 ABM system for one location and later reduced to 0
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White Sands has a few neat movies, the THAAD ones show missiles blowing up other ones. Very cool. White Sands Movies
All treaties with the former USSR are still in effect. Treaty rights reverted to the CIS upon dissolution of the Soviet Union, and then to the Russian Federation. This is the same reason Russia now sits on the UN Security Council. The US will use the escape clause to break the treaty, claiming that the situation of the US has changed since the signing of ABM in 1972. This is (to some extent) true, since in 1972, N. Korea, Iran/Iraq did not have ICBM technology. They still don't, but they are getting close. However, this is a foolish arguement, since there is absolutely no way any of those nations can develop a significant biological/nuclear arsenal capable of doing significant damage to the US. *One* of our Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines could easily annihilate the population centers of one of those countries. I think the leadership of those three countries (like many others) can be very foolish, but they are not suicidal. Unfortunately, the US has not dealt with arms control issues very well under the current Clinton administration. The recent CTBT fiasco is a good example. In the case of CTBT, the US really should have a capability to remanufacture old weapons designs, which is what Russia does. In that case, there is no need to test - if you think an old weapon is no longer functioning, you simply build a new one based on the old design. Right now, the US cannot do that, at least without extreme difficulty (not to mention massive political fallout - pun intended). FYI, current global active and hedge nuclear stockpile statistics are available from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The US will use the escape clause to break the treaty, claiming that the situation of the US has changed since the signing of ABM in 1972. This is (to some extent) true, since in 1972, N. Korea, Iran/Iraq did not have ICBM technology. They still don't, but they are getting close. However, this is a foolish arguement, since there is absolutely no way any of those nations can develop a significant biological/nuclear arsenal capable of doing significant damage to the US. *One* of our Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines could easily annihilate the population centers of one of those countries. I think the leadership of those three countries (like many others) can be very foolish, but they are not suicidal.
Unfortunately, the US has not dealt with arms control issues very well under the current Clinton administration. The recent CTBT fiasco is a good example. In the case of CTBT, the US really should have a capability to remanufacture old weapons designs, which is what Russia does. In that case, there is no need to test - if you think an old weapon is no longer functioning, you simply build a new one based on the old design. Right now, the US cannot do that, at least without extreme difficulty (not to mention massive political fallout - pun intended).
FYI, current global active and hedge nuclear stockpile statistics are available from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
That aside, the current tactic of developing an anti-ballistic missile defense is a disastrous development in international affairs.
Firstly, it is terribly destabalizing to treaties that have kept the world from turning into a cinder for fifty years.
Why is it so destabalizing? In order to succesfully maintain peace by integrating such a system into our countermeasures, our "enemies" must be thoroughly convinced that it works, and that any attack they make on the United States would be thwarted by such a system. This is not the case. It is highly unlikely that such a system would defend the United States against current offensive measures that the Chinese or Russians could employ in an attack. Hence, it destroys our treaty relationships with these countries while providing no real defensive gain. Please see the recent article in Scientific American regarding the fallacy of an anti-missile defense (written by people who know more about it than you) if you have doubts.
The most important point is that this project is just another in a long line of pork projects to prop up the military industrial complex. The United States has spent more money since the fall of the Berlin Wall on military projects than most taxpayers would assume is prudent. Some projects the military doesn't even want, like the B2 (Gen Horner, of the Air Force at the time when the B2 was rolled out, was firmly against the B2 as its mission description seemed unclear, and it was simply too expensive), or recent submarine deployments, which have navy officers griping that they are retiring (scrapping) subs which are hardly broken in just to get the new ones on line and tested. Now we have the F22, the JSF, and whatever else is on tap, meanwhile American children are attending some of the crappiest schools in the first world.
Of course, the American propoganda machine has been working hard for fifty years to convince you that some bogey man is about to invade us, so we need all of these toys to protect our empire. Now of course, we know factually that the CIA vastly exaggerated Soviet military power during the cold war...and now they want us to believe North Korea (which can hardly feed its citizens) is going to launch ICBMs against New York. Whatever.
If any such 'suitcase nukes' were built, they probably wouldn't work anymore. The radiation from the fissionable material degrades the components and makes the weapon inoperable within a few years time.
The US has a regular maintainance and repair schedule for its nuclear weapons. After the breakup of the soviet union, one has to wonder how many Russian nukes are still in usable condition. The US govt probably suspects the same, so they're throwing their weight around.
Chemical and biological weapons are actually a much bigger problem.
I wonder how Regan's Star Wars program affected this treaty. Anyway, the point being, is those treaties concerned nuclear weapons, not standard missles, like the SCUD missles that were supposedly shot down during the Gulf War.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
The truth of the matter is that the only way to prevent nuclear war is to stop nuclear proliferation and limit the number of nuclear weapons in existence. Too bad the US Senate took a big step in the wrong direction last week.
The thing is, the threat of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) works great when you've got a small number of nations with nuclear weapons. The USA and USSR weren't about to nuke each other, because they knew damn well it was suicide. And they each had stringent controls in place to ensure no accidental launches. And they also had reasonably stable political systems, so none of the countries were about to fall into anarchy. So our treaty with the Soviet Union made a lot of sense back when they still existed.
The problem now is that rather than having a small number of powerful nations with nukes, the world now has dozens of countries with nukes, some in very unstable regions. This poses a huge problem: what if some piss-ant dictator, who's not necessarily very sane, manages to gain control of one of these countries (even if for only a short time)? They may decide that their neighboring country, or the US (the favorite demon of various dictators of the world) needs to feel some pain. So they launch some nukes, and don't care if we retaliate. Or maybe they think we won't retaliate with nukes, for political reasons. Are we supposed to leave ourselves open to this?
Yeah, it would've been great if we could've prevented everyone from getting nukes, but the genie's out of the bottle. I don't think we're going to be able to get it back in just yet. An undefended US is just too tempting of a target. However, if we have a defense system, it gives us much more leverage when trying to prevent nuclear proliferation. If then we say, OK, let's all get rid of the nukes; then the afore-mentioned nations have no good reason not to go along. Having the nukes is no longer much use, and why risk the anger of the world community if there's no gain?
The only way we're going to eliminate the chance of nuclear war is through diplomacy, since as you said any defense system can be overwhelmed. However, the chances of a nuclear attack coming from a stable nation is very low, due to the MAD factor and diplomatic efforts. Having the defense system provides protection against those that diplomacy will never reach.
And so, a defense system is the only way for us to truly take a step forward in nuclear disarmament.
These are ALL consistent with meteor events.
And btw, how do you judge the speed of something moving overhead? How can you compare a trail in the night sky with a jet airplane, when you cannot even see the object and have no idea how large it should be? If you don't know the size, you can't tell the speed (as you can't judge distance). Common commercial jets are similar enough in size then observation allows some rough judgements about their speed.
Objects with what appear to be sparks coming off? Sounds like a meteor to me. As to this:
Plasma is a gas...even in large quantities, it is subject to rapid diffusion in the atmosphere. It is hot--the air surrounding it is cool. It has a tendancy to expand with respect to the air around it and diffuse.
If you want to believe though, please go ahead and do so.
The Anti Ballistic Missle Treaty still applies between the United States and Russia. As I remember the details the treaty prevented weapons that intercepted missles in the atmosphere. This is why the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or "Star Wars") was allowed, for it was space based. The United States can continue to develop space based weapons, though I'm not sure there is any use.
The problems with SDI are: 1)Cost. It is still extremely expensive to develop any of these technologies. One estimate was that it would cost close to one trillion dollars. 2)Defense/offense dilema. Creating countermeasures is always easier that building more effective defences. The easiest way to get around an SDI system is to simply launch more missles. As well you could use criuse missles which are not suceptible to space based defenses.
There were other reasons that were more important during the cold war, but don't apply to our current situation. The truth of the matter is that the only way to prevent nuclear war is to stop nuclear proliferation and limit the number of nuclear weapons in existence. Too bad the US Senate took a big step in the wrong direction last week.
Vivez sans temps mort!
When USSR ceased to exist and Russia came to existence, the Russian government decided to uphold in principle all the treaties USSR made, as well as assume national debt that USSR had.
As far as I know, US senate passed no official measure acknowledging this transition. Hence, every so often when senators mention various treaties made with then USSR, they will allude to the fact that the US has no legal obligation to abide by that treaty. In practice, however, the US administration has for the most part abided by the terms of these treaties.
witold.org
The treaties signed with the USSR are still in effect with Russia. If the dissolving of the Soviet Union also dissolved all the treaties things would've gone to hell in a handbasket very quickly.
I assume that Congress/DoD is developing the weapons under the guise of an anti-ballistic missle program, and are just promising not to expand the use of the weapons to an anti-satellite type mission. In the old days of the USSR, this would have caused an uproar. But today, it's essential for the United States to have an ABM program. Russia understands this, and allows the technology to be developed without causing too much difficulty.
The problem is the downfall of the Soviet Union. Tracking the proliferation of nuclear arms in Eastern Europe & elsewhere is one of the larger problems that our country's intelligence agencies have today. Over the past several years, the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union has diminished frightenly. Corrupt soviet officers, the Russian mafia, even gov't officials have been conviently losing track of nuclear arms to their own financial gain.
There are far too many terrorists in this world. During the height of the Cold War, the checks of the USSR were sufficient enough to deter the loss of nuclear materials. However, the collapse of Russia's infrastructure has sent that system of checks into ruin. The nuclear materials that helped make the USSR the superpower it was has fallen into the hands of hundreds, in not thousands, of individuals and countries worldwide. A lot of these people resent the US's self-appointed role as the world's police force. When you're sitting up as high as the United States is, everyone wants to knock you down.
Now, most of these individuals/countries that have the nuclear weapons do not have the means of delivery. As far as my non-existant security clearance knows, North Korea is the only country hostile to the United States that has a ballistic missile capable of deilvering a nuclear warhead to within US borders. What scares the United States is what they don't know. After the Gulf War, the weapons inspectors were shocked to see how far along Iraq's nuclear capabilities had come. Iraq had progressed beyond the best of estimates by an order of magnitude, and all right underneath the noses of the collective world. Who's to say that they same isn't happening elsewhere? And that when the technology is finalized, it's not coming torwards the United States, packing enough power to level Los Angeles?
There's simply too much uncertainity these days. In some respects, the Cold War was a Good Thing, because our intelligence assests were focused, and the threats come from a single source. Nowadays, the threat can come from anywhere, and the price of eternal vigilance is high. This is why these ABM systems are being developed. Today, North Korea poses a real nuclear threat. Tomorrow, who knows where that threat will originate. The United States is a high profile target - Congress understands this, and Russia understands this.
That is why the US gov't doesn't care.
(sorry for rambling a bit - it's getting late.)
And that's a Really Bad Thing for us to be encouraging. The Russian military has been in decline for decades, and the decline has accelerated rapidly in the nineties. The conventional military is getting live training now in Chechnya, but is all the same not seen as a threat to the American forces -- now or at any point in the forseeable future.
The nuclear forces on the other hand are still a viable threat to the US, and our recent actions encourage the Russians to rely more heavily upon them. This is just plain moronic on our part. Almost as bad as the sanctions against Pakistan, which have surely led to a lot of good in that country.
The moves to strengthen our missile defense program are just plain stupid, no other way to put it. They violate the treaty that does most to ensure bilateral stability, and do so in an effort to counter one of the least likely threats to our territory. (Why use an ICBM when you can get the same or better results out of a suitcase?). What we're doing is wrong, wrong, wrong, and it can only lead to a renewed arms race.
We cannot let that happen. The vestiges of representative democracy may be a farce at this point, but all the same we have to keep trying. If ever there was a time to write to your congressmen, this is one of those times. If you don't know who your congressmen are, try looking here. Write to them, tell them what a colossal mistake they are making, find out what side they have taken on the matter (most support it), and make your stance & voting intentions clear to them. If enough people contact them, they'll listen. Hopefully. If living in a 'free' and 'peaceful' country means anything to you, then you must at least try.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
If I remember my U.S civics class correctly, the US supreme court held in the decision of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward that contracts are still valid of themselves, even if the authrity by which they were issued isn't. This is a bit of a stretch of analogy(okay, a lot of a stretch), but it seems that similar principles would apply on our side at least. It is something of a dicey issue as to how this applies to the fromer members of the USSR; it is obsiously fair to argue that they individually were not signatories of the treaty, and are free to ignore or renegotiate its terms. The other half of it is that the bulk if not all of the former soviet republics are in such poor shape economically that there is little worry that they are going to be whipping out a fusion powered orbital rail gun any time soon. As for the US, I'd just as soon that they held up their end of the old bargain. Semi-effective orbital space weapons kind of give me the creeps.
The Federation of American Scientists - http://www.fas.org - has a "peace and security" section that many people posting here might find interesting. It has extensive info about the military, disarmament, biological weapons, etc. Although it's an advocacy site (it was started by the manhattan project scientists who opposed dropping the bomb), the information seems very trustworthy.
1) Polyus (I think that's right) was a Soviet orbital weapons platform they did indeed launch in the 1980s. Reportedly the booster carrying it up malfunctioned and it never reached orbit, but still, they tried breaking the treaty first.
2) The treaties involve explosives in space. The two anti-missile weapons I'm familiar with right now involve:
-- a) A projectile that, instead of exploding in front of an ICBM, merely rams into it. It has no explosives, it's just basically a huge cannonball fired with great precision. Breaks no treaties for having weapons in space. I mean, the only way to really ban it would be to ban anything that could be pointed at another object and rammed into it, which would ban ICBMs anyway.
-- b) Lasers mounted in the noses of 747s that would fry holes in ICBMs, causing them to plummet back to Earth. The theory here is, 747s kept in constant flight could respond immediately to a launch, firing at ICBMs in less than 30 seconds and causing them to fall back onto the country that launched them. Again, this puts no weapons into outer space, and banning it would basically be banning all military aircraft.
So, basically, it seems that the U.S. is still respecting its treaties.
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I'm not a real anonymous coward, I just play one on TV.
The new anti satelite, anti spacecraft technology is based on Nikola Teslas research into directed energy weapons. Numerous US military bases at antipodes bouce EM pulses between each other through the earth and then direct them upwards and away from the planet. STS-48 is footage of a shot fired from the Exmouth US military base in the North West of Western Australia. For more info about the West Australian tests (although they go on all over the world) read... http://www.millenngroup.com/repository/secret/brig htskies.html
As I understand it, the ABM treaty was inherited by Russia. Interesting question: Do the breakaway republics have to honor it?
A better question is, can such a system actually work? I doubt a massive launch could be stopped; but it should be possible to stop the "lone missle" scenario.
A neat solution would be to build a "Global Missile Defense" shield; that would automatically target and down ICBM's regardless of the point of origin.
The problem with a global shield is that the UN could get its knickers in a twist and decide not to allow ANY space launches.
Other problems with a missile defense - it does NOTHING to stop any of the following:
- suitcase nukes
- cruise missiles
- (surface) ship carried nukes
- car transported nukes
- bio weapons (any of the above delivery mechanisms)
Species wise, we need to get off our collective buts and stop keeping all of our eggs (humans) in one basket (earth).
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Most treaties the U.S. signed with the Soviet Union are still in force as agreements with Russia. The Russians are really ticked off that the U.S. are apparently completely disregarding the ABM Treaty, and have threatened to freeze any further arms reduction talks (e.g. START III).
I am not aware of a treaty signed with the new Russian Republic that brings over all treaties that we (the U.S.A. for your ferin' types) have signed although I wouldn't put it past Clinton to have slipped such a thing in without going to the Senate for ratification. I know that lots of the START treaty that we've subsequently signed was continued from negotiations with the USSR but those are new treaties for all intents and purposes.
I could be wrong about the lack of said "continuance" treaty but barring its existence, and from my recollection the ABM treaty was specifically between the two powers and not a general non-proliferation treaty like nuclear testing.
That said, the ABM treaty is effectively dead. Additionally, there are specific exemptions in the ABM treaty that allow ABMs to protect specific areas for each side. The Soviets have a large array of ABMs around Moscow but I don't think we ever deployed ours. To allow our continued development, we could still operate under the explicit exemption in the treaty for a limited protection net.
One area where there is no treaty control is space-based weapons. We can thank Ronald Reagan and his willingness to walk out on Gorbachev to protect "Star Wars" development. This would be a better approach, albeit more expensive and difficult, because it stops the inbound ICBMs before they start re-entry and can "MIRV", thus reducing the number of targets that must be tracked an intercepted. As you may recall, to nullify the notion that this was a tactic the unbalance the arms balance, Reagan offered to give the technology to the Soviets in return for negotiating a complete ban on all nuclear weapons. This one-two punch was the straw that broke the camel's back for the USSR.
We should continue this policy because the cost of entry into the nuclear club is now low enough for any 3rd world nation and many individuals to afford. If we don't deploy a system that makes successful delivery of such warheads unlikely, thus drastically increasing the risk that a launch would be intercepted inviting an overwhelming and potentially nuclear retaliation without the intended benifits, its not likely that we'll get out of the next decade without a missle being launched against a major power.
The clinton administration is currently trying to get Russia to change those treaties. I was just reading another article about it today. Looks like France, Russia, and France are all getting pissed. Here is a that article
9 -10/31/141l-103199-idx.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/199
Take Kosovo for instance. The UN backed by the US goes in to righteously stop a genocide and help throw down an evil dictator. After a war in which no friendly soldiers lose their lives, the politicians declare a victory. Everybody feels happy and confident in the powers of the US and UN. But what about the second genocide that has happened in Kosovo? Where the Albanians are now attacking the Serbs and forcing new mass exoduses? Well . . . those are swept under the rug as life goes on in American politics. A country in ruins and no true resolution to a conflict between to ethnicities, all so that the politicians could bump themselves up a few points in the polls.
You may be wondering what all this has to do with treaties. Well . . . the answer is simple. Treaties in general are nothing more than policitial tools. People listen to them as long as they are convenient and that they can break them without getting in trouble. The only times that treaties in themselves have any use beyond symbolic purposes is when policitians drag us into another war. Treaties can then be used as a justification for attacking the "evil" forces of our enemies.
So in summary: if you think you can find safety behind the walls of a treaty (particularly one related to weapons), you will find out that you are wrong the hard way. There will always be some evil schmuck who will be breaking the treaty, either with or without the permission of their government.
Quotes from the explanation:
"The Treaty permits each side to have one limited ABM system to protect its capital and another to protect an ICBM launch area. The two sites defended must be at least 1,300 kilometers apart, to prevent the creation of any effective regional defense zone or the beginnings of a nationwide system."
"The most recent Treaty review was completed in October 1993. Following that review, numerous sessions of the Standing Consultative Commission have been held to work out Treaty succession -- to "multilateralize" the Treaty -- as a result of the break-up of the Soviet Union and to negotiate a demarcation between ABM and non-ABM systems."
The United States is in fact working closely with the Russian government to create this new technology. It is true that the Russians are upset, but we have agreed not to deploy the defense systems unless the same technology is deployed in Russia simotaneously. The idea is that many countries other than the United States and Russia are gaining ICBM technology, and those countries are not bound by the treaty. Thus, we want to make sure that we are defended against them.
For those who don't understand the treaty: The only way we were able to prevent a nuclear holocaust during the cold war was through MAD (Mutually Assured Distruction), meaning that neither side would launch because they knew that they would have been destroyed themselves. If one side had built a nuclear defense system that completely defended them against nuclear attack, MAD would have been no more, and nothing would have stopped that side from destroying their opponents. Fortunately, the leaders of both countries realized this and created the treaty before anything bad happenned.
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the USA and the USSR [now Russian] still have many treaties from the old cold war era. Specifically SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Treats] I and II as well as the START [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] and the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty that effects the current fiasco. The ABM Treaty is signed by both countris and is still in effect with Russia Instead of USSR.
The ABM treaty allows origionally 2 ABM Defense Zones each nation with 100 Interceptors [ABM Missiles] which was reduced to 100 Interceptors at 1 Defense Zone [At this point I belive USSR picked Moscow and the USA picked a missile range but not sure which one]. It was later reduced to allowing no ABM.
However, the critical points of the treaty are [those that effect us anyway:
1] Both Parties May Agree to Amend The Treaty
2] One Party May Withdrawl If They Provide a 6 Month Notice
3] It allows the research but not actual deployment of any kinda
The US is trying to get around this by going through either of the two routes, with the first more likely the perfered one:
1] Talking with Russia to allow the deployment of a limited one for testing
2] Pull out of the treaty [Remember, the 6 Month]
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