You can not be serious. There is no way that is logical reply to my point. Just let the enemy destroy our satellites and our response is, oh, we'll just launch more. Guess the Royal/U.S. navies during WWI and WWII would have been better just leaving merchant ships unprotected without any escort. We'll let the Germans sink as many as they can. We'll just simply launch more. Ok.....Glad you aren't in charge of our military strategy!
Those satellites aren't being threatened. Why should I worry about something not being threatened when we have real and immediate dangers at hand now?
Sishir and FranchiseBlade, Both of you would be right, if there were really no one out there other than the terrorists willing to take America on. But that is simply not the case. Both China and North Korea are more than willing to take America on. They have been preparing for a showdown for decades, and both will continue to further enhance their armoury until they can scare the Americans out of Asia altogether. If America had no commitments in Asia which might draw us into a conflict with these two states, then your points would be right. But the fact is America DOES have commitments. And these nations (N Korea + China) WOULD fight us if given the chance (i.e. if they could win or even achieve local stalemate against a weakened America). In these cases, we WILL have to come to our allies' defence. The best weapons for these nations just happens to be ballistic missiles. Now you are proposing we go in there defenceless against our potential enemies' best weapons? If it's impossible for China and N Korea to win against the States, as you claim, then why do they bother getting weapons specifically tailored to attack our carrier groups, blow up our satellites, reach our West Coast, etc. etc.? Why won't they stop being the fastest growing militaries in the world? Missile defence isn't for winning wars. It is so that our enemies will never dare to fight us or our allies. It is so that even if they get nukes and ballistic missiles, they can still be sure that when they do evil, we won't be intimidated and WILL go in there and pound the **** out of them without receiving a scratch in return. Only with this guarantee, will we be safe. Only with this guarantee, will our friends be able to live free from fear. Only with this guarantee, will the peace be secured.
Their best weapon is their soldier's chest - not a weapon in which they are hopelessly outclassed by any of their potential enemies, bring upon the user universal repulsion provided they survive the complete and utter destruction of their nation. ICBMs are not weapons that are built to be used.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't keep a close eye on both North Korea and China. I believe North Korea has the most Authoritarian govt. on the planet. But neither of those countries is a threat to our satellites, and neither of those countries is as immediate and dangerous of a threat as terrorism is. It's a matter of setting priorities. Defending outer space is rather far down on the list at the moment, or it should be in my opinion.
that's not the point. china may never plan to use their ballistic missiles on america, but they still rely on them to achieve their political objectives (intimidate taiwan in submission, deter america from interfering in potential conflict). i don't know how closely you follow this, but military experts and the chinese themselves agree: 1) short-range ballistic missiles represent china's most viable first-strike option against taiwan right now. 2) china's nuclear force serves to deter america from interfering in potential future conflicts in the taiwan strait. If chinese generals don't go around bragging about how they will use missiles to knock out taiwan's defences, if chinese generals don 't go around threatening to wipe out los angeles, then i would agree whole-heartedly with you guys. but the fact is chinese generals say these things all the time (do a google search), and i'd rather be safe than sorry. icbm are rarely built to be used. you're right. but when nations acquire icbms so that they can conduct aggression with impunity, what then? it is too late to stop chinese and n korea from getting nukes, but the least we can do is to protect our people against them and to ensure we won't be intimidated by them.
Chinese Anti-Satellite [ASAT] Capabilities http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/china/military/asat/ China Eyes Anti-Satellite System http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-01c.html ANNUAL REPORT ON THE MILITARY POWER OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20030730chinaex.pdf space is an arena in which we have a demonstrable 30 year headstart on the chinese. our launch capabilities and satellite technologies are far ahead of the chinese. our next generation of long-range strategic bombers are probably going to be orbital/suborbital. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1463172.stm) if they want to challenge us, if they refuse to give up trying to invade our allies, why should we be so stupid as to play by their rules?
The real benefit of having anti missile tech is not that we are afraid that N. Korea, Russia, or anyone else is suddenly going to decide to attack us, but rather that is allows us to conduct operations against Nuclear Armed countries. A reliable anti-missle system stops having nuclear weapons from translating to immunity from foreign powers.
Your paranoid focus is all about any future Chinese attack against Taiwan. Dedicating huge resources just for this scenario is idiotic. I don't think anyone has lost sleep worrying about China attacking the US. The only country that put fear in me during my lifetime was the Soviet Union. And they are still our most capable opponent. The only thing I worry about China is if they overwork Yao or if my laptop is still working.
Lil, this is a quote from one of the links you provided They don't even have a program now or an effort to take out our satellite's according to your own link. This stuff talks about them having nukes, and how bad it would be if they took out our satellites. I agree that would be bad, and that might have to be something we look into later. Right now though I'm worried about the real and present threat. That is terrorism. I would wait until we have made more headway on that front, before planning for a future problem which may or may now ever materialize to be genuine threat.
bamma; Even though I obviously don't agree with you on most points I've generally been civil but since that's not of interest to you I will reply in kind, and unlike your opinion I will throw in some facts. You statement shows that you are clearly ignorant of military history and also a bad strategist with no sense of the practical considerations of effectively fighting a war. The strategy of rapidly replacing sattelites taken out in a conflict was primarily a Soviet strategy since they were aware that we had developed anti-satellite technology in the 80's, primarily multi-stage rockets fired from F-15's, but we also had the same strategy knowing that the Soviets had developed anti-satellite technology too in the form of killer satellites. It was widely acknowledged among both sides that in the event of a conflict satellites would be taken out and that satellite protection technology was theoretical at best and totally unproven. It was imminently rational to rely on the proven technology of rapidly replacing destroyed satellites through quick launch than to rely on a completely unproven technology that doesn't even exist. This was and is a situation of spending billions, maybe trillions, to develop technology that may not even every work rather than spending millions on a proven technology that works. Your solution is to abandon what we know works to pursue what may never work. Saddly from what we see about Pentagon budgets your thinking is pretty widespread in the military and is the type of thinking why we are saddled with overly expensive and complex equipment when simpler cheaper would do. For instance if you compare the durability of a Kalishnikov vs. an M-16.
Lil; You've already provided the answers to why it is a waste to be developing space based weapons and ICBM defenses. Exactly we are so far ahead of the PRC and any other country in this field that it is almost prohibitive for them to catch up. If the PRC decides to try to match even out present capabilities in this area they will run into the same problem the Soviets had in the late 80's. They will spend themselves militarily into the ground at a time when they need to concentrate resources on maintaining their development and more practical military concerns. What you're saying here is that the greatest threat is short range (theater) missiles than ICBMs. Defending against those is a much different proposition than defending against ICBM's. Theater missile defense is a proven technology with a long history, see the Patriot anti-missile systems. That is totally different than ICBM defense which has yet to be proven it can even work. Of course they do. Being a braggart isn't limited to the US Admin. the question is do you believe them? From even your own info shows that this isn't a real focus from them but is just bluster.
The U.S. may consider other countries as threats. Other countries may also consider the U.S. as the biggest threat. Every country has the right to protect herself. However, there is no absolute security. As long as we are alive, we have to face dangers. The absolute security is after we are dead. We will be absolutely safe. In this universe, many things are in the equilibrium states. If one force arises, other forces will also grow to counter it. It is nature. If you try to make sure one force absolutely dominate the other forces, it will be very hard and very often counter productive becaue you are working against nature.
So what are you going to do about subs, strategic bombers or people smuggling nukes into this country? Missile defense is fine if we have unlimited resources to spend on it, and if it works, but we don't have unlimited resources. THere are much more realistic threats that we have to deal with. Anyway as I said before and as even a proponent like Lil recognizes ICBM's are not going to be used in a first strike against us because to use them is suicide. On top of that Al Qaeda has already shown that if you want to get the US you don't need to spend billions building a missile when you for a few $100K you can deliver a devestating blow already. What I'm reading though in your posts is that part of the reason you want anti-missile technology is so the US can act against other nuclear armed countries without fear of retaliation. Have you considered that maybe that's a good thing? Would you have considered an invasion of the Soviet Union a good thing if we couldn't have been nuked back? That would've cost us possibly millions of lives and there's no guarentee we could win a conventional war in the Soviet Union. Like it or not MAD did keep the peace for the betterment of us, the Soviets and Europe.
First off, it is you who know nothing about military strategy. Satellites are ungodly expensive with all of the precision parts contained within and take a long time to both manufacture and set up a launch window. So are you going to just cede the fact that your enemy will simply blow them up and your only response is to build more? Why not equip them with countermeasures and defenses instead. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? Not with your flawed logic. And that strategy might have made a tiny bit of sense 20 years ago, but today, with all of the technological advances, it is meaningless. Read my analogy in my post and think about it for a second. Britain would have lost both world wars if they had not gone to the trouble and expense of defending their merchies from the submarine threat, an expensive and very dangerous undertaking. The M-16 is the world's best combat rifle, bar none. The AK is a crudely manufactured, although tough weapon that is highly inaccurate and quite heavy. Our military procures the best possible equipment, because to maintain our supremacy, we have to have the best (since we are often outnumbered). I'd much rather the USMC buy F-18 Hornets than say....some cheaper plane that can not deliver precision weapons or control the airspace over a beachhead with its long range AIM-120 missiles, the best AAM in the world today. The DOD is not purposely trying to waste money by purchasing overly complex (in your view) weapons systems. They are trying to provide our troops with the best equipment in the world, because they expect nothing less. Could it be improved? You betcha. But should we abandon building the best in aircraft, ships, rifles, tanks, etc for the cheapest? Of course not.
Because the technology doesn't exist and has failed in most tests. We don't have unlimited resources. Satellites are expensive but it makes more sense to build more, and you get a saving building in bulk, rather than try to spend billions trying to manufacture a few satellites with an unproven defense technology. If one of those fails its more cost prohibitive to replace that cadillac satellite than rolling out another Chevy satellite. Its possible that in the future we will have effective satellite defense technology but we don't now and there's no reason to develop it when our potential enemies don't even possess the ability to seriously threaten our satellites. As for the M-16 being the greatest assault rifle why does it jam all the time compared to Kalishnikov's that can be dragged through the mud and still fire?
I'm not saying we have unlimited resources, but that it would be much more prudent to protect the limited satellites we have than just allow the Chicoms or whoever to pick them off at will. No matter if they are "Chevy" satellites or "Cadillac" satellites, the means for getting them into orbit (shuttle and rockets) are A. expensive B. limited in number. So it makes sense to defend them somehow. The ChiComs are actively working on ways to jam our GPS and go after our satellites. They have also made many threats against us over Taiwan, so a war with them is not out of the question. The original M-16 jammed because: A. troops were not adequately trained on cleaning it and hardly any cleaning kits were issued. B. The Army (in all their wisdom ) substituted inferior propellant in the rounds, which caused severe corrosion problems and led to even more jams. The M-16A1 fixed all of these and the M-16A2, which I used for over 15 years, is the most reliable weapon around. It is highly accurate, tough and very light. I had to use mine once in the line of duty and it did its job effectively. After a few incidents, the Somalis knew not to challenge the hyper-accurate Marines.
Regarding satellites, I believe the military is exploring putting up minisatellites the site of a trashcan as a contingency. But I still don't see any current countermeasures against a nuke or EMP shockwave knocking out the superior military's space weapons. I agree. Plus, you're devoting massive resources to a military industrial complex with monopoly powers. You get less return for your money, and who knows how long any country can sustain that burden.
I am going to counter them with sonar nets/attack subs, air defense systems/interceptors, and intelligence agencies/border and port security respectively. This is exactly what I said in my post, so it does little to counter my argument that defense from a first strike is not the greatest benefit. Not having missile defense does not make us safe from these kind of attacks, as we have seen. No one is suggesting that we abandon all other forms of defense in favor of missile defense. No, I do not think it is a good thing to limit our options in dealing with other countries. IMO, another country having nuclear weapons should not eliminate military action against them as an option. That gives any nuclear armed state license to do whatever they want. There are more things to consider than whether you will face nuclear reprisal. I don't think an invasion of the Soviet Union would have been a good idea, because of their vast territory, high quality weapons, well trained military, and numerical superiority. The ability to invade does not equal an imperative to invade. You might notice that we have not invaded Cuba, for example.
