posted
Published on Thursday, May 11, 2000 in the Boston Globe
quote:Missile Defense System Won't Work by David Wright and Theodore Postol
The United States is on the verge of deploying a national missile defense system intended to shoot down long-range missiles. The Clinton administration is scheduled to decide this fall whether to give the green light to a system that is expected to cost more than $60 billion, sour relations with Russia and China, and block deep cuts in nuclear arsenals.
But the real scandal is that the defense being developed won't work - and few in Washington seem to know or care.
The chief difficulty in trying to develop missile defenses is not getting vast systems of complex hardware to work as intended - although that is a daunting task. The key problem is that the defense has to work against an enemy who is trying to foil the system. what's worse, the attacker can do so with technology much simpler than the technology needed for the defense system. This inherent asymmetry means the attacker has the advantage despite the technological edge the United States has over a potential attacker such as North Korea.
We recently completed, along with nine other scientists, a yearlong study that examined in detail what countermeasures an emerging missile state could take to defeat the missile defense system the United States is planning. That study shows that effective countermeasures require technology much less sophisticated than is needed to build a long-range missile in the first place - technology that would be available to the potential attacker. This kind of analysis is possible since the United States has already selected the interceptor and sensor technologies its defense system would use. We assessed the full missile defense system the United States is planning - not just the first phase planned for 2005 - and assumed only that it is constrained by the laws of physics.
We examined three countermeasures in detail, each of which would defeat the planned US defense.
A country that decided to deliver biological weapons by ballistic missile could divide the lethal agent into 100 or more small bombs, known as ''bomblets,'' as a way of dispersing the agent over the target. This would also overwhelm the defense, which couldn't shoot at so many warheads.
The Rumsfeld panel, a high-level commission convened by Congress in 1998 to assess the ballistic missile threat to the United States, noted that potential attackers could build such bomblets. We show this in detail.
An attacker launching missiles with nuclear weapons would have other options. It could disguise the warhead by enclosing it in an aluminum-coated Mylar balloon and releasing it with a large number of empty balloons. None of the missile defense sensors could tell which balloon held the warhead, and again the defense could not shoot at all of them.
Alternately, we showed that the warhead could be enclosed in a thin shroud cooled with liquid nitrogen - a common laboratory material - so it would be invisible to the heat-seeking interceptors the defense will use.
These are only three of many possible countermeasures. And none of these ideas is new; most are as old as ballistic missiles themselves.
How is it possible that this problem is being ignored? The Pentagon, saying it must walk before it can run, has divided the missile defense problem into two parts: getting the system to work against missiles without realistic countermeasures and then hoping to get it to work against missiles with countermeasures. Few doubt the first step could eventually be done, but such ''walking'' would be useless against an actual attack by North Korea or any other country.
The second step - getting the defense to work against countermeasures - is the one that matters. And our study showed in detail that the planned defense won't be able to do this.
Unfortunately, the debate in Washington revolves around only the first step. The Pentagon plans to determine the ''technological readiness'' of the system this summer after three tests that lack realistic countermeasures. And President Clinton's decision whether to deploy will be based on that assessment. The deployment decision is simply being made on the wrong criteria.
This situation is similar to a group of people deciding to build a bridge to the moon. Instead of assessing the feasibility of the full project before moving forward, they decide to start building the onramps, since that's the part they know how to do.
The reality is that any country that is capable of building a long-range missile and has the motivation to launch it against the United States would also have the capability and motivation to build effective countermeasures to the planned defense. To assume otherwise is to base defense planning on wishful thinking.
***
David Wright is a researcher at the Union of Concerned Scientists and the MIT Security Program. Theodore Postol is professor of science, technology, and national security at MIT. Both are physicists.
posted
Eleven scientists does not a professional consensus make, even if they DO work at MIT.
Apparently, there must be SOME scientists, ie: the ones who proposed it and the ones who work on it, who believe it can work.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
quote:Let me get this through to you: THERE IS NO COLD WAR.
No, there is no Cold War. But as many people have tryed to point out to you ad nauseam, SDI is likely to start a new - not so Cold - one.
quote:Eleven scientists does not a professional consensus make, even if they DO work at MIT.
What, in your book, DOES make a "professional consensus" then? If it's not eleven top-level MIT scientists... Are you even willing to accept the system has more holes in it that a Swiss cheese? Or do you simply dismiss these findings as fiction?
quote:Apparently, there must be SOME scientists, ie: the ones who proposed it and the ones who work on it, who believe it can work.
SDI wasn't proposed by scientists, but by a president with illusions of grandure. And of course these people believe it will work, because they're laid off if they don't. How objective do you think they are?
Just curious though: exactly HOW MANY scientists are working on the project?
quote:The reality is that any country that is capable of building a long-range missile and has the motivation to launch it against the United States would also have the capability and motivation to build effective countermeasures to the planned defense.
In other words: why bother?
By the way: your response to all points mentioned in JC's article was brilliant. Fantastic argumentation.
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
posted
Sorry, it took me a while to think of this...
"Well, a bullet-proof vest won't do much good if you get shot BEFORE you put it on."
"Thus, you put it on as soon as possible."
So, Omega, I take it you wear a bullet-proof vest when ever you leave the house, just in case...
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
posted
Nowhere did Omega say that "their voices count for more than everyone else's." In addition, those three nations have significant economic power and political influence.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Wait a minute...so now Russia is okay with the missile defense shield and they arn't a potential enemy to Omega and the others while China still is? I thought Russia signed a "forever friendship" treaty with China recently to show more opposition to the whole American shield idea.
Registered: Jul 2000
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Let's try and wade through this stupid point by stupid point.
First's "The ABM treaty was signed with the USSR and not Russia therefore it doesn't count."
I may be mistaken, but there were a whole smatter of declarations and such at around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union that granted Russia succession status to the USSR internationally. It's why, among other reasons, the USSR's permanent seat on the Security Council didn't just vanish but instead was rechartered to Russia. Certainly if the ABM treaty no longer applies, then I guess the atmospheric test ban and the non-proliferation treaties are non-binding, too, considering that their other major signatory is now gone, too. I guess Canada will now be legally allowed to start doing surface nuclear tests 100 yards from the American border in Southern Saskatchewan. Directly upwind from Minneapolis and Chicago, if possible. But hey, it's our internal affairs, huh Omega?
Omega's "Reagan ended the Cold War."
Take a history lesson, boy. Reagan started a second arms race after Carter and Ford and Nixon did an admirable job with SALT I and II (and the failure of II was, *gasp* not the American's fault.) Instead, Reagan went all fucked-in-the-head with Star Wars 1 and neutron bombs and low-range tactical nukes and pissed the living daylights out of the Russians. START was a watered-down arms reduction treaty stuck ten years in the past. If Gobachev wasn't as reasonable as he was all the advances made in the previous ten years might have gone to hell in a handbasket. If you want a Republican to praise for winning the Cold War, then praise Bush-the-smarter, who actually dealt with the Soviet Union respectfully and patiently rather than treating it as an "evil empire." What brought the Soviet Union down was a sluggish economy rife with corruption and ineficiency, the human and financial costs of war in Afghanistan, Glasnost and Perestroika running-out-of-control and, believe it or not, Gorbachev's poorly-recieved campaign against alcoholism. (That was a truly fascinating history course.) Reagan might have forced the Soviet Union to spend on defense to the point of economic detriment, but I'd hardly consider that an intentional plan of his nor a preferable course of action when it comes to dealing with a big angry bear.
And the infamous MIT scientists...
A conference of hundreds of physicists and political analysts from around the world met in Vancouver about 12 months ago and released a joint conclusion that Missile Defense was far more trouble than it was worth. Clearly these MIT people aren't rogue thinkers surrounded by a sea of brilliant scientists who all know that a missile shield is a smart idea.
Germany supports SDI?
That would be news to me. The EU has announced its opposition, and NATO has also refused to endorse the system. Germany is a prominent member of both and I heard nothing.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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Simon: Actually, half the articles people link to these days seem to result in "Bad Request" errors for me, and I think others. I'm rather glad it was posted, rather than linked...
Rob: The MIT scientists may ont constitute a consensus against Star Wars, but the scientists working on it do not constitute a consensus for it, either.
quote:Originally posted by Omega: Because the only people the world worries about being attacked by with nuclear weapons are Americans.
Oh, so the world is composed of idiots that know nothing of the state of the world? Or maybe that's you. Let's see. Iran and Iraq could nuke each other. Pakistan and India. China could nuke Taiwan. Thanks to Clinton, anyone with a bit of cash can now buy the equipment to nuke their enemies. Your statement is false.
I'm going to have to stop making those statement things, obviously. We're talking Inter-Continental nuclear warfare, remember? The kind that uses Inter-Continental Ballistic Weapons. The weapons that SDI proposes to counter. The weapons that Iran, Iraq, India and Pakistan don't have. And as you say, what they do have they'll be using on each other anyway.
America's best deterrent is their existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Someone does launch a missile, they see where it comes from and launch one (or more) back. It's too risky. All the nations that'd like to nuke the US would far sooner just smuggle a backpack nuke in instead. Then you'd have no idea where it came from. And no, Jack Ryan won't be around to figure it out.
I continue to stand by my main argument.
quote:Americans with lots of nuclear weapons who read too many Tom Clancy books = bad. Americans with lots of nuclear weapons who read too many Tom Clancy books and have a defense that means they can nuke everyone else while remaining effectively safe = worse.
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