The Kid wrote:Missile defense MIGHT work if they told us they were launching it, where they were launching it from, and only launched one or two missiles, and didn't send up any dummy missiles or other flak to distract the intercepting missiles. Other than that, we've pissed away billions, and will continue to piss away billions, on a weapons system that was a total waste the minute the Berlin wall came down, if not before.

BMD, in its current version, isn't designed to stop a decapitating first strike. It's designed to stop a small nuclear power from launching a handful of nuclear weapons.

The Kid wrote:Why is it useless? Because nobody on earth is crazy enough to launch a missile strike on the US. Even the North Koreans, crazy as they might be, know doing so would mean the total annihilation of their country and all the people in it. There is no country on earth that has both the means to launch a significant missile strike on the US and the will to do so. Even crazy people don't pick fights with the biggest thug on the block.

This is where I disagree. There is a large difference between simply rational behaviour (that is, behaviour that evaluates between options based on a hierarchy of values and an understanding of opportunity cost) and behaviour that is reasonable to us. To illustrate this, let me just give you an example from the cold war. During the missile crisis, Castro was urging Kruschev to launch first and destroy America, knowing full well that this would be the end of Cuba. Castro wasn't mad or even irrational, he just considered other things (the revolution, national pride) more important than national survival. History is full of examples of this kind of thing. I don't really think that deterrence is a viable strategy anymore, if it ever was. That leaves me with a pretty painful choice.

The Kid wrote:Future attacks will probably happen. But they will look like 9/11, not international missile attacks. Unfortunately, even if it worked, missile defense would have done nothing to prevent a domestic attack like that.

Of course. It's not designed to stop those things. How does this detract from its value?

The Kid wrote:Beyond all that, consider for a moment the motivation behind missile defense. The cold war balance of power was based on mutually assured destruction -- since we could destroy each other, nobody wanted to strike first. Removing one side's ability to destroy the other removes the other's motivation to refrain from attack. The goal was not and is not "protecting Americans." The goal is military dominion over the earth. If you're comfortable with your leadership having that, so be it. Personally, I'd trust our government with that power about as much as I'd trust a junkie gambling addict with my ATM card.

Well, just to nitpick, but MAD hasn't really guided nuclear policy since the 60's or so. But still, this isn't really applicable. The current configuration of missile defense is limited. It is not designed to stop a first strike from a major nuclear power. It is designed to stop nuclear blackmail from a state like North Korea or Iran. I think there are good arguments against it, but the ones you're making aren't them.

I'll try to dig up some more technical details from the tests for you. It obviously isn't ready yet, but that doesn't mean it is completely bankrupt. It is incredibly foolish of Bush to roll out interceptors this soon, though.

First, for my purposes, there is little difference between a "decapitating first strike" and "a handful of nuclear weapons." Either way, you'd have a number of missiles in flight that must be intercepted. And you also have a system that is not capable of intercepting those missiles.
As far as the willingness of any "smaller nuclear powers" to destroy themselves, we'll have to continue to disagree. Personally, I think a little real diplomacy, and a little more effort to rein in the amount of nuclear material flowing through the world's black market, would do more to ensure our safety than any non-functioning missile defense program. I also disagree with your contention that Castro valued the destruction of the US over his own survival. Like any dictator, he has shown repeatedly that nothing is more important to him than his own power and survival. If he was urging a Russian first strike, maybe it was because he had a feeling for how insane some of the people in the US government were getting at that point in time. Robert McNamara, among others, was urging Kennedy to authorize an initial strike by the US.
I also disagree that history is full of examples of "this kind of thing." There is only one country that has launched a nuclear strike. In the 60 years of the bomb's existence, I think that indicates that this is a technology that governments have been quite restrained in applying.
My point regarding the uselessness of missile defense in preventing attacks like 9/11 is that those are precisely the kinds of attacks we should expect, not multiple warheads launched from across the ocean. If there is a nuclear bomb detonated in this country, it isn't going to come from another government. It's coming from a terrorist group, and it won't be launched through the air. So why not direct the resources to prevent shit that might actually happen?
I think it's naive to believe that the purpose is merely to prevent nuclear blackmail. I agree that might be one of the ancillary purposes achieved by a functioning missile defense system. But we're a global empire. It's predictable that at some point in time, it may not be as easy to maintain a physical military presence across the globe. A functioning missile defense system lessens the perceived need for those kinds of things. I think that's the real appeal of this sytem to a lot of people.

The Kid wrote:As far as the willingness of any "smaller nuclear powers" to destroy themselves, we'll have to continue to disagree. Personally, I think a little real diplomacy, and a little more effort to rein in the amount of nuclear material flowing through the world's black market, would do more to ensure our safety than any non-functioning missile defense program.

Oh no, I agree completely. I think that a concerted, well-funded counter-proliferation effort must be central to a rational attempt to limit nuclear use. What do we do about North Korea, though, or other nations that might slip through the cracks?

The Kid wrote:I also disagree with your contention that Castro valued the destruction of the US over his own survival. Like any dictator, he has shown repeatedly that nothing is more important to him than his own power and survival. If he was urging a Russian first strike, maybe it was because he had a feeling for how insane some of the people in the US government were getting at that point in time. Robert McNamara, among others, was urging Kennedy to authorize an initial strike by the US.

That still sentences Castro to his own doom. Wanting to strike first is a suicidal gesture in the name of national pride or honor--not a "reasonable" move by any means.

If you still contest that example, there are others. Hitler's "Nero" orders in 1945 spring to mind, as well as Warsaw Pact planning for an invasion of Europe. All throughout the cold war, western military planners assumed that the Soviet Union was a "rational" state that would want to avoid nuclear war. They thought that nuclear escalation could be neatly controlled and small applications of nuclear weapons could be used where needed. Now that the Soviet Union is no more, we've managed to get a hold of some Warsaw Pact documents, and they indicate that massive chemical and nuclear strikes would immediately take place in the event of aggression. That would essentially end their existance, but it was still a strictly rational decision. In fact, the more we learn about the Soviets, the more we learn how driven they were by ideology and not realpolitik.

There are cases where nations put other things above national survival in a hierarchy of values or misperceive probable reactions. This is why I don't have faith in deterrence.

The Kid wrote:I think that indicates that this is a technology that governments have been quite restrained in applying.

Well, we only say that because it's true. If a nuclear war had started, the world would be over. It's like the anthropic principle.

The Kid wrote:My point regarding the uselessness of missile defense in preventing attacks like 9/11 is that those are precisely the kinds of attacks we should expect, not multiple warheads launched from across the ocean. If there is a nuclear bomb detonated in this country, it isn't going to come from another government. It's coming from a terrorist group, and it won't be launched through the air. So why not direct the resources to prevent shit that might actually happen?

Terrorism is of course a large threat, but foreign ICBM threats aren't going away any time soon. They're rising, actually. North Korea and China are both developing designs that threaten the continental US. Iran has been working on the Shahab. The issue of terrorism and missile threats just aren't connected.

The Kid wrote:I think it's naive to believe that the purpose is merely to prevent nuclear blackmail. I agree that might be one of the ancillary purposes achieved by a functioning missile defense system. But we're a global empire. It's predictable that at some point in time, it may not be as easy to maintain a physical military presence across the globe. A functioning missile defense system lessens the perceived need for those kinds of things. I think that's the real appeal of this sytem to a lot of people.

Missile defense exists to prevent a limited nuclear attack on the United States. You might be right about the desires of other people, but I think it's essential based on the fact that nothing else exists to stop nuclear attacks. If you want North Korea to be able to dictate to us, well, then that's something else entirely.

Basically, I think that missile defense is a good thing in theory. Our current application is plagued by ridiculous politicization and could very well be too expensive. That doesn't mean it isn't a good thing in principle.

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