> > Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> Wrote: wooo hooo, woooo hoooooo!
> > U.S. Shoots Down Cruise Missile in Defense Test
>
> John Clark wrote: This has nothing to do with ABM's... I don't know what all the
> excitement
> is about,
Actually there wasnt that much excitement about this firing. Nobody
made much to-do about it. I only heard it in passing: "oh by the way,
theres a PAC3 firing tomorrow, but its just a cruise missile..."
> As for ICBM's, it seems to me that the only hope of
> stopping one is to shoot it down during the boost phase,
And in fact boost phase deterrence will likely by the second
line of defense, the first being diplomacy. Everyone recognizes
the advantages of boost phase intercept strategy. As you might
expect for something so important as stopping a nuclear
doomsday, the defense system has may layers. If the
first layer fails (as it has been known to do) the boost phase
takes over, then if that fails, the coast phase intercept kicks
in, etc. We keep fighting back all the way to the radioactive
bitter end.
> ...and you don't have to worry about decoys.
Well actually we do. The commies could fire a number of identical decoy
rockets simultaneously, and those decoys *really would* be impossible to
distinguish from the real one. If they fire even one at the U.S, they
might as well fire everything they have.
> So if you're really bothered by North Korea's
> ICBM's (which the don't have)
They dont have *now*. We are hoping they will stop
developing one, so it will take the time pressure off the
U.S. to deploy an anti-Korean ICBM system before 2005.
> then just convince China to let you build the ABM
> system on the China-Korea border.
Or on the South Korean border. They might be a bit
more open to negotiation than the Chinese.
> Actually I think ICBM's are an obsolete means of delivering a warhead, it's like
> spending a lot of money on a anti Zeppelin system, except that system would work.
Sure but what if we had no way of defeating a Zeppelin?
That would become the means of choice for delivering
WMDs, would it not? If we take the long view, the threat
of WMDs will never go away until we manage to defeat
*every* means of delivery, and no one suggests that will
be easy, or that it will happen soon.
But do consider this: as we move into the future, more
and more of the underdeveloped nations will see our
every action as hostile, bullying, etc. To those nations
where people do well to live 50 years, even our discussing
radical life extension must be seen as appalling. Look at
some of the stuff we talk about on this list, then try to
imagine what this looks like to people whose governments
are trying to starve them into submission, but somehow
manage to convince the people they are poor because the
great satan is gobbling up all the resources.
Consider the recent statements by Rwanda: they wanted
to sue the U.N. because we *failed* to intervene in their
civil war! They want reparations for that. What if we
*had* intervened? I guess they would want reparations
for that too. Is it not clear that as time goes on, the more
advanced parts of the world, the U.S., Australia, Europe,
Japan, etc, will be blamed for *everything*? And as often
happens, the richer and more advanced become still
richer and still more advanced. If we do manage
to achieve radical life extension, we will become
the object of intense hatred for those who have not even
achieved freedom yet.
When that day comes, we will need the best negotiators,
boost phase intercept, space based laser, airborn laser,
brilliant pebbles, THAAD, Navy Theatre Wide, PAC3,
universal surveillance, several convents full of fervently
praying nuns, and a ton of good luck. spike
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