After 24 years and more than $100 billion spent to develop a U.S. missile defense, an American-operated system proposed for Europe would cost billions more to deploy and still may fail, a series of independent reports concludes.Sounds bad, doesn't it? If you read through the article you'll see some pro and con views on BMD, but one of the cons is from the Union of Concern Scientists, which opposes missile defense on ideological grounds, and would almost certainly oppose deploying a system even if it was proven 100% effective. So their objections can be easily dismissed. The last word is given to a damning quote from physicist Richard Garwin:
because it can be so easily defeated by decoys, the "system is not worth deploying, because it will be useless."
When otherwise smart people make such stupid comments, you have to question their motives. How about we work on improving it so that it can't be easily defeated by decoys?
Some of the main criticisms of missile defense are intellectually dishonest or just plain unreasonable. Pretty much everyone agrees that BMD requires some of the most complex military systems every devised. The idea that we are going to be able to develop, purely through testing, anything like a fully effective system is just crazy. Military systems don't work that way. Prototypes have to be built, changes have to made. Sometimes after you build them they don't work right at all. Many of the critics are not interested in building effective BMD. They just want to block it entirely.
We will never have effective BMD until we deploy a full system and start extensively testing and modifying it based on actual conditions. Yes it will be extremely expensive. And yes, there is a chance that it may never achieve the results we want from it. It may have to be rebuilt, and almost certainly will have to be massively re-engineered, modified, and constantly updated. But if we don't deploy an actual complete system, we will never have effective BMD. At some point limited testing has to translate into actual deployment. We should reject the idea that we can't deploy until it is ready for action -- because it never will be. It will always need further testing.
Where the critics are correct is that we need to carefully monitor the Pentagon and associated contractors, push for more realistic testing, and expose overly optimistic propaganda that makes grandiose claims based on limited, controlled testing. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that any newly deployed system is going to be truly effective. Instead we should regard these new systems as first-generation prototypes that are very unlikely to work as advertised.
It makes sense to throw more money and testing at the problem if we decide it's worth trying to solve.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm unclear on how deploying before some demonstrable effectiveness is supposed to help increase effectiveness.
If a system doesn't usefully work "in the lab", so to speak (really, on a test launchpad), then how is a field deployment to Poland or Turkey or wherever going to help establish effectiveness?
AFAICT the effectiveness of a missile defense system is not a matter of working out kinks that can only be evaluated in the field. It's a (re)design and testing problem ---- the sort of (re)design and testing which does not require any actual overseas deployment to fully pursue & fund right here in the U.S.
"It makes sense to throw more money and testing at the problem if we decide it's worth trying to solve."
ReplyDeleteYes but we've been doing that for years. Design testing leads to prototypes. We need a prototype. A small test bed is not the same thing. In order to have a prototype of a complex system, you have to creat the system itself. At some point you actually have to build it.
"But I'm unclear on how deploying before some demonstrable effectiveness is supposed to help increase effectiveness."
Because you aren't going to know the effectiveness and reveal all of the problems until you have an actual system in place.
"It's a (re)design and testing problem ---- the sort of (re)design and testing which does not require any actual overseas deployment to fully pursue & fund right here in the U.S."
We don't have to deploy it overseas. In fact I'd prefer a U.S. based deployment. But lab testing, and other forms are no substitute for having an operational system that can be fully tested, evaluated and worked on. Whenever you simulate things, or carry out some sort of controlled test, you introduce other variables and you do not necessarily get the same results as you would with a complete system. This is also why we get contrived and misleading test results.
But so far, all the prototypes (the tests, as it were), even when the deck is stacked for them, have failed.
ReplyDeleteAs war changes (it seems to me that nuclear war, while still a possibility, is pretty remote compared to the guerilla tactics used by terrorists; dirty bombs, suicide bombers...) so must our tactics. I think that BMDs probably should be laid to rest- as an expensive and ultimately failed system that even with the best minds applied to the problem for twenty five years they haven't been able to solve.
"But so far, all the prototypes (the tests, as it were), even when the deck is stacked for them, have failed.'
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where you are getting that information from but it isn't true. Some tests have succeeded. But even the good results don't necessarily mean the system will work right once it is operational. All sorts of other problems could arise.
"As war changes (it seems to me that nuclear war, while still a possibility, is pretty remote compared to the guerilla tactics used by terrorists; dirty bombs, suicide bombers...) so must our tactics."
Here's why I don't like that argument. We are utterly defenseless against the one threat that can completely annhilate the U.S., or at the very least inflict massive damage. In my opinion that is an intolerable situation that we should have found a solution for long before now. We are very lucky that there was no nuclear war during the Cold War. I'd rather not rely on luck forever.
"I think that BMDs probably should be laid to rest- as an expensive and ultimately failed system that even with the best minds applied to the problem for twenty five years they haven't been able to solve."
There has never yet been a weapon system created by humans that can't be defeated by another human creation. The struggle between offensive and defensive technology is never-ending. There is no reason to give up and decide to remain defenseless against one type of threat. Nothing has failed.We haven't even built a full system yet. Until we do, and until we are able to start firing missiles and attempting to shoot them down, under the most realitic conditions possible, we will never know how well it can work.
Even if we can't get it to work in reliable fashion within the near future, I have no doubt that at some point we will be able to. But we won't if we stop working on it.
The failed tests I was referencing are the ones that just didn't work or didn't work even if there was a homing device in the missile to be destroyed. The ratio of success to failure seems skewed towards failure- Even Japan's US based system, in operation now, failed recently.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a different approach is needed? One that doesn't involve trying to shoot down missiles with other missiles? I don't know, but to this layman, it seems too expensive for too little payoff, not unlike trying to hit a golf ball from Anaheim hard enough and accurately enough to hit a specific window on a train in Orlando.
And here's the lefty talking- I wouldn't mind seeing some of that government spending going towards education. Despite the need for a complete overhaul in the system, that's where I think the money should go. Raise a better group of thinkers and any problem is surmountable.