Weapons in Space 939
SWG_Eddie submits this story about the U.S. military beginning the militarization of space. We've done a few previous stories on this, such as this one. Putting weapons in earth orbit is not forbidden by any treaty or law.
not (Score:5, Informative)
" In concluding, I would like to stress that efforts to achieve a ban on the weaponization of outer space must continue so as to protect the space assets of all nations in the interests of international peace and security."
Re:Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I see nothing wrong with it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong. (Score:1, Informative)
You can read the entire treaty here [fas.org]. Article 3 is quite clear when it says
Related Star Wars Article (Score:5, Informative)
WHY STAR WARS IS DANGEROUS AND WON'T WORK By Carl Sagan, Hans A. Bethe, Henry W. Kendall, Kurt Gottfried, Richard L. Garwin, Victor F. Weisskopf
The following statement by six prominent scientists on the dangers of Star Wars appeared as part of a letter to The Wall Street Journal on January 2, 1985
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5561
A nearly impermeable strategic defense system would indeed have the capability to "save lives" rather than to "avenge them," to replace strategic deterrence by defense. But such a system is not in the cards, as even the program's director, General James Abrahamson, readily admits. Anything short of an impermeable system tends to undermine, not improve, US national security. Here are some of the reasons that we consider the Star Wars scheme unworkable and a grave danger to the United States:
-- Underflying: Star Wars does not defend against, or even address, low-altitude delivery systems--bombers and cruise missiles, and "suitcase" nuclear weapons. By themselves, they are able to destroy both nations; Star Wars would accelerate their development.
-- Overwhelming: The number of strategic warheads in the Soviet arsenal (as in our own) is about 10,000. If even a few percent of these warheads exploded on US territory it would represent an unparalleled human disaster and effective collapse of the United States as a functioning political entity. The Soviets could keep ahead of any American Star Wars system because it is cheaper to build new warheads than to shoot down old ones (and easier to shoot down orbiting defensive systems than incoming missiles).
-- Outfoxing: It is cheaper to build countermeasures than to build Star Wars. Some decades in the future when a (still highly permeable) US Star Wars system might be deployed, the Soviets would have added tens or hundreds of thousands of decoys and other penetration aids to their arsenal. Their objective would be to fatally confuse the American Star Wars system, which can never be adequately tested except in a real nuclear war.
-- Cost: Former Secretaries of Defense Harold Brown and James Schlesinger, and senior Pentagon spokesmen of this Administration, have all estimated the full Star Wars cost as hundreds of billions to one trillion dollars.
-- Soviet preemption: Despite US reassurances, the Soviets perceive Star Wars as part of a US first strike strategy, allowing us to launch a preemptive attack and then to destroy the remnant of any surviving Soviet retaliatory forces. In a time of severe crisis, this may tempt the Soviet Union to make a preemptive first strike against the United States.
-- Institutional momentum: When a trillion dollars is waved at the US aerospace industry, the project in question will rapidly acquire a life of its own--independent of the validity of its public justifications. With jobs, corporate profits, and civilian and military promotions at stake, a project of this magnitude, once started, becomes a juggernaut, the more difficult to stop the longer it rolls on.
We do not oppose defense in principle. We are in favor of carefully bounded research in this area, as in many others; we are also concerned that the line between research and early deployment of key Star Wars components not be blurred. Several of us have devoted considerable effort to research on missile defense. Some of us have advocated missile defense for individual missile silos. But we agree with Department of Defense experts who make it clear that cities cannot be so protected. Mr. Schlesinger has said "in our lifetime and that of our children, cities will be protected by forebearance of those on the other side, or through effective deterrence."
Hans A. Bethe
Richard L. Garwin
Kurt Gottfried
Henry W. Kendall
Carl Sagan
Victor Weisskopf
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
Re:Bush in Iraq (Score:5, Informative)
By The Associated Press
November 13, 2003, 4:40 PM EST
Countries besides the United States that are assisting in postwar Iraq:
Albania -- 71 non-combat troops in northern Iraq.
Azerbaijan -- 150 troops for law enforcement and protection of religious and historic monuments in Iraq.
Bulgaria -- 485 troops patrolling Karbala, south of Baghdad. An additional 289 are to be sent.
Dominican Republic - 300 troops
El Salvador - 360
Honduras - 360
Nicaragua - 120
Czech Republic -- 296 troops and three civilians running a field hospital in Basra, and a small detachment of military police.
Denmark -- 406 troops, including light infantry, medics and military police. An additional 90 soldiers are being sent.
Georgia -- 69 troops, including 34 special forces soldiers, 15 engineers and 20 medics.
Estonia -- 55 troops.
Hungary -- 300 transportation troops.
Italy -- 3,000 troops.
Japan -- Delays a decision Thursday on sending troops to Iraq, citing security concerns after a surge in anti-coalition violence.
Kazakhstan -- 27 troops.
Latvia -- 106 troops.
Lithuania -- 90 troops.
Macedonia -- 28 troops.
Moldova -- Dozens of de-mining specialists and medics.
Netherlands -- 1,106 troops, including 650 marines, three Chinook transport helicopters, a logistics team, a field hospital, a commando contingent, military police and a unit of 230 military engineers.
New Zealand -- 61 army engineers for reconstruction work in southern Iraq.
Norway -- 156 troops, including engineers and mine clearers.
Philippines -- 177 troops.
Poland -- 2,400 troops, command of one of three military sectors in Iraq.
Portugal -- 120 police officers.
Romania -- 800 troops, including 405 infantry, 149 de-mining specialists and 100 military police, along with a 56-member special intelligence detachment.
Slovakia -- 82 military engineers.
South Korea -- 675 non-combat troops with more forces on the way. But Seoul will cap its force at 3,000 rebuffing Washington's request for additional soldiers.
Spain -- 1,300 troops, mostly assigned to police duties in south-central Iraq.
Thailand -- 400 troops assigned to humanitarian operations.
Ukraine -- 1,640 troops.
United Kingdom -- 7,400 troops, with an additional 1,200 planned
Re:The bad side of course...in Soviet Union... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The bad side of course... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Soviet Weapons -Link (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.astronautix.com/details/sal3167
Re:I see nothing wrong with it (Score:3, Informative)
Ah yes... that American military plane that was hanging around China for some strange reason. IIRC, they were happy enough to hand over the crew, but for some reason wouldn't comply with the US government's entirely reasonable request that they give back all the high-tech spying equipment that was also on the plane without looking at it.
Military Space Programs - more info... (Score:4, Informative)
detailed information about any death machine you could possibly think of.
Also see missile defense [fas.org] (Condi's favourite),
or nukes [fas.org]
or conventional weapons [fas.org].
Tons of material there...
This is for reals! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I see nothing wrong with it (Score:1, Informative)
Do you actually have any proof of this? Did we find ol GW hiding on Slashdot?! Baseless claims are insightful? This guy is GW and Slashdot is like the bobble-head American media!
they crashed a jet into a radar plane of ours, and we had to do some real legwork to get the crew back.
A "radar plane" is a funny way to describe a spy plane, once again it sounds like ol GW is choosing his words carefully to obfuscate the truth. I was unaware that the Chinese military employed kamakaze tactics. I would think they would simply shoot the "radar plane" down, but instead they crashed an expensive fighter jet into it destroying their own plane and nearly killing its pilot! Who needs weapons on jets when the jets are weapons!?! Those meany Chinese crashed a jet into our radar plane! Evil-doers! Commie-pinkos! etc. ad nauseum.
Re:That's Because (Score:3, Informative)
Spending even a moment's thought, it's fairly logical to see that weaker powers (i.e. all of them) are going to resort to attempted collective action to try to restrain a superpower, ESPECIALLY one not constrained by a counterweight superpower.
Nice comment about the treaties, too. Actually, we refuse to sign them, or ratify them, rather than simply sign them for the stupid public to approve, and then break them secretly. (see also: the ABM treaty - Soviets were working on it secretly all through the '70s and '80s; Kyoto - AFAIK Germany had to propose stringent performance plans as of April 1, how's that coming, Germany?)
Or is that "US IS THE GREAT SATAN" thing just too hard for you to get around? I suppose that's just a lot simpler to believe. Sheesh. Surprise surprise, another empty-headed, America-hating particularist
Actually (Score:1, Informative)
We're not #1 yet, but we'll definately overtake Soviet Russia soon. They've only had 2 vetoes since the collapse.
Re:The bad side of course... (Score:5, Informative)
Education is the responsibility of the child's parents, not the State or the national government.
Kinetic missiles? (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds to me a lot like the "kinetic harpoons" described in the "Night's Dawn Triology" by Peter F Hamilton.
A recommended SF read too, if you like the genre.
Re:The bad side of course... (Score:5, Informative)
But it does have one thing that is driving China's expansion - an insatiable thirst for oil and gas. China has just become a net importer of fossil fuels, most of which is being met from the Persian Gulf and Central Asia - both places where America has said it has strategic interests.
Chinese energy consumption will DOUBLE in the next five years, a large share of which will have to be met by imports, oil imports are growing by 30%+ per year and are now over 100 million tonnes per annum - a figure that was only expected to be reached in 2010.
And let's not forget, with its bumper surpluses, China can afford to buy all the oil it needs.
The Chinese State Petroleum company is now one of the largest operators in the Caspian region and of the huge gas reserves in Kazakhstan and is looking to sign exclusive details so that energy flows east not west.
China has plenty to fear about American control of the region, so it is looking to arm itself to compete with American global reach. Not in the next five years, but the next thirty when Middle Eastern oil is practically all that is left. A global military power needs access to space, and the Chinese will not allow the Americans to deprive them of it.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:Not forbidden? (Score:5, Informative)
Ignorance can be cured, but I can't help it if your stupid. Have you bothered to check out facts about the whole thing or does your news just consist of getting a few anti-US that reaffirm your world view? Regardless I'm going to try to answer your questions.
As for direct Democratic control, US soldiers answer to the Commander in Chief aka the president. To answer the direct control question, this occurs because the Constitution gives it to him in order to assure the military answers to a leader democraticaly elected by the people. The cabinet as a whole has no control of the military.
As for treaties, the US doesn't sign a lot of treaties because they tend to bind us whilst other parties typicaly give them lip service at best. I'll provide two good examples. The Geneva convention which is supposed to protect soldiers in times of war and is probably the second most broken treaty in history, yet most countries have signed it. How about the UN human rights treaties?
http://www.bayefsky.com/
In theory these are supposed to protect about every person in the world. In reality most nations disregard the treaty like they do all the others. It does no good to enter a treaty with someone that will only pay lip service or is fundamentaly incapable of following it.
How are we supposed to believe other nations would stick to their obligations on things like Kyoto (have you actually read how lopsided it is?), when most nations can't even stick to the basics like human rights and treatment of enemy soldiers in battle?
Better Link (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Talking about insanely short-sighted... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually no, Germany had abandoned a nuclear weapon before then when physicists made an incorrect series of measurements to determine the possibility of fast-fission in enriched uranium. They still believed that slow fission in a reactor would have been possible and continued work on a heavy water reactor.
Since at the time they had no idea of the existence of plutonium, it is safe to say that the German bomb project was very, very dead.
They continued to explore the possibility of a radiological bomb right up to the end of the War, but never developed a potent enough irradiation source.
An excellent book on this is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:The bad side of course... (Score:3, Informative)
1990 Rwanda Civl War
1990 Iraq-Kuwait
1990 Malian Civil War
1990 Nigerian Civil War
1990 Trinidadian Rebellion
1991 Croatian War of Independence
1991 Djibouti Civil War
1991 Georgian Civil Wars
1991 Haitian Civil War
1991 Moldovan Civil War
1991 Sierra Leonean Civil War
1991 Slovene War of Independence
1991 Somalian Civil War
1991 Togolese Civil War
1991 UN-Iraq
1992 Algerian Civil War
1992 Bosnian Civil War
1992 Tajikistan Civil War
1993 Burundian Civil War
1994 Chechan Revolt
1994 Ghanian Civil War
1994 Yemenite Civil War
1995 Ecuadoran-Peruvian Border War
1997 Comoran Rebellion
1998 Kosovo War
2002 US-Afghanistan
2003 US-Iraq
2004 Haitian Civil War
You state: You might be surprised but I largely agree with you here, I just draw a different conclusion than you do.
Re:Administration hasn't done anything bad (Score:2, Informative)
In point of fact there was no period longer than 3 days without shots fired on both sides and likely Iraqi military casualties. The only reason it didn't make the news was that there were no "allied" casualites... primarily due to the technological advantage.
but Iraqi forces fired AA weapons at the aircraft patrolling the "no-fly" zones as quickly as they could rebuild/resupply the AA sites and just as quickly they were bombed to pieces... perhaps the sanctions weren't working.
Re:The bad side of course... (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize that when his father lived there as ambassador, he went for a two-month visit?
George W. Bush was in China before you were born.
How much time have YOU spent in China?
Re:Bush in Iraq (Score:4, Informative)
Here is the BBC on it, thanks to 30 seconds in google:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3043330.stm
"The Polish Foreign Minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, said his country had never disguised the fact that it sought direct access to the oilfields."
"He was speaking as a group of Polish firms signed a deal with a subsidiary of US Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton."
"The US firm, Kellogg, Brown and Root, has already won million-dollar contracts to carry out reconstruction work in Iraq."
"We have never hidden our desire for Polish oil companies to finally have access to sources of commodities," Mr Cimoszewicz told the Polish PAP news agency. "
Re:Your office is not defending the USA (Score:3, Informative)
Cold Relic or no, I'm still more worried about North Korea or some other hostile country with a Nuke and capability to put it on target (read: US or allies). If nukes weren't a future threat, why would they continue to pursue them and test their weapon's capability. We're geeks on here, so layering your security should be intuitive. You have muliple defenses for each plausible type of attack. You don't solely rely on SSH for network security, and hence, you don't base your whole defensive posture on terrorists. I'm assuming you're genuine in your discussion, since you preceeded your comments with the comment "no offense...". So I'm trying to entertain your argument...but honestly...we're talking apples and oranges. And, "you're not defending USA" assumes this is ALL I (or USAF) is doing...IMHO.
Terrorists are like flies. More annoying than effective. They're in a lose/lose situation. One question: With all the women bombers lately, do they still get the 100 virgin women too?? :) j/k
You forgot Haiti (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, most US territory was a neighboring country before it got incorporated to it...
Re:Bush in Iraq (Score:3, Informative)
Space was weaponized long ago (Score:2, Informative)
In the late 70's and early 80's the Soviets had a strong Anti-Satellite weapons program. So the US Air Force designed and tested an anti satellite missile in an attempt to have a counter weapon.
I wish I could find some of the old news stories from back then, but they are all pre internet. While surving in the US Navy in the late 80s there was a case where we lost a satellite that was sent in close (10km) to check out a suspected Soviet anti-satellite satellite.
It was common belief, in military circles, at the time, that the Soviets had taken the opportunity to "live test" the technology on our conveniently placed satellite.
This racist is informative? (Score:1, Informative)
This is a racist myth, actually. The felon list cleaned without regards to race or party. It was put into place and run by Democrats.
Sorry, you are going to have to resort to another lie to try to justify claiming that the sore loser really won the election.
Re:Yours in only truly insightful post (Score:1, Informative)
Erm, no, it was plunged into a rather mild and short recession because of massive tech overinvestment and the associated stock market bubble.
The records were not sealed (Score:1, Informative)
The records were not sealed. In fact, major newspapers had access to them for quite some time.
"any speculation about what an accurate result would have been is futile"
We knew what the accurate result was within hours after election day.
"And the event that you are pointing to is but one of many that cast doubt upon the honesty of the election"
There are no doubts except among a "sore loser" minority who would not be happy even if Gore lost 95% - 5%. As for the rest of the country, everyone knows that the winner won.
Re:Bush in Iraq (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Space Beams (Score:1, Informative)
This is completely false. COMPLETELY FALSE. NORC results are here [uchicago.edu]. The only way Gore would've won if they used the most lax rules for determining voter intent(any mark on his chad is a vote and not an undervote) and even then only by 42 votes. If the counting continued as Gore wanted it to he STILL would've lost by 225 votes. Its all there if you bothered to read it instead of stating BLANTENT lies.