Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to You misunderstood

re: definition
Tom Brosz — (archived)

You're right, given the precise definition of "hair trigger," your comment is appropriate to the discussion.

I see this problem as very similar to the "launch on warning" issue that was a major discussion years ago, when atomic missiles were the problem. Do we launch our missiles when incoming missiles are detected, insuring we can get our retaliation off before our own sites were destroyed? Or do we take the first strike, absorb it, and retaliate when we know for sure we have been attacked?

In fact, the issue was much more complicated than this. Our land missile sites could take a pretty good hit. Our submarines were not vulnerable to a first strike. And our bombers could be launched and recalled. We actually had a lot more flexibility than most people thought, and at the time, I did not think "launch on warning" was necessary.

Then Ronald Reagan and the boys at Livermore busted the whole paradigm by wondering if we could stop the missiles before they got here. And the whole picture changed.

A lot of people thought that if you could not stop ALL missiles, than a defense was worthless. Leaving aside the ridiculous premise that it would be no different to be hit by 100 warheads than by 10, they left out the strategic implications.

A first strike in a conventional missile war assumes that every missile will reach its target, with a margin to allow for easily estimated factors like mechanical failure or other problems. If you're the Soviet commander, and you fire twenty silobusters at the missile farm in North Dakota, you're pretty sure twenty silobusters are going to land where you want them, and knock out a certain portion of the response (nobody wastes first strike missiles on cities, unless critical command and control systems are there.) Okay, now a missile defense is up that stops 90 percent of strikes. Or even just 50 percent.

Which of your missiles will get through? Which won't? What if the defense suddenly starts protecting only a few sites, raising its effectiveness to near 100 percent? You could increase the launches to those sites--if you knew which ones they were. Or you could launch ten times the missiles in the first place. If you could afford them.

The key is not a completely bulletproof shield. The key is that the attacker no longer has a realistic idea of exactly how a first strike would turn out. Uncertainty is your ally.

But I digress.

It might be worth reviewing what Churchill's "widespread support" looked like in England when he started out before the war.

If we could stay calm for a while longer, the analogous early warning systems we're developing today will give us the security we had in the latter phases of the Cold War. Improved intelligence, technological capabilities (means to detect WMD in transit, for example), and international police frameworks to catch terrorists, all can give us the buffer we need to feel more secure.

Keep in mind that we are, even as I type this, we are using ALL of those techniques you suggest of preventing terror attacks. A lot of them are working. They just aren't a politically-hot issue. They also aren't the only answer.

You project a lot of attitudes onto Bush that I don't see. I guess that's all in how you look at things.

As for the "entirely different kind of President" you hope for, I'd love to know which of the current crop of Democrats you think will fill the bill. I guess they're different, all right.

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