Ballistic Missile Defense

Ballistic Missile Defense

Three phases of possible interception

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)

US Missile Defense Agency THAAD Fact Sheet

http://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/

thaad.pdf

US Wants THAAD in South Korea (can watch video)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-proposes-advanced-missile-defense-system-in-south-korea

/

THAAD might not be good

Back in the “good old days” of the Cold War, arms control specialists understood that a missile defense race was just as bad as an arms race

.

If the United States and the Soviet Union began to pour money into what was then called ABM (anti-ballistic missile) sites, they would spur the other to increase spending on missiles to overwhelm those sites.

They

would then build more ABM sites. The two sides wisely concluded an ABM treaty in 1972 that limited the two sides to only one site each.

The

United States eventually withdrew from the treaty in 2002, the first major international arms treaty it abandoned

.

But THAAD is a waste of money whoever is footing the bill.

It

has not been demonstrated to work effectively.

It

pushes China and North Korea to spend more money on more missiles to overwhelm THAAD (just as the United States is moved to spend more money on missile upgrades to counteract the missile defense of other countries).

And

it is a poor substitute for arms control negotiations.

Instead

of letting Lockheed Martin determine the security politics of Northeast Asia, it’s crucial to bring the diplomats back to the negotiating table to address the causes of insecurity and not just the symptoms

. John

Feffer

http://www.lobelog.com/the-madness-of-thaad/#more-29334

Who is John Feffer?

About John

Feffer

“John

Feffer

is the the editor of

LobeLog

and the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is also the author, most recently, of Crusade 2.0. He is a former Open Society fellow,

PanTech

fellow, and

Scoville

fellow, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, and many other publications

.”

Website:

http://www.johnfeffer.com

What is the Institute for Policy Studies?

“IPS

is a community of public scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. We work with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power

.”

IPS

“As Washington’s first progressive multi-issue think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) has served as a policy and research resource for visionary social justice movements for over four decades — from the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 1960s to the peace and global justice movements of the last decade.

Some of the greatest progressive minds of the 20th and 21st centuries have found a home at IPS, starting with the organization’s founders, Richard Barnet and Marcus

Raskin

. IPS scholars have included such luminaries as Arthur

Waskow

, Gar

Alperovitz

, Saul Landau, Bob Moses, Rita Mae Brown, Barbara

Ehrenreich

, Roger Wilkins and Orlando

Letelier

.”

“THAAD’s efficacy in dispute” in South Korea also

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150402000987

4/02/15 article in Korean Herald. Lots of pros and cons.

A more pro-THAAD perspective

http://missilethreat.com/thaad-americas-super-shield-ballistic-missiles/Ballistic missiles are an increasing threat to the security of the United States, U.S. forces deployed abroad and our allies. Missilethreat.com is a clearinghouse for information on ballistic missile proliferation and the defenses being developed by the United States and others.

Problems with BMD

Ballistic missile interceptors undermine deterrence by theoretically being able to prevent effective retaliation.

Nuclear

weapons allegedly deter would-be attackers by promising devastating retaliation.

If a nation has BMD, it cannot be deterred.

Problems with BMD

Ballistic missile interceptors have not been very successful even when programmed with the target missile’s location.

ICBMs

are travelling 16,000 mph as they near their targets and they can maneuver and wiggle.

Missile interceptor fails latest long range test

http://tucson.com/business/local/missile-interceptor-fails-latest-long-range-test/article_4b718cfa-6967-5bdd-bf18-35b8aba80ee5.

html

Update: June 1, 2015

http

://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/3979m-next-step-or-last-step-for-gmd-05229

/

EKV – Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle

http://defence.pk/threads/boeing-led-missile-defense-team-achieves-intercept-in-flight-test.320424/

Problems with BMD

A BMD system would involve very complicated system computer technology which can never be tested as a system until it needs to work

.

ICBMs can deploy hundreds of decoys that are indistinguishable from the real warheads, compromising BMD.

Problems with BMD

Offensive missiles are cheaper than interceptors, so a BMD system can be cost-effectively overwhelmed by a nation producing more offensive missiles.

BMD does not protect against terrorist weapons that could be delivered by a boat, a small airplane, a van, or in a shipping container

.

Problems with BMD

BMD undermines disarmament with false promises of safety

.

Problems with BMD

BMD is very expensive and takes money away from foreign aid, education, environmental remediation, renewable energy, and other arenas that would actually make the world

safer.

BMD needs are endless. You can never have enough BMD.

President Eisenhower’s Cross of Iron speech

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.


…


This

world in arms in not spending money alone

.

It

is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

This

is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.


Cruise Missile Defense

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. James

Winnefeld

said

“A

surprise cruise missile strike (say, from ships or submarines offshore) could decapitate the US leadership and stop us from retaliating against a subsequent ICBM strike,

Winnefeld

said: That’s “why homeland cruise missile defense is shifting above regional missile ballistic defense in my mind, as far as importance goes.”

“Cruise missile defense is a different animal,” said

Karako

. “In 2003, we intercepted a number of Iraqi ballistic missiles, but we missed all five Iraqi cruise missiles fired, including one that nearly hit the Marine headquarters in Kuwait on the first day of the war.

”

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/05/hill-csis

-seek-new-defenses-for-a-new-missile-age

/

BMD leads to weapons in space

BMD, especially if it leads to weapons in space, is decidedly hegemonic and unfriendly and sparks unfriendly responses in nations who are not staunch allies. Russia, in particular, is threated by US BMD. China is threatened by the possibility of weapons in space

.

The US withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2002 in

order

to research weapons in space, forbidden by that treaty.

ABM Treaty Withdrawal an Attack on American Security

Thursday, December 13, 2001

Statement

by the Federation of American Scientists

Scientists who built the first atomic bomb founded the Federation of American Scientists in 1945. More than half of the current American Nobel Laureates today serve on the FAS Board of Sponsors. FAS conducts research, analysis, and advocacy on public policy issues created by advances in science and

technology.

The Bush

Administration’s

decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty is both unnecessary and unwise.

It

is ironic that as we rediscover the need for international cooperation, we are taking an action almost universally opposed by our allies

.

And our allies are not the only ones who support the ABM treaty: Scientists are nearly unanimous in calling national missile defense unworkable

.

It is distressing that President Bush has chosen to listen to the demagoguery of missile-defense enthusiasts instead of to the wisdom of

America’s

brightest scientists.

In a letter to Congress sent a month ago, fifty-one American Nobel Laureates in the sciences, addressing the technical feasibility of NMD, wrote:

“While ‘hitting

a bullet with a

bullet’

under laboratory conditions is feasible, it is far more difficult to design a system that can survive and provide effective protection against a surprise attack that employs varying countermeasures, some of which may surprise the defense.

The

inherent advantages of the offense exceed the advantages of superior American technology

.”

President Bush has lost focus on where his priorities should be.

The

President must invest at least as much energy into securing loose nuclear materials as he has into pushing missile defense

.

If not, at the end of this road we will find terrorists with nuclear weapons.

We must remember, however, that the declaration is merely one of

intent.

America has not yet actually withdrawn from the ABM treaty. The next six months will be crucial in determining

America’s

future security

.

FAS urges Congress to act vigorously against ABM treaty withdrawal.

FAS

also calls on Russia, China, and other states to renew their commitments to multilateral arms control and nonproliferation.

America has always sought to lead the world by example. Yet if other countries were to follow the example we have just set, the framework of international law would disintegrate.

President Bush has just released

NMD’s

first shot, and it has landed squarely in the heart of American security.

http://fas.org/nuke/control/abmt/011213-

abm.htm

Ballistic missile defense and space weapons

What are space weapons?

Space weapons usually refers to weapons orbiting the earth in low-earth orbit.

Low earth orbit is 100-1200 miles up.

Space weapons could target other space weapons or strike targets on earth.

Why space weapons?

Boost-phase defense against ballistic missiles.

Strike the missiles when they are moving slowly over their own territory.

Strike land targets using space weapons in orbit.

Trouble is, other nations are strongly upset at the prospect of US space weapons orbiting Earth.

Another trouble is, using anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) to eliminate space weapons in orbit would create much more space debris, threatening all satellites in orbit.

Space Debris is already a problem

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40173

Anti-Satellite weapons (ASATs) are also a problem

https://vimeo.com/129392931

The High Frontier

The High Frontier

www.highfrontier.org

Is this vision real?

Check out this posting by the former US Space Commandwww.fas.orgPut Vision for 2020 into the search machine.

US Space Command becomes the Joint Functional Component Command for Space branch of US Strategic Command

US Space Security

http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/nuclear-weapons/space-security#.VcULbaU-Bz8

So what’s good about BMD?

Americans in general support BMD because BMD appears to make us safer.

The

more BMD we have, the safer we will be, or so it seems.

The

military-industrial complex loves BMD! The need for ABM interceptors is essentially infinite, hence unending highly paying jobs are available to those in the military-industrial complex.

And

BMD can be exported also!

Rogue states with ballistic missiles

It might be a good idea to have a small number of ground or ship based interceptors that could shoot down a ballistic missile launched by a rogue state like North Korea.

Have to be careful not to mess with China’s deterrence. Not good to stimulate a large increase in China’s minimalistic nuclear

missile forces.

Iron Dome: the public relations weapon

http://thebulletin.org/iron-dome-public-relations-weapon7308

The unsheltering sky

http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21615068-even-new-technology-americas-multi-billion-dollar-efforts-build-

shield

Even with new technology, America’s multi-billion-dollar efforts to build a shield against long-range ballistic missiles looks doomed

Sep 6th 2014 |

Read more at

http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21615068-even-new-technology-americas-multi-billion-dollar-efforts-build-shield#GGb23BxpXlsmzOms.

99

The Fallacy of Proven and Adaptable Defenses

http://fas.org/pir

-pubs/fallacy-proven-adaptable-defenses

/