Transcript Ballistic Missile Defense Three phases of possible interception Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) • US Missile Defense Agency THAAD Fact Sheet •

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/t
haad.pdf
• US Wants THAAD in South Korea (can watch
video)
• http://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-sproposes-advanced-missile-defense-systemin-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/#more29334
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=2
0150402000987
• 4/02/15 article in Korean Herald. Lots of pros
and cons.
A more pro-THAAD perspective
• http://missilethreat.com/thaad-americas-super-shieldballistic-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/missileinterceptor-fails-latest-long-rangetest/article_4b718cfa-6967-5bdd-bf1835b8aba80ee5.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-missiledefense-team-achieves-intercept-in-flighttest.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
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-defensesfor-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/011213abm.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.p
hp?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 Command
• www.fas.org
• Put 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/nuclearweapons/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 militaryindustrial 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-publicrelations-weapon7308
The unsheltering sky
• http://www.economist.com/news/technologyquarterly/21615068-even-new-technology-americas-multibillion-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/technologyquarterly/21615068-even-new-technology-americas-multibillion-dollar-efforts-build-shield#GGb23BxpXlsmzOms.99
The Fallacy of Proven and Adaptable
Defenses
http://fas.org/pir-pubs/fallacy-proven-adaptable-defenses/