the Star Wars club is growing

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/07/aus...eut/index.html

|| _U.S.-Australia missile defense pact_

Excerpt:
|| "We have a responsibility to address not only the
|| threats of today, but the threats that we might face in
|| the future," Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill,
|| who signed the pact with U.S. Defense Secretary
|| Donald Rumsfeld, told reporters.

|| Australia will join South Korea, Japan, Britain, Germany,
|| Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain among
|| countries working with the United States on missile
|| defense, a U.S. official said.

"jjustwwondering" wrote in message
m...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/07/aus...eut/index.html

|| _U.S.-Australia missile defense pact_

Excerpt:
|| "We have a responsibility to address not only the
|| threats of today, but the threats that we might face in
|| the future," Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill,
|| who signed the pact with U.S. Defense Secretary
|| Donald Rumsfeld, told reporters.

|| Australia will join South Korea, Japan, Britain, Germany,
|| Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain among
|| countries working with the United States on missile
|| defense, a U.S. official said.

This Australian won't be voting for "Little Johnny" this year. Seriously,
who's going to use ICBM's against us, North Korea? They haven't got any.
The idea is to stop missiles from being made by international laws and
international actions (if necessary, similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis)
rather than waiting for the damn things to be launched.

ICBM's aren't exactly the smallest, most-easy things to conceal afterall.

--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

Alan Erskine wrote:
"jjustwwondering" wrote in message
m...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/07/aus...eut/index.html

|| _U.S.-Australia missile defense pact_

Excerpt:
|| "We have a responsibility to address not only the
|| threats of today, but the threats that we might face in
|| the future," Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill,
|| who signed the pact with U.S. Defense Secretary
|| Donald Rumsfeld, told reporters.

|| Australia will join South Korea, Japan, Britain, Germany,
|| Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain among
|| countries working with the United States on missile
|| defense, a U.S. official said.

This Australian won't be voting for "Little Johnny" this year. Seriously,
who's going to use ICBM's against us, North Korea? They haven't got any.
The idea is to stop missiles from being made by international laws and
international actions (if necessary, similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis)
rather than waiting for the damn things to be launched.

ICBM's aren't exactly the smallest, most-easy things to conceal afterall.


Yeah, they have reality solidly mixed up with Martian chronicles.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

"Alan Erskine" wrote in message ...
Seriously, who's going to use ICBM's against us, North Korea?
They haven't got any.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai.../11/wkor11.xml
Excerpt:

|| North Korea has tested an intercontinental ballistic missile
|| engine capable of hitting the United States, according
|| to a South Korean report. [...]
|| It could reach up to 3,700 miles, enough
|| to hit Alaska.

In article ,
Alan Erskine wrote:
The idea is to stop missiles from being made by international laws and
international actions (if necessary, similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis)
rather than waiting for the damn things to be launched.

How do you propose to make this work against North Korea, which certainly
has IRBMs and is thought to be working on ICBMs?

Sooner or later it's not going to work on *somebody*. The technology is
getting easier and more widespread, and the end of the Cold War has made
it harder for the superpowers to keep smaller countries in line -- the
Russians can't threaten to cut off aid to North Korea if they aren't
sending any in the first place.

One should try to separate consideration of the fundamental problem from
the stupid politics of some of the people involved. Sooner or later we
are going to *need* to be able to police near-Earth space and prevent its
use for antisocial purposes.

Attempts to limit the spread of missile technology, and to pressure
countries with missile programs into abandoning them, won't suffice
forever. They are, at best, ways of buying time. Time to do what?
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

"Alan Erskine" wrote in message ...
"jjustwwondering" wrote in message
m...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/07/aus...eut/index.html

|| _U.S.-Australia missile defense pact_

Excerpt:
|| "We have a responsibility to address not only the
|| threats of today, but the threats that we might face in
|| the future," Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill,
|| who signed the pact with U.S. Defense Secretary
|| Donald Rumsfeld, told reporters.

|| Australia will join South Korea, Japan, Britain, Germany,
|| Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain among
|| countries working with the United States on missile
|| defense, a U.S. official said.

This Australian won't be voting for "Little Johnny" this year. Seriously,
who's going to use ICBM's against us, North Korea?

No, not North Korea - New Zealand. And they're using cruise missiles, not ICBMs:
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/

Oren

"Alan Erskine" wrote in message ...
"jjustwwondering" wrote in message
m...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/07/aus...eut/index.html

|| _U.S.-Australia missile defense pact_

Excerpt:
|| "We have a responsibility to address not only the
|| threats of today, but the threats that we might face in
|| the future," Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill,
|| who signed the pact with U.S. Defense Secretary
|| Donald Rumsfeld, told reporters.

|| Australia will join South Korea, Japan, Britain, Germany,
|| Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain among
|| countries working with the United States on missile
|| defense, a U.S. official said.

This Australian won't be voting for "Little Johnny" this year. Seriously,
who's going to use ICBM's against us, North Korea? They haven't got any.
The idea is to stop missiles from being made by international laws and
international actions (if necessary, similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis)
rather than waiting for the damn things to be launched.

There are some finely balanced arguments here, but I would say an anti
missile defence would strengthen attempts to agree international laws:
"Lets agree you won't develop these missiles. In any case, they're
useless because we'd just shoot them down".

I do think there is a risk the whole thing could be a bit of a
diversion. A nuclear warhead is more lilely to arrive on a cargo ship
than a missile.

ICBM's aren't exactly the smallest, most-easy things to conceal afterall.

The international community was quite surprised by North Korea firing
an ICBM over Japan. ICBMs may be big, but factories are bigger. The
only easy thing to spot is the launch.

In article ,
Alex Terrell wrote:
I do think there is a risk the whole thing could be a bit of a
diversion. A nuclear warhead is more lilely to arrive on a cargo ship
than a missile.

Depends on who's sending it. Terrorists and unfriendly states are two
very different problems. The latter are far more likely to actually have
nuclear weapons... and they want delivery systems that are quick and are
securely under their control, because the weapons are far more valuable to
them as *threats* than as ways of actually blowing things up. (Actually
blowing up Los Angeles accomplishes nothing except getting the US really,
really ****ed off and in a mood for violent reprisals, while being able to
credibly *threaten* to blow up L.A. greatly strengthens your bargaining
position against the US into the indefinite future.)
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Alan Erskine wrote:
The idea is to stop missiles from being made by international laws and
international actions (if necessary, similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis)
rather than waiting for the damn things to be launched.

How do you propose to make this work against North Korea, which certainly
has IRBMs and is thought to be working on ICBMs?

Sooner or later it's not going to work on *somebody*. The technology is
getting easier and more widespread, and the end of the Cold War has made
it harder for the superpowers to keep smaller countries in line -- the
Russians can't threaten to cut off aid to North Korea if they aren't
sending any in the first place.

One should try to separate consideration of the fundamental problem from
the stupid politics of some of the people involved. Sooner or later we
are going to *need* to be able to police near-Earth space and prevent its
use for antisocial purposes.

Attempts to limit the spread of missile technology, and to pressure
countries with missile programs into abandoning them, won't suffice
forever. They are, at best, ways of buying time. Time to do what?

Quite frankly, I think China is much more of a threat in this respect
to the US than North Korea. North Korea's only threat is fear - they
don't have enough of a stockpile to be part of "mutually assured
destruction" and the second they do use a nuclear weapon, it's the end
of their regime.

The thing I always wondered, is will this whole star wars technology
be of any use to anyone apart from the United States? Or is it just
the US paying other countries to have military outposts to spot
missiles...

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
Depends on who's sending it. Terrorists and unfriendly states are two
very different problems. The latter are far more likely to actually have
nuclear weapons... and they want delivery systems that are quick and are
securely under their control, because the weapons are far more valuable to
them as *threats* than as ways of actually blowing things up.

Given that the US has stealth aircraft & big, accurate bombs, I'm not sure
that an unfriendly state would assume that their ICBM's are under "their"
control. They have to be worried that their missiles might get destroyed by
some pre-emptive US attack and there is almost nothing they could do to
guarantee that the US couldn't pull off the attack. Their best defense is to
have a secondary means of attack -- like using container ships -- that is
harder to pre-empt.

I'd have no real objection to missile defense (though I think the current
plan is horribly botched: deploying before testing to meet an arbitrary
schedule is just plain stupid), but we should be making a comparable -- if
not greater -- effort to defend against container ship-type attacks.