OK, I really don't know why I'm opening this up again, after my
previous plea for calm. Oh well, so much for consistency....
Why does everyone say that that a Nuclear Missile Defense has to work
*perfectly*? I disagree. Suppose I wanted to shoot you. Do I have to
shoot you perfectly to kill you? No, I can have wobbly aim, shoot you
in the shoulder instead of the head, blow out 90% of your brains
instead of 100%, or various other imperfect but still effective
measures.
Likewise, a NMD doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile. A system
that shoots down 90% of the missiles is better than a system that
shoots down 0%, right? We're blithely ignoring cost for a moment here.
And anyway, the purpose of the missile screen isn't so much to shoot
down nuclear missiles as to convince people that it isn't worthwhile to
try to shoot nuclear missiles at us, since they are liable to get shot
down.
I'm not saying that more spending on NMD is worthwhile, only pointing
out that the system doesn't have to be perfect, just pretty good. Of
course, we might not even get a pretty good system even after spending
trillions.
My personal feeling is that the same amount of money invested in the
CIA, NSA, FBI, etc would probably be a much better defense against
nuclear missiles from rogue states. But, perhaps the secondary costs
of increased spying isn't worth it...we'd be better of spending the
money on welfare for defense contractors since at least we'd be getting
engineers and cool lasers and machines that go "ping" instead of double
agents and suitcases full of money and shadowy hit squads.
=====
Darryl
Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially
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