If I can add to this, the system just has to be _perceived_ to be just good
enough. If its intention is to protect against the one's and two's missile
attacks, an attacking country had better be sure that at least one missile
gets through, or why bother attacking. Considering the expense of creating
missiles, a defense system "reputed" to be reliable even 75% of the time,
forces the attacking countries to deploy at least 25% more missiles than
without the defense system. The missile shield can be full of holes, as long
as it is known that it is somewhat effective.
Nerd From Hell
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darryl Shannon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 1:25 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Missile Shield
>
>
> 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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