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Missile defense is a misnomer. The distinction between a defensive and offensive capability is meaningless in the context of arms races and mutually assured des
by taraharris 3y ago
Missile defense is a misnomer. The distinction between a defensive and offensive capability is meaningless in the context of arms races and mutually assured destruction. As we pour billions into shooting down ICBMs, China will pour billions into new delivery systems to evade that defense, and vice versa.
The net result is that money on all sides is taxed away from things that people actually need and want (food, shelter, medicine, schools, parks, the arts) and directed into things that either rust in silos and bases or kill us all.
The only way to stop an arms race is to increase transparency and to negotiate treaties with our peers.
- hackerlight 3y agoTransparency is a double edged sword. You definitely want to hide some capability (ambiguity) otherwise the opponent can calculate what to do to win, and then just do that.
- taraharris 3y agoWhat we need is to minimize or eliminate the adversarial relationships between nations globally. The only winners of the present status quo are the elites in every nation.
- hackerlight 3y agoThat's heavily context dependent and it's a perspective that assumes that adversarial relationships emerge because both sides did something wrong. This naive appeasement mindset in the 1930s did more harm than good, for example. If you have a rival that's revisionist and aggressive, sometimes you need less cooperation and negotiation, and more war, in order to accelerate their demise. Of course, you usually don't want that, but as I said, it's context dependent.
- mathgradthrow 3y agoI genuinely can't believe that you're doubling down on the idea that missile defense capability secrecy isn't necessary. Are you an actual spy? The secrecy is precisely what prevents the arms race.