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It's bizarre that this type of information is made publicly available due to freedom of information legislation. What is the benefit? Or is it merely an accepta
by lobochrome 3y ago
It's bizarre that this type of information is made publicly available due to freedom of information legislation. What is the benefit? Or is it merely an acceptable side effect of the greater good that FoIA delivers?
Not that my curiosity isn't triggered, but...
- ghaff 3y agoI guess… Why wouldn’t it be? At some point why would you keep it classified? Funnily enough I’m just reading a book on Draper Labs and there’s a huge amount of detail on old inertial guidance systems.
- pinewurst 3y agoThe book to read is “Inventing Accuracy” by Donald Mackenzie
- dingaling 3y agoAt what level is the book pitched? Detailed technical tome or pop-sci? I was hugely disappointed by Blind Man's Bluff despite all the praise for it as it was written for a lay-audience.
- pinewurst 3y agoSome details - it’s an academic study, definitely not pop-sci.
- ghaff 3y agoBlind Man's Bluff is a history of submarine espionage for a mainstream audience. I'm not sure what else one would reasonably expect of it. Hot Spot of Innovation about Doc Draper and inertial guidance isn't academic but it does go into quite a bit of technical detail.
- ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y ago> What is the benefit? Sticking to our principles
- CTDOCodebases 3y agoMaybe they know the information has already been compromised. Also what kind of a deterrence is this if the enemy doesn’t know about it?
- LargeTomato 3y agoWe want to make sure people believe in the deterrent. If people start to think they could take out all of our nukes somehow that would be dangerous.
- vkou 3y agoIt would almost be as dangerous as us building a system that we think could take out all of their nukes.
- ctoth 3y agoWhy do you say this? We have been in this very position before, in 1948, when we were the only people with nukes. We didn't first strike then.
- vkou 3y agoThe difference is that in 1948, the other side couldn't do anything about it even if it wanted to. The other difference is that literally everything has changed in the past 76 years. But sure, maybe if we dig up Truman, Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, and Churchill, and put them and their cabinets back in charge, it might work out.
- dopa42365 3y agoHow many decades of well known mutually assured destruction would you consider adequate to release this information? Not exactly a new system, surely has been inspected many times by all major nuclear powers over the years.
- fergie 3y agoIt might be part of a disinformation campaign- a mostly correct document that includes some intentional inaccuracies or falsehoods.
- KineticLensman 3y agoIt's lacking in information of real military value, e.g. accuracy, failure rate, effectiveness of countermeasures, precise alloys used, etc. It's basically a description of a rocket, which probably isn't a surprise to other nations who are themselves building rockets.
- trollerator23 3y agoExactly. There's nothing here that "they" don't know already.