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Below shows the shortsightedness of government programs. They decided almost 40 years ago that the technologies were "not remotely ready for use", and stopped w

Below shows the shortsightedness of government programs. They decided almost 40 years ago that the technologies were "not remotely ready for use", and stopped working on them Obviously we should have started anyway, and by now we'd be 40 years further along. But apparently they can only think in election cycles (quote from the Wikipedia article on Brilliant Pebbles) > Teller and Wood initially proposed their own BMD system, Project Excalibur. This used an X-ray laser driven by a nuclear warhead that could attack dozens of ICBMs at once. In 1986, Excalibur failed several critical tests. Soon after, the American Physical Society published a report stating that none of the directed-energy weapons being studied by SDI were remotely ready for use.

keepamovin 3y ago
Sometimes I wonder how much stuff was actually air quotes stopped working on, and how much stuff simply went black and became a classified program that’s not released. Or a waived bigoted special access program that effectively doesn’t have congressional oversight. or even the corporate side of those programs that doesn’t even have government oversight necessarily.
sillystuff 3y ago
Careful what you wish for. Missile defense is going to be viewed as an offensive weapon by any adversaries (and probably most/all of the folks pushing for it domestically as well). If you can destroy most of your target's counter-strike, deterrence against starting a nuclear war from mutually assured destruction is no longer a consideration. With an effective missile "defense" the US can first-strike nuke whomever they please with "acceptable" consequences for those in power (hiding in their bunkers). We have had presidents since Reagan who have lamented that they couldn't use our nukes.
jcrawfordor 3y ago
I wouldn't characterize the history that way. First, there are multiple reasons that SDI was not pursued, beyond concerns around its feasibility. Most notably, bilateral agreements were signed with the Soviet Union to cease development of ballistic missile defense technology. Those agreements held until only very recently, and they seem to have been effective in mitigating the worst of the Cold War by both preserving the status quo around nuclear deterrence and heading off another extremely expensive large-scale development program. Both the US and the USSR agreed to only field two BMD systems and actually fielded only one at most during the Cold War; SDI just didn't fit into the political/military climate of the time and there were good reasons not to push that envelope. Besides, the extreme cost of SDI meant that there was enormous opportunity cost. One of the criticisms of SDI is that it was such a sink of money and political capital that it delayed the development of other approaches to missile defense and broader nuclear security. Second, BMD efforts in no way stopped cold after the failure of SDI. SDI survives to the present day, after a couple of renamings as the Missile Defense Agency. MDA continued to develop many of the more practical aspects of SDI and these serve as the basis of BMD countermeasures today. The problem of BMD is very challenging considering adversarial countermeasures and even modern systems show poor efficacy, but that's not to say that MDA efforts haven't produced outcomes. Major improvements in fire control technology came out of the program, perhaps most significantly the development of phased-array and electronically scanned radar, and attendant broad improvements in microwave electronics.
- euroderf 3y ago
  > the extreme cost of SDI meant that there was enormous opportunity cost. And on another angle, marginal costs greatly favor the offense over the defense. The mutually-agreed ban on MIRVs has ameliorated this, but still, in SDI scenarios the offense has it much easier and cheaper than the defense.

keepamovin 3y ago

Sometimes I wonder how much stuff was actually air quotes stopped working on, and how much stuff simply went black and became a classified program that’s not released. Or a waived bigoted special access program that effectively doesn’t have congressional oversight. or even the corporate side of those programs that doesn’t even have government oversight necessarily.

sillystuff 3y ago

Careful what you wish for. Missile defense is going to be viewed as an offensive weapon by any adversaries (and probably most/all of the folks pushing for it domestically as well). If you can destroy most of your target's counter-strike, deterrence against starting a nuclear war from mutually assured destruction is no longer a consideration. With an effective missile "defense" the US can first-strike nuke whomever they please with "acceptable" consequences for those in power (hiding in their bunkers). We have had presidents since Reagan who have lamented that they couldn't use our nukes.

jcrawfordor 3y ago

I wouldn't characterize the history that way. First, there are multiple reasons that SDI was not pursued, beyond concerns around its feasibility. Most notably, bilateral agreements were signed with the Soviet Union to cease development of ballistic missile defense technology. Those agreements held until only very recently, and they seem to have been effective in mitigating the worst of the Cold War by both preserving the status quo around nuclear deterrence and heading off another extremely expensive large-scale development program. Both the US and the USSR agreed to only field two BMD systems and actually fielded only one at most during the Cold War; SDI just didn't fit into the political/military climate of the time and there were good reasons not to push that envelope. Besides, the extreme cost of SDI meant that there was enormous opportunity cost. One of the criticisms of SDI is that it was such a sink of money and political capital that it delayed the development of other approaches to missile defense and broader nuclear security. Second, BMD efforts in no way stopped cold after the failure of SDI. SDI survives to the present day, after a couple of renamings as the Missile Defense Agency. MDA continued to develop many of the more practical aspects of SDI and these serve as the basis of BMD countermeasures today. The problem of BMD is very challenging considering adversarial countermeasures and even modern systems show poor efficacy, but that's not to say that MDA efforts haven't produced outcomes. Major improvements in fire control technology came out of the program, perhaps most significantly the development of phased-array and electronically scanned radar, and attendant broad improvements in microwave electronics.

euroderf 3y ago
> the extreme cost of SDI meant that there was enormous opportunity cost. And on another angle, marginal costs greatly favor the offense over the defense. The mutually-agreed ban on MIRVs has ameliorated this, but still, in SDI scenarios the offense has it much easier and cheaper than the defense.