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from the may-you-live-in-interesting-times dept.
The LA Times (archive.fo) reports that the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes changes that could lead to the deployment of weapons in space:
President Obama has signed legislation that, by striking a single word from longstanding U.S. nuclear defense policy, could heighten tensions with Russia and China and launch the country on an expensive effort to build space-based defense systems. The National Defense Authorization Act, a year-end policy bill encompassing virtually every aspect of the U.S. military, contained two provisions with potentially momentous consequences.
One struck the word "limited" from language describing the mission of the country's homeland missile defense system. The system is designed to thwart a small-scale attack by a non-superpower such as North Korea or Iran. A related provision calls for the Pentagon to start "research, development, test and evaluation" of space-based systems for missile defense. Together, the provisions signal that the U.S. will seek to use advanced technology to defeat both small-scale and large-scale nuclear attacks. That could unsettle the decades-old balance of power among the major nuclear states.
[...] Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who introduced and shepherded the policy changes in the House, said he drew inspiration from President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, which was intended to use lasers and other space-based weaponry to render nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete." Known as "Star Wars," the initiative cost taxpayers $30 billion, but no system was ever deployed.
Other NDAA changes include a 2.1% pay raise for enlisted service members and officers, a boost of 16,000 more service members (to 476,000), restructuring of Tricare, and the final nail in the coffin for the Obama Administration's promise to close detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. The bill also elevates the United States Cyber Command to the combatant command level, instead of a sub-unit of the Strategic Command, and addresses the recent National Guard bonus fiasco by requiring the Pentagon to prove that an individual soldier "did not accept their enlistment bonus in good faith", while allowing those who did make repayments to get a refund.
(Score: 1) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:04PM
I believe one of the problems with the original "Star Wars" project was it would have a serious issue dealing with large numbers of targets, like huge numbers of decoy missiles. I mean, there were lots of problems, but this one there's probably data out there about it already.
(Score: 3, Informative) by lgw on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:05PM
I believe one of the problems with the original "Star Wars" project was it would have a serious issue dealing with large numbers of targets, like huge numbers of decoy missiles. I mean, there were lots of problems, but this one there's probably data out there about it already.
Huge numbers of targets are now a solved problem. Shooting down a missile with a missile is now proven in combat. Technology has come a long way since the 80s.
The missile defense system for an American carrier group is quite impressive. This includes ballistic missiles. [wikipedia.org] The broader Aegis combat system is very mature technology, can track and engage hundreds of incoming threats, share data between ships in realtime to allow multiple radar systems to coordinate with the weapons systems on all the ships in the group in the group, so that a missile tracked by one ship can be shot down by another.
The ballistic missile defense system isn't so proven, but it's built on a solid foundation. The most sensible land-based missile defense system is "Aegis Ashore" - just do the same solution, but land based. That's near completion now (you'd think someone would have thought of it 20 years ago, but politics).
I'm fine with putting weapons in space (as long as they're poor if turned to attack cities), but it seems like we should have a proven land-based system first. The main advantage of a space-based system is that we might use it to protect anyone, we don't have to build it permanently in one nation. Of course, there might also be advantage in shooting down missiles while they're still boosting, very visible targets in lower numbers, but that's speculative. The Airborne Laser project did OK, for what it was, but it's not exactly a proven system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @11:58PM
Seems a great idea, until you realize the UN is faltering and there is no one nation that would be entrusted with operating such a system.
Somebody mentioned either here or on the green site a few months/year back about a novel covering exactly this, where the space based system got taken over by a coalition of soldiers who proceeded to use it to nuke all the major leadership platforms on earth, then make it a lifetime job to 'serve and protect' by keeping any future groups from gaining enough power to attack another nation, or their space based planetary defense force.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Thursday December 29 2016, @08:40PM
1 - yes, that's why I specified a system that wouldn't be good at attacking land targets, such a laser or shotgun-based system.
2 - it's a good thing we have missile launch codes and would never just set all of them to 11111111 - oh, wait.