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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:28PM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:56PM

    by Sulla (5173) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:56PM (#446793) Journal

    When I was first reaching voting age I always felt like I was born in the wrong time. Very into individualism and against communism, probably a rejection of going to a school on the west coast that taught that Stalin and Mao were misunderstood. Felt I would have done better in the 50s where it was okay to hate the communists. Guess I wasn't born in the wrong time afterall. Always been at war with East Asia, better dead than red.

    That said, I feel safer going into the next Cold War with Trump than Hillary or any of the other neocons. Romney from '08 hated Russia, all of the rest just wanted to be Ronnie. This time around the other neocons acted Russia the enemy. Trump doesn't seem to really care about Putin, and Putin doesn't really seem to care about Trump.

    Chyna is disconcerning, but Russia and India already signed defencive pacts to work on a 5th gen fighter together to protect against Chinese "aggression" . Vietnam has been preparing to be invated. Taiwan is just as bullied as ever. South Korea and Japan have been growing less distant from eachother and more distant from China. China is being boxed in, this is not good. I take solice in the fact that Kissinger (a man known that Mao called his professor) has been working with Trump and acts like things are going according to plan. But I unlike most think that Kissinger isn't evil, so I am probably wrong. I haven't seen frost Nixon in a while so I don't recall the number of years of peace Nixon got Mao to agree to.

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