Weapons in Space Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of SDI(direct.mit.edu)
direct.mit.edu
Weapons in Space Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of SDI
https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5770/Weapons-in-SpaceTechnology-Politics-and-the-Rise
51 comments
Is there a mobi or epub version? My ebook reader can't handle PDFs, sadly (Lithium Pro on Android)
calibre has a converter, though often that can get jank
Yes, I tried it once... Ultra Jank. Womp womp.
It's not a directed energy weapon like many of the SDI program ideas, but the US Navy got it's first live ballistic missile intercept recently. https://news.usni.org/2024/04/15/sm-3-ballistic-missile-inte...
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And many others were intercepted by Israeli Arrow missiles.
That's a very different class of target. Israel is not intercepting anything that measures velocity in km/s.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) estimate the missile traveled over 1,500 kilometers from Iran to Israel in roughly 12 minutes, reaching a speed of approximately 7,500 km/h, or roughly Mach 6.
The ~100 Emad ballistic missiles Iran fired would be in in that class.
The ~100 Emad ballistic missiles Iran fired would be in in that class.
They have been scoring exoatmospheric interceptions on missiles fired at them from Yemen. What velocity do you think those targets had?
The scary thing with the future of weapons is that they seem to increase plausible deniability thus changing the game theory equation to one of more aggression.
The basic tenant of a lot of the games we play are of attributing past actions to another agent. If there is no attribution, playing fair makes less sense.
Hacking, media manipulation ops, and commodity drones can be used in a way that does not reveal the origin. That means that there cannot be retribution or, more perversely, it can mean incorrect attribution and retribution.
This lowers the cost of aggressive acts substantially.
I don't have a solution to it but I hope there is one.
The basic tenant of a lot of the games we play are of attributing past actions to another agent. If there is no attribution, playing fair makes less sense.
Hacking, media manipulation ops, and commodity drones can be used in a way that does not reveal the origin. That means that there cannot be retribution or, more perversely, it can mean incorrect attribution and retribution.
This lowers the cost of aggressive acts substantially.
I don't have a solution to it but I hope there is one.
Wonder if anyone can comment on how this played out in other periods where states could maintain large plausible deniability, like when we it was normal to hire privateers to interfere with other nations trade?
Maybe if people move towards the actions with plausible deniability, it reduces the risk of major (attributable) action being taken
Maybe if people move towards the actions with plausible deniability, it reduces the risk of major (attributable) action being taken
Privateers had to be officially sanctioned by a state (e.g. letter of marque). Don't think that plausible deniability was an expected benefit.
Cryptography + guerrila warfare go hand and hand. AI too if you'd believe it. Look to history.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156625352...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156625352...
With the cost of launch so low does Brilliant Pebbles become affordable again?
Starlink is Brilliant Pebbles.
extremely, probably.
But then again - lets imagine having a few thousand missiles in space that are remotely controllable. So any nation state actor(maybe less) could conceivably take them over and retarget them at a whim.
That sounds fun.
But then again - lets imagine having a few thousand missiles in space that are remotely controllable. So any nation state actor(maybe less) could conceivably take them over and retarget them at a whim.
That sounds fun.
Briliant pebbles were in-soace missile interceptors.
You could perhaps use them to strike satellites or space stations but as designed, they would not reach the ground.
You could perhaps use them to strike satellites or space stations but as designed, they would not reach the ground.
SDI was never meant to be deployed. It was a ruse to make the USSR overspend on weapons development. The research was real, and some new tech came from it. As well as lots of federal money paid to private contractors. But actually creating a "space shield" was a bluff.
How do you know this? I haven't had time to read the book in the link. But I have talked to people who worked on the SDI project. They weren't, at the time, under the impression that it was a bluff, and were frustrated when it was shut down.
The idea that making your strategic adversary overspend on weapons development might be a good thing also sounds like a post-hoc justification. An enemy who spends more resources on weapons is more dangerous, and places global stability in peril, even if you have invincible defences yourself. And all the more so if you don't have invincible defences because your research program was a bluff and never intended to be deployed in the first place!
The idea that making your strategic adversary overspend on weapons development might be a good thing also sounds like a post-hoc justification. An enemy who spends more resources on weapons is more dangerous, and places global stability in peril, even if you have invincible defences yourself. And all the more so if you don't have invincible defences because your research program was a bluff and never intended to be deployed in the first place!
I've also talked to a person who was in the Pentagon when some disks went "missing" from a room because it had poor locks on it. He had tried to tell someone that they were the wrong locks for the security level of the room but was told "that's not your business".
Kissinger became aware during the SALT negotiations of how much the Soviets were misinformed about US nuclear capabilities, and that they tended to overestimate. That imbalance helped him negotiate those treaties. One can assume the State Dept. would want to keep that advantage if they could. The USSR was also concerned about how they would defend themselves against a Western attack. If they weren't they wouldn't be making these treaties. Everyone assumed that if war broke out both sides would be wiped out. The point of the arms race wasn't to win in a war, it was to see who would fold first.
Don't forget that "SDI" was an umbrella. If you had some project and could slap that tag on it you were guaranteed a substantial contract for it. That you could get away with promising an arbitrary delivery date made it that much more of a cash cow. And the Pentagon was fine with that since it would never need to be finished. It only had to look convincing.
Kissinger became aware during the SALT negotiations of how much the Soviets were misinformed about US nuclear capabilities, and that they tended to overestimate. That imbalance helped him negotiate those treaties. One can assume the State Dept. would want to keep that advantage if they could. The USSR was also concerned about how they would defend themselves against a Western attack. If they weren't they wouldn't be making these treaties. Everyone assumed that if war broke out both sides would be wiped out. The point of the arms race wasn't to win in a war, it was to see who would fold first.
Don't forget that "SDI" was an umbrella. If you had some project and could slap that tag on it you were guaranteed a substantial contract for it. That you could get away with promising an arbitrary delivery date made it that much more of a cash cow. And the Pentagon was fine with that since it would never need to be finished. It only had to look convincing.
Now I'm not so sure it was a bluff because they are building it again with Starlink like capabilities.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency#NDS...
If it was a bluff then great, because the USSR fell apart.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency#NDS...
If it was a bluff then great, because the USSR fell apart.
I've heard the bluff claim among historians and I think there is truth to that, though the "make them outspend" motif is more contentious.
From https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/2017/01/did_sta...:
> The evidence suggests that although the Soviet Union expressed serious concerns about U.S. missile defense program, SDI was not a decisive factor in advancing arms control negotiations. Instead, the program seriously complicated U.S.-Soviet arms control process. SDI also failed to dissuade the Soviet Union from investing in development of ballistic missiles. The Soviet Union quickly identified ways to avoid a technological arms race with the United States and focused on development of advanced missiles and anti-satellite systems to counter missile defenses.
From https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/2017/01/did_sta...:
> The evidence suggests that although the Soviet Union expressed serious concerns about U.S. missile defense program, SDI was not a decisive factor in advancing arms control negotiations. Instead, the program seriously complicated U.S.-Soviet arms control process. SDI also failed to dissuade the Soviet Union from investing in development of ballistic missiles. The Soviet Union quickly identified ways to avoid a technological arms race with the United States and focused on development of advanced missiles and anti-satellite systems to counter missile defenses.
I don't have the answer, but I was reminded of a comment years ago, which linked to a scanned news paper, which contained a bit about it.
Comment : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20854234
Scanned news page : https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19800707&id=...
It talks about out-spending to force negotiation.
Comment : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20854234
Scanned news page : https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19800707&id=...
It talks about out-spending to force negotiation.
I think the difficult part of pulling the bluff off was SDI had to look simultaneously very good against current systems but not perfect and potentially highly vulnerable to future systems.
Schelling established, at length, that perfect defence will be interpreted by an adversary as the inevitable first stage in making the first strike, and while him and Kissinger had their disagreements about real politics when it came to the core theory I believe they were aligned.
Schelling’s books get widely misinterpreted but are very readable, and anyone wanting more should go straight to the source. Ignore what other people said he said.
Schelling established, at length, that perfect defence will be interpreted by an adversary as the inevitable first stage in making the first strike, and while him and Kissinger had their disagreements about real politics when it came to the core theory I believe they were aligned.
Schelling’s books get widely misinterpreted but are very readable, and anyone wanting more should go straight to the source. Ignore what other people said he said.
This is a pretty ahistorical take, especially considering the stated goal of "SDI" was to develop the ability to destroy warheads during flight, with most of the research projects seemingly focused on the terminal phase.
There is no reason to think "SDI was a ruse to make USSR overspend".
The Soviet Union experienced a period of liberalization prior to its "parade of sovereignties". Its citizens demanded freedom and would eventually obtain some of it.
There is no reason to think "SDI was a ruse to make USSR overspend".
The Soviet Union experienced a period of liberalization prior to its "parade of sovereignties". Its citizens demanded freedom and would eventually obtain some of it.
How is social/economic liberalization in citizen affairs related to them absolutely overspending on and defaulting due to the Buran/Energia project that was supposed to counter SDI?
AFAICT the overspending would have been on the US side. At the margin, offense was going to be cheaper than defense. Unless you'd be satisfied with, say, a 99% intercept rate.
Wonder how much effect HN regular Clifford Stoll and his SDInet had on Soviet thinking.
Nonsense. Reagan believed that """science""" could do anything, and was told multiple times by people he should have trusted that even pursuing such an anti-nuke system was geopolitically dangerous.
He was an old man with a preference for fake "hollywood" style realities over his own reality, and he was afraid of dying to nuclear weapons. He wanted a magic cope blanket so that he could keep role playing god
He was an old man with a preference for fake "hollywood" style realities over his own reality, and he was afraid of dying to nuclear weapons. He wanted a magic cope blanket so that he could keep role playing god
Global Defence Initiative selected
United Citizen Federation
We fight for Nod! The oppressors must die!
(Personally I'm biased. The batshit insane Christian nationalists in America scare me more than the Chinese.
There's a ideological rift between Western Europe and the US that few people truly appreciate. The things Republicans say are just not normal).
In the cold war we were all saved by de-escalation and SALT. The US going on record that they want to strangle the Chinese leads to inevitable conflict.
A
In the cold war we were all saved by de-escalation and SALT. The US going on record that they want to strangle the Chinese leads to inevitable conflict.
A
You can thank Nixon and Crazy republicans for SALT.
The batshit insane Christian nationalists are still way less batshit insane than the New Chinese Man racists.
Depends on if you are on the receiving end of their ire (ie. Minorities and non-Christians)
Every non-Chinese (and many Chinese, too) is on the receiving end of the New Chinese Man crazies. The Christian crazies are mostly isolationists - I am not in the US so I don't care much.
"mostly isolationists" except for wanting to kick off a war in the Middle East so Jesus can come back
I am not in the US so I don't care much.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but if that be the case, why should Americans "care much" about anything not in the US?
Just saying, you can't expect to get what you yourself won't even give.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but if that be the case, why should Americans "care much" about anything not in the US?
Just saying, you can't expect to get what you yourself won't even give.
It's an internal US issue that I can't do anything and doesn't affect me - even if I cared, there's not much I could do, and I don't think it's something I should meddle in.
I am all for cooperation in solving common problems.
I am all for cooperation in solving common problems.
Its an internal US issue that has external consequences (ie. Chaos in the Middle east)
That's fine. Just means if you have internal issues, don't expect our help.
I don't expect you to meddle in our politics, indeed.
Can you elaborate on the china's crazies? (I'm aware the can be pretty racist)
Honestly not sure?
There are some batshit crazy people here. Think mass shootings in walmarts, targets and the occasional black church every now and again. Those people get into power, they won't be satisfied with just walmart shootings. Fairly certain they'd try to take down all the "enemies of freedom". Which would be, pretty much, anyone they say is an "enemy of freedom". MidEasterners, Jews, Asians, South Americans, anyone in Europe to the left of themselves ideologically. Pretty much everyone.
Christian nationalists represent an existential level threat not only to the US, but everyone on the planet. If they come to power, the best outcome would be Russia and the US go at it and obliterate each other. Ridding the rest of the globe of both centers of foolishness.
There are some batshit crazy people here. Think mass shootings in walmarts, targets and the occasional black church every now and again. Those people get into power, they won't be satisfied with just walmart shootings. Fairly certain they'd try to take down all the "enemies of freedom". Which would be, pretty much, anyone they say is an "enemy of freedom". MidEasterners, Jews, Asians, South Americans, anyone in Europe to the left of themselves ideologically. Pretty much everyone.
Christian nationalists represent an existential level threat not only to the US, but everyone on the planet. If they come to power, the best outcome would be Russia and the US go at it and obliterate each other. Ridding the rest of the globe of both centers of foolishness.
With the recent advancements in AI and space technology, space militarization may become the top existential threat we as human beings face, probably topping both climate change and the depletion of essential resources.
[1] https://direct.mit.edu/books/book-pdf/2369358/book_978026237...