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

by sklargh • 2 years ago

84 49 2 years ago

direct.mit.edu

pdevr• 2 years ago

Just want to point out that this is a free book. Direct link: [1]. Also, the real content is only a little over 200 pages. The rest is notes, references, and other resources.

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...

metadat3• 2 years ago

Is there a mobi or epub version? My ebook reader can't handle PDFs, sadly (Lithium Pro on Android)

pomian• 2 years ago

Won't Firefox open that? And through fdroid there are pdf readers also.

waveBidder• 2 years ago

calibre has a converter, though often that can get jank

whoopdedo2• 2 years ago

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.

mitthrowaway2• 2 years ago

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!

whoopdedo2• 2 years ago

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.

repelsteeltje• 2 years ago

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.

the-dude• 2 years ago

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.

Mountain_Skies• 2 years ago

Wonder how much effect HN regular Clifford Stoll and his SDInet had on Soviet thinking.

jonway• 2 years ago

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.

throwaway114606• 2 years ago

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?

fidotron• 2 years ago

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.

mrguyorama• 2 years ago

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

euroderf• 2 years ago

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.

wbl• 2 years ago

With the cost of launch so low does Brilliant Pebbles become affordable again?

virtue3• 2 years ago

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.

m4rtink• 2 years ago

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.

HarryHirsch• 2 years ago

Starlink is Brilliant Pebbles.

briandw• 2 years ago

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...

2rsf• 2 years ago

And many others were intercepted by Israeli Arrow missiles.

throwaway114606• 2 years ago

That's a very different class of target. Israel is not intercepting anything that measures velocity in km/s.

unixhero2• 2 years ago

Global Defence Initiative selected

Rinzler89• 2 years ago

United Citizen Federation

unixhero2• 2 years ago

Ion cannon ready

fakedang• 2 years ago

We fight for Nod! The oppressors must die!

throwaway13337• 2 years ago

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.

simmerup• 2 years ago

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

sorokod• 2 years ago

Privateers had to be officially sanctioned by a state (e.g. letter of marque). Don't think that plausible deniability was an expected benefit.

holonsphere• 2 years ago

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...

Yeul• 2 years ago

(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.

throwaway114606• 2 years ago

The batshit insane Christian nationalists are still way less batshit insane than the New Chinese Man racists.

nebula88042• 2 years ago

Depends on if you are on the receiving end of their ire (ie. Minorities and non-Christians)

The_Colonel• 2 years ago

Can you elaborate on the china's crazies? (I'm aware the can be pretty racist)

bilbo0s3• 2 years ago

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.

jibe2• 2 years ago

You can thank Nixon and Crazy republicans for SALT.

Weapons in Space Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of SDI

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