[extropy-chat] sole superpower/warfare 2003-2010 comments

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Avatar Polymorph wrote:

[snip lots of discussion about beam or particle based weapons...]

> Will the American national government define its stated cultural
> and political hegemony through the barrel of a beam weapon?

First, I would question your premise that the warheads are stored.
I believe that both the U.S. and Russia are destroying a significant
fraction of them.  That doesn't solve the problem of what to do
with the plutonium -- I believe that in at least Russia they are
working on diluting the plutonium down so it can be sold as
reactor fuel (but you should check this).

Second, the average American doesn't view Russia as a significant
threat any more -- so while we might fund a beam weapon here
(the chemical laser on the 747) or particle weapons there (I
think the Navy may be working on some high velocity/mass
particle weapons) the general threat is viewed as being
countries like North Korea or perhaps China (if the Taiwan
situation blew up) or maybe Pakistan or Iran if the Muslim
populations got lit on fire for some reason.  So I don't
think you are going to see large U.S. expenditures on putting
into place lots of beam and particle weapons.  The average
American (and the typical opposition politician) is smart
enough to know that the real risks are in stealth cells,
shipping containers, porous borders, etc. all of which
could contribute to the importing of a actual nuclear
weapon or a dirty bomb.  And don't get me started on
bioweapons -- we already know you can send those in the
mail.

So I think the premise that there will be a large focus
on classical "big" weapon anti-weapons has its limits.
Because we have already seen that all such efforts are
ineffective for people who are clever enough to take
other approaches.

Robert