Missile Defense

There is a lot of hubbub and hoopla about the the United States' proposed missile defense system. It's crazy.

The detractors argue that it will remove the rules set by MAD, it will start a new arms race and therefore cause the world to be less safe. After they've made this argument, they'll feed you a line about "weapons in space" like they are supposed to be scary or something.

Sure, the absence of MAD is bad in that there would be less deterrent for the USA to just bomb the shit out of the whole planet and forget about everybody else. But I think one thing the concept of MAD is lacking is the case of someone actually going mad. Mad as in crazy, nucking futs. Mad as in I don't care if I microwave the whole planet, as long as those American infidels vapourize it will be worth it. Yes, MAD is under the assumption that nobody has actually cracked.

Additionally, if you aren't planning on blowing up a nuke with a nuke, then what's the problem? Missiles to shoot down other missles shouldn't require nuclear warheads, so building them for that purpose shouldn't directly lead to a proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Why the hell is everyone so afraid of weapons in space? The Americans can kill you dead just as efficiently with ground based weapons as it could with space based weapons - it's just that killing you with an orbiting satellite would be so much cooler than getting the marines to cap you. A moon based laser zapping your ass would be a lot cooler than having Private Ryan using you as a rifle range.

It doesn't really matter if you have a big issue with space based weapons, because they're already there. I could make a space based weapon. See, I'm going to rig up your car with a GPS receiver that somehow broadcasts back to me your location. ( No, I haven't worked out all the details, I'm not out to kill you yet ) So I wait til you leave the house, track your car a while, find where you parked, take a chopstick and smash it up your nose. All this brought to you by space based weapons.

The point is that you don't actually have to kill someone from space to have a space based weapon. You won't see missiles firing from orbiting satellites for a long time. But what the satellites will do is figure out where you are so we can blow your house up the old fashioned way.

Then there's the whole argument - aren't we just creating technology that will kill us? Of course we are! But who cares. Military technology is dangerous but has some nice side effects. If some engineers manage to figure out how to shoot down a missle with another missle, it's safe to say they'll be able to build us a better toaster. Nobody really wants to go to the moon anymore, the X-Prize was pretty slow going, so how many other opportunities are we going to have to try new stuff out? Hell, if we can shoot down a missle with a missle, then shooting down an incoming asteroid or alien space invaders would be a piece of cake.

The program has been labelled "Star Wars" in an attempt to somehow tie it to some Darth Vader-like villain. Whats wrong with a little bit of Star Wars? Heck, with all the weapons in space, hopefully we'd do all the fighting in space. No land mines, no scorched earth, just cool space battles that would be filmed and later become a history documentary / action film dubbed with celebrity voices.

Basically, the average joe canuck shouldn't be losing any sleep over the whole missle defense fiasco. However, this does not mean the Canadian government should give the United States their blessing. The Canadian government should neither say yes or no to missle defense - it should say "maybe" and "we're thinking about it" for as long as possible.

The missile defense issue is an excellent opportunity for Canada and the USA to play a nice long game of good world cop bad world cop. Let the rest of the world think that Canada is still questioning missile defense, when in reality we couldn't care less. In the meantime, the system will already be mostly in place and Canada would not have had to pay a cent for it.

Also, the second that Canada is actually onside with the missile defense plan, the americans will assume that it's perfectly okay to blow up a missile in our airspace. No ICBM will be purposely headed for Canada, we're a small target with only 30 million spread out people void of a military. Yep, the bomb will be on its way to targets south of the border, but wouldn't the idea of missile defense that they blow the damn thing up ASAP ? So, chances are its going to get taken down over Canada. In which case, we totally bitch out the americans, tell them we didn't actually sign up for this shit, and demand compensation.

The lesson is, transparently supporting things or having supporters doesn't always help your cause. Play the politics game a little bit. Confuse things deliberately, just make sure you keep the right people confused and in the dark. Keeps shit interesting and in your favour.