Focus 580; Update on Ballistic Missile Defense

In this first part of the show we'll be talking about ballistic missile defense. Just a couple of weeks ago President Bush made a speech and outlined his intentions to build such a system for the United States and certainly that should have come as no surprise because it was something that he talked about during the presidential campaign. This discussion of building this system has been received rather negatively by many countries around the world our allies the Germans the French the British. They're not terribly high on the concept and also those countries where our relationship is a bit more problematic. The Russians the Chinese are also not terribly happy within the arms control community as well. People are very concerned about building such a system because they say that it is inherently de stabilizing and could indeed touch off a new nuclear arms race around the world. We'll be talking a little bit about the basics here this morning and I'm sure in weeks and months to come we'll be talking about this some more I will try to provide you a variety of points of view. But we wanted to take up the discussion here once again this morning and we're doing that with Julian Palmor. He's professor of mathematics here at the University of Illinois. He is

a research mathematician. And in mathematics he has interest in things like chaos theory and celestial mechanics. But he's also interested in military operations research and specifically topics such as weapons of mass destruction their delivery systems and recently he has written and published a number of articles dealing with ballistic missile defense and national missile defense. He's a member of the board of directors of the military operations research society and is editor of phalanx the Bulletin of military operations research. And he's with us this morning in studio as we talk. Questions are certainly welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line that's good anywhere. You can hear us. It would be a long distance call for you. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 is the number. And of course anyone is welcome to call. We just ask people to try to be brief so we can keep things moving along but the questions comments are welcome. Well thanks very much for me thank you.

When Mr. Bush made this speech he said that he would like the United States to go ahead and build this system. However at this point it seems that they were rather short on details. We don't really know what the system would look like. We don't really know how much it would cost. From what you know and what there is out there circulating can we say something about what this system would look like. Well President Bush is considering a number of options based interception boost phase interception as well as the ground based interception which was pretty much part of the Clinton plan. The problem is nothing's been decided as far as I know and the estimates for the cost of the Clinton plan ran between sixteen hundred billion dollars for the various capabilities. So it's very sketchy at the moment I heard the speech I read the speech. Nothing is certain except that President Bush seems to not like the ABM Treaty the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty very much. And it looks as if he

is inclined to try to let's say abrogate that treaty. Well perhaps we should talk a little bit about that because that that is indeed a key point. That the concern is that if we would go ahead and build this system that it would violate this treaty that we and the Soviet Union signed back in 1972 and within the arms control community there's a great deal of concern about this. Maybe we should talk a bit about it in simple terms what the ABM Treaty is all about. OK I've got a wonderful brief review from The New York Times on May 1st and this was in conjunction with the President Bush's speech and the ABM Treaty has really four main parts for one thousand seventy two and then it was amended 1974 and then there have been additional amendments and the various agreements in the 1900s. But for example one of the principle ideas is not to deploy. Or provide a base for ABM systems

for defense of the territory of the country of its country. So in other words a country is prohibited from building a system that would defend the entire country. That's one of the items the second item is not to develop test or deploy multiple interceptor missile launchers or rapid reload features for ABM launchers. So in other words what happened in the 1900s was a recognition that their missile defense was an important aspect of missile defense that is providing local protection throughout the region against a missile such as Scuds and so on. But the ABM treaty is really aimed toward strategic missiles those with capabilities of more than 35 hundred kilometers range. And so what you have is a treaty which was set up to prevent certain things from being built which would attempt to defend the whole country. And then you get the idea there was that the thinking on both sides was if we have a system that would allow us to shoot down incoming

ICBMs from the Soviet Union then it might make it more conceivable we could think about launching an attack against the Soviet Union because then. We would blunt their ability to retaliate well for forty five years we based our strategic policy in that I think the Soviet Union based its strategic policy on mutually assured destruction. And so an ABM system would interfere with that thought and the idea was to independently of how much was spent on offensive weapons to keep them in check. And the ABM treaty was part of that process of keeping these weapons in check. I know that there are some people who make the argument that things have changed greatly from 1900 to first of all they would say we entered into this agreement with the Soviet Union and there is no more Soviet Union. So on that level some people might say well that in a sense that makes the that makes the treaty moot

because the party that we negotiated with the we entered into with doesn't exist anymore. There's a Passover clause in that sense that if the countries which signed the treaty are let's say cease to exist in some form or another it passes to the the people of the descendants of those countries and so that's what we have I think for the ABM Treaty the end of perhaps another argument that could be made either against abiding by the treaty or for those people who would say well it's no problem. They might say that. We really don't need to care what they think either on that level or to say that there's really there's no reason to have the ABM Treaty anymore because that this was all about. Superpower the superpower potential supine conflict in the other superpower is not there anymore so what do we need the ABM treaty for now. Well I think I think one of the answers to that is that we need international cooperation in economics on a global scale. We need cooperation in the arms control we need

cooperation from among the participating countries especially those that have nuclear weapons on ICBMs ICBM capability. So this is part of that cooperation and without cooperation if we go our own way. And tend not to cooperate with other countries we're going down a path which has a very bad ending to it. And is it clear that if we did build the kind of system that we're talking about building that would indeed be a violation of the treaty that is there anyway by making modifications in the way in the kind of system that exists that we can sneak around it and say oh well this doesn't really violate the treaty. Well I've got to go to the other two points here in the New York Times article. I know David you're just waiting for this. So we'll go. We'll go to the next step not to develop test or deploy ABM systems or components that are sea based air base space based or mobile land based. So I think that answers your question sounds like there's no there's no way. Around looking around right there is no way around it. And the fourth point is not to transfer to other

states or deploy outside its national territory ABM systems or their components and so we have a prohibition from the ABM Treaty on several basic things which any administration which builds a national missile defense is going to run up against. So the problem here is that first of all we don't have a system. It isn't as if there are things out there that work. We're consistently worked reliably have been verified and validated are credible and everybody believes that if we feel the system no one will launch an ICBM against us I mean there's nothing like that in sight. And so with that in mind we're talking about essentially a fictitious system. So all of the concern all of the let's say concern of the Europeans and Canada and other countries regarding. What happens when we feel the system well. Right now nothing happens because we don't have it so it's a matter of what state are we

in. That's where we stand. We have a caller. We'll get to them in just a moment I should introduce Again our guest was speaking with Julian Palmor. He's a research mathematician here at the University of Illinois and in addition to being interested in mathematical research he's also interested in military operations research and such subjects as weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. He has done some writing on this issue on ballistic missile defense. And as we're talking about here this morning your questions certainly are welcome the number if you're here in Champaign-Urbana where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line so it would be a long distance call for you to use that number 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have a caller in Chicago. Line 4. Hello. Good morning gentlemen. Yes I find the subtopic very interesting because I favor the missile defense system but I'd like to ask your guest what happens if we don't. Still the system we

rely on this sort of can't we all just get along. Three and twenty or thirty years from now we have another of Saddam Hussein or another adult Hitler. They've built a system that gives our president and ultimatum. What do we do with them. Well I think one of the aspects of this whole discussion is to consider what are all the threats out there and ballistic missile defense is the solution perhaps for one very very specific problem and that is the problem of a country or a state or some group launching an ICBM at the United States. If the threat were to change slightly for example from ballistic missiles to cruise missiles the national missile defense as currently envisioned would have nothing to do with that. So I think with regard to weapons of mass destruction the threat spectrum of terrorism the threat spectrum of other weapons more easily used than the fielding and enormously expensive defense against an enormously expensive

off ounce one has to consider opportunity cost. If we spent 60 to 100 billion dollars in this direction what can we fail to do in other directions which are perhaps more immediate concern. So if a ballistic missile threat is 20 years down the road. And I'm not talking about theater missile defense I'm talking about really a national missile defense where one considers ICBMs. Then what have we lost in the meantime which we really need to protect ourselves against So it's not a matter of cooperation in the sense that that's all we do we have to protect ourselves. But we have to protect ourselves with the immediacy of the threats not necessarily what happens 20 years from now. Well the you know history always fascinated me. And this of this topic reminds me of what they said of the 1920s. Why do we need aircraft carriers or why do we need airplanes because we have two oceans that will protect us. So we don't need all of these things and we were sadly disillusioned. I just think that we need

this defense because I'm looking down the road toward China. We have a couple of them North Korea Iran Iraq a lot of these renegade. Nations Libya the group that eventually will get this technology and you just don't know where they're going to go with it. Well that's an important point. The problem here is is twofold One is do we spend our money in this direction to field to actually deploy a system. Right now we can't make a decision on that because we don't have such a system so the other part of this concern is let's continue with trying to get ballistic missile defense to work. And I think everyone is pretty much in favor of that I've talked to people who are opponents of the national missile defense system in terms of deployment. What we want is realistic testing for national missile defense so that in fact if we feel the system there will be something that will work and not just be putting interceptors in holes in the ground without any credibility. Well we have 20 years so we can do things 20 years from now that we can't do it today. So I just

think when I get to walk up and I thank you for your your time in him. So let me ask you a question. All right well thank you for the call and certainly other questions and comments are welcome. Three three three W I L L toll free 800 1:58 W-L. It is the case that at least as far as what I have read is that the administration is pressing for getting something together quite quickly in fact they're talking about the possibility of having some kind of system and maybe not the best system maybe not the ultimate system but some kind of system in place actually within about three years. Yes I've heard that too. In 2004. The point is whatever happens is going to be credible is going to be credible to the people who might try something against the U.S. or not. And if we feel that whatever we field no matter how incredible it is if it's credible to an opponent then it makes sense. On the other hand it's incredible to us and incredible to the opponent then

it doesn't make any difference because first of all it may not work secondly it may be complete nonsense to as as far as as I know it today. There are I think it's true there are four nations that are capable of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile against the United States Russia China France and Britain. And I guess we can assume that the French and the British probably are not going to do that. And I guess we're not at this point I think probably we think the Russians and the Chinese wouldn't either. But there there also is this long list of countries that we know has has moved has made definite plans to move in this direction. The and the caller mentioned some of them Iran Iraq the North Koreans and so then then the question is Well realistically if we if we do believe that the day will come when those countries would also be able to do this how long it would take at what day do we think they would have that capability. What's the

what are some of the you think the most realistic estimates of when those countries might have that capability. Well I've seen estimates anywhere from 5 to 15 20 years down the road. The point is that in the Cold War days of 45 years or so from essential in 1950 to let's say the mid 1990s. We were faced with lots of ICBMs in the Soviet Union and the descendent countries and so on. We never had the problem with accidental launches with all these thousands of missiles and warheads out there. The other thing is that it's a matter of infrastructure within a country. I mean ICBM is not something one buys off the shelf and just sets up in a field and then is ready to go. It's a matter of the whole infrastructure required in this infrastructure is detectable it's detectable from space it's detectable

from people on the ground. You know when things are being built it's not the sort of thing that you hide in a cave and pull out and shoot off once because it's like the old story about shooting at the King if you miss you're in trouble. And so it's really a matter of the nature of the whole problem involved with ballistic missiles and ballistic missiles are not just ICBMs I mean you have submarine launched ballistic missiles the British and French have these. The Russians have these. And so a submarine launch then you've got cruise missiles you've got all sorts of missiles too. To think about a national missile defense only thinks about a very small aspect of this whole problem. And so 60 to 100 billion dollars spent on a very narrow aspect may not be a good choice. And I think it it certainly is true that some people have pointed out the fact that here we're talking about a potential threat. We don't we suspect that someday we may face this threat but we don't know when. We don't know who who

might be providing this threat but that we do know we actually have experienced the threat of the theater missiles Scuds short shorter range missiles. American troops have actually been under fire with these weapons and the the defense we have against them is highly inadequate and there I think some of what I have read about this some people say they're really surprised that there isn't more concern in Congress and in Washington about this which is a a Pret a real and present danger. As opposed to the other thing that is there but it's maybe somewhere in the future. Well I want to step back a bit. I agree with you. I want to step back a bit to World War 2 when the V-2 attacks the German rocket were launched on London in September 1940 for that was the start of the B-2 bombardment that went on for nine months. The British had some defense against the TOS but it isn't the sort of thing we're talking about today. What they did was to find out where the

launch sites were and go after them they found out where the production facilities were and went after those. And so what you've got. It is a situation where there is a lot there are a lot of ways you can defend against ballistic missiles without having an interception capability. And the British were even considering once they knew of the two is in the air firing anti-aircraft guns more or less at random over London to put up some sort of metal shield for the B-2 to run into. The only problem with this is about 2 percent of the shells wouldn't detonate in the air and so they thought that there would be more damage on the ground from this than let's say the B-2 would cause by itself now there were two terrible incidents with three twos one hit a marketplace and killed several hundred people another hit a department store and killed several hundred people. And these were very unusual events most of the time that the twos came down. They would bury themselves in the ground with the warhead for a few feet.

There was much apparently less damage from a V to hit them from of the one hit the bus bomb and about ten times as many bus bombs were fired at London than B 2s and so what you have is the cruise missile threat as well as the ballistic missile threat and the British were very good at threatening the cruise missile threat using proximity fuses and aircraft and also fighters. We have another caller here let's go to them champagne County. That's line number one. Hello good morning. You started off the show by reviewing Bush. Beechen said that it doesn't really lay out a vision but what about Rumsfeld you know report when he was chosen to be head of the space commission. And there are some documents a huge Gardner ish one megabyte PDA file called Vision 2020 that is at Peterson Air Force. And then dot mil for military sites. You can find it there it's the site of

the U.S. Space Command. And it has a vision of something that is not missile defense it's called war from space. And the last line in this Vision 2020 is space the warfare war. We're fighters edge or something like that. So there are a lot of people out there that have visions of what what this is going to be obviously is. You could say that this is going to be hashed through the political system and that's changed a little bit just in the last couple of days but. There you know there's there's a huge military industrial complex is just fighting over the rights to build this stuff I mean we have a new striker combined striker fighter plane that Boeing and Lockheed Martin Martin Martin are slathering over up to 5000 of those or something like that forget what the total cost is. So

there's I just think it's a little disingenuous. I don't mean to be critical because you're saying lot of I think reasonable things. It doesn't really do a lot. There are a lot of ways around it and I didn't even mention decoys which are for me personally rather cheap. But the store idea the forward deployed. And then lasers weapons from spaces I mean. This website the so Vision 2020 enshrines the Patriot missile which was a total fraud I mean it didn't knock any Scots down and if it did it was by accident. I think it was a 2 percent hit or something. Pardon me but what's your question. My question is how would you react to some of this. Have you looked at the Rumsfeld Space Commission report have you looked at Vision 2020. Yeah but I would like to make and have and that's why I'm a little antagonistic because you come off saying that well Bush didn't say much about what's going on but I'm sure you've done other research and you know what I'm talking about. And there is a juggernaut

that's ready to spend this money and. Well pardon me but they're always juggernauts ready to spend money I mean this is the found the funding you're talking about 60 to 100 billion dollars. And I feel that the point here is that President Bush did not propose a plan and visions are not plans. You've got to have heard where you've got to have designs you've got to have things that work. And right now we don't have that. So regardless of 20 20 20 10 I mean there are all kinds of artists conceptions of how things would work. But artists conceptions are not what you spent 20 billion dollars on or a hundred billion dollars on for example to give you for instance. When I worked for Nassau in the early 60s I was in Huntsville at the Marshall Space Flight Center and I was present during discussions of how to go to the moon. Now President Kennedy in May of 61 had announced that's what we're going to do and we're going to do it by the end of the decade and we're going to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. That was the goal a very simply expressed. And so in

1962 people were very concerned about just how to do it. And of course the rocket technology had gone back from the you know it had been around since the early 1980s with Goddard and the Germans and all sorts of people working on rockets for 40 years prior to this. And so what we have is a situation in 1962 where a guy John Hobart at Lewis Research Center I believe. Nassa had come up with an idea he had invented an idea of lunar orbit rendezvous and that was the key to success because before then it was considered sort of matter of fact that we would do an Earth orbit rendezvous using to launch vehicles made in the earth orbit and then go direct to the moon and come back direct from the moon. Well that would not have worked under the circumstance. Too much way too much unreliability too much of everything and so when the lunar lunar orbit rendezvous was proposed there was a very

careful look at that for about six months and then it was decided in fact that was doable even though there were communications problems there are lots of things which needed to be done. A direction was set. We do not have such a direction now. And believe me we need it. If we're going to field something that works if we feel something that doesn't work and we spend 60 to 100 billion dollars doing it then I feel really that's a mistake. I agree with you wholeheartedly on that and I think that's important to point to make that vision isn't the plan. But I'm just saying there's a lot of lobbying money there's a lot of fraud and intensity and there is if you look at Rumsfeld's report it actually has you know language in it about how the. Mobile situation is going to get worse and we're going to have to be you know economic situation's going to get worse or worse. Instability is going to be increased. So we have to go ahead with you know being able to control things from space whether there's an alternate vision and that's to do

something on the ground for the people in the world you know. And I'm not living right. You know it's parts partly self-interest it seems to me that you don't want that kind of instability that's rocking Africa to go on in there. There's things that the U.S. can do when it regret to say that it's actually done counter things and it's actually increased instability in a myriad number of ways but that's another issue but I think people should go to these sites and look at this stuff because this. Kind of fantasy has been around for a long time and it's driven the defense budget for many many years and I just. I'll hang up and see what other people what I'd like to say just in passing I mean I appreciate your comments. I just want to say is that I believe we are having a national debate about national missile defense and I think that's a good idea. We need to talk about it. We need to get it out in the open and see what's required. What makes sense and by all means people should float their plans but we need to see plans were a little bit past

the midpoint here. We have other callers who will get right to and I should again introduce our guest We're speaking with Julian Palmor. He is a research mathematician at the University of Illinois and is certainly interested in mathematical research but also in military operations research he's written on ballistic missile defense and national missile defense. He's a member of the board of directors of the military operations research society and we're talking about ballistic missile defense and where we stand at this point in this country with this discussion and whether it's going to go further than just being a discussion. The number if you'd like to call in questions are certainly welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. The next caller in line Urbana Lie number two. Hello. Yes I have a question. It seems to me is that you were right. Do you know what the sentence is. The defense is reactive and therefore it's only several steps behind

the current or at least the near future offensive developments in technology. And then for there is absolutely no way you can build a defense which will remain in effect for more than a very short time since the last affected defense that had any right time right was in the Middle Ages when Castle defenses were fairly effective for a couple of hundred years and that since that time the defense assistance of Crawl it's gone almost as quickly as they were to pull a third front for fear in the First World War was obsolete well before the end of the Second World War a first world war when the tank was introduced. I think that's a strictly defensive system. I think you raise an interesting point. There you're I think you one has to make a distinction between technology and its use in terms of a particular

technical defenses and the use of ideals as defense for example mutually assured destruction as a buffer and different events of different found so what you have is really a. The things you build and deploy is one type of defense and the other is the use of ideals to keep an opponent at bay. Thanks Zach. I think the only effective defense of the free strong offensive system where at least one of them is punishing enough but nobody is going to be tempted to attack. So that's sort of a preventive defense. Yeah but it doesn't rely strictly defensive system which is supposed to render some offensive system ineffective. Well that's your. I think also thinking about a reactive defense in other words you let the off chance take a shot and then you try to defend against that shot. The British on the receiving end of the twos in World War 2 in 1944 1945 really took. They had passive

defense from evacuating threatened areas and that sort of thing to active defense and going after the production and the launch sites for the B-2 and so you have defensive maneuvers which combine countermeasures off chance of let's say moves to to try to stop this other all founts from the adversary. Well the Israelis in fact tried something very. How much is absolutely destroyed in Iraq through the reactor. Back in when was it the 16th No I think was around one thousand eighty with that length. Yeah you're right. And was certainly probably affected by the graphic nature but well I was preemptive. I mean there you are doing something with the thought that things will get worse then get better and that's a matter of infrastructure if you see infrastructure being prepared being built where. Let's say you know what the infrastructure is for for example ICBM production facilities or some such

thing in the end one might decide to do something about the infrastructure being built in another country rather than mount a 60 to 100 billion dollar defense against a very specific threat which may not materialize. You're right thanks to the CO. You explained a little bit earlier that for a long long time that there was this idea that there was the standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union based on this concept mutually assured destruction they had be a be a being that each side the nuclear arsenal was so large and the real possibility of massive it was so large that neither side would think about launching a first strike because it would be a lose lose proposition. Now it seems that we are talking about something different and we're not talking about a superpower conflict we're talking about the quote unquote rogue state where we even speculate that the kind of reason and logic that lie behind mutually

assured destruction doesn't apply anymore and that we would have someone who would launch it would might willingly launch an attack on the United States with war with a handful of missiles just a couple even knowing that massive retaliation was a real possibility we have we have we abandoned the idea that there's reason lying behind this kind of decision. Or you mean whether everybody's rational. Yeah yeah I think. I think there are a lot of irrational players in the world. What I'd like to say though is that the only thing I feel that makes sense in terms of ICBM attack is to use a nuclear weapon because frankly biological and chemical are more easily delivered in a suitcase than they are through ICBM. Now the technology is there for these sorts of weapons where you don't have to build an ICBM or buy an ICBM or have the infrastructure to mount an ICBM attack. The other thing is if an ICBM contained a nuclear warhead you've got to get the nuclear warhead. That means you either have to have the

infrastructure to design build test etc.. The nuclear warhead or you buy the nuclear warhead but you still don't know it's going to work. And so what you're faced with are two massive infrastructure requirements for a rogue state out there. They're very expensive technologies and it's not sort of off the shelf I mean you just don't go out and buy the ICBM from the local store and you buy the nuclear warhead from the next local store and you put them together and it works. It's a matter of credibility here and even the rational actor out there. Has a lot to lose. Just one further question I promise the people who are on hold I will get right to them. When Ronald Reagan first proposed this idea he was talking about a system that would be able to defend against a massive attack from the Soviet Union. And he had lined this idea of a protective umbrella that would put that would virtually

guarantee that nothing would get through. Very I think very quickly people a lot of people in the scientific community and elsewhere said that's just not possible. There's no way that we could build a system that would be that tight and that we would expect a substantial number of missiles to get through and that would cause it would cause an imaginable damage even if just a handful of missiles geyser. Now we're talking about something different. We're talking about designing a kind of a system that would protect against either an accidental launch. So we might just have one missile we're talking about when might be a couple or again the kind of idea that we're talking about here where we would have an adversary that would have limited capability. And so we would be talking about trying to shoot down hundreds of missiles here now we might be talking about one or two or five and some people would say. In the previous case there's no way that we could design something that would do that. But here this is a more it's more conceivable that we could

because the objective here is much more limited given that and given the fact that technology has improved over this time that we've been thinking about that does it now become more reasonable to think that. We could we would say today we can't do that. But is it more reasonable to say that well maybe in five years or 10 years we actually could have a system that would work. Oh I think it's important to continue trying I mean we need to get the technology straight. I'm concerned about a rush to deployment without adequate testing I'm concerned about a rush to deployment of something which even if it were to work. It would be the wrong move. So it's really a matter of what's the right move in a situation like this. Let me give you a for instance. Suppose the Russians and we were terribly concerned about the Russians commanding control structure on their missiles and suppose that both nations felt the command and control structure because of economics and other reasons

morale and so on was very weak. Then an obvious thing to do would be for us to try with Russians cooperation to strengthen their command control system so that accidental things didn't happen. So I mean there you have alternatives to building costly systems which will not do the job you need to do. In other words if you're worried about accidental launches let's let's make that command a control structure reliable so we are less concerned about that. Well let's talk with some other callers The next is effing ham. A line for Hello. Oh yes. Didn't the Bush administration reduce the amount of funding that was being used to help monitor the Russian site there at their launch sites and such. And so we no longer will have the ability to monitor those sites. And also I would like to suggest the system will cost trillions of dollars not billions and it can still easily be fooled with decoys and we should be spending our resources on

finding a replacement for petroleum based fuels. And even if it works a rogue nation could send a bomb in on a freighter in one of our prayers. Thank you. Yeah thanks for your comment I think the principal point here is that even if it were work and one one can think of policy decisions based on let's suppose the system worked and it worked as advertised. And if we fielded it it would be credible. What do we have when we do that. In other words let's go beyond the technology debate and say five 10 years from now it will work and it will work to a certain point nine probability of hitting an incoming missile. Then what. In other words then do we feel that. Or do we do other things to thwart bombs in suitcases or chemical or biological attack or nuclear weapons shipped in on the in let's say imports. It's interesting to note that the letter which Einstein signed to President Roosevelt along around 1030 9

encouraging the development of atomic energy and in particular the possibility of an explosive device mentioned specifically that such a device could be carried into a harbor on a ship and explode doing damage to the harbor in the surrounding territory. So there was the first instance of the thought that. These weapons would not be delivered by air or other means that they were to be delivered just on a barge and that you know the last time we talked about this on the show this was when President Clinton was still in office and it was at the point where the administration was making this decision. Do we go ahead with a research problem program do we not. And that was when they were doing some testing and the testing wasn't going well and then the administration decided just to leave this and that'll be on President Bush's plate. But when we did that that was the point that people called me in and made over and over and over again and they said Well now look there is this this real possibility that this is such a device could be delivered in a much simpler way and that we have no defense against that. So that's that's not an

unreasonable scenario that somebody might do that might be able to build a device and sail it in on a boat or bring it in in a truck or bring it in in a suitcase and come in under the radar so to speak I should. Yeah. DAVID I agree. I think that one has right now about 10 billion dollars a year being spent on counterterrorism which is exactly in that direction too. Look at nuclear chemical biological conventional high explosive weapons. And to try to thwart their deployment in this country. Let's talk with someone else Gibson said he I think your line number one hello. Hello may I go ahead with my question. Yes please. Are you acquainted with the organization called the Society of old crows and have they are any of their members weighed in on this particular question. That's a good one. I'm not sure what that refers to it seems to me I may have heard that name I have no

idea what it means. I can expand. We are an organization of people who are interested in game theory as applied to conflict situations. Ah ok. That pins it down. Yeah some of them are deeply engaged in national defense problems. It occurs to me that some of them might have weighed in on this particular question and I'm wondering if you are aware of any such. Well let me put it this way I'm not an old crow so I think I'm not privy to this group but on the other hand where are some of these folks located. I don't know I'm thinking of various service schools Naval Postgraduate School. I know some older people there who might be old pros for that matter but I have no idea. I think I've heard that name mentioned maybe in the past but I wouldn't have recalled it without your mentioning it. Well if they still exist and I think they still do you might find them an interesting group and if you have no further comments that closes my question. All right well with thank you for the call we'll just go and then we'll go to Chicago here for someone else. This is

linked to yes. Thank you. On this Memorial Day weekend it's the service well to remember the ravages and folly and irony of war. Think of. Surrender to peace. We can only think of war and the devastation that occurs and but we begin to think of the constructive creative things that have resulted since then such that a point where our enemies Germany and Japan upon surrender have gone on to apply their energies to becoming the economic power and stature that they had hoped to attain through war but they attained it through peace. So if we can shift our mentality and focus upon the benefits that have accrued to humanity and invest all that resource and funds and so forth towards getting closer to that attainment we would be better served than thinking

of the shortstop measures of retaliation and offensive things that were going to go back to the time of the Civil War just briefly you had to guess on the civil war the other day recounting of the surrender of the two grants and the union state. And his retelling of the idea of a guerrilla war being maintained is not being constructive and destructive and we can get closer to the sings of peace. We will be far better off. Thank you. Go and find him and you're going to follow up on that and I know I'm probably not much to add. One of the concerns that has been raised here is that if we should go ahead and develop and deploy this system and it should complicate our relations now with Russia that this will undercut the effort that we and they have been engaged in in trying to dismantle weapons of mass destruction. Do

you think that that is a possibility. Oh I think there are a lot of possibilities one. One comment I want to make on the earlier note that you had David was that the Clinton decision was not to deploy a national missile defense based on the the State of the testing in the state of the technology last summer. On the other hand we're talking about deployment decisions and the technology is not there yet. And so it's really a matter of as I mentioned before people are interested in perfecting technology pushing it seeing how far it can work. On the other hand to deploy systems without knowing that they work is really money not well spent. So that's you know but I mean there are a lot of possibilities I think the the the threat of terrorism is certainly. Uppermost on a lot of people's minds and a lot of money is being spent trying to decide

how best to cope with this thing. In other words to stop it before it starts that's preventive defense and it's a very major plays a very major role in all the people's thinking about this. Well do you do you actually think that it's likely that the United States would deploy a system that we thought didn't work or that we thought well know it it works sometimes and maybe I don't know what we were do is deploy a system which we thought will fix it as we build it which is a very risky proposition and in fact the acquisition process in this country in the Department of Defense is based on Let's Make a schedule driven decisions rather than event driven decisions and the event driven decisions are we build it. It works now. We do something else. Schedule driven means that on March 1st you do something on April 1st you do another thing. And when testing slips or when anything doesn't work hey it's on the schedule. It's got to be there. So that's that's there are a lot of distinctions here and it is I think there's more game theory

aspect to this whole problem that a lot of people realize. Try and get one more caller quickly here in Chicago. Line four. Oh yes. So if you grew up reading on the wrong basis and that's why you have an administration of the subsequent cover basically you threw up a ministry. Listen who essentially stole the presidency. Remember that kind of talk. Cool a time in this country. And these guys aren't interested in operating according to rational means Iraq interested in it and providing for their friends and supporters and for themselves and to hell with everything else and they don't give any second thought to what happens to anyone else in the world. Never mind just the citizens of the United States. Well I don't know if you want to comment on that at all. Well we give the caller the last word there with the promise that I'm sure on future shelves will get back to some of these issues. But for the

moment we'll leave it there our guest Julian Palmor. He is professor of mathematics at University of Illinois. Thanks very much for being here. Thank you.