Space Weaponization

[The Grim Squeaker]

Doh, that should be Utilitarian Humanist, not objective . Can a mod please edit and delete this post?

[CC]

Objective humanitarianism would have as minimize the injuries inflicted (Or for the greater good, most Humanistic moral systems tend to emphasize "good of the many").

Which is why I think it would condemn such an attack as evil as there would be far more injuries inflicted through the nuclear destruction of such cities than there would be in any reasonably foreseeable length to the insurgency.

Provide the population of the cities Please?

Using Wikipedia's numbers (not the world's most reliable source, but quick and generally reliable for this type of info):
Baghdad: 4.5 million
Basra: 2.6 million
Mosul: 1,739,800
Arbil: 990,000
Sulaymaniyah: 800,000

Using Wiki's numbers, it's actually about 10.5 million.

What's your basis for the destruction in shock and awe tactics of a great part of Iraq's power, including Sadham not crippling it? (Consider with what ease America defeated the conventional power structure and army there, insurgents aside).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the shock and awe campaign used surgical strikes against government ministries and military targets, which is far different from "Blow up the entire city as a warning to others."

The studies had it as in the area of ~600,000 (With 3-4 times as many injured).

The Lancet studies are highly flawed and they had it as 600,000 total, not 600,000 in 2006 alone.

Or to get more violent once the religious/ethnic cleansing starts seriously as soon as the "peacekeeping" forces leave (Unless you think those deathsquads are just for fun).

Doubtful it'd get that violent. That'd require a genocide three times deadlier on a per capita basis than the Rwandan. You're talking about wiping out 30-40% of the Iraqi population with this attack after all. Equaling it is going to be exceedingly difficult. Even the Khmer Rouge only managed to kill about 20% of their population.

One which looks at the consequences and weighs them up.

Aside from the obvious failings of consequentialist morality, the chance that the Iraqi insurgency will last so long and be so violent as to equal the deaths caused by the destruction of the major cities of Iraq is just about nil.

[Enforcer Talen]

I thought the Lancet study was fairly reasonable, myself.

The areas I drove in had been blown the fuck up, and the grunts tend to be a nervous bunch.

[Stuart]

[Baghdad: 4.5 million
Basra: 2.6 million
Mosul: 1,739,800
Arbil: 990,000
Sulaymaniyah: 800,000

OK, using those numbers, I'll work out a reasonably convincing strike (I have the data I need to hand) and give you a casualty estimate. ETA Wednesday - I'm in the middle of a major computer change at the moment which has done one thing at least. When I need a name for an operation aimed at inflicting mass destruction and misery on a worldwide basis, I shall call it Operation Windows Vista.

A point though, overall death toll is only one measure of the destruction and hellishness inflicted by war, The complete breakdown of society at all its levels is another. We're seeing that in Iraq as well.

[CC]

[Baghdad: 4.5 million
Basra: 2.6 million
Mosul: 1,739,800
Arbil: 990,000
Sulaymaniyah: 800,000

OK, using those numbers, I'll work out a reasonably convincing strike (I have the data I need to hand) and give you a casualty estimate. ETA Wednesday - I'm in the middle of a major computer change at the moment which has done one thing at least. When I need a name for an operation aimed at inflicting mass destruction and misery on a worldwide basis, I shall call it Operation Windows Vista.

It's not necessary to go to quite that much trouble, as the specifics of how many people die don't change things all that much on the moral balance (and are applicable only for ethical/moral systems that indulge in a balance sheet mentality).

A point though, overall death toll is only one measure of the destruction and hellishness inflicted by war, The complete breakdown of society at all its levels is another. We're seeing that in Iraq as well.

True, but on the other hand, the greatest evil of war is the loss of human life (that being the greatest evil any individual human can suffer, evil being used in the sense of a privation of good).

[Enforcer Talen]

Whats that phrase, by Churchill? "Slavery is worse then war. Dishonor is worse then war."

[Turin]

Apologies for missing the last couple days... I've been away from the computer all weekend and it's taken me a bit to get through the nanotech side discussion.

you snide fuck.

Aha, the intellectual argument

Dismissing the argument because it used naughty words? Surely you know better than that.

In which case Japan (and the US who would probably have to give the green light on any such strike) would incite NK to level Seoul. The political cost of which is becoming less-and-less viable to the US government, and NK knows this.

There's a small problem here. On the one hand you're claiming that the US population is clamoring for a nuclear armageddon and on the other that the fear of such an armageddon will force us to give the Norks everything they want. Sorry, does not compute.

No shit it doesn't compute, which is the entire point of my argument that it isn't entirely unreasonable for the Chinese to assume that the US is not a "rational actor". We do a lot of shit that doesn't make sense and contradicts itself. This completely undercuts your assertion that certain nation states can always be counted on to act in their strategic interests.

You know, as per the board rules?

Ah, so you concede the argument on the old legal principle "if the facts are against you argue the law"

Guess what, fuck face? Around here when someone asks for evidence we're supposed to concede or give a godsdamned link. So far all I have from you is vague references to "back in the 60's" and "I've said before." (However, see below.)

A quick search indicates to me that Nike Zeus was not hit-to-kill but a nuclear interceptor, with the exception of one unsupported mention in Wiki. And PAC-3 is theatre defense so no good against ICBM.

Quoting Wkiipedia gets you an instant F for Failed...

Christ... yes, I know Wiki isn't a good source, which is why I said "with the exception of one unsupported mention in Wiki". As in, the only thing I found that supported it not being a nuclear interceptor was Wiki, which is a shit source.

PAC-3 has nothing to do with this.

No shit. My point exactly (are you even reading these posts or just regurgitating?). I wasn't the one who brought up PAC-3, Starglider was, and it was irrelevant for him to do so.

However, your comments really reveal the fact that you know absolutely nothing about this subject area. Now, that's nothing to be ashamed of, detailed knowledge of ABM technoplogy is limited to a fairly small group of people and those who are able to talk about it are fewer yet... You'll notice how people who have done that are coming to the conclusions I suggested. By the way, I could suggest you read up two books, the Millenium Series publications "Directed Energy Weapons" and "Precision Guided Munitions" which go over the various options for ABM and ASAT in great detail.

Wow, the first source you've directly mentioned other than your own authority! But still, you're right on this... I'd already conceeded earlier to your technical expertise on the matter and shouldn't have brought it back up again. Apologies.

Well, that's the argument that Stuart is making -- that it's always zero-sum. The easy counterexample is the opposed alliances one you've just brought up. A well-designed anti-global-warming treaty, while not yet in existence, could potentially be non-zero-sum. The difficulty of this exercise is coming up with something that Stuart will accept

Zero-sum politics is one of the founding principles of the Maximal-Realism school of international relations. Several people here are studying that area, tehy'll confirm that. Now, you may not agree with the basic theory of Maximal-Realism but that puts the onus onto you to suggest and validate a counter-theory.

I may not be able to suggest an entire self-consistent counter-theory, but I can certainly attack some of the underlying assumptions of yours. One soft-ball is the underlying assumption that nation states are the sole primary actors on the world stage... whereas we're currently in a climate where non-governmental actors (ex. Islamicist terrorist organizations) are having signifcant impact on world affairs. There's additionally a hidden assumption that state actors are internally uniform, which is the point I've been picking at with the whole discussion of American policy.

Additionally, the Maximal Realism school of thought says that "smaller states" will align themselves with the primary hegemony, whereas we can see several examples in the Post Cold War-era of smaller states aligning themselves in alignment against the primary hegemony (much of the Middle East, and to a lesser degree the European Union).

But it was also a case of unequivocable need on short notice. No one (well, not me anyway) is expecting large scale organizations to be able to easily work together in this kind of time scale.

Yet the US Navy managed it. The Southern Baptists managed it.

I'm convinced by this answer that you just don't know what you're even responding to any more. You pointed out the clusterfuck of the situation. I said "yeah, no one expects everyone to work together smoothly on short notice," and you bring up examples of individual organizations working. So what?

And once again you've strawmaned the idea of international cooperation into sitting around in drum circles singing kum-by-ya. When in fact, I've argued a number of times in this thread that international cooperation is damned hard.

And yet you then continue to turn around and airly state they should take on a task that dwarfs anything they've ever attempted and, oh, by the way, take on the twelve biggest, most powerful military-power countries in the world in the process. Its the old story, you're airly dismissing the actual impossibility of the task in hand by admitting it will be "hard".

"Airly dismissing," my ass. Guess what? There are lot's of things that human beings should take on that will dwarf the scale of anything ever attempted previously in human history. Converting from a fossil fuel-based economy will dwarf the scale of anything ever attempted, but does that mean we should all sit around waiting for every last drop of oil to be gone before we go "oh shit"? You just wave your hands and say impossible with your perspective of "when all you do is hammer, everything looks like a nail."

[Turin]

A point though, overall death toll is only one measure of the destruction and hellishness inflicted by war, The complete breakdown of society at all its levels is another. We're seeing that in Iraq as well.

I'll let CC make his own argument, but I notice that you're completely leaving out any consideration in your discussion of the long-term ripple effects of such an action that don't have anything to do with the direct consequences of the strike.

[metavac]

A point though, overall death toll is only one measure of the destruction and hellishness inflicted by war, The complete breakdown of society at all its levels is another. We're seeing that in Iraq as well.

I'll let CC make his own argument, but I notice that you're completely leaving out any consideration in your discussion of the long-term ripple effects of such an action that don't have anything to do with the direct consequences of the strike.

I'd point out that the complete breakdown of a society is a pretty extreme example of a second order effect.

[Turin]

A point though, overall death toll is only one measure of the destruction and hellishness inflicted by war, The complete breakdown of society at all its levels is another. We're seeing that in Iraq as well.

I'll let CC make his own argument, but I notice that you're completely leaving out any consideration in your discussion of the long-term ripple effects of such an action that don't have anything to do with the direct consequences of the strike.

I'd point out that the complete breakdown of a society is a pretty extreme example of a second order effect.

Oops, sorry. I intended that to say:

I notice that you're completely leaving out any consideration in your discussion of the long-term ripple effects of such an action outside the country hit[/b] that don't have anything to do with the direct consequences of the strike.

Which is to say, it could be argued (although I wouldn't agree) that there is a certain rationality to causing an extreme number of deaths in the short term to prevent some hypothetically higher amount of suffering in the long term. But what's being left out of this calculus is the long term damage to, say, the country performing the strike, that countries allies, or nations otherwise outside the irradiated area. This damage can be economic or political. Even military in the form of increased jihadism, etc.