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<title>Spacedebate.org: New Evidence</title>
<description>Latest evidence added to the database on Spacedebate.org</description>
<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/</link>

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	<title>U.S. missile defenses will encourage existing nuclear weapon states to build up their offensive capabilities, further increasing arms race dynamics</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Instead of dissuading countries from pursuing ballistic missiles, missile defense actually incites proliferation. Adversarial and competitor nations will build up their offensive capabilities to ensure some missiles get through. The development of alternate delivery methods and sneakier attack tactics will be a natural response to the fielding of a U.S. missile defense system.

As the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission has pointed out, "China may already be increasing the size of its ICBM force in response to its assessment of the U.S. missile defense program." And the BMDR report explicitly states, "Both Russia and China have repeatedly expressed concerns that U.S. missile defenses adversely affect their own strategic capabilities and interests."

As George Lewis and Ted Postol have reported, in the past, Russia had a legitimate concern regarding U.S. missile defense architecture in Eastern Europe. Interceptors based in Poland could "engage essentially all Russian ICBMs launched against the continental United States from Russian sites west of the Urals. It is difficult to see why any well-informed Russian analyst would not find such a potential situation alarming." Similar concerns are now resurfacing.
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Butt, Yousaf. "The Myth of Missile Defense as a Deterrent." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (May 8, 2010).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:15:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/5001</link>
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	<title>Missile defense won't dissuade adversaries from pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles -- other motivations are too strong</title>
	<description><![CDATA[A poor proliferation deterrent. It's often incorrectly asserted that missile defenses dissuade adversaries from researching and producing ballistic missiles. For instance, the BMDR report states: "The United States, with the support of allies and partners, seeks to create an environment in which the acquisition, deployment, and use of ballistic missiles by regional adversaries can be deterred, principally by eliminating their confidence in the effectiveness of such attacks, and thereby devaluing their ballistic missile arsenals."

But the countries developing ballistic missile technology do so for numerous reasons, not just to launch nuclear attacks against the United States. Many countries desire conventional ballistic missile technology for prestige or because of regional considerations. Whether or not a U.S. missile defense system is operational, such nations will still try to acquire ballistic missile technology. In fact, the countries of most interest to the United States--Iran and North Korea--currently have well-developed ballistic missile programs. The BMDR's claims of an already-functioning missile defense shield obviously haven't diminished their ballistic ardor.

Furthermore, space-launch technology and ICBM technology are identical, and U.S. missile defenses are unlikely to dissuade an adversary from pursuing a space-launch capability. So missile defense has been, is, and will be, an empirical failure at dissuading countries of concern to the United States from pursuing ballistic missile programs.
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Butt, Yousaf. "The Myth of Missile Defense as a Deterrent." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (May 8, 2010).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:15:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/5003</link>
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	<title>Missile defense systems could embolden political leaders to take more risks, possibly leading to broader conflict</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Unfounded claims of missile defense's effectiveness create a serious risk that political leaders might be misled into mistakenly believing that missile defenses actually work. And if they incorrectly think that missile defense has secured the country by neutralizing the threat of ballistic missile attack, policy makers might be emboldened to stake out riskier and more aggressive regional policies than in the absence of missile defense. A similar mistaken confidence in overwhelming U.S. conventional firepower misled Washington into the Iraq War debacle; nuclear miscalculations would be much more costly.

For this reason, missile defense should not, as the NPR claims it would, play any role in "reassuring allies and partners around the world"; no ally should feel secured by a defensive system that can be penetrated by nuclear-tipped missiles. If allies do feel they have neutralized their adversaries' deterrent forces, they too might be tempted to undertake riskier actions, possibly leading to conflict and ultimately even U.S. nuclear intervention. A misplaced confidence in missile defenses could even lull Washington into complacency regarding the spread of WMD and ballistic missile technology: Imagining that they have largely addressed the threat from ballistic missiles, policy makers might feel less urgency to fight proliferation.
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Butt, Yousaf. "The Myth of Missile Defense as a Deterrent." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (May 8, 2010).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:15:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/5002</link>
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	<title>Missile Defense won't fully negate deterrent value of rogue nuclear weapons as we can never be sure it will stop all missiles</title>
	<description><![CDATA[But if Tehran does obtain nuclear weapons, surrounding it with missile defenses, no matter how effective, will never eliminate the threat that a single missile could penetrate the defense system. Thus, the United States can never neutralize the deterrent value of any possible future Iranian nuclear ballistic missiles with any incarnation of missile defense. A nuclear-armed Iran would have to be treated identically by Washington whether or not missile defenses were in play.

The strategic uselessness of missile defenses aimed at intercepting nuclear-tipped missiles is clear (as I have argued before). This is a conceptual problem, not merely a technical one. The reason is simple: There is always a reasonable probability that one or more nuclear missiles will penetrate even the best missile defense system. Since a single nuclear missile hit would cause unacceptable damage to the United States, a missile defense system shouldn't change U.S. strategic calculations with respect to its enemies. Washington should treat North Korea, Iran, and other adversaries the same before and after setting up missile defense systems. Recently, Schelling publicly stated that missile defense will be of dubious value in addressing the possible future threats from Iran.
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Butt, Yousaf. "The Myth of Missile Defense as a Deterrent." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (May 8, 2010).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:00:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/4999</link>
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	<title>Missile Defense is Useless as a Deterrent to Nuclear Attack</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Second, even if reducing the U.S. stockpile did affect U.S. deterrent posture, missile defense couldn't replace any lost deterrent value because missile defense doesn't deter nuclear attacks. The purpose of missile defense is to defend--or, more accurately, attempt to defend. An adversary wouldn't be deterred from launching a nuclear attack because of the existence of missile defense; rather, it's the credible threat of overwhelming nuclear retaliation that deters an adversary. If the enemy is irrational and suicidal enough to discount the threat of massive nuclear retaliation, then a missile defense system that can theoretically intercept only some of the attacking missiles most certainly isn't going to be a deterrent. In wonk parlance, the NPR conveniently conflates reprisal deterrence withdenial deterrence. Reprisal deterrence is the 800-pound gorilla, and denial deterrence is the flea. If our adversaries are thinking twice about using nuclear weapons it's because they're scared of reprisal deterrence. And if they aren't sufficiently scared of reprisal, fractional denial certainly isn't going to stop them. To borrow an analogy used by Thomas Schelling, a Nobel laureate with a deep knowledge of arms control and game theory: Denial deterrence adds to reprisal deterrence like tying an extra cotton string adds to the strength of an aircraft carrier's anchor chain.
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Butt, Yousaf. "The Myth of Missile Defense as a Deterrent." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (May 8, 2010).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:00:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/4998</link>
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	<title>Confidence in existing missile defense systems is not supported by valid empirical test data</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Exaggerating the abilities of missile defense is downright dangerous and military leaders ought to make sure that it doesn't happen; unfortunately, it does. Take, for example, these claims made in the February 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR) report: "The United States now possesses a capacity to counter the projected threats from North Korea and Iran for the foreseeable future." And: "The United States is currently protected against the threat of limited ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] attack, as a result of investments made over the past decade in a system based on ground-based midcourse defense."

Neither of these statements is remotely true. The current system cannot even reliably intercept a single missile that's launched at a known time and on a known trajectory. None of the various missile defense systems, sea- or land-based, have ever been tested in a realistic setting: For instance, a surprise attack with salvos of missiles with decoy warheads (and other countermeasures) and unknown trajectories. J. Michael Gilmore, the director of the Operational Test and Evaluation Office of the Secretary of Defense, recently testified that "it will take as many as five to seven years to collect" just the necessary data to determine whether the administration's planned missile defense architecture is even sensible. And if future tests do prove it to be an empirical failure will the administration really roll back missile defense? It's unlikely. The long-range plans appear to be unencumbered by any realistic testing requirements.
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Butt, Yousaf. "The Myth of Missile Defense as a Deterrent." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. (May 8, 2010).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:00:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/5000</link>
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	<title>U.S. Space Infrastructure and Leadership are in Worse Condition now than they were a Decade Ago</title>
	<description><![CDATA[While the U.S. currently leads the world in space, there are numerous problems other than simple security threats that jeopardize our continued leadership.  We face near-term mission gaps in important space capabilities, our space industry and workforce is losing its competitive edge, our engagement and influence in international space activities has declined, and there is widespread program overreach  that is, there are more government space programs than the federal budget can support.  In many respects, all of the nation's space sectors  commercial, civil, defense, and intelligence  are in worse condition today than they were a decade or more ago.  To the point, as our security and well-being has grown more reliant on space capabilities they have become increasingly vulnerable to breakdown, disruption and attack.  It is with this heightened sense of urgency that I now return to today's timely and vital discussion about space security.  Let me address each of the three main questions.
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Armor, James B. "Testimony of James B. Armor before Strategic Forces Subcommittee, U.S. House Armed Services Committee." . 111th Cong., 1st. Sess (March 18, 2009).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:45:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/4990</link>
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	<title>U.S. should take on Task of Building Global Space Traffic Control System to Demonstrate Leadership</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Currently there is no assigned organizational responsibility for space traffic management.  GPS however may serve as an instructive model.  GPS started as a strictly USAF military system but rapidly grew to have vastly more civil and commercial applications that are now critical to national and even global infrastructure.  Although the USAF at first balked, there is now a DoD and DoT co-chaired National Executive Committee with joint oversight over GPS as well as the FAA space-based and USCG (DHS) terrestrial augmentation systems, to insure an integrated national Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) architecture.  The National Security Space Office (NSSO) maintains the joint agency architecture.  For managing space, currently the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Office grants launch and re-entry licenses, the FCC grants orbital locations and spectrum, while the USAF operates the Space Surveillance system.   Synchronizing these agencies to jointly start studying a space traffic management investment framework might be productive. Working towards a commercially secure space operating environment is an opportunity for global US space leadership that addresses a huge portion of space security.  This is also where discussions about rules of the road might be beneficial.  This will let me segue back to the Committee's third and final question, the role of diplomacy.
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Armor, James B. "Testimony of James B. Armor before Strategic Forces Subcommittee, U.S. House Armed Services Committee." . 111th Cong., 1st. Sess (March 18, 2009).	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:45:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/4992</link>
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	<title>U.S. Missile Defense Push would come at Signficant Cost to Existing Non-proliferation Efforts</title>
	<description><![CDATA[The United States  could damage its relations with allies and friends by pushing on them false and unreliable solutions to real security problems. It will antagonize Russia and China  with massive defense deployments that have the appearance of being designed to be “flexibly” adaptable to deal with Russian and Chinese strategic forces.

The negative effects of a costly and energetic U.S. program that appears to Russian and Chinese leaders to be aimed at blunting Russian and Chinese strategic retaliatory strike forces will sow distrust of the United States within those governments and will create significant barriers to future arms reductions efforts with Russia. This has already been seen in recent U.S.-Russian discussions over the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.[16]

If future arms reduction efforts with Russia come to a halt, this will have serious adverse effects on Russian and U.S. efforts to maintain the viability of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is already under considerable pressure.
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"Russia's Space Defenses in Shambles - Experts." RIA Novosti. May 13, 2010.	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:45:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/4995</link>
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	<title>Russian Generals view Russia as 25-30 years behind U.S. in Developing Space-Based Weapons and Defenses</title>
	<description><![CDATA[A group of retired Russian generals warned on Thursday that the country's space defenses are obsolete and have a limited capability to counter possible threats from space.

"Frankly, our space defense capabilities are limited and insufficient to ensure our national security," former Air Force commander Anatoly Kornukov told a roundtable on the future of Russia's air and space defenses in Moscow.

He said Russia is lagging behind the United States in the development of space-based weapons and space defense systems by at least 25-30 years and the Russian defense industry cannot meet the demand for advanced weaponry.

The Russian political and military leadership have long announced plans to develop strong missile and space defenses by 2020, but no concrete steps have been taken so far and the country doesn't even have a well-defined command structure to tackle this problem, Kornukov said.
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"Russia's Space Defenses in Shambles - Experts." RIA Novosti. May 13, 2010.	]]></description>
	<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:45:00 -0700</pubDate>	<link>http://www.spacedebate.org/evidence/4994</link>
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