By Charles Kindleberger
PEP Board Member
This article was originally published in the 2016 edition of the Peace Economy News, the annual newsletter of the Peace Economy Project.
Missile Defense – What is the Truth?
The Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System (GMS) exists to protect against a limited missile attack from a country like North Korea. Following a strong push from President George W. Bush, the system was declared operational in 2004. Thirty interceptors are in place, four at Vandenberg Base in California, and 26 in Ft. Greely, Alaska. Fourteen more are to be installed by the end of next year.
The problem is that that it is not clear that the system works. Readers of mostlymissiledefense.com can see 35 claims mostly by Admirals and Generals over the last 13 years about the capabilities of the system. In September 2000, President Clinton declined to implement the system, arguing that it had not been sufficiently tested. But since then the claims have mostly been up-beat news, most recently from Vice Admiral James D Syring, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, and contractors Aerojet Rocketdyne and Raytheon. Their praise came after a January 28, 2016 test that cost $250 million.
More recently David Willman of the Los Angeles Times interviewed some of the scientists involved with the test. Speaking on conditions of confidentiality, one said that the closest the interceptor got to the target was 20 times what was expected. A second scientist suggested that the claims made by the Missile Defense Agency and contractors were “hyperbole, unsupported by any test data.”
Electromagnetic Pulses (EMP)
Have you read the 2016 Republican Platform? Most of it was predictable to those who follow national politics. However, some of us were surprised to see at the end of the “America Resurgence” section (page 54) a paragraph entitled “Protection Against an Electromagnetic Pulse.” This is the idea that an EMP could fry the electric grid, stop traveling cars and otherwise wreak havoc. It turns out that it is old concern – Frank Gaffney (Center for Security Policy and adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz) has predicted that 90 percent of Americans would die in an EMP attack. Newt Gingrich is reported to have said that “this could be the kind of catastrophe that could end civilization.” Others have noted that a large Electromagnetic Pulse would have to be caused by detonation of a large (say 100 or more kiloton) nuclear bomb. In order to create a damaging EMP, the aggressor nation would have to initiate nuclear war. We would argue the first priority is to prevent nuclear war.
U.S. Military Band Expenditures to be reduced – Maybe
The New York Times reported recently that the Department of Defense spent $437 million last year on about 6500 musicians and some very expensive instruments ($12,000 for a tuba?). In 2011, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) proposed a cap of $200 million on what was then a $325 million program. The amendment failed. The next year her amendment failed again, even as the Band expenditures were reported to have risen to $388 million.
But perhaps there is progress. This year the pending National Defense Authorization Act, currently in Conference Committee, has language to the extent that the House Armed Services Committee “believes that the services may be able to conserve end strength by reducing the size of the military bands.” Anyone want to bet?
The Chilcot Report
Retired Civil Servant Sir John Chilcot has produced a 12 volume report, four times the size of War and Peace, into the facts surrounding Great Britain’s entry into the 2003 Iraq war. Here in a very condensed version are the findings:
- Prime Minister Tony Blair indicated that England would back President Bush eight months before the invasion.
- When Blair went to war, not all alternatives had been explored.
- Britain’s legal basis for entry into the war was flawed because there was no evidence that Iraq was in violation of a UN resolution to get rid of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
- Any preparations for activity in Iraq after the invasion were “wholly inadequate.”
CIA weapons being sold on the Black Market in Jordan
This sounds like a movie we have seen before. The U.S. wants to get weapons to Syrian Rebels so the Central Intelligence Agency works with Saudi Arabia and other “friends” to procure and move the weapons. However, in late June the New York Times reports that “millions of dollars of weapons” are showing up on the black market. Kalashnikov assault weapons, mortars and rocket propelled grenades are for sale, even as “Jordanian intelligence operatives” are “sporting new SUVs, iPhones and other luxury items” derived from these illegal transactions. The article notes the decades long relationship between the CIA and Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate, but fails to conclude how high up the scandal goes. So irritating and so sad.
But there is good news for vegetarians
The Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center outside of Boston is testing the feasibility of lettuce, onions, tomatoes and an array of additional produce that could grow hydroponically (vertically) in submarines. Today, after a week or so the salad bar in a submarine is largely depleted, replaced with thawed frozen fruit, bean or pasta salad, etc. The challenge of course is that submarines don’t contain much space.
