Expanding The SDI

The NY Times looks at a US push to enhance and expand our defense against North Korean missiles. All interesting but in describing the deployment of offshore drones prepared to shoot rockets in the boost phase they include a rhetorical question which I can answer:

A boost-phase idea getting much notice would be to have drones patrol high over the Sea of Japan, awaiting a North Korean launch. Remote operators would fire heat-sensing rockets that lock onto the rising missiles.

A boost-phase idea getting much notice would be to have drones patrol high over the Sea of Japan, awaiting a North Korean launch. Remote operators would fire heat-sensing rockets that lock onto the rising missiles.

OK, I can tell you why we didn't think of that years ago. Back in the day the original goal of Reagan's "Star Wars" was to defend against Soviet missiles. Unlike North Korea, the USSR was not a relatively small country right next to an ocean. Consequently, unless we thought the Russians would let us fly drones over their land and well inside their air space the drone concept would not be useful.

A Brookings study from 2001 advocated boost-phase defenses against Iran, Iraq and North Korea. A snippet:

Another problem is finding reliable basing. The North Korean threat is the easiest to handle. Because North Korea sits on a peninsula, its missiles can be defended against using sea-based interceptors alone, though a land base on Russian soil near Vladivostok might be worthwhile if Moscow agreed. 

Right concept but sea only. They coulda woulda thought of armed drones, which were deployed in Afghanistan in 2001 but really came into their own just a few years later.

Comments

[Jack is Back (Again)!]

henry,

Saw you're response on first football game. Had a late night dinner with friends. But here is a source:

http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2017-11-06/college-football-history-heres-when-1st-game-was-played

[henry]

I see on wiki that game does double duty as first football and first soccer game. Sounds like NJ puffery to me. ;)

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/18/donald-trump-tweets-polls-swing-voters-215840

This is how you know that people really like the President's Twitter account. The article is by Jim Messina, the creepy guy who ran Obama's 2012 campaign.

[Man Tran]

Anonamom,

Have you heard of any precautions about taking you vitamins before bedtime because coffee (caffeine) negates the effect?

On a separate note, last summer we had coffee (heh) with A(bub)'s doctor son and mentioned that a Dr. Stone in SF was curing bad knees with stem cells for $100 grand a side. We just found out Thursday that a local pal of ours is getting it done in Seattle for $11K for both sides as an outpatient!

Have you heard of that?

And on my own progress, after finishing my first bottle of magnesium, I've noticed both a resurgence of dreaming and a distinct improvement in that moment when you are trying to recall a name or event that is the next element in your conversation.

[Old Lurker]

Henry...iPad data...I followed your instructions. As you warned, the Blast button didn't and when I checked Web Data there were several hundred sites listed, many with zero data. So I did the Web Data Edit thing and everything cleared except about ten zero data sites. I redid the delete for each of them about five times, but they always reappeared.

Any other secrets?

[henry]

OL, I don't know how to get rid of those. Must be from the Russians or NSA or something.

[sbw]

But it arose out of Reagan's visit to Cheyenne mountain (home of the star gate) some five years before.

As I recall, the Trump time machine visited that when.

[sbw]

Clarice Feldman’s weekly reviews put more news in context than any MSM commentator, period. Or, for this generation, Mic Drop.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

I agree, sbw.

Clarice, I really like how you tied everything together. It makes it easy for the reader to see the pattern of the dems' behavior.

[pagar, a bacon, ham and sausage supporter]

Thanks for the great Pieces, Clarice!

[henry]

New thread

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/no-al-franken-has-not-admitted-what-his-accuser-alleged/article/2641150?platform=hootsuite

[Beasts of England]

Thank you, Ignatz - I was a pup, for sure. Unfortunately, it wasn't something I could put on my resume until about ten years later. I had been hired by a boutique firm with a lot of juice, and exactly two of us had economics degrees - and that's how I got picked. lol