Word: systemization
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...short order. The figures Brennan cites are highly suspect on technological grounds, and he admits they are applicable only "assuming that the Soviets do not make a major increase in their offensive forces in response to our improved defense." The ABM would be the most incredibly complex electronic-mechanical system ever built, with all the fallability such complexity implies. The ABM's reliability could never be tested under conditions approximating those of a nuclear attack, simply because there is no way of simulating all the conditions of a nuclear attack. For example, a radar system control the trajectories...
...Wiesner points out, even if the system works as well as the Pentagon's feasibility studies predict, we have no assurance that the Soviets will be content to maintain a static offensive force. There is every reason to believe the Soviets will increase their offense if we build an ABM system, just as we did when we discovered them deploying an ABM system around MosCow. So long as it costs more to purchase an ABM than it does to build the offensive weaponry to offset it, the ABM is tenable only if your are willing to spend some multiple...
SENATOR McGovern uses the history of U.S. ABM research and development to devastate the second argument. It takes a considerable amount of time, about five or six years, to test and deploy any ABM system. Because of the complexity of the system, an ABM system is not something the Soviets could erect and use without ample time for the U.S. to construct a similar defense. We seem to have learned quickly about the system the Soviets were deploying around MosCow. Assuming the CIA is equally efficient in discovering a nationwide deployment of an ABM system by the Soviets, we would...
...other reason, which Senator McGovern only barely suggests (I suppose there are certain things that one just doesn't speak of) is that there are a number of corporations that want to see the ABM--the heavy system, of course--built. Building machine guns, bullets, even helicopters doesn't help them much. The Pentagon has a pretty good idea of what things like that should cost; there's not much room for padding the contract with research and development expenses. Besides, such weapons are actually used, so they really do have to work. If the ABM doesn't work...
...existence of these defense contractors, and the powerful lobbies they maintain, is of course the result of previous defense spending. By consistently allocating such a large proportion of our nation's resources to weapons of war, we have structurally distorted both our economy and our political system. The more money we give the defense contractors, the greater will be their power to demand future expenditures. And it is beginning to appear that the accelerating tendency implied by that analysis is coming into play with full force...