The Future of War?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Sorry about earlier.

I won't DanS, though.

GePap - as much as you do have what appears to be a wide amount of knowledge about lots of different stuff - your knowledge is often skin deep and inexact. It usually supports a very certain world view, and you never question it.

You never take into account something other than your opinion, so eventually arguing with you is pointless and little fun.

I do admit you know lots of trivia and make good judgements in general. Some of what you say makes me dwell deeper into issues and research and analyze my facts.

Sadly though, it appears I'm the only one doing that effort, and you simply dismiss anything said that doesn't fit your POV.

I'll simply refrain from discussing with you. I'll post my POV. You'll post yours.

Hope we meet in +1 threads.

I really fail to understand what you are even trying to get at.

You are pretty good at ignoring other viewpoint as well. In fact, I fail to think when you have ever changed your viewpoint about this issue, not that I expect you to, regardless of when given evidence, like, that Human Rights Wacth report, but then of course, that is hardly a reputable organization, right?

I have seen nothing in this thread posted that would make me rethink the notion that Hezbollah emerged from the August War in a better political position than before, certainly amongst the Shia in Southern Lebanon. And nothing is going to change me stance on the whole Israel-Palestinian mess. Core values, such as a belief in the centrality of fundamental rights granted to individuals, NOT to groups, are not going to change, and it is that core belief that informs my view of the ME. Obviously you hold a fundamentally different belief with regards to where rights should be allocated. Fine, whatever.

I on my side won't stop speaking with anyone unless they hold beliefs I find repulsive, like Winston. So, you don't want to argue, thats fine. I will pick up the conversation whenever you decide to pick it back up.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap


You still yapping about Weslie? Pop Quiz "hotshot" (and I use that term with great sarcasm): What was the arguement?

I know I won't get an answer from you of course, your too much of an intellectual chicken****, but its nice to call you out, to see you skip out.

Okay, I'll bite.

The topic of the thread was China testing an ASAT weapon. The relevant thread of conversation started with this post by MOBIUS:

moby
All I have to say is that the US brought in on themselves:

Last year the US rejected a call from 160 other United Nations countries to have talks on banning weapons in space.

i.e. the US can't complain, since they backed out of a treaty banning weapons in space.

DanS takes on the job of calling out moby's bull****, with this post:

DanS
ASATs are not in space, dufus. Everybody could have a healthy arsenal of ASATs on terra firma.

puppy is oh so clever in contradicting DanS:

puppy
ASAT's are space weapons for all intents and purposes because their targets are in space.

Now, let's pause here for a second and analyze.

1. No one has mentioned space weapons to this point. We have mentioned weapons in space. There is a vast difference between a weapon stationed in space and weapons targetted at space.

2. The treaty in question didn't say anything about weapons targetted at space, either. only weapons stationed in space. So it would have had nothing to do with ground-based weapons.

i.e. puppy has no clue

KH calls him out on this:

KH
ICBMs are space weapons because they travel through space to get to their targets.

The GPS-guided missiles are space weapons because their navigational information comes from space

etc

The talks Mobius was referencing, AFAIK, were about banning the presence of weapons in space, not the ability to launch weapons into space.

i.e. it is absurd to consider weapons that are fired into space "space weapons," because if we do we have to classify weapons as space weapons which clearly are not. Especially not when talking about treaties. No one would suggest a treaty that would (as part of its consequences) ban ICBM's, because the major powers would never agree to it.

And then he goes on to mention the same point I did above, that the treaty has nothing to do with weapons fired into space.

The problem is, KH used an obscure rhetorical trick known as "sarcasm." puppy isn't really experienced with this sort of thing, so it understandably confused him. His responses to the first part of KH's post (ICBM's, GPS-guided missiles) are:

puppy
By that wide definition, arrows are aerial weapons.

If you want to make up stupidly literal definitions, yes. BUt that is no what we are supposed to be doing.

Demonstrating that puppy clearly detects the absurdity of the arguments, but doesn't realize that they're logically implied by his. Oops!

He responds to KH's assertion that the treaty referenced by moby has nothing to do with the Chinese ASAT:

puppy
If that were true, why would the US and other states be throwing a hissy fit about the Chinese simply experimenting with another land based missile system??

Because the US can get upset at things that aren't against international law, perhaps? Ah, he got it:

puppy
Because this is all about the control of space.

good thinking there! Because despite being legal, it threatens our strategic position! But wait - let's look back at the argument so far. puppy's original assertion was that the Chinese ASAT was a space weapon because it was fired into space, therefore it would be banned by the treaty referenced by moby. And we've pretty conclusively determined that no, it wouldn't.

I follow up with a couple posts demonstrating that puppy's wrong about it being a treaty violation:

kuci
GePap: you are simply wrong about treaty violations (unsurprising, given your dismal record on anything related to technology). Weapons are allowed to go into space - we've used our own ASAT weapons, though they were fighter-launched. Positioning weapons in space is the big issue.

Note, this is my first post [apart from some unrelated sniping at Patroklos]. Up until now I haven't even gotten involved in the pwning.

I felt like I should cite my sources (this is what puppy has called "hiding behind fact-checking" and "technical nitpicking" before) so I head over to the wiki article on the Outer Space Treaty and paste the article summary:

kuci
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty:

The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law and, among its principles, it bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications (Art.IV). However, the Treaty does not expressly prohibit the placement or use of weapons in orbit, so long as they are for peaceful purposes.

Key words here: nuclear weapons, ORBIT. These missiles never go into orbit, they are conventional, they aren't "stationed" in space in any reasonable sense, and they're legal anyway as long as the Chinese assert they are for a peaceful (defensive) purpose.

A couple posts (and, I'll grant him, only 80 seconds) after puppy decides to dispute my first post. The one that I had, in order to make sure I was right, gone back and cited. This is what he had to say about it:

puppy


1. Given that there is no set of rules regulating space weapons as of today, anyone can put anything in space. That includes weapons systems.

Full stop. I just demonstrated this to be completely false. Oops!

Well, puppy decided to try and play the citing game himself:

puppy
2. Anti-satellite missiles are considered space weapons, at least by most people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_weapons

* attack and negate the capability of space systems in orbit (i.e. anti-satellite weapons)
* attack targets on the earth (i.e. orbital bombardment weapons)
* defeat missiles travelling through space (i.e. elements of the ongoing U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative program)

Note that this article also mentions lasers, orbital railguns, and the Death Star as space weapons. Also note that he doesn't have any evidence that existing treaties (oh wait, there are none, according to puppy) use such a broad definition, which we already established was absurd.

His third point:

puppy
3. Of course the US and the USSR tested anti-satellite weapons during the Cold War - it was an obvious thing to do. The issue is that since the end of the Cold War, specially under this administration, the US felt that since there was no real competition, there was no need to contemplate a ban on Space weapons because that could only limit the US, which had a huge lead. The Chinese have now shown that lead is not eternal, and it would be in the interest of the US to squash Space weapons at this point because we do have such a huge lead in space already. A ban would help enforce it for longer.

Poor Wesley...

See? That's not what we were talking about at all, but since he's been thoroughly destroyed (he hasn't recognized it yet, but there's got to be something unconscious there telling him he's been pwned) he retreats to obvious and/or uncontestable (because no one can provide hard evidence either way) assertions.

KH still has stamina, though. I respect his diligence in the face of stupidity:

KH
This is simply factually incorrect, as Kuci pointed out

And you are also completely ****ing wrong about proposed treaties. As far as I know, there has never been a serious proposal to ban the development of weapons which can reach space, but simply the deployment of those weapons to space.

puppy keeps going:

puppy
The point, and follow me here if you don't mind, is banning weapons that turn space itself into a battle zone. A missile passing by on its way back to earth does not affect Space assets. A missile meant to blow up thing in space, even one based on planet Earth, DOES. Ok, let me stop and let you catch up....

SO, (and this is why Wiki has the definition it has, one both of you have conviniently ignored, but I can guess why) anti-satellite weapons are part of the militarization of space, if only because they increase the rationale for weapons in space, to counter anti-satellite weapons on earth, to protect your valuable space assets. Which is why anti-satellite systems, whether they be in space or on earth, would be in the agenda of a ban on space weapons.

NOw, do I need to draw diagrams in crayon, or has this been made clear enough?

KH has a few responses to this. re: the definition provided:

KH
You're going by a wikipedia definition of what constitutes a space weapon in addition to a vague mention of a proposal to ban space weapons in order to demonstrate that somebody has proposed to ban ASATs. That's not enough.

Rather similar to my point above. Hmm. Maybe there's some merit to it?

Let's re-post something puppy just said above, to emphasize the inanity:

puppy
anti-satellite weapons are part of the militarization of space, if only because they increase the rationale for weapons in space, to counter anti-satellite weapons on earth, to protect your valuable space assets.

I would have skimmed over this. KH picked up on it and appropriately called WTF:

KH
Oh. My. ****ing. God.

You think that people are planning to base weapons in space to counter ASATs? What the **** are you smoking?

And finally, re: this point puppy made:

puppy
Which is why anti-satellite systems, whether they be in space or on earth, would be in the agenda of a ban on space weapons.

KH asks puppy to give some sort of evidence, like I did:

KH
Nice speculation. Do you have any direct proof that ground-based ASATs have ever been on the agenda?

Now puppy realizes he's been beat, and he takes the only path left to him: "I didn't say that!"

puppy
I will give you fifty bucks if you can quote me as saying that anyone else (besides me) has proposed banning anti-satellite missiles.

Excuse me?

To recap: puppy entered the conversation with a crucial misunderstanding of a key term (space weapon) in the debate. If that were his only sin, it would be okay; we all make mistakes. But he entered by asserting someone was wrong because they were using the term incorrectly, when it was actually he who was doing so. Oops! Then, he goes on to miss blatant sarcasm (though correctly calling out the parody as absurd!) and assert a number of other demonstrable falsehoods and absurdities. And then he retreats by saying he's never actually claimed them.

I could go further with the conversation, but this has gotten boring and I hate typing in the little window. Anyone who wants to read further can here. I think you'll find I've been very fair about taking things in context.

[Kuciwalker]

Remind me again who the intellectual chicken**** is, puppy.

[Drake Tungsten]

tldr

Christ, Kuci...

[Kuciwalker]

I like to be thorough.

[Drake Tungsten]

I appreciate attention to detail, but you really shouldn't expend that much energy on a mere *****slap of a dip**** like GePap. Life's too short...

[Kuciwalker]

True. That took more time than I'd thought it would

[Nubclear]

Congratulations Kuci.

[KrazyHorse]

If you congratulated everybody who spent their time sucking my dick your voice would get hoarse.

[Kuciwalker]

you're mean

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
If you congratulated everybody who spent their time sucking my dick your voice wouldget hoars.

Congratulations, you win the Method Award for Spelling and Grammar?

[Drake Tungsten]

It was an obvious homage to GePap...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Tacc


Congratulations, you win the Method Award for Spelling and Grammar?

It's almost 3 in the morning. Cut me some slack. I'm one of the best writers on this board when it comes to technical proficiency.

[KrazyHorse]

Plus I got my edit in before anybody else had even posted...

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Okay, I'll bite.

The topic of the thread was China testing an ASAT weapon. The relevant thread of conversation started with this post by MOBIUS:

moby
All I have to say is that the US brought in on themselves:

Last year the US rejected a call from 160 other United Nations countries to have talks on banning weapons in space.

i.e. the US can't complain, since they backed out of a treaty banning weapons in space.

DanS takes on the job of calling out moby's bull****, with this post:

DanS
ASATs are not in space, dufus. Everybody could have a healthy arsenal of ASATs on terra firma.

puppy is oh so clever in contradicting DanS:

puppy
ASAT's are space weapons for all intents and purposes because their targets are in space.

Now, let's pause here for a second and analyze.

1. No one has mentioned space weapons to this point. We have mentioned weapons in space. There is a vast difference between a weapon stationed in space and weapons targetted at space.

2. The treaty in question didn't say anything about weapons targetted at space, either. only weapons stationed in space. So it would have had nothing to do with ground-based weapons.

i.e. puppy has no clue

So its starts:

1. MOBIUS linked to a BBC article, which included that quote. If you read the quote, it states that the US backed out of TALKING ABOUT A POSSIBLE TREATY. So what Treaty was the US backing out of? Again, US pulling out of talks about a treaty. If you had read the article MOBUIS linked to, you would have seen that it was about the new Space police coined by the US, which spoke about US dominance in Space, as a way of maintaining control of space in order to further US interests, which is why the US backed out of said talks (again, not out of a treaty, but talks about a treaty), because they were not in line with the new US space policy.

KH calls him out on this:

KH
ICBMs are space weapons because they travel through space to get to their targets.

The GPS-guided missiles are space weapons because their navigational information comes from space

etc

The talks Mobius was referencing, AFAIK, were about banning the presence of weapons in space, not the ability to launch weapons into space.

i.e. it is absurd to consider weapons that are fired into space "space weapons," because if we do we have to classify weapons as space weapons which clearly are not. Especially not when talking about treaties. No one would suggest a treaty that would (as part of its consequences) ban ICBM's, because the major powers would never agree to it.



And then he goes on to mention the same point I did above, that the treaty has nothing to do with weapons fired into space.

The problem is, KH used an obscure rhetorical trick known as "sarcasm." puppy isn't really experienced with this sort of thing, so it understandably confused him. His responses to the first part of KH's post (ICBM's, GPS-guided missiles) are:

puppy
By that wide definition, arrows are aerial weapons.

If you want to make up stupidly literal definitions, yes. BUt that is no what we are supposed to be doing.

Demonstrating that puppy clearly detects the absurdity of the arguments, but doesn't realize that they're logically implied by his. Oops!

He responds to KH's assertion that the treaty referenced by moby has nothing to do with the Chinese ASAT:

puppy
If that were true, why would the US and other states be throwing a hissy fit about the Chinese simply experimenting with another land based missile system??

Because the US can get upset at things that aren't against international law, perhaps? Ah, he got it:

puppy
Because this is all about the control of space.

good thinking there! Because despite being legal, it threatens our strategic position! But wait - let's look back at the argument so far. puppy's original assertion was that the Chinese ASAT was a space weapon because it was fired into space, therefore it would be banned by the treaty referenced by moby. And we've pretty conclusively determined that no, it wouldn't.

And we return to point number 1:

MOBIUS NEVER REFERRED TO ANY SPACE TREATY. HE REFERRED TO A BBC ARTICLE ABOUT US SPACE POLICY WHICH WAS PUBLISHED IN 2005 STATING THAT THE US WOULD SEEK DOMINACE IN SPACE

Now, I know your low regard for MOBIUS probably means you didn;t actually read what he linked to, and that you gave his post no serious consideration. And this is why the subsequent "arguement" is such bull.

I follow up with a couple posts demonstrating that puppy's wrong about it being a treaty violation:

kuci
GePap: you are simply wrong about treaty violations (unsurprising, given your dismal record on anything related to technology). Weapons are allowed to go into space - we've used our own ASAT weapons, though they were fighter-launched. Positioning weapons in space is the big issue.

Note, this is my first post [apart from some unrelated sniping at Patroklos]. Up until now I haven't even gotten involved in the pwning.

I felt like I should cite my sources (this is what puppy has called "hiding behind fact-checking" and "technical nitpicking" before) so I head over to the wiki article on the Outer Space Treaty and paste the article summary:

kuci
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty:

The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law and, among its principles, it bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications (Art.IV). However, the Treaty does not expressly prohibit the placement or use of weapons in orbit, so long as they are for peaceful purposes.

Key words here: nuclear weapons, ORBIT. These missiles never go into orbit, they are conventional, they aren't "stationed" in space in any reasonable sense, and they're legal anyway as long as the Chinese assert they are for a peaceful (defensive) purpose.

A couple posts (and, I'll grant him, only 80 seconds) after puppy decides to dispute my first post. The one that I had, in order to make sure I was right, gone back and cited. This is what he had to say about it:

puppy


1. Given that there is no set of rules regulating space weapons as of today, anyone can put anything in space. That includes weapons systems.

Full stop. I just demonstrated this to be completely false. Oops!

Well, puppy decided to try and play the citing game himself:

puppy
2. Anti-satellite missiles are considered space weapons, at least by most people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_weapons

* attack and negate the capability of space systems in orbit (i.e. anti-satellite weapons)
* attack targets on the earth (i.e. orbital bombardment weapons)
* defeat missiles travelling through space (i.e. elements of the ongoing U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative program)

Note that this article also mentions lasers, orbital railguns, and the Death Star as space weapons. Also note that he doesn't have any evidence that existing treaties (oh wait, there are none, according to puppy) use such a broad definition, which we already established was absurd.

And we return to point number 1:
Let me recap:
MOBIUS NEVER REFERRED TO ANY SPACE TREATY. HE REFERRED TO A BBC ARTICLE ABOUT US SPACE POLICY WHICH WAS PUBLISHED IN 2005 STATING THAT THE US WOULD SEEK DOMINACE IN SPACE

So you are correct, there is no treaty banning anti-satellite systems. In fact, the fact there is only one old Treaty banning nukes in space and weapons on the moon (a nice cold war relic) is because, at least recently, the US has resisted calls to discuss such a new treaty (which is the one line from a BBC article quoted by MOBIUS), and it has done so because under the newly created Space policy of t6he US, the US wants to retain a free hand in Space, which might at some point allow it to place weapons in space as part of its ability to defend its own assets or deny assets to others. Something other nations would of course prefer not happen, but again, the US would njot even participate in such talks.

Oh, and I will stand by the simple Wiki definition I added, which again you gloss over, because a system designed solely to attack things in Space would, by logical individual (not Poly posters) be considered a point of discussion whenever one was actually to discuss the total demilitarization of Space, since if states are allowed to create things to shoot Satellites down in thew event of war, it gives immense impetus for states to counter thses systems by placing weapons in space. Its like saying that we will demilitarize the seas, but everyone can have hudreds of shore anti-ship missiles. Oh, yeah, that is a rational system, because we all know every state would be fine with such a system that leaves their ships vulnerable....

His third point:

puppy
3. Of course the US and the USSR tested anti-satellite weapons during the Cold War - it was an obvious thing to do. The issue is that since the end of the Cold War, specially under this administration, the US felt that since there was no real competition, there was no need to contemplate a ban on Space weapons because that could only limit the US, which had a huge lead. The Chinese have now shown that lead is not eternal, and it would be in the interest of the US to squash Space weapons at this point because we do have such a huge lead in space already. A ban would help enforce it for longer.

Poor Wesley...

See? That's not what we were talking about at all, but since he's been thoroughly destroyed (he hasn't recognized it yet, but there's got to be something unconscious there telling him he's been pwned) he retreats to obvious and/or uncontestable (because no one can provide hard evidence either way) assertions.

Actually, that was what was being talked about, for your see:
MOBIUS NEVER REFERRED TO ANY SPACE TREATY. HE REFERRED TO A BBC ARTICLE ABOUT US SPACE POLICY WHICH WAS PUBLISHED IN 2005 STATING THAT THE US WOULD SEEK DOMINACE IN SPACE

KH still has stamina, though. I respect his diligence in the face of stupidity:

KH
This is simply factually incorrect, as Kuci pointed out

And you are also completely ****ing wrong about proposed treaties. As far as I know, there has never been a serious proposal to ban the development of weapons which can reach space, but simply the deployment of those weapons to space.

It would be nice for KH to come up with a link. I did not know he had access to whatveer those talks were.

IN fact, HERE IS THE TREATY:

http://www.peaceinspace.com/sp_treaty.shtml

Let me quote:

As used in Article I, the terms:

1. The terms "space" and "outer space" mean all space extending upward from an altitude greater that 110 kilometers above sea level.

2. The terms "space-based weapon" and "space-based system" mean a device capable of damaging or destroying an object or person (whether in outer space, in the atmosphere, or on earth) by:

(1) Firing one or more projectiles to collide with that object or person;

(2) Detonating one or more explosive devices in close proximity to that object or person;

(3) Directing a source or energy against that object or person; or

(4) Any other undeveloped means.

Now, maybe you are a better reader of diplo-speak than me, but it seems that if the point is to ban weapons that would be able to destroy things or people in space, it would be incomplete to allow such weapons if on a technicality they are based on Earth. Seems the treaty also mentions this.

puppy keeps going:

puppy
The point, and follow me here if you don't mind, is banning weapons that turn space itself into a battle zone. A missile passing by on its way back to earth does not affect Space assets. A missile meant to blow up thing in space, even one based on planet Earth, DOES. Ok, let me stop and let you catch up....

SO, (and this is why Wiki has the definition it has, one both of you have conviniently ignored, but I can guess why) anti-satellite weapons are part of the militarization of space, if only because they increase the rationale for weapons in space, to counter anti-satellite weapons on earth, to protect your valuable space assets. Which is why anti-satellite systems, whether they be in space or on earth, would be in the agenda of a ban on space weapons.

NOw, do I need to draw diagrams in crayon, or has this been made clear enough?

KH has a few responses to this. re: the definition provided:

KH
You're going by a wikipedia definition of what constitutes a space weapon in addition to a vague mention of a proposal to ban space weapons in order to demonstrate that somebody has proposed to ban ASATs. That's not enough.

Rather similar to my point above. Hmm. Maybe there's some merit to it?

Let's re-post something puppy just said above, to emphasize the inanity:

puppy
anti-satellite weapons are part of the militarization of space, if only because they increase the rationale for weapons in space, to counter anti-satellite weapons on earth, to protect your valuable space assets.

I would have skimmed over this. KH picked up on it and appropriately called WTF:

KH
Oh. My. ****ing. God.

You think that people are planning to base weapons in space to counter ASATs? What the **** are you smoking?

And finally, re: this point puppy made:

puppy
Which is why anti-satellite systems, whether they be in space or on earth, would be in the agenda of a ban on space weapons.

KH asks puppy to give some sort of evidence, like I did:

KH
Nice speculation. Do you have any direct proof that ground-based ASATs have ever been on the agenda?

Now puppy realizes he's been beat, and he takes the only path left to him: "I didn't say that!"

puppy
I will give you fifty bucks if you can quote me as saying that anyone else (besides me) has proposed banning anti-satellite missiles.

Excuse me?

See above quoted treaty.

To recap: puppy entered the conversation with a crucial misunderstanding of a key term (space weapon) in the debate. If that were his only sin, it would be okay; we all make mistakes. But he entered by asserting someone was wrong because they were using the term incorrectly, when it was actually he who was doing so. Oops! Then, he goes on to miss blatant sarcasm (though correctly calling out the parody as absurd!) and assert a number of other demonstrable falsehoods and absurdities. And then he retreats by saying he's never actually claimed them.

Or, for anyone who has read this response,

This began because several posters here like to ignore the posts of others. MOBIUS posted a BBC article. Instead of reading his article, most of you just read the one line he quoted and went of on that.

As for the term space weapons, well, I stand by what I say, and now I have the nice little treay we are talking about. At the time of the discussion I had not read the treaty. Actually, it did not take long to find. BUt it seemed quite rational to me (obviously not to you for some reason) that a treaty of the militarization of space would be incomplete without dealing with anti-satellite weapons. It seems the drafters of the treaty agree, as it is quite irrational to ban weapons in Space to allow weapons that fire at things in space ( as opposed to thing that fly through space to hit things back on earth, which leave space as nothing but a junkyard for discarded stage boosters).

You know, this was fun.