🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2518@sigi.Colorado.EDU> pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier) writes:
>Intelegence can hardly be good enough that we can reasonably assume that
>we will know years in advance on what they are working.

On what grounds do you make such a claim?  Have you ever been a member of
the intelligence community?  The logistics of deployment of any sort of
weaponry, biological or not, provide many opportunities to learn about it
in advance.  Although I'm not up on current intelligence relating to this
(obviously, or I wouldn't be discussing it), last I heard via unclassified
channels there were then only a small number of probable CBW threats of
sufficient significance to require development of specific countermeasures.
This means that it is not a "hopeless" problem, and therefore it is quite
proper for people to be working on it.

I didn't think your objection was primarily to the idea that vaccines could
reasonably be developed in advance of actualization of a biological threat,
and judging by your further comments you're indeed opposed to much more
about military research & development than just this one issue.  However,
re. vaccines, it would seem to me (admittedly not an immunologist) that
even if we didn't know the specific nature of future biological threats,
if we were reasonably certain about the likely classes of future threats
then having knowledge that could lead to quick development of vaccines
could well be worthwhile.  Contrary to some popular scenarios, I doubt
that a real conflict involving such weaponry would be over in a matter of
a few minutes or even a few days.

Secrecy plays the same role here that it does in other military matters:
one doesn't want the enemy to be able to determine easily with certainty
one's exact capabilities; the accepted theory is that that would be more
likely to lead to conflict whenever a breakthrough occurs, since the risks
could be closely approximated.  Uncertainty raises the threshhold.
(Experience seems to bear out this theory.)

>It seems to me that one method to destroy life as we know it is quite
>sufficient.

We had that back in the days of stones and spears.  Yet a proper modern
defense could not have been developed by refusing to study properties
of guns, etc.

War is not primarily about destroying life, by the way, although it
usually involves doing some of that.  One could lose a war without
anyone directly dying, if faced with an overwhelming threat that one
couldn't defend against.

>Name a university biology research building that is so contaminated that
>it can probably never be used.

On two separate occasions as a Physics grad student, I was present when
there was a scare that this level of contamination from nuclear sources
might have occurred.  I'm sure that even if nothing worse has happened
with radiation, there have been non-neglible injury-causing chemical
accidents at universities.

>Do you know of any cases of a university
>deploying bacteria from aircraft on a major (or minor) US city?

Don't be silly; universities don't normally have precisely this scenario
to goof up.  They have spread ideas across the nation that are even more
harmful, however; does that count?

>a non-military organization that conducted their first experiment with
>nuclear chain-reactions under a crowded football stadium so that the cheering
>crowd would drown out any noise the reaction might make?

I seem to recall that the first sustained nuclear chain reaction was
conducted at a university, under a handball court wasn't it?

>spent $300 on a hammer?

Nobody, including the military, spends $300 on an ordinary hammer; we
have budgetary constraints too, even though you might not believe it.
To obtain a properly tested non-sparking hammer for special purposes
might well cost you that.  Most of the highly reported "golden fleece"
contracts of which I've had inside knowledge have turned out to be
completely misrepresented by Proxmire and the press.  I'm sure that
there is SOME actual waste, fraud, and corruption, but I don't think
it's confined to the military; I've even seen universities involved
in it!

>built a tank that cannot withstand the force of firing its own cannon?

We're quite familiar with tanks at the BRL, but that's the first I've
heard of this.  (Not that it's my particular job, but you would think
that the vulnerability analysts I work with daily would have mentioned
it.)  One of the problems with some of the less successful designs is
that NOT ENOUGH research & development was done before manufacturing
contracts were awarded.  These tend to be very political programs, and
often the people in a position to make good engineering decisions are
not consulted.  But I found that to be the case in private industry, too.

>spent billions of dollars on a plane that can be brought down by a bird?

I know of no airplane that costs billions of dollars!  If you mean that
the total R&D program cost over a billion, that's a different matter;
the R&D cost should be amortized over the entire production run.  I
assume you're referring to the B-1.  Do you really think it's the only
airplane that has been crashed by starling in the intake?  However, it
does point up a problem with really expensive military gear:  the very
cost may limit the risks to which the gear is subjected.  I understand
the TFX (F-111) loss rate in Vietnam caused them to quit being used,
even though they were technically the best gear for the job.  Many
Middle Eastern nations have opted to buy relatively cheap fighters
because of this sort of trade-off.  Pentagon planners are certainly
aware of this consideration; whether they're making the right decisions
is beyond my competence to say.

I suspect one of the reasons for interest (on both sides) in biological
weaponry is its comparitively low cost.

>You can't be serious.  

The military is inherently a serious business.