Re: UPDATE: Cosmos 1 Solar Sail Update - Spacecraft Signal May Have

Pat Flannery wrote:

>
>
> Peter Stickney wrote:
>
>>First - If anyone thinks that Canada is off _anyone's_ nuclear
>>targetting lists, you're passing Balloon Gas. The DPRK, for
>>example, is still at war with Canada (And the U.S., and the U.K.,
>>and France, and Turkey, and Ethiopia, and the ROK, and Kim only
>>knows who else.
>>
>>
>
> So he's going to nuke Canada? Did he get a bad bottle of Moosehead
> beer or what?
> Kim Jong Il is mighty paranoid, but I somehow doubt he is overly
> concerned that Canada is going to march on North Korea anytime soon.
> As a military power, Canada is quite insignificant- which means that
> Canada doesn't have any real ability to raise hell in anyone's
> backyard, and no one has any real reason to attack it.

This may predate you a bit, Pat, but in 1950, Kim Jong Il's reputed
father, with the full aid, blessing, and consent of Josef Stalin,
invaded the Southern Half of the Korean Peninsula. This was very
nearly a cakewalk for them, since the ROK (South Korean) Army
consisted of about 8 half-formed division without artillery or heavy
weapons of any kind, and the ROKAF consisted of a half-dozen T-6
trainers, while the DPRK (The North Koreans) fielded a combined arms
army (Like, y'know, Tanks & Trucks & Artillery & stuff) of Soviet
Army veterans, with a reasonable Air Force in support. Because we
don't like people who do that, (Especially when they commit wholesale
massacres on the way - the DPRK was very good at Atrocity) and we
already had a presense there, we sent the Army of Occupation in
Japan, which wasn't in much better shape than the ROKs, in to stem
the tide. That didn't work. Under the auspices of defending the ROK
from the DPRK, pretty much every Western Democracy (and an Eastern
one, the Philippines) sent troops. Canada supplied one Brigade of
the Commonwealth Division, made up of troops from British
Commonwealth nations. (Most notably the U.K., Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand.) The Canadians fought, and fought hard. The Korean War
did not end with a termination of hostilities. There was only an
Armistice. (Literally, "between the shooting") As far as the DPRK,
and Kim Jong Il are concerned, they are still at war with the ROK,
the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and pretty much everybody who isn't them,
50 years later. Two generation of DPRK citizens/subjects have grown
up on a steady diet of Full Stalinist War Propaganda, starving
themselves in the process, and, if they decide to pop off a Nuke,
they're not going to particularly care in which nation they're still
fighting it is. It's a one-shot deal for them. As far as they're
concerned, Toronto is just as good as Seoul, or Washington, or
wherever. Think of James Cagney as Cody Jarret in "White Heat" with
nuclear weapons.
Top o' the World, Ma!


>>They never signed a Peace Treaty, only a Cease Fire. They reserved
>>the right to restart hostilities at any time. Any of the current
>>religiously motivated bad actors would be just as happy to nuke
>>Toronto as De Moines - we all look alike to them.
>>
>>
>
> We may all look alike, but Canada hasn't been supplying Israel with
> weapons big time like we have- and it's the treatment of the
> Palestinians by the Israelis that is Al-Qaeda's main propaganda and
> recruiting plank. To them, Canada may look Christian, but America
> looks sorta Zionist Jewish.

I disagree. If you look at the History of the Middle East, you'll see
that Al Qaeda type movements are a periodic eruption. The presense
or absence of Israel has very little to do with it in fact. It's a
handy hook this time around, to be sure, but this is what they do.
And, as an aside, while Israel's treatment of the Palestinians hasn't
been white glove, it's worth pointing out that the largest single
cause of death of Palestinians are other Palestinians. It will be
interesting to see if this changes as the Lebanese government evolves
a notochord. At this point, the Syrian attempt to annex Lebanon is
in eclipse, and they were the folks propping up Hamas.

> Do terrorism against Canada, and you automatically piss off both
> Great Britain and France- and since France is staying out of all
> this Mideast mess, you've just made a new enemy. Dumb move.

The French could give a warm *** about Canada. They don't care. The
French Canadians are the descendants of folks they kicked out 300+
years ago for being Apostate, Obnoxious, or Both. I suppose they
might be upset if somebody toasted Miquelon, but I doubt many
Frenchmen know where it is, or that they own it.
France has been involved in the Middle east up to their fragrant
armpits, either brutally oppressing the Natives (Lebanon, Syria,
Algeria, Tunisia), or supporting anybody who's afraid that they'll
get onto the Embargo lists in the U.S. and U.K., and can come up with
the cash & bribes.

>>Second - Nobody's been talking about giving the Canadians the ABMs
>>themselves, only including them in the coverage. The ABM system
>>would be controlled (Just like the interceptors, of which the
>>Canadians still have a few, and SAMS, of which nobody really has
>>any, in North America, from an Area Defense point of view) are
>>controlled by a joint U.S.-Canadian organization (You've heard of
>>NORAD, Pat. Air Defence Command may be long gone, but NORAD's still
>>there.) That's where the political hoo-haw (A Tempest in a Teacup).
>>Given the location of Canada's population and industrial centers,
>>they end up under the U.S. defense umbrella no matter what.
>>
>>
>
> They discussed that little aspect of things in the movie "Flight Of
> The Arrow"- would Canada prefer that incoming Russian bombers be
> engaged and destroyed over the sparsely populated regions of
> Northern Canada, or
> over the heavily populated southern section of Canada as soon as
> they came in range of the nuclear-armed Bomarc and Nike Hercules
> batteries located on our Northern border? With a choice like that,
> suddenly a joint Canadian/American missile defense looked really
> good.

Pat, Pat, Pat. "Flight of th Arrow" was so poor, as history, that not
even PBS would run it. I used to be worried about the quality of the
education that kids in the U.S. were receiving - until I saw the
latest products of everybody else's schools.
The movie is, basically, the "Black Sheep Squadron" of the Jet Age.

The Canadians had been supplyin their own interceptors since about
1950, with the development of the CF-100 Canuck. Both countries
cooperated in the implementation of the DEW, Mid-Candada, and Pine
Tree Line radar networks, which basically wired the continent for
sound. (The development of the radar nets is a colossal achievement
in Civil Engineering. It's something that the Canadians should be
burstingly proud over.)

Joint U.S. and Canadian Air Defense began officially in 1951. NORAD,
established in 1958, provides Canada with a voice in joint U.S.-
Canadian Air Defense at the command level.

Be that as it may. I happen to have, in my hot little hands, a
Canadian DND document on the effective use of the CF-105 vs. various
targets. Against an incoming Mach 2/50,000' threat, which was the
design target, Arrows flying normal scramble profiles, launching when
the bombers (at 20 miles/minute) cross the Mid-Canada Line. The
intercept points, given the use of manual GCI, cover an arc roughly
stretching from Portland Maine, though Boston, Mass, Albany, NY, and
the Southern parts of the Great Lakes. The Arrow, by itself,
_could_not_ defend Canadian targets. The bottleneck was command and
control. The CF-105 could not function without SAGE. With SAGE, you
could control a mix of platforms, from fighters to Bomarcs, virtually
without limitation. Of course, by this point, the Soviets had
determined that they just weren't going to get a Mach 2 cruising
bomber to work, and that the next generation delivery system would
have to be missiles. So - the bomber threat remained as a subsonic
(Mach 0.85 / 40,000' platform. Against this type of target, the
CF-105 held no advantage whatsoever.
One of the ironic things of this period is that the Canadians went
full tilt into Nuclear Warfighting. The only effective weapons for
the Bomarcs and CF-101s providing air defense were the Bomarc's
nukes, and the AIR-2 Genie. (The CF-101 also carried 2 AIM-4 Falcons,
but in that small a quantity, they were pretty much useless. F-89s
and F-102s, the other carriers of the early Falcons, carried 6 in
order to ensure a kill.) The tactical air wings in Europe were
equipped with CF-104s, which had no conventional capability
whatsoever. They didn't carry guns, nor missiles, nor conventional
bombs - they didn't even have gunsights. The Army got themselves a
whole bunch of Honest Johns. No other nation placed such a reliance
on nuclear weapons.


>>Third - If it gets to the point where somebody's trying to take out
>>an ABM system with Nuclear Cruise Missiles, then it's Global
>>Thermonuclear War Time, and thin-shield ABM systems are, to be
>>frank,
>>irrelevant. At that point, you're talking about a major power going
>>Balls Out.
>>
>
> And I'm sure that the Canadians would like to give the major power
> in question no excuse to attack them as part of the Balls Out
> effort.

They're already there, Pat. It's a simple question of geography.

--
Pete Stickney
Java Man knew nothing about coffee.
.

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