In the near future, a ballistic missile engagement with north korea would test out the ABM shield without exposing more than seattle to destruction. and you could argue that Iraq/Gulf-war-II is actually Iran beta testing its algorithms to deal with the forthcoming Gulf War III.

The issue w/ in-field testing of weaponry is that nowadays the design cycle of products is too slow for feedback to be incorporated into the product before that specific conflict is over, and that the failure modes of the system come in too high up the “loughran scale” of system engineering disasters. A Level 8 error “loss of small country”, or even L7 “loss of city” is much more significant than an L1 event “loss of unsaved work”.

-steve

That sad part is I hear very similar comments coming from IT project managers all too frequently — so, yes, there *are* people in the software world who seem to believe that, mind-boggling as it is.

I think the point he is making is a valid one, and I think it applies to you, as well as to the members of Congress the article addresses.

The point is, as he says: “In short, Sen. Levin and other longtime opponents of missile defense plan to use “testing” – set to an unrealistically high level – to stop missile defense.” Similarly, you are focusing on one sentence and making fun of it rather than responding to the article seriously.

If you read the entire article in this context, it makes sense. The examples he gives are true and valid examples.

Rather than come right out and oppose missile defense systems on strategic grounds, which they know won’t play well with the majority of voters, they kill it with the death of a thousand cuts. They believe this deceptive approach is quite reasonable because they know better than the voters what’s good for them. This arrogance is quite common. Your arrogance in proclaiming, essentially, “Right Wingers are Stupid” is quite similiar.

Well, at least all of the bloggers I have read.

Well, at least one does.