Physicist Criticizes Military Policy

Here is a good interview of Ted Postol, an MIT physicist who has done a lot of military consulting. He seemed to a lot about US systems that I thought would be classified, and also about Russian and Chinese systems. He has a lot of argument against ballistic missile defense. He says they don't work, and are easily defeated. That may be true, but a defense that works a little bit might be better than nothing.

He is a liberal Democrat, and probably a Trump-hater. But he most scathing criticisms were of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, the NY Times, John Kerry, and James Clapper.

He says the NY Times and other leading news media used to be must more honest. Now they are hopelessly partisan.

He thinks that Obama and Biden are good men, but their advisors were and are corrupt and partisan to the point of making very bad policies. He thinks Russia and China have better technological and military leadership. Except that Putin blundered by invading Ukraine.

He talked about what Wikipedia calls Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war. He essentially says the Obama administration lied to us in order to trigger a war that would have had disastrous consequences. He is baffled that American leaders could be so dishonest and irresponsible. And also the news media.

I am not sure he is right about everything.