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Obama To Decide On New Weapons
krou writes "Buried within the New Start treaty, which saw the decommissioning of nuclear warheads, was an interesting provision as a result of Russian demands: the US must 'decommission one nuclear missile for every one' of a new type of weapon called Prompt Global Strike 'fielded by the Pentagon.' The warhead, which is 'mounted on a long-range missile to start its journey,' would be 'capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour. ... It would travel through the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, generating so much heat that it would have to be shielded with special materials to avoid melting. ... But since the vehicle would remain within the atmosphere rather than going into space, it would be far more maneuverable than a ballistic missile, capable of avoiding the airspace of neutral countries, for example, or steering clear of hostile territory. Its designers note that it could fly straight up the middle of the Persian Gulf before making a sharp turn toward a target.' The new weapon is in line with Obama's plans 'to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,' and rather focus on conventional ones. The idea is not new, having been first floated under the Bush administration, but was abandoned, mainly because 'Russian leaders complained that the technology could increase the risk of a nuclear war, because Russia would not know if the missiles carried nuclear warheads or conventional ones.'"
>>>Obama is more hawkish on a military matter than Bush ? Man that seems wierd...
Not really. He promised to remove the troops by the end of 2009, but instead he sent more. Now he's trying to piss-off our ally Israel by demanding they stop building in the Palestinian zone, else they'll lose American military assistance, and so on.
I don't think Obama is a bad person. Just not a saavy leader. Also tends to break his promises. A lot.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Russia shoud realize by now that there is no credible threat of a U.S. nuclear first strike attack:
- There is no advantage gained by crippling Russia economically or socially. A failed Russia causes us more problems than a successful one. See references on the 'end of the Cold War' to see what a successful Russia lead to. No problem for us there. We can do it again.
- Russia's military is sufficiently constrained by economics that it is not the critical, immediate threat it once was. We should be encouraging Russian stability and economic success.
- A nuclear attack of any consequence on Russia would cause multiple environmental disasters of both more immediate and more intense concern than glbal climate change. Rendering much of Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, and potentially China and the Indian sub-continent either uninhabitable or medically dangerous would not serve any purpose. Nuclear attacks on even a regional scale must be considered 'doomsday' responses by all major nuclear powers. In light of this reality, the real threats are North Korea and potentially Iran, since they do not have the resources to make large-scale nuclear attacks, and so could calculate a scenario where an attack could be survivable for them. Mutually Assured Destruction is very near, it not already at, the end of its usefulness.
- Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, their capacity is not only constrained, but their sphere of influence is reduced. Less reason than ever to try to suppress Russian efforts at influence around the world.
But Global Climate Change has taken us down a road of questionable science, apathy by the masses, and governmental distraction from real, solvable problems. Reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles dramatically would solve a lot of problems between the U.S. and Russia, and including the major nuclear powers as the process moves forward would eventually bring us close enough to nuclear disarmament that we could engage the lesser powers and make a credible demand for their disarmament also. Then we can legitimately challenge ALL weapons-grade processing and put a stop to this dance we are in with North Korea and Iran. Sadly, we can't get there in time to address Iran's nuclear ambitions.
A significant nuclear weapons release will do more harm to our climate and planet than the worst the Global Climate Change crowd can imagine. It would render Climate Change unimportant. No one would care about failed crops from land poisoned by fallout. No one would care about UV exposure and sea level rise if they are battling cancer and indirect, long range radiation poisoning. No one would care about lost habitat and lost biodiversity in the midst of massive and fatal mutations. The jig would be up. I would be entirely aghast if both our incoming Presidents and Russian Presidents did not each get through briefings on the impact of even small releases, at least from the civilian agencies interested in this (State, FEMA, DOE, EPA, DOAgriculture, and maybe a few others) and russian counterparts. The military, despite our instincts, generally would prefer to offer an honest view of strategic ware outcomes. They also would have good reason to caution incoming Presidents against nuclear war. I would not be surprised if our secret strategy would be to back down from any threat. How we would handle an 'unexpected' massive first strike, I dunno. Again, if the schoolyard bully knows there's a bigger bully down the street that has a little brother in his school, does he go in and beat up the bigger bully's little brother? Only when he loses restraint, or the bigger bully loses credibility.
So far, we have not lost credibility on either side.
There are fewer reasons than ever to have a nuclear war.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Your numbers do go to show that he breaks promises a lot.
If the military has a cost-effective way to ensure when they fire a weapon that they are killing enemy combatants and not civilians,
Let's be clear here: There is no "killing enemy combatants and not civilians".
First, there's no way for us humans to be sure we're firing on combatants and not civilians much less our targeting systems, and second because you're going to always need ordinance at least big enough to destroy the target and that means unless all targets are in remote desert locations there's going to be collateral damage, i.e. people dead you didn't directly intend. Explosions are non-discriminatory.
That said, what you say is absolutely true in that it allows killing fewer civilians. More precision means it takes fewer weapons fired of lower magnitude to ensure the target is destroyed. In contrast to low-precision weapons where the whole reason you're firing a lot of them is because you know the vast majority are going to miss and hit something else. See WWII carpet bombing, which was primarily about making sure enemy facilities were destroyed using incredibly imprecise munitions and targeting machinery, and only occasionally used as a weapon of terror. But oh boy did it suck to be a civie anywhere near the target either way.
So yeah. If you can't stop war, making sure we have better tools for war is a good thing from a humanitarian point of view.
As a contrary point, though, having "surgical strike" weapons that people think we can fire without killing any civilians can make the idea of starting a war more appealing to the populace.
I think that's a good point, but the hypothetical (or maybe not so in the case of Iraq II) wars that might be prevented by not having precision weapons doesn't even come close to outweighing the case of the wars we can't avoid if we had to resort to carpet bombing. :P
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