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The Argument For a Hypersonic Missile Testing Ban
Lasrick writes Mark Gubrud has a fascinating piece arguing for the U.S. to lead the way in calling for a ban on the testing of hypersonic missiles, a technology that the U.S. has been developing for decades. China has also started testing these weapons, which proponents optimistically claim would not be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Russia, India, and a few other countries are also joining in the fray, so a ban on testing would stop an arms race in its tracks. The article discusses the two types of hypersonic technology, and whether that technology has civilian applications.
Sounds fair...
So we can follow the ban and everyone else cheat?
You really think China would stop testing because of a treaty?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HO
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How often does a ban stop anything in its tracks?
Bans only stop the good guys in their tracks.
So this comes along just as Russia drops the word "Nuclear" to remind everyone that they have them.
Are you naive enough to believe the Russia would bother to show up to negotiate about this?
One also wonders what the people of Ukraine think about such a well timed suggestion.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
It is the kind of idiocy that makes the military industrial complex laugh and call you names.
There are good reasons to ban weapons - but not just because the weapon is good at killing people. To those in the military, effectiveness at killing people is a reason to BUILD the weapon, not ban it.
Chemical are banned not because they kill people, but because they are likely to kill civilians and your own soldiers as much as they kill the enemy. They also people and damage valuable land after you win.
A similar argument applies to biological weapons, land mines and nuclear weapons.
There is NOTHING in this article that would convince a soldier to ban the weapons. Instead, any military person, upon reading it will of course demand that we spend lots of money figuring out how to build hypersonic missiles.
If you dislike war, ban it. But you are probably not naive enough to try that. You would lose the argument because such an attempt has many many flaws. Well guess what - trying to ban weapon research because the weapon is too goo is just as naive.
WORST of all, your naive and foolish attempts make it much harder to ban the weapons we actually CAN ban - land mines, chemical and biological warfare.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
All missiles have civilian applications: governments can use them to blow up civilians, and malcontent citizens who can get their hands on the can use them to blow up governments.
And other governments are always there to provide missiles to the malcontents.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The US would stop building and researching and every other country in the world would continue. But hey, a BAN on evil horrible weapons makes good soundbites for low information voters...
These missiles will turn out to be our only defense against the alien invaders.
It was called the Kellogg-Briand Pact. "The High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another."
How well did that work out?
It was signed in 1928. Good thing there have been no wars since then...
The argument is at heart "Don't develop these weapons because they will be good at killing people and I personally am not smart enough to come up with a civilan use that doesn't kill people".
It is the kind of idiocy that makes the military industrial complex laugh and call you names.
I think the big issue with these weapons is that they *will* become nuclear payload delivery systems, and as first-strike weapons they would be very hard if not impossible to stop (not that good defense industry $$ won't be spent trying). First-strike weaponry generally enables the crazy/unstable countries and their leaders to exert their will over the rest of the world, while not exactly providing much in terms of benefits to larger, more well nuclear established countries.
Banning this kind of testing isn't new - we did have a nuclear test ban for several decades [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
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If we can increase the size of these bad boys we would be able to go from San Francisco to London for Lunch (It would be late evening in London though) and be back in time for that 2 PM pointless meeting with the PHB.
If so, you are one stupid gullible motherfucker.
One rule I try to remember is to never make a rule that can't be enforced. With nuclear bombs, there is seismic and radioactive evidence, so you can know if somebody is breaking the treaty. I doubt that such a thing exists for hypersonic missiles.
There would be no recket programs if this came to be, so it won't. Moving on. (Psst. All rockets and most fighter jets are hypersonic, i.e., >MACH 1)
Nuclear weapons are mainly not used right now because they are so damn slow. When you want to nuke someone on the otherside of the planet, you want them blown up right friggen now. Then some douche tells you, "Sir, the best we can do is 8 hours." and you're all "WHY THE FUCK DO WE HAVE THESE THINGS TO BEGIN WITH???' Clearly if we make nukes fast enough everyone will use them. Seriously though, with laser missile defense systems nowadays are hypersonic missiles really that big of a deal? I mean the systems that use lasers to burn up the missiles, not the laser guided ones where you still have to shoot at a bullet flying at you.
X
Seems to me that all this would do is stop the *open* development of these weapons. Even if everyone agrees not to make them, they will all still be making them.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Who cares if it ever filters down to civilian use ( and it will anyway )? I am getting sick and tired of all the "PC" pansys out there, who have no clue what it takes to stay safe and secure. the ONLY reason you are even here complaining is due to the military. And that military *requires* technology.
Its as bad as the 60s, 'lets throw flowers at tanks' nonsense. If you cant repel attackers and destroy enemies, you are eradicated instead. If you dont keep advancing military tech, you fall behind and lose.
Develop, test then deploy the damned things, as many as we need. Now.
Mod me down if you must, but you know its the truth.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Because nothing works like wagging your finger and pretending something doesn't exist.
A "ban", eh?
Good actors would comply, bad actors would not. Then bad actors would have them, good actors wouldn't.
And that's ... better? How?
Here's the plan. Get the planet to permanently halt a specific scientific and technological development. Brilliant.
So, if the human race never - ever develops the technology, we are all safe. Come on, who is stupid enough to buy this?
The subject says it all.
Alex
Everyone else in the fray is already simulating nuclear weapon designs on supercomputers.
The hydrodynamic calculations are similar enough the military isn't going to share code with the hyperflight guys, so this will just become another black project to be run by the same people. :)
This just gives justification for the research disappearing, and stopping any amateur work.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
"hypersonic technology will never carry nuclear weapons". Instead it is "hypersonic technology will make war so terrible that people will cease waging war."
Just ban everything / stop everything in its tracks which might make your own home soil vulnerable, so you can go own terrorizing the world. Now that's a great plan!
I am a firm believer in the balance of power.
The MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) has kept us safe for the past 60+ years through some really rough times. It seems to be our best bet to continue keeping us safe.
I'm wondering how they'll define hypersonic missile. All space launch vehicles are, in some versions of the definition, a hypersonic missile. All re-entry vehicles are, again, hypersonic missiles (some are hypersonic ballistic missiles).
We already have hypersonic missles -- really! Most of the air-to-air missles shot from 1 plane to another are hypersonic and we've had these for decades. This is public knowledge.
What the article is try to get banned is "long-range hypersonic missles", or if you prefer, the old ICBMs going a lot faster. If you could make a very small nuke and stick it in one of the existing missle cases; you could have a pretty awesome weapon if short distances are all you need (say in the 80-100 mile range from what I've read, definitely far enough the pilot wouldn't have to worry about getting caught in it). It'd be pretty easy to hit any coastal city from international air space that way.
I don't see any good reason to ban hypersonic cruise missiles. It's not enough to ban them on the grounds that they are deadly and serve no civilian purpose: war is about killing people. Previously, weapons have been banned in war on the grounds that they kill in an unusually horrific way, or aim to kill "innocent" targets, or kill indiscriminately, Hypersonic cruise missiles are none of these things.
Hypersonic cruise missiles are an undistinguished weapon of war. There's no argument for banning them that doesn't also apply to war in general. I think we's all love to ban war, but 10,000 years of history suggests that's not gonna happen.
that we know isn't terribly useful... They've known that for 50+ years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
You get a lot more value out of cheap, slow and low mass-produced subsonic drones than from one Space Age high-energy stunt.
The UN should have observers all over the world, everywhere. That way people would know for certain when someone has bad intentions.
It's not easy to do that, but it's easy to accuse someone without proof -- and start wars based on false assumptions, like we've seen recently.
Heck, we cannot even produce cars and some genius once accused us of trying to make secret weapons.
Sometimes offense is not the best defense... it's just a ticket to Hell.
Alright, thats a stupid argument.
How about we research technology and see if there's side benefits?
They have proved this time and again. Call for a ban after their own research is done? Or just a case of agree to, but do it anyway? The U.S will never stop developing weapons, and they will never stop using them on countries that haven't been anywhere near their borders. China and Russia would do best in being mindful about this.
Who are you trying to kid? Cluster munitions and flame throwers are still in use, they just call them something else. Flame throwers today are white phosphorous munitions instead of a guy with a gas can and match (greatly extending range making it much more convenient the user, in addition to much safer), and the US in particular uses a slang term for cluster bombs of "grenadelettes" (see DPICM Munitions). DU rounds litter Afghanistan and Iraq so we are not too worried about generations of civilian casualties, let alone the damage we do immediately.
Hollow points are not really missed, because we have much worse munitions today for rifles/guns. Tumbling and AP rounds cause much more damage at much greater range and can ignore body armor.
The pretext for use of WP munitions is that you can't target a civilian, the same exact rule for high caliber weapons (.50+ caliber). So we claim to shoot at buildings and vehicles to justify WP use, and for large caliber munitions we claim to aim at their belt buckles or back packs.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Brahmos is building a hypersonic model that will go Mach 7
Anyone can claim anything, but if they can't come up with the material which can withstand the force which Mach 7 brings, even if they can get that thing to go that fast, it will disintegrate before it reaches its target
Isn't one of the main arguments for the current state of madness in the states something like:
If you ban guns only the criminals would have them!
Wouldn't that imply that if you ban testing ultra-violent weaponry, only the rogue states would test them?
Just because the Chinese has successfully tested its first scramjet powered hypersonic missile - which indicates China's success in producing their own scramjet engine - does not mean that the Chinese will use that technology to target specifically the American floating war bases
Why is America so scared?
Has America lost its nerve?
Or the Obama's "We have no strategy" reflective of what America has become?
The problem with hypersonic weapons are they are specifically first strike weapons
The problem with your definition is that the Aircraft Carriers themselves can be categorized as first strike weapons too - a floating air base which can be parked very near to the area where you wanna strike
Oh, and both Russia, China and India certainly ought to find better things to spend their money on... like food, education, etc...
Fact: School students in Russia and China fair much better, on average, in scholastic achievement, than those from American schools
Fact: In America there are millions of citizens who go hungry every nights
Patronizing for the sake of patronizing will only earn you distrust and disgust
Sorry. FAIL
Hypersonic flight is horrifically inefficient - your idea that fuel efficiency is the sole advantage of a hypersonic missile is complete uneducated rubbish.
All flight near or above Mach 1 is dramatically less fuel efficient because the air cannot get out of the way and naturally flow around the vehicle (hence the production of shock waves). As you move up in Mach numbers you get heating (bad already at mach 3... the skin of an SR-71 used to get as hot as an oven even in the thin, cold upper-atmosphere) from both skin friction and (at higher Mach numbers) compression of the air ahead of the vehicle - that's a whole lot of energy that is used pushing through that air that cannot get out of the way and making all that heat and noise. All that energy, beyond what's needed to cover the distance travelled at lower speeeds) comes from somewhere (hint: the vehicle burning fuel). The big advantage of the ballistic missile is that it goes up and out of the atmosphere rapidly and then covers the miles between launch point and target point at high speeds OUTSIDE THE ATMOSPHERE. It's actually more fuel-efficient to fly up into space and then zip toward the target.
Next time, please post only things you actually know.
When you said ""There are good reasons to ban weapons" you were, IMHO in error.
Weapons bans only prevent the "good guys" who were less likely to be responsible with them from building them. The "bad guys" will build them anyway and just hide them.
Consider:
Putin is "banned" from invading Ukraine and from developing a new class of intermediate-range nukes. How's that working??? He's currently in the Ukraine and has recently been testing those very banned missiles. The west, however, lacks the spine to respond to his violations on both issues.
North Korea is currently "banned" from both developing nukes and launching missiles. How's that been working?
Hamas is currently "banned" from intentionally firing rockets at civilian targets (an actual "war crime") and firing military weapons from behind a civilian shield (another actual "war crime"). The Israelis probably don't think that ban is working too well.
Saddam Hussein and Syria's President Assad were both "banned" from having and using chemical weapons; both used them to massacre civilians (double "war crime"). Obama promised to punish Assad but clearly lacked the political spine. Bush got rid of Hussein, and the very sort of liberals who support these types of bans call Bush the "war criminal".
Pakistan was a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and therefore obligated not to help any other nation go Nuclear while they were teaching others to go Nuclear for money and while they feigned surprise when their man A.Q.Khan was caught, they saw to it he was treated as a national hero.
The only treaties that "work" are those that serve the self-interests of ALL signatories. Many treaties serve the political interests of all as they gain goodwill for signing them BUT they then quietly fail as some of the parties find it in their strategic or tactical interest to violate and the others find it in their political interest to NOT enforce them.
"when you already have jets that go hypersonic"
Sorry, but no Air Force currently has tactical or strategic hypersonic aricraft. Hypersonics are generally Mach5 and higher. The USAF XB-70 bomber (only 2 of which were ever built) was supersonic, but NOT hypersonic; one crashed the other is in a museum. The SR-71 Blackbird was supersonic, but NOT Hypersonic, and it has been retired.
The only manned hypersonic aircraft that have ever flown were the X-15 (a rocket plane, not a "jet") and the Space Shuttle (a reentry glider, not a "jet")
The problem with all these agreements is trust. Lets just look at Russia for a sec. shall we? They signed a chemical weapons treaty. Then went out and violated the hell out of it. They signed an agreement that they would respect Ukraine's borders in 1991. What the hell!?! They agreed to limits on nuclear weapons. Wanna bet they have been building for years? At least since 5 minutes since Putin got into the job then? Agreements like this are useless if you get rat bastards who take agreements like this as 'assuaging the naive'. Its like a wolf promising to swear off sheep, then being tested by being left in a pen with a sheep. In the morning, the wolf (stuffed full of mutton) looks at you and yells "what the hell do you think I am? I'm a wolf!"
No one cares about hypersonic missiles; it won't start an arms race. Missiles are expensive and no one wants the cost of a nuclear exchange.
The next arms race is currently underway, and it's submarines in south east asia
http://apac2020.thediplomat.com/feature/the-next-arms-race/
Since everybody wants - or rather needs - to trade with China, this is absolutely irrelevant. Come on, they could waltz into Taiwan tomorrow and nobody would do anything. Suck it up and go on. We can't afford to play tough anymore. The US only does the big show with Russia because it will be Europe that suffers.
Putin is busily architecting the second Cold War. The best way to win this war is the same as the last - bankrupting Russia through a technological arms race they can't possibly compete in.
The same principal applies to China as well.
Just build the goddamn things. Don't trust anybody that says they're not. I'm sorry, but that's the world we live in.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Mutually Assured Destruction is more of a pro than a con when considering certain element of society which are willing to, say, strap explosives to their chest and detonate them in a public venue. Projecting your morality onto others in order to predict behaviors is a dangerous game.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If you ban [ insert weapon here ] testing then only the countries that don't sign up for or completely disregard the ban will have [ insert weapon here ].
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
That's like catching your kid smoking then beating his ass while smoking.
You can't "un-invent" something. The cat is already out of the bag. If a weapon is dangerous enough (lots of potential for misuse or unintended consequences), the MAD principle will apply. This is the best deterrent anyone can realistically hope for. Discussions of bans are pointless. Grow up.
Offtopic ?
Tits are never offtopic
Unless ur a faggot
The whole point of supercaviataing torpedoes is speed. A fast and/or maneuverable ship might be able to evade a slow torpedo. While this is less likely with a very fast one. However a Carrier, let alone a "super" carrier, are A) slow, and B) not maneuverable. Their strength are the aircraft on it, and the flotilla around it. Even a very fast torpedo would be detected from a long ways away, and counter measures deployed, though there may be slightly less time to do so. It is the jobs of the anti-torp helos, and Destroyers etc... in the flotilla to take care of those things.
Really the only thing dangerous to carriers are MASS torpedoes, more so than the counter measures can compensate for... However you would have to have a lot of subs, and sacrifice many of them getting close enough and retaliation. The real worry was about these super fast missiles, which are MUCH faster than even very fast torpedoes. The trouble is, that air counter measures could probably take care of it, however could become overwhelmed more easily because of the reduced time between detection and response.
Anyway it is really only dangerous in an all out war, as the BIGGEST defense is that a super carrier is such a massive ship, that any attack would be seen as a clear act of war and generate a very nasty response.
It's banned, so no one will do it.
They can't, because its *BANNED*
All IRBM's & ICBM's have been hypersonic weapons since 1957.
How fast is a re-entry vehicle from a modern ICBM?
Here's what an attack looks like from the ground: hey, a moving bright white dot! (one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand) BOOM
It takes O(10) seconds to go from the top of the atmosphere to target level, three or four from stratosphere.
This is why missile defense is almost impossible.
Even in the video game (Missile Command) you always lose.
called a IRBM. The dynamically optimal solution is obviously to go up out of the atmosphere as soon as you can to reduce drag, and then come down over the target. And since you're coming down, you don't need any thrust in that phase. So you just re-invented the ballistic missile. Von Braun figured this all out quite some time ago.
All the "hypersonic weapons" are ballistic missiles with slightly maneuverable (nonballistic) warheads.
Since they've had supersonic missiles for ages, and they've been selling them to countries like China, Iran and India..
ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Just like the leftists to request a ban AFTER the Russians have an operational system. Yet one more dumb idea.
link or it's not true...