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The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle
Hapster writes " Raytheon has developed the most expensive weapon ever. This ICBM killer hones in on an oncoming missile and, like a bullet hitting another bullet, hopes to smash into it before it smashes into us. " On a sheer technology level, devices like this are some of the most intrinsicly interesting around, although I'm still not quite sure who's the enemy.
Discore dun said:
Who'd bomb abortion clinics, or bomb gay clubs, or bomb churches, or blow the bejeesus out of civilians? Who the hell would set up crematoria and extensive transport networks and accounting systems and even new forms of poisons specifically so they could kill mass numbers of people in the shortest amount of time with minimum fuss? Who'd pay out upwards of three hundred thousand dollars to become mentally ill, then to find all their problems are supposedly the result of an evil alien having thrown them in a Hawaiian volcano some time before dinosaurs went extinct? ;)
No, I'm not stating that to be facetious. I am stating that...well...there are a lot of Very Crazy People out there, and a fair number of them have in essence given up their minds and free will to authoritarian leaders who pretty much keep them in a state of fear, loathing, and self-guilt.
Go read up sometime on coercive tactics and tactics of mind control for starters. A good start would be reading on the mind-control stuff Scientology uses against members, and read how exactly Hitler rose to power in Germany.
Another good source--and this is REALLY relevant for you in the US, and in the Middle East, and possibly other places--is reading up on fundamentalist movements in general. (As an aside, an awful, AWFUL lot of fundy movements do use coercive tactics. In essence, a fundy who bombs a building does not see what he's doing as wrong; he sees himself as a member of the Chosen People, frequently sees the world outside of his cluster as deluded at best and outright Satanic and worthy only of extinction at worst, and thus terrestrial law is not to be obeyed as it is preempted by "God's law"; many think they will either become martyrs or will be Raptured or receive reward in the afterlife; many are taught not to question their leaders as "thou shalt not judge a man of God" and are told to avoid all media outside the group.)
A real good example of the kind of person who just MIGHT be nuts enough to set off a smallpox bomb would be Eric Rudolph, or some of the folks who work for the godhatesfags.com people...I expect they would think NOTHING of setting off such a device in Las Vegas or in a gay nightclub, because they'd think they were "delivering God's vengeance". Hell, you see this in MAINSTREAM fundy churches in the US; I've heard preachers make excuses for people who killed abortion providers ("It's wrong to kill, but they were baby-killers and had it coming to them so we can't shed too many tears...") and damn near erupted all over themselves during both the Gulf War and the crises during the Cold War because they were convinced a nuclear war would take place, that it'd be over Israel, and it would mean they would be raptured and be able to sit in heaven as all the sinners perished in nuclear hellfire [yes, they literally believed this, and they didn't care that all life might be destroyed because they were going to get a "new heaven and new earth"].
Most of those are, for some reason or another (either because they are nuts, malignant, or are being led by the nose by people who are nuts or malignant), are not in their right minds to begin with. They don't CARE about this world because they think it's evil anyways...so they would probably drop a smallpox bomb without a thought. They might even see it like God is using them to unleash a plague, like the plagues mentioned in the story of Passover. They've stopped seeing everyone outside of their group as human, and see them as The Enemy.
Then again, at least speaking for the United States...these people would not use ICBMs. They'd likely use suitcase bombs or something similar, and odds are the US would not even suspect it was an act of domestic terrorism till weeks afterwards, if ever. (Both the OKC bombing and the Olympic bombing were thought to be the work of foreign terrorists at first; turned out in both cases it was domestic terrorism, in at least one case linked to a particularly hateful offshoot of fundamentalism known as Christian Identity. [I've also heard this about the other case, but it's also likely he's a regular foamin' fundy and not the race-baiter flavour. "Christian militias" that are as dangerous as the hate-group linked kind, but have nothing to do with "Christian Identity", do exist; most see themselves as "Entime preparation" groups. I'm rather worried about what a few of these groups might pull if Y2K doesn't mean Armageddon, especially since a fair number of them are the ones pushing "Y2K Survival Communities" and Y2K shelters and Y2K food barns and survival camps and whatnot.]
The two most likely countries to use ICBMs with biological weapons, methinks, would be Pakistan and India; they've been in a shooting war since 1948, are both nuclear, both have received assistance from Russia in past, are dancing every bit as close to a nuclear war as the US and USSR were over those Cuban missiles in the 60's, and are the two countries most expected to eventually have a nuclear war. They pretty much see each other as the Enemy at this point, both countries have raving fundies as their leaders [the BJP in India is essentially a fundamentalist Hindu party; Pakistan is run pretty much by fundy Muslums--Pakistan is pretty much the ONLY country right now on good terms with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and provide training for the Taliban], they damn near see getting Kashmir as the Holy Grail...it wouldn't shock me if the idea of anthrax-bombing or smallpox-bombing one or the other comes in their heads eventually, if it hasn't already. [This would be a Really Bad Thing, too--pretty much at least a billion people would die (Pakistan and India's combined population, roughly) and if it spread to China kiss another billion goodbye...not to mention it'd REALLY destabilise the area and increase the risk China and the US could go to a shooting war.]
Another possibility is South and North Korea, but I'm not so sure on this seeing as North Korea would likely want the food reserves uncontaminated; they've been through a rather severe famine where anywhere from 200,000 to 2 million people have died (depending on who's statistics you believe)
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
The US has never spent most of the annual Federal budget of Defense. Even at the height of the Cold War, when Reagan was catching up from the dangerously wussified Carter 70's, Defense never consumed more than 35 or 40 percent of the Federal budget. Of course, it really doesn't matter. You should spend what is necessary. A newly-freed Eastern Europe and a much-diminsihed threat of nuclear war are both worth a lot of billions. Your numbers a way off. Carter spent the average of 5% of the budget on defense each year of his term. (in 78 it was 4.9 and in 82 it was 5.3) Reagan spent about 6.2% of our budget on defense, his later years it the % began to decline. Bush spent even less than Carter % wise. We were fighting a ground war overseas, for most of the time in two hemispeherically separated theatres. Of course, it was very very expensive. The Cold War, however, was never that expensive in terms of a percentage of the Federal budget, or of the GNP. Yes it was. In 1979 the debt was 34% on our GDP by 1992 it was 67%. No, totally wrong. First, NASA is obsolete and mostly useless. Private companies will soon so far surpass NASA that it'll just be another very expensive joke. First of all NASA has done and is doing a lot more to improve our way of life than most agencies. No private company has really done anything to try and take its place. NASA and the USPS are the only two agencies that bring in money to the gov for their services. IRS is required to do it so they don't count. We did not 'create' any of the dictators you mentioned, or any other, for that matter. Sometimes we dealt with them when our interests coincided. Sometimes we hoped we could convince them to open up their countries. We also allied with Stalin during WWII to defeat Hitler. Do you think that was a bad idea, too? Actually we did put most of these people into power and turned our back on them or made them our enemy when we found them to be in our way. That is why so many people hate Americans. We cant be trusted. Our past is full of backstabbing more so than most countries.
I mean, unless someone learns how to set fire to smog, how are you gonna do it? Will China use ALL its nukes? And get some friends to help?
Hmmm...
If you gave us enough time to evacuate, Angelinos might ask if the US itself could help out with this innovative urban renewal. I can see it now - proposition 3..2..1..
The more I think about this, the better I like it. Great weather, lousy city not-planning. Throw a couple extra on the downtown, and we even solve the cable & pipe problems the subway's having! And once the LA freeways are gone, who knows how much national oil consumption will drop!
Yeah, we'd lose Hollywood and a large portion of the entertainment industry, but...no, never mind, that's not a negative. I guess there are no real downsides...
Man, this could be the greatest urban renewal program of the century! Let's pick a fight with China before they realize they'd be doing us a favor!
We probably don't need another missle defense system, especially since Star Wars' funding has passed. The problem is that the enemies that we have to fear probably won't be using ICBM's. Our enemies in the 21st century are going to be: 1) Terrorists - if they got their hands on a nuclear weapon, their delivery mthod of choice would be a Wonder Bread truck, not missile. 2) Unstable nuclear powers - Either those who have built them or those who have bought nukes, these countries (india excluded) aren't going to bother with building an ICBM that can be shot down. They'll use a surplus cruise missile that can be fired from any cheap aluminum MiG or a short range balistic missile that we cannot shoot down. 3) Unstable major nuclear power - Honestly, if you get enough missiles, be they ICBM or SLBM, it won't make a lick of difference what you have to shoot them down. A victory through something like that would surely be the death of us. Honestly, it won't matter how many cool new toys we can come up with, the offense will always have the advantage of the first strike. The only real solution is to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether, something that will not happen in any of our lifetimes. I've had the benifit of growing up predominately without the threat of nuclear war, but others have lived with this hanging over their heads for their entire lives. We must remember the collapse of the USSR does not mean the collapse of all military enemies. The only viable course of action is eternal vigilance...
"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member" - Groucho Marx
"As for Stalinism, keep in mind that the world's most successful Stalinist-like coporate entity resides in Redmond, Washington."
You really don't know much about Stalin, or what he did, do you?
Alright, so I worked in another building on this plant in Tucson this summer (on a different missile), and if anyone can make the EKV work, I think it's Raytheon.
A ir and Missile Defense Systems)
I mean, comon, they make Tomahawk, AMRAAM, the seeker head for ASRAAM (for the Brits), AIM-9X, Sparrow, Standard, RAM, HAWK, ACM, TOW, Javelin, etc.
(http://www.raytheon.com/rsc/dss/dpr/dpr00.htm#
And speaking of Theater vs. Ballistic, EKV rides on Standard III, the exo-atmospheric missile. For more close in work, you could use Standard II Block IVa, which is radar guided and not hit-to-kill, or Standard 2 Block IV, which is IR guided and also not hit-to-kill, IIRC. This is mostly Navy stuff, though, I guess you'd have whatever crappy stuff is coming out of LockMart for the land-based stuff. Bleah. (Not betraying prejudices here -- THAAD 0/6)
Isn't it fun how they don't talk building numbers or anything. I know they took the sign telling what product was made there off another building when the military started using a, ahem, useful product in the Balkans.
Wishing I had a *Top* Secret clearance,
-- Rob
What you want for a "bunker buster" weapon is generally a long, skinny, hard, heavy rod, within reason, as you concentrate enough kinetic energy on a small enough point and it's pretty effective and punching through things. Hey, wait. We already have a few of these...BRU-something is the munitions number...
Ah but you are assuming that it is a square head on hit. If the vehicle just clips the missile then it would mostly break up into little pieces. I forgot about re-entry heating. However remember that the plutonium pit is encased in stainless steel, stainless is VERY heat resistant.
Hmm... Lasers... the Airborne Laser (big ol' H-Fl laser in a 747) still continues to get developmental work, I think.
At suborbital speeds a smart rock should be pretty effective.
But we have to make enough of them in the first place.
Oh, wait. That could apply to Tomahawk cruise missiles also.
Has anyone else out there read "Lady Slings The Booze" by Spider Robinson? He makes a good argument as to why missiles in general are a LOUSY way to deliver explosive force. Why not just use nuclear mines? Smuggle them in to the country in question, locate them so as to do the most damage, and then detonate them remotely (or even in person if you've got kamikaze-type fanatics). This gives a much-reduced chance of interception, no warning beforehand to launch counterattacks, and makes it darn near impossible to determine who did it. Its scary enough that I can't believe nobody is using it... Chris
No, a 7000-mile range stealth cruise missile would be the undetectable threat. Wait... suicide pilots or hijackers with a "special" cargo on commercial aircraft could do that.
We keep trying to deal with the obvious threats so politicians and bureaucrats can say they're Doing Something. But it's the obvious, but "no way would anyone do that!" [special cargo on a Air Libya plane that gets "hijacked" and redirected to a special destination] things that we would rather ignore that go sort of unmentioned, because either trying to prevent them is not feasible or because the solution(s) would not prove to be politically doable.
Any small nation that develops ICBM nukes is only
going to use it against the US as a bargaining
chip.
"see, we now have ICBM nukes. You must admit
us into the nuclear club, and you can't just
police us like you police other nations."
In other words, they would use it to get the
respect that China and Russia have, but that
Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, and Indonesia
do not. (W can run roughshod all over these
countries and there's nothing they can do.
We can not do the same to China, Russian provinces, or in the future, Pakistan.)
However, they know that any launch would surely
result in their assured destruction (they can't
destroy the US), so it's a pure terror weapon.
However, they know they can still gain some
negotiating room with the US and other countries
as long as they have the threat. The presence
of ICBMs in North Korea alone would vastly boost
their position in foreign policy at the
negotiating table. You can see it today as
North Korea uses the threat of missiles or
building a weapons reactor to simply get
food.
Having a credible missile defense allows the US
to say "fuck your ICBMs, you must comply with
your agreements, we can shoot down the few paultry
ICBMs you have."
Now, whether or not the US can actually do this
100% is irrelevent. As long as the US has the credibility of doing it.
So why not simply announce a new defense system, announce 100% accurate tests, show phony demo tapes, stage phony sales to Israel, Taiwan, Japan, and other allies, and no country could
falsify the reality of the situation without
actually launching a weapon, which they would
never attempt.
The US policy should be "launch a missile, if it gets shot down, you still die."
The only thing that truly matters in this world is perception. As long as Kruchev really believed the US was prepared to go all the way at Cuba, there was a chance for removal. If he felt the US was bluffing, the situation might have been worse.
Hi!
I won't comment on the rest of your post, but your references to Aum Shinrikyu aren't correct.
First, they weren't trying to attack Tokyo in general--they were specifically trying to attack the National Police Agency in Kasumigaseki. They were depending upon the legendary reliability of the Tokyo subways to deliver all the nerve gas (sarin) to the proper parts of Kasumigaseki at the same time. (Don't laugh--there is a entire form of fiction in Japanese literature devoted to the precise scheduling of the Japanese railway system.) They pretty much succeeded--all but one of the trains arrived in Kasumigaseki at the right time. The one train that did not arrive in Kasumigaseki on time was inbound on the Hibiya Line--the sarin was released in the Kamiyacho station (the station before) instead.
As I mentioned above, they used a form of sarin gas, not anthrax. This was a chemical attack, not a biological attack.
How do I know? I was there. I was living in Japan for most of 1994 and 1995, and worked in an office adjacent to Kamiyacho station. My major client in Japan imports a form of phosphene trichloride (a feedstock of sarin) into Japan (it is used to make LCD displays). The Ministry of Social Welfare, in the aftermath of the accident, noted that an importer of POCL3 was adjacent to one of the sites where the gas was released. They were all over us. We were able to demonstrate that we could account for every drop that we had imported--but that was definitely the most tension-filled meeting of my entire career.
While "Hindus vs. Moslems" doesn't stir much blood in the Bible Belt of the US, too many consumer goods are sold in the US that are made in China, so does the US end up cutting off our face to spite our nose (or vice versa)?
If we just let them starve, the problem would go away. Thank you for enlightening me. This philosophy solves just about any problem in the world anyway: -If your child, mother, or girlfriend is ill, let them die. The problem will go away. -Ecological problems? Nonexistent. If we destroy the planet too much we will die. No ecological problems any more. Problem solved.
and now for something completely different
There is one problem with your whole argument: you are only thinking one step ahead. Yes, for one strategic moment an ABM system would make (parts) of the world safer. But, when the next moment rolled around (in a year or so) the whole world would suddenly be a much more dangerous place.
Instead of having a whole bunch of nuclear weapons around which noone can use, you would now have a whole bunch of nuclear weapons around which a few people can use.
Now, in general, I would not think of the current U.S. to be the one to first use a nuclear weapon (although there is an historic precedent). But, once the technology has been developed, it will leak to other, less sane countries. We've seen this this before. Even if the technology itself doesn't leak, just the knowledge that it is possible is a huge help to someone who wishes to replicate it. This is exactly what happened with nuclear weapons...the Manhattan project proved that they were feasable. The Soviets stole the technology. The British used a little US help, but basically did it themselves. The French and India did it entirely themselves; South Africa almost did the same. China did it with a little Soviet help, and then passed it on to Pakistan... The same thing will happen with ABM technology.
The problem is if China tries to provoke problems in the region, either by helping Pakistan, or heating things up with India, thus providing Pakistan a window of opportunity by putting India in the 2-front war vice.
All right, I'll give you that. In fact the hit would almost certainly be a glancing blow. The simplest anti-ABM defence is to encase the warhead in some kind of light weight tent structure, to give the ABM kill vehicle a big, mostly empty target to fly harmlessly through.
I still think that a glancing blow, at these speeds, will most likely set off at least some of the HE implosion system. That should vaporize any of the remaining core.
But you're right, it's certainly possible for larger chunks to make it to the ground. Of course, the result of this whole situation will alomst certainly be full-blown thermonuclear war...so it probably won't make much difference..........
Hi All!
Of all the likely nuclear scenarios, I think the two most likely are these:
North Korea nukes Japan
Sound crazy? Understand this--the history of Korea can essentially be defined by alternating periods of subjugation by the Chinese and the Japanese. The centuries of Chinese rule were generally benign--the decades or centuries of Japanese rule (including 1914-1945) were characterized by incredible brutality interspersed by periodic episodes of unbelievable brutality. It may sound nuts to Westerners--but North Korea would be viewed sympathetically by many South Koreans if they could plausibly launch a nuke at the Japanese.
China flips a nuke at the U.S. over Taiwan
The Chinese have already threatened to do this. In 1996 a Chinese military official--in an astonishly blunt statement--pointed out that the PRC had the capability to deliver nuclear warheads on Los Angeles. (Digression: in Asia you only speak this directly to inferiors or to people you have absolute command over. The statement is regarded by many who are knowledgeable about Asian affairs as strong evidence that the Chinese have compromising information on the Clinton Administration, and speak in this tone to remind everybody of the fact.) The PRC goes nuts any time anybody even talks to the Taiwanese--they continually object to U.S. airlines flying to Taipei, and they harass travelers entering the PRC if they also have a lot of Taiwanese visa stamps. (A lot of Asian travelers "lose" their passports and get replacements, so they have one passport for the PRC and Hong Kong, and a different passport for Taiwan.) How nuts are they? The "diplomatic incident in 1996" that the NY Times refers to in the article was the attempt by President Lee of Taiwan to attend an alumni reunion at Cornell. Yup--Lee was permitted entry into the U.S. only by a resolution of Congress, and the Chinese baldly hinted at nuclear war.
Why would either the NKs or the Chinese do this? Both countries have leaders that are contemptuous of American politics and American public opinion. They believe (and they may be correct) that they could "accidently" flip a nuke and start apologizing up one side and down the other. And they believe that the U.S. does not have the political resolve to respond with nukes. It's all well and good to talk about "anybody launching an ICBM would quickly be glowing in the dark"--but I doubt that it is true. I don't think the U.S. military has what used to be called "independent launch authority" any more--nobody can launch without permission from "National Command Authority." And the "National Command Authority," in case anybody has forgotten, is a sex-crazed dipstick who is regarded as spineless by the leaders of every other nation in the world.
An Exercise:
Taiwan declares independence. China attempts to launch an invasion flotilla. Taiwanese subs and torpedo boats ravage the armada--but suspicions rise that some of those submarines are actually U.S. Navy boats, or perhaps E-3 Sentry aircraft provide tactical information to the Taiwanese. China "accidentally" launches a nuke at Los Angeles--and fortunately, it turns out to be a dud. It destroys a block of downtown L.A., but that's the extent of it. They apologize profusely, and they mention in passing that accidents can happen--just as the U.S. discovered in the "accidental" bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
Pretend you're "National Command Authority." Do you nuke back? Or do you quietly get the hint, pull the U.S. assets out of the theater, and let the Chinese take Taiwan--with nukes, if need be?
The amazing thing about nukes is that they are one of the only weapons systems in history that have practically never been used. The more countries that have them, the greater the likelihood that somebody, somewhere, will decide it is worth the risk to push the button. I'm all in favor of humanitarian aid and economic development. But to ignore the very real likelihood of ICBMs being used in the future is unrealistic in a SlashDot reader. In a U.S. politician it is simply criminal.
You're taking this far out of context.
:)
"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime". I'd add to that -- Give a man no fish, and if he's worth his keep he'll teach his own $@#! self how to to fish. Or be a farmhand. Or take any of the low-paying jobs that so many Americans would rather be on welfare than hold (ever wonder why there are so many immigrant laborors doing farmwork?).
Give a man a guaranteed paycheck when he's old, and he'll count on it being there. Tell him if he wants not to starve he'd damn well better save -- and he'll save.
If my child, mother or girlfriend is ill, I'll pay for their treatment (gf at least -- I have no children, and my parents are fiscally able to handle themselves). I may have to sell my house or equipment, sign away the copyright to some software I'd really rather own, take out a few loans and Get A Real Job (no more freelancing) to do it, but I damn well would.
If I couldn't, I could count on my church back home for help. I spent much of my time as a teen helping out there -- putting up the building they're now in, tearing down another previously on its land for the wood, running the sound board and advising on technical issues, but more than that coming over to peoples' houses and helping them out. Others there did the same for me.
In short, people can damn well handle themselves, without some huge organization controlling things (and, in its scope and power, inviting corruption and waste). If there are people who truly can't handle themselves... well, this harsh system gives them motivation to learn.
---
To respond to another point you made... If we destroy the planet too much, yes, some of us will die. Not everyone, though; The population will simply be reduced to maintainable levels. If we, through science, can alter the balance (finding better food sources, means of cleaning the atmosphere or preventing atmospheric damage from doing harm, etc), we can sustain more people. Otherwise, yes, some will die. But life will go on. So why worry?
Corporations and ever-growing market size [what would be the economic impact if the population of the US, or hey, the world, were to actually start decreasing for awhile? The markets wouldn't be growing anymore...]
Actually, better to pop an EMP device at the satellite. But the ABL would probably fry the satellite, or most of its solar arrays and antennas, kind of a one-way deal...
when your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Some yahoo in the woods with plastic explosive could do even more damage to the US power grid, or in CA, it is way too easy to disrupt the water supplies for LA, San Diego and San Francisco.
Look at the chaos in Chicago because power went out in downtown for a few hours this summer, and the resident power monopoly has been sitting on their asses for quite some time...
How would it do that? Lasers aren't used for satellite communications very often. Just a couple experimental things.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
At the very least, the goal is to render the warhead inoperable. So even if the core does survive, it's not going to detonate. But it would probably make a nice crater somewhere...Yet another non-issue except for the person who's house that it crashes through.
Though I don't agree with the "let 'em starve" philosophy, I don't agree with your "health care and welfare" too.
Throwing money at the poor isn't gonna help 'em any. To improve their lives, they need jobs. To get jobs they need skills. A few well placed skill development centers will do a whole lot more good than a lot of soup kitchens.
Free handouts don't encourage people to improve themselves - they can still survive, right? Giving 'em skills to get a job will both improve their lives, and more importantly, get them to pass these values on to their children. (i.e. hardworking parents tend to produce children who also see the value of work. Parents who sit around the house, living off welfare will produce children who see nothing wrong with living off handouts).
"His location is 55 degrees 10 minutes 3 seconds lat, 75 degrees 21 minutes 9 seconds long"
ZAP!
"Where'd Saddam go?"
--
you must amputate to email me
i read all replies to my comments
Besides, when did knocking out Dallas contribute to armageddon?
:)
Daiktana would ship even later, if that is possible...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I've got a really old post on this topic (archived long ago) which I can't find, so I'll try to summarize it here.
Major Doug Adams (Last name correct? I always just called him "Doug"), who lead the Patriot battery in Kuwait, is a friend of mine (he presently teaches at CSU, Chico). He, through direct experience, places the effectiveness of the Patriot at 50%.
During the war, the Isreali military took credit for several missile kills made by one of his two batteries, and afterwards they attempted to discredit the Patriot in order to push their own missile system (intended for sale to the US). Furthermore, the Isreali reporters he spoke with were unwilling to publish anything negative about their government due to the threat of being subscripted to the military.
Interesting, that. No?
Sigh. Perhaps it will be useful for deflecting those pesky Earth orbit-crossing comets :)
A few million dollars in geigercounters for customs agents should be sufficient to detect suitcase bombs, shipping bombs, airplane bombs, etc.
"Uh Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to open this rather large lead-lined crate..."
And, honestly, its not like just anyone can build a suitcase sized nuclear device... The Russians said they built a whole pack and now a bunch are 'missing', but, in communist USSR, it was not uncommon to write that you had twice as many in inventory as what you had (of practically anything...) - but soon you'll be able to buy old Russian ICBMs at the local garage sale down the street if they don't do something about controlling the damn things.
And I still figure that some major center in the world is going to get nuked by 2010.
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
Looks small enough to mount on the roof of my car and blast a few shots up the tail pipe of those idiots who drive half the speed limit in the passing lane.
I suggest you learn to spell Chinese first before you start mindlessly criticizing them. If they are so evil why are we falling all over ourselves to trade with them? I'll let you make the obvious connection...
Wow, how nifty and sci-fiish, but I bet it has a huge failure rate. ICBM killers have a long history of being developed then being droped 'cause they aren't reliable and it'd be WAY too expensive to make them reliable with backup systems etc...
But you guys can't even stop tons of drugs entering San Francisco bay and being unloaded into trucks.
Bioweapons and Nukes don't have to be that big nowadays, especially the former.
Your borders are like swiss cheese. Understandable due to trade requirements.
Maybe that's what the NSA is for - to spy on the top people who might coordinate attacks. And maybe they actually know where all those drug stuff is, and where it's going and how, but they just can't open their mouths because of other interests.
and, let me guess:
they operate on the same principle as wooden ducks, i.e., they attract the anti-missile to themselves as opposed to the actual missile, so that the anti-missile wastes itself on the decoy and the real deal keeps on chugging.... no?
Insert mind here.
well its a interesting article.
great technological advance, i suppose.
one thing i dont like about the article is how the writer makes it sound like the fate of the world is in that thing that smashes into things. i mean seriously whos gonna launch a bomb containing the smallpox virus to anyone? thats just insane.
maybe i dont think like that government does.
eventually there will probably be advances where it is possible to lauch a big missle and we won't even know its there until lets say... all of new jersey pings out.
one thing i wonder is the consequences of using this thing, in a real situation.
flying missle derbis? anthrax spores floating from the sky? we will just have to wait and see
under the bomb drops,
tyler
Ahh... but that is the point exactly!
If people in the early 1900's were happy with "its good enough", or the 1960/70's, we wouldn't have a 50MPG Passat... remember that the Passat is a decendent of the Oil Crisis, when the old cars that got 18MPG suddenly weren't "good enough" because people couldn't afford them...
In a like fashion, Mutual Assured Destruction (yes, its a MAD concept) worked fine during the cold war, when the only nuclear powers were US and the Russians... but now, we have China, India, Pakistan, and a host of others, and maybe someday some terrorist organization with a 2nd hand Soviet ICBM or someone the likes of Saddam. MAD suddenly doesn't work when you are dealing with terrorists or extremists who think nothing of killing thousands of people "to make a statement". So, it seems, MAD isn't "good enough" anymore...
The point of the military is being prepared... during WWII they developed RADAR... up until they developed it they had no warning of attacks or incoming V1's. 1000's of lives were saved once they had the Radar working. Imagine if Radar had been developed before the war, what a difference it could've made.
In an ideal world, we could assume that anyone else would know (MAD again) that if they nuked us we'd nuke the hell out of them, and what would be the point? But, this isn't an ideal world...
Everyone thought Noah was crazy for building his Ark... who would've thought it would ever rain that much? But, the guy who was prepared makes it through.
Maybe its sometimes a good idea to prepare ahead of time instead of waiting until the missiles are on the way to think about developing a defense??
I'd like to think it'd never happen... just like I'd like to think I'll never get a flat tire...
Although, in fairness, the SCUD missle was never a tactical threat at any point during the war, and never posed any military threat of any significance to forces in theater.
Actually, I understand that SCUDs actually _did_ pose a threat at one point to one of the two US Patriot batteries lead by a friend of mine, Maj. Doug Adams (last name?). He tells me that, while the second battery was being set up, there was an equipment failure on the first, which was (as luck would have it) in the path of an incoming SCUD. Had the second not been able to get operating in time and knock the missile off course, things might have been bad.
It's been a year since I've talked to him last, btw, so this might be slightly inaccurate.
You mad a comment that you're not sure who the enemy is. Let me come up with a short list for you:
Mainland China, which fields one of the largest, if not the largest, standing armies in the world. They may not be the best, but their sheer numbers will make you stop and pause. They're still a threat to their own people, imprisoning desenters, and they have stated they will use force against Taiwan (and think how expensive your cheap computers would get, and how less successful the Internet revolution they drive would become).
North Korea, which despite being closed and near total starvation, has managed to launch two new ICBM missles, the second of which has the range to reach the West Coast. Everyone seems to think that Cuba is the only Stalinist regime left, but Korea makes Cuba look like a workers paradise.
Pakistan and India have been at it for a long time. Both have tested regional ICBMs capable of carrying nukes. They may not be a direct threat to us, but they can upset their region, which is bad enough.
Iraq still ain't our buds. And with holes in the embargo and no UN inspectors, it won't be long before we get a rude awakening from that part of the world.
What's left of the USSR is very unhealthy right now. A war with southern Muslums in Chechnia has heated up, with Muslums blowing up Russian apartment buildings full of people. We went through hell when we lost the Edward R. Murrow building in Kansas City, but they've lost the equivalent of four over the past few months. This type of terror and the economic and political instability are just the ingrediants needed for demagogues and dictators. Think of Berlin and Gernany before the Nazis and WWII.
We've had the Bomb since 1945, and ICBMS with Russia since the '50s. That technology has had a half century to percolate around the world, both as hardware and knowhow. Internationally, the world is as politically dangerous now as it ever was. And we need whatever it takes to protect our borders, and our way or life, including slashdot.
That is precisely how most of the world views the U.S.A. :-)
Yes good point about the implosion charge detonating. It would be interesting to do a full scale test(no radioactive material), and see what would really happen. Theory is one thing ,but you won't know for sure without doing it for real at least once.
Well now instead of coding DB clients at least some people can build something exciting. We're probably in a lot more danger of nuclear attack than the TV says. If a top secret spy satellite shows nuclear missiles in India they're not going to broadcast it but they will spend a lot of money on defense. There's a big difference between military intelligence and microbiology.
Exo Atmospheric Kinetic Kill Vehicles have been around for a loong time. Same case with the alpha "death ray" and assorted star wars shit. nothing new here..move along.
Technical Debate over Patriot Performance in the Gulf War
The Patriot Missile. Performance in the Gulf War Reviewed
"Makes me glad I don't live in a really big city, since I would only get nuked on accident"
Yeah, only I hope you don't live near any research facilites that don't happen to be near a "big city"... or near Cheyenne Mountain, or Area 51, or any other site that may not be near a "big city" but happens to have "tactical significance".
Then again, there's the nuclear fallout, EMP knocking out the power grid (hope you have an old-fashioned hand-pump well at your place, and lots of wood handy, as well as a stove to cook with, and a lot of food stored since a lot will get contaminated after a nuke strike...). You may find that we all rely on those "big city" people for a lot of things you may not realize... the more complex society gets the more we rely on each other for the simplist of things.
Mr Newtons laws say anything. Obviously a straight and level target is easier to hit than one designed to jerk and wobble around a bit, or zig zag , or splits when it sees incoming. Obviously we hope foreign missiles will play chicken, just like the fonze. Somebody od'ed on happy days me thinks
Many many books have been written about this. IMO the best is Nicolas Freeling's `Gadget', written in 1977 vs. Spider's book, (c) in 1992. The reason the Suitcase doesn't attract much attention is that there isn't much to be done about it, and just imagine the hysteria that will be generated when a 20kt device blows up on the Mall in DC. It'll happen sooner or later.
Unfortunately for most libertarians, the reason it hasn't happened yet is because what little can be done (systematic interception of messages, loads of spies) is being done, and it's worked so far.
*chuckle* Oh deer =)
The reason that the KGB were so successful in the us was the americans were easily persuaded. Either by ideological arguments or by straigt cash payoffs(or both). If a nuke detonates inside the us. It will probably have been smuggled in rather than carried by a missile.
LINUX stands for: Linux Inux Nux Ux X
FRA: STFU GTFO
It would be cost effective to put them all on Welfare. Over feeding the population of North Korea or wherever will make them so lazy that they wont even bother to grow their own food. Then you have the ultimate control and a not a life lost.
The interception happens above our atmosphere, so I'm not sure how much you'll actaully see.
Sig goes here
There is a weapons distributor that had these advertised on their website, but I don't remember if it was Raytheon's model. Silo, launch vehicle, and control system are sold separately. I wonder if I need a Class IV license to get one...
I like the idea of an balistic missle defense system. However I don't think the technology exists (yet) to make one effective.
Detonating a warhead in front of the main warhead force would either destroy or at least blind every satelite in the area. Encasing the warheards in liquid nitrogen colling them to evade IR detection. Hell even inflating a metalic balloon would cause radar wave to be deflected. (Remember, Echo (The first communication satelite) launched by the US back in the '50s was simply a balloon.)
If you were content with a bio-chem attack, you could overwhelm the defensive screen with lots of little mini-warheads and use those to distribute Anthrax, or Beubonic Plauge, or whatever.
If you made the warheads manuverable you could get them to evade incomming anti-missles.
Until these shortfalls can be overcome (and I'm sure they will be) we shouldn't give ourselves a feeling of false security. Afterall, MAD has worked so far. (I kind of wonder about how effective it will be in the future. Afterall death isn't a deterant for a suicide bomber (but that's tact-nukes which this doesn't defend against.)or a country's leadership with a suicide bomber mentality.)
(FYI: The US has signed a treaty stating that it would not develop a missle defense program back in '70s.)
References: "Why National Missile Defense Won't Work" Scientific American August, 1999
Doesn't matter, they'll just home in on the magnetic strip on your Driver's license.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Cruise missiles are relatively easy to shoot down. They are essentially low altitude, low speed, non maneuvering airplanes with no defensive capabilities. Most modern aircraft with look-down radars can shoot down cruise missiles, as can modern surface to air missile systems.
ICMBs are much, much, much harder to shoot down than cruise missiles.
Yeah, why do you think the Shah was overthrown? Maybe because he was a brutal oppressive dictator who only survived as long as he did because of US backing. When you support regimes like this, and revolution happens, it's not likely that the formerly opressed people will look kindly on their opressors.
Surely the point of an anti-missile system is to prevent those warheads reaching their intended target? Which means if, as you say "most Pariot engagements were hits they just did'nt have any effect of the missile's trajectory and so the missiles warhead hit its tatget anyway" they failed.
Or Massachussetts, after the Ryder Cup! :-)
It looks like some people still didn't realize one fundamental thing -- everything that works, can fail, at least in some cases. And I am not talking about anti-ICBM missiles.
Once a manager asked me, why my program has abort() in it. The program had to be reliable, however I knew that if some, completely insane condition will happen, it will be more dangerous to keep it running than to kill it, let external script restart it, do whatever data recovery can be done and continue working while leaving core dump to get any idea, how such an "impossible" thing happened. Yet program was long, more than one person worked on it making not always well thought out changes, and in some case that abort() actually was called -- and it was good that it was abort() and not horrible corruption of data that would follow if it tried to continue instead. I could make it a goal of my life to make this program unable to fail, but it would take years of constant work and huge amount of checking of libraries that the program used for possible failure conditions such as buffer overflows. I could make the program hide definitely detected inconsistencies and risk all the data that it will process after such a failure. Instead I have chosen a point where nothing can be done within the program, and it should admit that it screwed up, restart everything and recover whatever is recoverable, minimizing the damage.
Things of the same kind happen in all areas. People at some point die, and no efforts of doctors can keep them alive. Banks can be robbed. Students can be killed at school by two seriously disturbed gunmen in trench coats or any other kind of clothes. Group of terrorists can nuke major cities of US, or any other countries. Some country despite all efforts for the opposite including massive military campaign by US, can refuse to release American prisoners that it holds. You can be hit by meteorite, or Earth can be evaporated in few seconds by some very fast moving large rock that happened not to be orbiting Sun and therefore never seen by astronomers. Combination of radioactive decay events in memory chips can produce exact pattern necessary to launch a nuke at Washington, DC. We may find out that Borg or something very close to it exist, and time travel doesn't.
All those situation, however wildly differs their probability, have one in common -- they can't be prevented, and not much can be done about them. If large part of resources of, say, this country, will be spent on development of immortality, the goal could be achieved -- after all, sufficiently modified organism (centuries of constant, heavily funded uninterrupted research!) can develop some form of at least physical regeneration, and something can be done to enhance brain to make it capable of dealing with changes in the culture over the year of life of such an immortal individual. But the fact that merely none of 6 billions-something people on Earth is happy to die, yet all of them at some point will, does not justify making lifes of those people much more miserable to achieve this goal in foreseeable future.
Banks security can be increased, yet it can reach the point when cost won't justify the benefit, and customers won't use such a bank because security measures will make it hard to use.
The same applies to schools plus since school should be suitable for learning, and disturbed gunmen are less concerned about their lives than robbers, the whole exercise can become pointless much sooner.
The only sure way to prevent terrorists from nuking a modern city is to nuke it before them.
American diplomacy and military power can fail, be abused, sabotaged or place US in the situation when every other country will be against it, and local citizens will be very unhappy, too.
A system capable of defending the Earth from small meteorits better than atmosphere already does, will be probably as big as atmosphere and its development will kill more people than ever was killed by meteorits in the whole history.
Large fast-flying rocks never seen by astronomers theoretically may exist, and no other solution than spreading humans across multiple star systems can make sure that mankind will survive an encounter with such a thing.
Increasing the reliability of military computers is definitely a good thing, however if "what-if"-based development won't stop at some point, such computer will cover all available surface without reaching the goal of being absolutely reliable and absolutely invulnerable, not to mention that life in the country completely covered by military computer's guts will be much worse than after a nuclear war.
And I will rather face the theoretical possibility of being assimilated by a race of baddies with cool spaceships than devote all my and all people of the Earth time to the development of the suitable defense against it, and have no life outside of that.
Why am I giving such a ridiculous examples? After-WWII history of arms race shown that US relied on its possible military superiority reach its political goals, yet consistently the most likely enemies managed to restore balance, including efforts made in pretty hard situation immediately after the war in Russia and despite Russian government not being the most efficient (or democratic, or whatever) thing possible. I see no reason why it won't happen again, except that in this case US not only tries to outdo possible opponents for some time, but tries to prevent thing that can't be prevented by any reasonable or unreasonable effort -- even if it will work, it means switching from missiles to planes, trucks, submarines or even horses and, who knows, even pigeons. Tried to prevent a threat that can't prevented, pissed half of the world off, broken treaties and lost credibility, spent huge amount of resources that desperately are needed locally (ex: education), and accomplished another lap in the race with no change in the score.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
If your scenerio is true, it is most likely that a terrorist organisation would seize an American missile sight, and attack the former USSR - provoling massive retaliation against the US.
:-)
In which case, you should give this technology to the Russians!
You don't know how much any of the above countries are spending on missile technology. However, what we do know is that the majority of that spending is going towards more accurate medium-range missiles, to hit local enemies. Saddam would get a big cheer from many quarters if he nuked Tehran. If he nuked Chicago, it'd be the end of him - and he knows it. And the one thing all of the evil scum you nam have in common is a need to remain in power. All of them will tweak the tigers tail, but none of them really want to see its teeth.
As we also know that several Russian "suitcase bomb" tactical nuclear weapons are unaccounted for, we'd probably be better off tracking them down than trying to perfect ABMs.
Yes, of course, China has only aimed ICBM's at the US since Clinton became president.
Does this "THIS REALLY WORKS!!!" tone of this remind anyone else of chain-spam??? :-)
Because we're so evil.
Evil people have the most to fear from other evil people. It's not like all evil people are friends.
I'm going to compare the defense budget at its peak in 1987 and in 1998. Since the tables use 1992 as a base year for inflation & deflation correction factors, I'll include the data for that year too. Lets start with real dollar defense expenditures:
National defense expenditures in real dollars
1987: 281,999 thousand
1992: 298,350 thousand
1998: 268,456 thousand
Of course, these figures are meaningless until correcting for inflation. Using the inflation & deflation correction factors from the same document (using 1992 as the base year), the corrected numbers are:
National defense expenditures in 1992 dollars
1987: 340,044 thousand (or 384,828 in 1998 dollars)
1992: 298,350 thousand
1998: 237,215 thousand
From 1987 to 1992, the defense budget declined 12% in constant year dollars. From 1987 to 1998, the defense budget declined 30% in constant year dollars. During that period, the "peace dividend" has steadily grown to over 145 billion per year wrt the peak. Now let us compare the defense budget levels as a percentage of the total federal budget:
Defense expenditures as % of federal budget
1987: 28.1%
1992: 21.6%
1998: 16.2%
Therefore, as a percentage of the total federal budget, defense spending declined 23% from 1987 to 1992 and 42% from 1987 to 1998. Finally, compare the defense spending levels as a percentage of GDP:
Defense expenditures as a percentage of US GDP
1987: 6.1%
1992: 4.9%
1998: 3.2%
In this case, defense expenditures as a percentage of US GDP declined 21% from 1987 to 1992 and 48% from 1987 to 1998.
I offer this as irrefutable proof that the "peace dividend" is real.
Actually, I think that's already happened: Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
And we all know who dropped *those* bombs, don't we?
The goals for the current NMD initiatives are much more modest that the original goals for SDI. It is certainly true that a full scale exchange with a major nuclear power like Russia would easily overwhelm even the most extensive NMD system we could deploy in the near term. However, the current threat being considered is a small barrage of non-MIRV ballistic missiles (regional and inter-continental) from a "rogue" nation like N Korea, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and maybe China. We're talking about building a defense to counter small numbers of targets here.
this new system is similar to the patriot much the same way a sling with a rock is similar to a sniper rifle. Sure both discharge kinetic energy into a designated target, but does it really matter which one you use?
Exoatmosph eric Kill Vehicle - Boeing in Motion 98
What you are referring to is deterrence via the policy of massive retaliation leading to the outcome of mutually assured destruction. However, this form of deterrence only works with enemies who have the nuclear capacity to carry it out and have stable, rational governments. When you are speaking of potential enemies like Iran, Iraq, N Korea, etc., you can't count on government stability and rational action to prevail. Also, there is some doubt about whether the US would massively retaliate against a small country that attempts to attack the US with a handful of nuclear weapons.
When it comes to Russia and China, the deterrent to using nuclear weapons is the guarantee of immediate massive retaliation. However, for lesser nuclear powers the deterrent needs to be a credible defensive capability that can handle a relatively small nuclear attack.
Unfortunately, deterrence doesn't really apply to terrorist organizations, and that's where the real nuclear threat lies in the near term.
Yes, of course, China has only aimed ICBM's at the US since Clinton became president.
No, that was just a guess as to why. However, in the state of the union address where Clinton proclaimed "For the first time, there are no weapons of mass destruction pointed at out children", not only was he lying, he was helping them aim.
Finkployd
Pros for missile defense:
Cons for missile defense:
Other points:
- India was believed to have nuclear weapons since at least the 70s, but sat on them until recently. Part of their motivation was to get the primary nuclear powers to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which all of them except the United States are perfectly willing to do. I might add that missile defense systems are also a violation of various treaties, and are sure to only further destabilize nuclear relations.
- Re Stonehand's "leading by example" comment: read up on your game theory before coming back to the table, kid. The only way we are ever going to make progress here is if nations do lead by example. Someone has to show a level of trust or no progress is possible. (By the way, Leejay, you make an amazing number of moronic points. I'm impressed.)
- Technical correction: the US & UK are indeed the world's biggest arms exporters. They are followed by Russia, China, and France. Astute readers will note that these five nations just happen to be the five permanent members of the UN security council, the body responsible for maintaining world peace and stability. I'm sure this is just a coincidence though.
- Substrate seems surprised by what s/he calls Cold War Two. This shouldn't be a surprise. The end of the first Cold War threatened many people's jobs, hurt alot of people's wallets, and in fact threatened to undercut the engine that lies underneath America's economic (and incidentally military) superiority today. War is big business, and many people stand to benefit from it -- including every one of you that is using a computer with Cold War derived technologies (e.g. DARPAnet...). Finding a new way to have a great big bloodless war ("Blood & gore go over so badly on CNN...") could be the impetus for US success in the next century and beyond.
- "God_Almighty" (hahaha) makes many good points, and while s/he ignores the benefits we get from military research (many we rely on daily), s/he is spot on and I add my <AOL>me too!</AOL> to his/her point.
- "Newly freed Eastern Europe"? Oh you mean those satellites we redistributed to Germany for good behavior? Oh yeah I remember them. "Free". Heh. Cute way to put it.
- Re: complaints that the defense budget is "too low" as a portion of GDP: when your military is more powerful than that of several continents worth of other countries' militaries combined, and when your nations GDP accounts for something like 25% - 50% of global GDP (those numbers are old -- it peaked at 50% after WW2 and has been falling off. 25% seems reasonable but needs to be verified), and when you have companies that can't even make any money that are worth more than frickin' Norway...
...after all these kinds of things, you may realize after stepping back that maybe, just maybe, you can afford to have an ever so slightly smaller military than you would otherwise, and maybe GDP isn't the best yardstick to work with here. - Delicon writes "at an impact
... of 10 km/s, vaporization is the usual result." Seems reasonable, but can you back that up, cite some studies of things that we've managed to even hit at 10 km/s, nevermind damaged? Seems like your point is built on a flimsy assumption...
Ahh yes, another patented Slashdot flamewar. Too bad I'm jumping in on this one so late...DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Your percentages are % of GDP, not % of budget. Here are some numbers you may be interested in. See my post "Here are the official budget stats" below for a link to the source.
Here are the minima and maxima of defense spending as a percentage of the federal budget:
1940 17.5% (1.7% of GDP)
1945 89.5% (37.5% of GDP)
1948 30.6%
1954 59.5%
1965 42.8%
1968 46.0%
1980 22.7%
1987 28.1% (6.1% of GDP)
1998 16.2% (3.2% of GDP)
2000 15.5% (3.0% of GDP) - estimates
Next, here are the maxima and minima of the gross federal debt as a percentage of GDP (debt in real dollars in parentheses):
1941 50.5% of GDP (debt = 57,531 million)
1946 121.6% (270,991 million)
1974 33.6% (483,893 million)
1976 36.3% (628,970 million)
1981 32.6% (994,845 million)
1996 68.6% (5,181,934 million)
2000 62.7% (5,711,380 million) - estimate
Since 1940, there have only been five years where the gross federal debt declined in real terms, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1956, and 1957. Since then, we have been trying to reduce the debt not in real terms but as a percentage of GDP through economic growth.
It is interesting to look at how much Reagan's defense buildup contributed to the huge increases in debt during his term. From 1981 (Carter's last budget) to 1989 (Reagan's last), defense spending increased from 157,513 to 303,559 million in real dollars. During his term, the total amount spent on defense was 2,024,667 million and the total federal spending was 7,555,172 million. Reagan spent on average 26.8% of the federal budget on defense. In the last budget of the Carter administration, 23.2% was spent on defense. If Reagan had frozen military spending at Carter administration levels (as a percentage of the budget), the total amount spent on defense during his term would have been 1,752,800 million.
Therefore, you could say that the Reagan defense buildup resulted in 271,867 (2,024,667-1,752,800) million extra defense spending during his term. During the same period, the gross federal debt increased by 1,873,194 million dollars. My conclusion is that Reagan's military buildup only accounted for 14.5% of the increase in debt during his term. Nevertheless, most people still try to blame Reagan's defense spending for the debt.
...but I wish we could just protect humanity in general.
Ah, yes. I also wish that we all lived lived to at least a thousand years, had a nifty nanoreplicator each, could fly, and take vacations on Sirius. Strange, I am wishing all these things and nothing happened yet...
If only the US can afford these things it will be unjust that others should die.
First, you probably mean "equality", not "justice". I don't see what justice has to do with having an equivalent number of people die in each country. Second, are you saying that I cannot have anything that everybody else doesn't have as well? Enforce a lowest common denominator on everybody? When out of "justice" you reduce your lifestyle to that of Indian beggars, I'll listen.
Or do you advocate that every time a Chinese guy dies because there were no, say, coronary bypass operations available near his village, we kill off a patient in a US hospital just to keep things even?
I imagine the Indians and Pakistanis will be the ones most in need of these kind of defense systems,
No. They need defence against theatre-range systems (medium-range missiles, fighter-bombers, etc), not against ICBMs which, as it was pointed out, stand for InterContinental Ballistic Missiles.
but somehow I doubt they'll be able to afford them,
Didn't stop before, I don't see why it should stop them now...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
What exactly is wrong with ABM technology proliferating? The deterrent we have been relying on for the last 50 years (guarantee of massive retaliation) only works between 1st tier nuclear powers with stable governments. Do you really think that if Iraq had nuclear weapons and a decent missile during the Gulf war, our current deterrent would have prevented Saddam from using them? Similarly, do you think our nuclear arsenal and lack of ABM capability will serve as a deterrent to N. Korea when they develop nuclear weapons? These are the threats that we are trying to develop an ABM capability to counter.
Most of the arguments against developing an ABM capability were good arguments back in the early '80s. Unfortunately, most of them no longer make sense. We need a strategy to effectively deter and/or defend against emerging second & third tier nuclear powers.
The facts in this matter are very simple. In economical terms, it is called "The Law of Diminishing Returns." When you use a 10 million dollar bullet to shoot down a 1 million dollar missile, the opposition only has to build and launch more missiles to overwhelm and defeat your system.
The latter fact makes SDI very destabilizing. The advantage to the opponent is to just build more weapons and adopt more agressive targetting profiles. This forces the SDI builder to devote more and more resources to counter the threats either by building more missiles themselves or by deploying more defense. Obviously, with the expense of the latter, it isn't long before the SDI deployer is bankrupted (not the opponent). For these reasons the story that the U.S. SDI program bankrupted the Soviet Union causing its fall is ridiculous. This argument is a great example of post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
SDI will have no effect on the most likely nuclear attack, a terrorist weapon smuggled into the country via ship and triggered at a static ground location or in a tall building.
SDI is a waste of money. Always has been, always will be.
Boom goes London.
Boom Paree.
There's more room for you.
There's more room for me.
They all hate us any how
So let's drop the big one now. Randy Newman, Political Science
I wish I could find a statistical signal processing analysis of this technology. I assume that the theoretical lower bound on the tracking error is sufficiently low to make hitting an ICBM with a non-maneuvering projectile feasible, but I'd like to know just how close to the that bound we are trying to operate and what the theoretical success rates are.
I seem to remember an American anti formation bomber missile called the Phoenix (?). Launched from the Delta Dagger it would fly in a straight line from X miles, then POP....
The nuke in the missile would wipe out all aircraft for X miles, and give the Delta Daggers pilot's arse a hell of a sun tan.
Anybody know if these things were deployed? If so why (if they have been ) were they withdrawn? (sounds like a dumb question, but what other choice is there?)
Stupid on its face. What is no one invested in Defense?
This is something of an understatement. A while back I scanned an article in an IEEE Spectrum on the subject (anyone have a reference?). They cited a study where university graduates (i.e. no special training or experience) were tasked to develop countermeasures. They were given only publically available documentation (i.e. no specs, just textbooks and published papers) and were restricted to off-the-shelf components.
Needless to say the results were a rude awakening for defense officials. The suggested countermeasures could easily overwhelm current (and proposed) ABM systems. The only non-trivial cost to the missile designers would be a slight reduction in payload.
Makes you wonder why they're bothering to throw so much money at this problem when a handful of clever co-op students with a catalog could get probably defeat it.
Drinking will help us plan!
The latest Russian nukes 'wobble'.
The west only 'officialy' found this out last week.
hiting anything that wobbles unpredictably is damn near impossible. I recon this project is money down the drain. Personally I think that some kind of huge fuel/air device would stand the best chance of success. Hell, you wouldnt even have to ignite it.
bottom line: We need the Military, and the Military costs a shitload of money.
you should be ashamed of yourself.
that dosn't mean they arn't up there.
isn't this what the patriot missle is supposed (albiet not very well) to do? i understand that they were not perfectly suited for missle to missle combat when they first rolled off the assembly line but that was (mostly unsuccessfully) remedied in the next few revisions of the weapon. why do we need these new missles? the patriot system just needs a more accurate tracking system. that is a whole lot less expensive than developing an entire new missle system that will do the same thing (and probably just as well as) the old system that works reasonably well anyway.
not that this little bit of ranting will change anything, but i just had to say it.
I can see it now, the next US weapons project will be arming existing missles with anti-anti-missle missles, so that the missles can shoot down the anti-missles with their anti-anti-missle missles and arrive at their target, causing as much confusion as tactical damage.
For sake of scalability, the anti-anti-missle missles will have to be the size of a common pencil. They'll then be picked up by the NRA as the next great super-weapon for hunting deer.
-- TrevorB, who thinks there should be a "Silly" moderation attribute.
The last name was Campbell, not Adams. Not sure where I got that from.
I'd hate to rain on anyone's parade but wouldn't this military wet dream be superfluous? Let's suppose I'm one of these countries with tac-nukes. Why would I bother announcing the launch site and invite retaliation by using balistic missiles? Better still, just to ship it into a anonymous cargo hauler and detonate it within some strategic harbor or even Panama canal. That way the source (assuming you can disguise the origin of the manufactured weapon) can be anonymous. Given the gung-ho way the US been acting around the world in the last few decades, I'm sure there's no shortage of splinter or fanatic groups to spread the net of suspicion. If people are interested in the military mindset, take a look at their parameters magazine, in particular the article by Peters on "Our New Old Enemies". Very interesting.
... I believe US and Britain are still the largest exporters of arms) but does little to create long-term goodwill. Exporting organised violence seems to be a self-fufilling prophency as it propagates a climate of fear. Afterall, if you think someone is an enemy. then what are the chances that every action you perceive is hostile? Psychopaths are not the only people with a warped mind-view, a entire culture can be infected in rather subtle but destructive ways (Andy Grove "Only the Paranoid Surive", Bill Gates "Technogy is great, but 90% market share is better"). Very successful but at what cost?
People don't go to war for no good reason. If you create a threat, then people will respond in kind. Defining enemies through an arms race might be good for the military-industrial complex (correct me if I'm wrong
This century has seen 2 world wars, numerous regional conflicts and ongoing bushfires. I would hope the next century has a better record.
LL
I so *totaly* agree. we spent 392billion a year on defense, to improve our ability to kick other contries asses... To keep the war machine on it's toes.. to be able to justify spending that much.. it all fits together, and yet everyone chooses to ignore this as if it does not exist. Funny little messed up reality we all occupy.
I think that the sheer incompetence of third world governance is going to remain long after third world scientists generally figure out how to make nuclear warheads and ICBMs. Would it be in the interest of the US to allow a regional nuclear exchange if we had the satellite intercept capability to knock out the missiles on both sides? Would it be moral to forego this defense knowing that millions will lose their lives if we are wrong?
Right now, if an accidental launch happened from the USSR, China, North Korea or anybody else who has developed nukes all we could do is to watch the radar screens and count the casualties. No thanks. I would prefer that we spend our defense dollars assembling a defense if possible and apparently the technology is either there already or easily modified to make it there (Aegis for example).
Nobody really knows how bad the command and control capabilities are of the North Koreans, the Chinese, or the Russians. If a silo goes off by accident or by a mad launcher scenario, is it really in this nation's interest to lose a city because Nixon and Brezhnev thought it was a good idea a quarter of a century ago under a completely different strategic situation?
Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) is something that we should be deploying now.
TML
I see your original point, the Star Wars Defense initiative was popular in the press, but may not be very popular amongst scientists who understand how satellites and missiles actually track and communicate. I can only guess at the truth.
Almost as soon as they cry "The Russian menace is dead, the cold war is over!" the government and military find a new threat in small countries that they couldn't bother worrying about before. Some of it might be real and I for one wouldn't argue that the defense budget should be cut to zero (or even to the level of NASA's budget) but I can't help think that much of the indicated threat is made up. I expected to see much of the piece wrapped in subliminal fnords to help generate a low grade panic in the populace.
India has the bomb, their most likely target would be Pakistan. The same goes for most of the other countries they listed. When you're at war with near neighbours other potential conflicts take the back seat. Well, except that we're pointing things at them and saying "they're benign if you don't bother us", which ensures that they're going to point something at us.
The biggest threat is probably terrorist attack. Why bother with biological tipped warheads when you can deploy the biological agents on US soil? That would strike much more fear and paranoia into the general public than a missile attack. Missiles are tangible. Warnings about seeing 'suspicious persons' at public events isn't. You could generate a lot of terror among certain segments of the population just by waiting for the next especially dangerous flu and claiming responsibility for it.
The NYT and other liberal papers hung the 'Star Wars' moniker on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). They hated the idea of defending American lives against nuclear destruction and they still do, thus the snide comments, the hatchet job via implication, innuendo. It's quite a bravura performance that doesn't quite reach the level of defamation, but it doesn't miss by much.
The facts are that millions of people would die from one single accidental launch of an ICBM. Furthermore, the command and control systems of both Russia and China are suspect. We also shouldn't forget that the North Korean regime has a long standing history of craziness, secrecy, paranoia, and dishonesty. These are the 'partners' that we have to dance our Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) tango of the absurd.
The New York Times' allies in the Democratic party have adopted a party line that we should delay any deployment of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) as much as possible if they can't kill BMD in full.
The Republican party has adopted a party line that saving US lives and property via BMD is worth a lot of money and we should invest heavily and deploy as soon as possible. Even if the system doesn't work, the increased strategic uncertainty can enhance deterrance because none of our potential opponents has the money to crank up their arsenals to overwhelm a thin BMD system.
Personally, I don't want to watch my newborn son die of radiation poisoning because somebody in a silo in Siberia who hasn't been paid in a year flips out and decides to nuke Chicago and there was nothing the US could do because there were no defenses.
TML
I bought stock in Boeing a couple of weeks ago, and on a lark decided to visit their web site to see what, besides passenger aircraft, they made. You'll find an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle on their site as well -- unfortunately, they haven't set up an e-commerce server yet, so you can't buy one on-line. :(
For more information, click here.
we could sell some of this to the enemy eh?
--
Hey all you bleeding heart liberal every thing is O.K. and will always be O.K. people w. your head's stuck up your Arse.
Read a history book. Good times come and good times go and this one has to go.
Death and destruction will come.
Things like this EKV are good for the future (if there is one) because they divert finite military dollar's into weapons that don't hurt people.
Just one of these USD $25 million babies == how many M16's, how many land mines, how many ????
Want an example of just how stupid the human race is???? Witness our military vacinating every member with a little tested vacine for a disease that has not killed one american in battle. Full speed ahead and damn the long term health affects. Or read a
Sigh.
There is no hope.
Actually, what you refer to already exists. They are called decoy missles.
--
Python
Python
In case you have not noticed, the US has been on the biggest, fastest and best economic growth spurt ever in the last 9 years since the fall of Communism and the USSR. In fact our military has been drastically cut back, major Naval projects cutback, we stopped making replacement missiles (note we are almost out of smart bombs), etc.
The extra cash in the Govt's hands has been directed at industry on an as needed basis in loans and what not.
We are certainly living in an age where the benefit of peace is loudly proclaimed by our strong economy. My main worry about China is not that they might take over the world with their totalitarian regime but that they might slow down the wonderful ride we are having with our totaliarian regime's economy!
What was the great threat Saddam posed during the Gulf War? To inflame hatred against Israel among the various Arab neighbors, and to bring them into the war.
How was he going to do this?
Get the Israeli's pissed off by using tactics very reminiscent of Hitler in two ways: Ballistic Missiles (like Hitler's V-2 used against England), Poison Gas (Zyklon-b anyone?).
Fortunately, he reportedly did not use any chemical weapons, but these were two attacks aimed directly at the hearts of Jews, some old enough to remember Hitler.
Whether or not the Patriots ever took out a single Scud, is immaterial, the bulk of the populace of Israel believed that they worked at the time, and it kept the public outcry from reaching the boiling point where Israel would have had to respond - possibly with their nuclear forces, which would have instantly ignited a regional conflict. I remember how tense it was when I was watching that war - so while much of Patriot's effect was really a Placebo, it apparently worked.
Now, weather this new device will be actually effective against incoming warheads, or act as some kind of Placebo, or act as a deterrent, is immaterial. What matters is, something is being done about this obvious (naysayers notwithstandint) threat.
What if Pakistan were to field nuke-tipped ballistic missiles, and threaten India? India would do the same - unless our diplomats talked them out of it by promising to station interceptors to protect them . . . thus hopefully defusing the situation, at least temporarily. Well, it would be better than doing nothing.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It's not necessarily money down the drain. Russian missiles aren't perceived as much of a threat compared to Chinese, N. Korean, Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, etc.
Boeing is developing a similar device in case the system Raytheon puts together does not work as planned.
This was a Scientific American story a month or two ago. They listed several ways of defeating the sort of system that the government is planning. All of them are pretty simple and relatively inexpensive ways to defeat a system that will cost us a bundle.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Well, actually, those sneaky Brits are developing them (Cruise Missles) too. I think the US just gave them the technology so that for the next Slobodan, the Brits can sucker their taxpayers for $900k per-shot as well.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I read the Scientific American article too. All valid points. Here are some other valid points.
Can't ban em.
Banning's ineffective. Ask any junkie how effective the ban on heroin is.
Even though there are all of these effective counter (counter) measures, it's still far better than doing nothing and waiting for Saddam to get really pissy.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Hey, cool, another /.-er in my region. (I'm in SLO).
IIRC, pad 6 has been cited for various safety problems, and NASA decided it would be too risky to even try launching from there after the Challenger accident... That, and also IIRC, pad 6 has never had a fully successful launch. All launches from it have either exploded on or off the pad, or failed to reach their destination orbit...
So even if the core does survive, it's not going to detonate. But it would probably make a nice crater somewhere...Yet another non-issue except for the person who's house that it crashes through.
It'd be a nice little bonus for the recieving country...Free (if you discount the cost of the ABM system) bomb grade plutonium or uranium.
Sounds like M2 to me. Rob == NSA mole?
Well. A few errors there.
1) geigercounters wouldn't detect anything a lead lined crate.
2) a crate is MUCH larger than I'm talking about.
The suitcases the russians built are slightly larger than a carry on. They don't have to be big. They're a Nuclear Weapon! And they arn't packing 25-Megaton Bombs. What they pack are a few kilotons. But look at what we did with a few kilotons? Dosen't take much does it?
As for 'anyone' building a nuke. Why not? The plans are on the internet. For a few kiloton bomb you'd only have to get a small ammount of Uranium or a slightly larger amount of Plutonium. With the way Russian and all the small countries it spawned off any third world country could get the ammount they needed easily, if not the entire device. With more money you could produce your own. France has sold a couple nuclear reactors that use weapon grade uranium. Now the problem isn't that they sold them, it's who. One went to Iraq! and if I remmeber correctly a second went to Libya or some such country in it's class.
What exaclty keeps the general person from building a nuke? The Plutonium or Urianium. It's hard to come by cheap. But if you have the money, it's not a problem.
- AMW
If any other country has anything similar to a long-range cruise missile (very possible; our university science departments are packed with people from the "enemy", learning directly from us how to blow us up, often on American scholarships), then any kind of defense system is rendered completely ineffective. It would only take one reaching DC, one for LA, one for NY, one for Dallas, and one for maybe Chicago to effectively wipe us out. And there would be nothing we could do about it. A fairly low-budget Armaggeddon. Kinda' scary, when you think about it. Makes me glad I don't live in a really big city, since I would only get nuked on accident ;-)
Similarly, do you think our nuclear arsenal and lack of ABM capability will serve as a deterrent to N. Korea when they develop nuclear weapons? These are the threats that we are trying to develop an ABM capability to counter.
Yes, I do think our nuclear arsenal is a huge deterrent to North Korea. These people are like all other Communist governments, they just want to stay in power. If they bomb the U.S., they loose their whole country. They no longer have anything to rule.
We in the west have a tendency to think of enemy government types as being insane. This simply isn't true. It all comes down to personal gain in the end. No one can hope to gain anything by bombing the United States (or any other large nuclear nation).
The only people we really have to worry about are screwy religious terrorists. Thankfully they are incapable of aquiring both a nuclear device and an ICBM.
\begin{economics professor}
The increase in revenue in Reagan's tenure (yes, it went up, not down, following his tax *rate* cuts [1]) was much more than would have been necessary to cover the increase n defense spending. But in order to get these approved, the price in Congress was signing onto the huge increases in social spending--the largest increases in social spending in U.S. History (later eclipsed during the Bush administration).
[1] There was a single year in which revenue failed to grow at prior rates--the period between the announcment of the cuts and their effective date. Also, the portion of taxes paid by the "rich" went up.
\end{}
Yes of course he was. Oh look - black helicopters flying overhead! Piloted by fiendish chinese UN soldiers! Argh! Argh!
Uh, I don't think Stalin would approve of any corporate entity. This especially includes the most successful one from Redmond, WA. Perhaps the comparison with Stalin would be appropriate if people were forced to install their software under threat of death, but the fact is people choose to use this company's software - however misguided that choice may be.
Close your eyes to the world. If the media tells us everything is ok, then it must be true right. I mean nothing can puncture that little happy bubble you live in right?
Sheesh
Finkployd
maybe you need to spend less time
watching television and more time thinking for
yourself, pal.
if you believe everything you read,
i suggest the bible, or How to Pick Up Girls.
although I'm still not quite sure who's the enemy.
Who's the enemy? The missile of course. Don't give me any of that enlightened peacenik crap. Seriously, folks. Is there something immoral about a anti-weapon weapon, unless you happen to be a missile rights advocate?
The number of countries out there who have the bomb is going to increase. The number of countries out there who have ICBM technology is going to increase. The cat's not going back into the bag. Then again, India might just sign that nuclear treaty after all. Sure.
I have worked with missiles and countermeasures since the days of the Nike Ajax. What you saw in this article is a very small part of a very big picture.
1. The constant see-saw of measures and countermeasures never stops. Most of what does happen is classified, and for good reason. The United States does not want the rest of the world to know the capabilities and limitations of our systems. What we know is classified. What we don't know is classified at a higher level.
2. Reviewing the article showed me several problems. Celestial navigation first appeared with the SNARK missile. Older residents in the Cape Canaveral area recall the SNARK-infested waters of the time, so-called because of the number of aborted missions exploded by the Range Safety Officer. Also, The missile in the article was probably a hand-built prototype. Laboratory engineers fondly assume that any prototype can be duplicated indefinitely. This is not true , and never has been. Manufacturing engineers are well aware of the differences between a prototype and a producible item.
3. I know the Pacific Missile Range, having worked there. I congratulate them on a successful shot. These people are all too well aware how far removed we are from a full-up system.
4. Others have commented on other scenarios for delivering destruction to the United States. The concerns are real, but irrelevant to the anti-missile scenario.
5. The fear of multiple missiles and multiple warheads is shared by the military. One early answer was the Nike Zeus, prohibitively expensive and already plagued with problems in early test. It disappeared, and only insiders know where the remaining hardware is.
6. There was some talk of chaff, decoys, and other countermeasures. The military knows all about these countermeasures, as well as many others. It is an ongoing game with the rest of the world, and ordinary civilians are not even allowed to know the relevant terminology.
7. One continuing problem is resources. In simpler terrms, everybody wants more money. All of the people desiring money are eloquent, and paint a grim picture of what will happen if they don't get their budget requirements. Welcome to the real world. Sometimes the eloquent are correct, and the government must move quickly to cover their blunders, usually by classifying some documents "for reasons of national security". All too often, this means some person's continued employment.
I'd like to see you say that when you've got a MIRV up your arse.
With the Cold War over and Russia in economic turmoil, there is a lot of Russian (and to a lesser extent, American) military surplus. Quite a bit of it is percolating down to pissy third-world countries with a two-bit despot just looking for trouble (i.e. North Korea, Iraq). Better safe than sorry, I say.
The bigger threat is probably China, overall. Before the time the likelihood of being killed by a punk in the street reached 0.1% a year, we'd have a huge response to the problem. On the other hand, 20% of Americans could wind up dead or sickened because of a month of miscalculations about what an inbred and paranoid Chinese leadership will do, and we wouldn't have any ramp-up to warn us about the ultimate magnitude of our costs.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
It could just be that a *lot* of people are getting karmic bonuses.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Another trinket that we pay for .... I really wish the government would spend money on something that would clean up the plutonium that would be released when this weapon does succeed. With regard to the whole issue of Nuclear weapons I get the mental picture of a 3 year old with a shotgun when I think of how this govermnent or any for that matter has handled them. Plutonium has a halflife of 30,000 years and is causes cancer in doses as small as a speck of dust. We have yet to see the consequences of all the 'goodies' the arms race has brought us. The thinking behind this weapon and those related to it is as brief as the attention span of a child with ADHD. The though is to the immedeate threat (although now I see none in comperison to the last 50 years.) and the money to be made, not to our children, land or our genetic well being.
You remember that peace dividend we were supposed to get after the cold war? Remember when Reagan was pumping most of our annual budget into the military to outspend the Commies? We were supposed to be able to cut back that spending dramaticly after the Cold War was over. After WWII the US military budget dropped by 90%. Most of that $ went to the Marshall plan to rebuild Japan and Western Europe. It also went to the GI Bill which produced the most romanticized and idyllic time in most American's memories.
But didn't we cut back on military spending after the Cold War and close all those bases? Yeah, about 15% of our top Cold War spending levels. During 1998 we spent over $321 Billion on National Defense. We currently have over 8,600 combat aricraft, 10,000 tanks, 18 aircraft carriers, 120+ subs, 3600+ Ballistic Missiles and over 725000 other missiles. Source
Now compare that to the 50 Billion we spent on education and training, the 23 Billion NASA got and the fact that China, only spent 40-60 Billion on their National Defense. As a percentage of our GDP we spend 6 times what countries in Western Europe (England, France) who have also been participating in our policing operations around the world.
We need to take a chunk of that money and invest in the public infrastructure (education, health care, public utilities, small business resources) in our country and many 'pontential rogue nations' in the former Soviet Union, Africa, Asia and South America. Once our people and other people are able to trade with one another, make a living for their families and provide a future for their children, I garuntee that the liklihood of war is 0.000000000000000000001.
History has shown that we have created many of the dictators we have had to overthow (Noriega, Suharto, Sadam) and we have managed to help countries get on their feet (W. Europe, Japan). We are at that crossroads again and must decide how to spend our money. Investing in Peace is always a better idea than investing in War.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
The only true security from nuclear weapons is their absence from the world.
Countermeasures: The Achilles Heel of Missile Defenses
All ballistic missile defenses are vulnerable to countermeasures. Despite decades of research, dealing with countermeasures remains the key unsolved--and likely unsolvable--problem facing missile defenses. It is far easier for the attacker to deploy effective countermeasures against defenses than it is for the defense to respond to such countermeasures.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to build countermeasures. Effective countermeasures can be cheap and use simple technology--much simpler than the technology required to build long-range missiles. Among other possibilities, the attacker can overwhelm the defense; make the warhead hard to detect, leaving the defense without enough time to intercept it; or prevent the defense from identifying the true warhead. If the United States deploys a national missile defense, it must expect that any developing country that would build or buy long-range missiles to deliver an attack would also make sure these missiles had countermeasures to penetrate the defense.
Accidental or unauthorized attacks from Russia or China would include countermeasures. Russia and China almost certainly have already deployed countermeasures or could readily deploy them if the United States builds a national missile defense. These countermeasures would be equally as effective for an accidental or unauthorized launch as for an intentional attack.
The job of the defense is inherently difficult even without countermeasures. Building an effective defense against long-range missiles is intrinsically difficult even in the absence of countermeasures. First, the ground-based radar or satellite-based sensor must detect and track the attacking warhead early enough for the interceptor to reach the warhead. Second, the defense must accurately calculate the projected intercept point and launch an interceptor toward it. Third, the infrared sensor on the interceptor must detect the warhead far enough away to give the interceptor time to maneuver. Finally, the interceptor must maneuver accurately enough to hit the warhead--a small object--at a closing speed of greater than 10 kilometers per second (22,000 miles per hour). The difficulty of this task is revealed by US tests of high-altitude hit-to-kill interceptors (the type that would be used for national missile defenses) against cooperative targets: as of mid-1997, only 2 of 14 intercept attempts have been successful.
Effective use of countermeasures would make a difficult job essentially impossible. The attacker does not need to do much to make intercepts all but impossible. To defeat a defense, the attacker needs for only one countermeasure to work. But for a defense to be reliably effective it must work against all countermeasures the attacker might use, and must work the first time it encounters them. Many countermeasure techniques, each working to defeat the defense in a different way, are available and the attacker can use a combination of these. Some examples are
The attacker can overwhelm the defense. Chemical and biological warheads can be divided into many small parts--called submunitions--that can be released early in flight, just after the booster stops thrusting. This creates so many reentering targets that it overwhelms the defense and would therefore defeat any midcourse or terminal defense. Moreover, dividing the warhead into submunitions is also beneficial to the attacker because it distributes the chemical or biological agent more efficiently over the target area. US intelligence officials have stated that they believe North Korea will be able to deploy submunitions, and that this technology could be available on the world market by 2000.
The attacker can make the warhead hard to detect, leaving the defense without enough time to intercept. The infrared sensor on the interceptor, which guides it to the final intercept, detects the heat emitted by the warhead. Cooling the surface of the warhead thus makes it more difficult to detect. A small amount of liquid nitrogen in a thin shroud surrounding the warhead could cool the surface enough to reduce the distance at which the infrared sensor could detect the warhead by 10,000 times--from the hundreds of kilometers needed down to only tens of meters. The interceptor would have only a few thousandths of a second to react, in which time it could not maneuver enough to have any chance of intercepting a warhead traveling at 7,000 meters per second.
Such cooling would also make the warhead much less visible to the infrared detectors on satellite-based sensors such as the planned Space and Missile Tracking System, giving the defense less time to work. Similarly, the warhead can be made more difficult to detect by radar by reducing its radar cross-section using simple techniques such as adding a sharp nose, curving its back end, and covering it with radar-absorbing material.
The attacker can prevent the defense from identifying the true warhead. Above the atmosphere, where long-range missiles would be intercepted, objects of different weights and shapes travel at the same speed and follow the same path. This allows a missile to carry a large number of lightweight decoys to confuse the defense. Moreover, these decoys do not need to be aerodynamic and need not even look like the warhead since the warhead could also be disguised. Such decoys would force the defense either to launch interceptors at all the false targets or to wait until the atmosphere strips away the lightweight objects, by which time it could be too late to launch interceptors against the warhead.
A simple and effective countermeasure is to place the warhead in a metalized mylar balloon (similar to those sold in florist shops) and release it within a large cloud of empty balloons. Each of these targets would move at the same speed and could not be distinguished by the missile defense radar. Moreover, adding a small heater to each balloon to heat each one by a different amount would prevent infrared sensors from detecting the real warhead. And, if desired, the attacker could also add a small vibrator to the balloons to mask any small motions the warhead might cause. The lightweight balloons would be stripped away by the atmosphere late in flight, but by that time they would already have done their job.
There were missiles designed to defend against ICBMs, thirty years ago--the anti-ballistic missiles, or ABMs. But a series of Cold-War treaty maneuverings culminating in the ABM treaty of 1972 reduced their deployment to one selected site on each side. The Soviet Union chose the city of Moscow, and we chose some ICBM launch site (oh, thanks, Uncle Sammy!). But the limits prevent ABMs from being an effective countermeasure against a nuclear exchange.
Reagan's Star Wars program would have jeopardized the whole ABM equilibrium if it had actually produced any results beyond the political. And now, many right-wingers are arguing that, since the USSR is no more, neither is the 1972 treaty. So, all you young folks, let me introduce you to my friend Burt the Turtle. He's going to teach you all to Duck and Cover!
Scientific American periodically has commentary/articles about hit-to-kill missile defense systems. Here are two refs:
1 .html
http://www.sciam.com/1998/0698issue/0698techbus
STAR WARNED
Missile defense remains a shaky proposition, $50 billion later
*and*
SciAm: Aug '99 (summary follows, full article available in print only)
Why National Missile Defense Won't Work
George N. Lewis, Theodore A. Postol and John Pike
Worries about rogue states with nuclear weapons have renewed enthusiasm for an antiballistic-missile defense system that could protect the U.S. Unfortunately, such a system is infeasible and unwise today for the same reasons that it was three decades ago: countermeasures are too easy to build.
So the government has spent $50 billion on an ICBM defense that isn't hitting its targets yet in tests. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and grant that they may actually get it working someday.
There is a funny thing about ICBM attacks, you can trace them back to the country of origin, and several satellites should notice any launch anyway. Please name a country that could fire an ICBM at an American city without developing a serious glow in the dark problem. MAD is still our ultimate insurance no one is that stupid, except if they only fire a few ICBM's it won't be mutual. The sad truth is that a world where everyone believes in anti-missle defenses is one where nuclear war will actually happen. This is destabilizing.
Any self-respecting terrorist or pissed off country is *not* going to be so stupid as to telegraph their intent and location by lobbing an ICBM at us! Please! It will arrive here quietly in the cargo of a ship, in a car crossing the border, or carried in a briefcase. Anti-missle defenses are not too useful for these very credible threats.
And of course, within a year of completion of this program, everyone will have counter-technology to make it useless again, and will have stolen the design for their own use. Don't worry just spend a bunch more billions to fix it. Then again, and again, until some fool actually thinks a launch is possible and tries it. You really want to go down this road any further?
I'm not opposed to military spending, just spending money stupidly. This money could have gone to space. Even if it were for orbiting nuclear monitoring and interdiction platforms (rather more difficult to shoot down) it would be a huge improvement over this boondoggle, and would at least be beneficial, even if hopelessly paranoid.
The exoatmospheric kill concept was proven in 1982 with the HOE-4 (Homing Overlay Experiment) shot performed by Lockheed, Charles Stark Draper Labs and the Army. It was refined in 1987 with the ERIS shots. The recent difficulties with THAAD only show that it's not so easy to do this reliably.
Patriot is NOT an exoatmospheric kill vehicle. It is a "high-endo" vehicle that does not rely on a kinetic kill, rather it gets close and goes bang. Not the same stunt at all.
Folks should keep in mind that the starting point for a threat warhead need NOT be known. Targeting depends on getting a trajectory (not very hard), pointing a terminal acquisition sensor, usually a very good IR scanner with limited field of view, at a known spot, and then driving into the projected trajectory. The problems you have with such a device involve being able to accelerate quickly enough to make up for errors in targeting, doing this over and over again in real time, without shaking the interceptor to pieces or blurring its vision.
The scenario used to sell the concept was initially Reagan's Star Wars engineering play pen, but the concept was kept sold after the Cold War ended by means of the "mad commander" scenario: that is, someone with authority over a small number of weapons decides to launch independently of a national plan.
A weapon of this kind would not "Blow up the incoming missile" it would instead smash it up into little pieces. The plutonium pit, ie the core of the nuclear weapon, would most likely fall to earth in one big hunk.
Please specify East or West with you longitude, and North or South with latitude. Failure do do so in these circumstances could spoil your whole day.
Feed he hungry. Save the whales. Free the mallocs.
First of all, the Chinese have about a dozen ICBM's targeted to American cities. Why? Umm.. I dunno, maybe because they are waiting for a moment of weakness when they can invade Taiwan? Or maybe they don't want to be hindered when they're making other mischief. Now remember, Taiwan is the good Democratic country, and China is the autocratic politically repressive Communist regime. In China you are sent to labor camps or executed for going to Church (among other things). This might not bother the half-educated neo-pagans who read Slashdot, so look at it this way: If you are caught with pornography in China, you are sent to jail for quite a while. Freedom of speech, worship, or association is unheard of. Last month 10,000 members of a harmless meditation group Falung Gong gathered around the Communist Party building for a few hours in Beijing to quietly meditate. For that, their organization has been outlawed, and it's members and leaders arrested and either executed or sent to "re-education" camps. This very nasty regime has ICBMs pointed at LA and Chicago. I'd like to think we could make those missiles useless.
Second, there is North Korea, one of the few Stalinist holdouts (besides Berkeley) and they have every intention of destabilizing peace in the Pacific Rim. A few of you might have noticed that, in spite of their many-years-running famine and extreme poverty, they lobbed a finely-crafted missle right over Japan this summer. The UN fought them in a war 45 years ago. The US has 50,000 troops still sitting in South Korea to prevent an invasion. The North Korean government is very rude and unfriendly, to say the least, and they scare the bejeezus out of nominally disarmed countries like Japan. No doubt many of the peaceful countries in that part of the world would love to have a few ICBM-killers deployed strategically around the area. It would make that part of the world much safer. (BTW N Korea will soon be able to reach the West Coast of the US with those missles. How nice)
Finally, there are all the pissant dictators like Saddam Hussein, who may not be able to develop sophisticated missles, but could easily buy them from greedy corrupt Russian mobsters. Don't even think this is unlikely. The US government is constantly on the lookout for something like that to happen. This could potentially threaten any country in Europe, or Israel, or many of the allies of the US, which is bad enough in itself, but it could also draw the US into another bloody war. A few missle-killers deployed in Turkey, Germany, and Israel would go a long way towards making that part of the world safer.
The point is, guys, that defensive military equipment is a very, very good thing, and would be a boon to peace in many areas of the world.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Why???????????
The Patriot did work, just not how people were told. The Patriot was not designed to actually hit the target physically like a bullet from a gun. The Patriot detonates its warhead when its close enough to its target to do damage. This workes very well when you are shooting at aircraft. The Patriot would detonate a small distance away from an airplane and throw shrapnel into the plane. This destroys most planes. The problem with trying to shoot down the scuds was their speed. The Partiot would lock on to the biggest piece of an incoming scud, then detonate a short distance away. This would damage this piece of the scud but not stop it from impacting on its current trajectory. Most of the time the biggest piece of a scud was not the warhead but instead the rocket body that boosted the warhead. So most Pariot engagements were hits they just did'nt have any effect of the missile's trajectory and so the missiles warhead hit its tatget anyway. Both sides of this argument have missrepresented the kill rate of the Patriot to further their own cause. Anti-missile people say it did'nt work, pro-missile people say it did. As usual the truth is in th middle.
The only workable solution, whereby mankind can be forever freed of this persistent philosophical terrorism of nuclear-biological ICBMs, is the original Space Defense Initiative plan, based on laser technology using new physical principles. Although the development cost might seem higher, once developed the defensive cost is pennies per shot. At that point, each missile could contain thousands of warheads and decoys, to no avail. The lower economic cost of defense simply destroys the economic feasibility of any missile based offense, by anyone, forever. Of course, this kind of defensive power must be open sourced, for all nations to use for their defense. And, IMHO, that is the real power, i.e. the danger to certain parties, of a new paradigm, the open source idea which is being proven by the slashdot community.
More importantly, if open sourced the new technology whereby we learn to control new concentrations of energy for defensive purposes, will also provide other economic benefits, such as a means to convert nuclear waste from existing nuclear power plants into an economic bonanza of sub-uranium metals and hydrogen and helium isotopes. This could improve the economic future for everybody.
Look at the fruits of the space program from the 1960's. Who ever thought we would discover oxygen and 20,000 terrawatts of thermal energy in the form of He3 on the moon. Look at the economic potential which that little discovery has created re fusion energy. For starters, see Artemis Project.
There is a REALISTIC AND WORKING 4-tier system under development. Much more cost effective than all the development during the Cold War. Defense contractors actually have to pay out of their own pocket sometimes, and then the government re-imburses them after it works! Totally 180 from the Cold War "money pits."
Jeez, if anything, this stuff is half-@$$ because the Clinton administration has done two things:
Other issues that are SCREWING WITH ABM DEVELOPMENT COSTS are "environmentalists" (who lie out their @$$ to keep all missiles grounded), missapropriation of current ABM funds, etc...
Again, the ABM defense is a 4-tier one. IT REALLY *DOES* WORK! In fact, the American people *ARE* getting their money's worth compared to what happened in the 60s through the mid-80s.
Understand that A, B and D are "hit-to-kill". It is like hitting a bullet with a bullet, only the bullets are traveling 20x faster than normal! But it allows the missile to be lighter (and therefore, batteries can carry 4x as many), faster and bam ... when it hits, the target is shreded to pieces. In the case of A & B, they burn up in the atmosphere re-entry.
Guys, also understand this has been MONEY WELL SPENT. Especially compared to what happened in the 60s, 70s and Star Wars in the 80s. We *DID* learn a lot from Star Wars in the 80s, but it cost us >>10x as much. These new systems *ARE* worth the cost, and by 2003, everyone will see.
Again, I cannot think of a better system to develop than one that prevents a rogue state's leadership from remoting launching a ballistic missile for the "heck of it" because they don't care about the destruction of themselves. And it *HAS* happened people!
Again, the Clinton administration was DEAD WRONG on MAD, as Iran, the N. Koreans and Chinese have all shown. And they admit now that we NEED MISSILE DEFENSE! Of course they will champion it as their own, even though they cut the funding *AND* crippled the efforts by keeping the ABM treaty alive.
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
So sorry. Decimal was in wrong place.
That wasn't at all insensitive. William used the Murrow building as an example of worldwide instability, but made a slight error -- someone else kindly noted the error. It's the thought that counts, so please don't play devil's advocate.
Also, your being from OJK is totally irrelevant. If the comments truly were insensitive, it would be insult to all of us. The bombing affected the entire nation in one way or another.
Lets see, the Chinease have been pretty clear about their threats to us. In fact, one of their military leaders 'suggested' that instead of worrying about their launching missiles toward Taiwan in an attempt to intimidate that small democracy, we in the US ought to worry about Los Angeles.
We have a legitimate need to defense systems like these. They are hard and costly to produce. But what is the proposed alternative? Caving to the Chinease? Bill "I love chicks" Clinton might be willing to, but I'm not.
fox one fox one
Now that they got the anti icbm missile, i cant wait for the anti-anti icbm missile - you know, the little missiles on the icbm destroying the anti icbm missile as they home in to destroy the icbm.
Of course, you could always develop the anti-anti-anti missile.
This has been stated logically and soundly for years by people who actually know what they are talking about. Any countermeasure we erect can be cheaply and easily spoofed by any attacker.
This comment is probably offtopic but it may clarify the global positions on nukes.
This weapon will not be very useful against the more credible threats as mentioned in other posts. Also, when looking at India, please do not localize it or juxtapose it against Pakistan only. We have fought a war with China(1962). china still refuses to accept the merger of Sikkim with India and still claims large parts of Indian territory. Also note that the Chinese policy is that they will use nukes to defend China's claims. With this situation, India needs the bomb.
Also note that Pakistan was armed by the USA for a very long time (definitely since 1980, possibly before that). Now China has replaced the USA as Pakistans best friend.
If India were to decide to fight the US, remember the number of Indian progammers who could bring down the computerized systems of the US.
DISCLAIMER: I'm no nuke supporter. A world w/o nukes will be safer than a world with nukes but there can be *no* exceptions.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Most of these problems are political in nature, not monetary. I suppose the US gov could give money to farmers so that they would not ruin forests, but then they would grow dependant on the gov for handouts. International welfare?
Table-ized A.I.
I live less than 15 minutes away from where they plan on launching this thing, so I should be able to see it from my backyard. This morning the Santa Maria Times reported a group of about 45 protesters outside the base. (One decked out as Darth Vader even) They claim that this will start a whole new arms race, and is violating the Anti Ballistic Missile pact of 1972 and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Vandenberg originally wanted to launch it on Wednesday morning, but moved it up to Oct 2nd. According to the protesters they were told it was moved up because of the weather, although an official has said they don't scrub launches because of the weather that far into the future. they just moved it back to launch on Wednesday.
And finally, an interesting bit of trivia: They're going to be launching this from SLC-6, which was built to be the launch pad for the Space Shuttle.
Because they have karma over 20...
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
The problem with back-slapping oneself about such developments is that there is always the question "What happens if we miss?"
What happens is that millions of people die. Better to not have nuclear weapons launched at you in the first place, therefore tons of money would be better spent on diplomatic and humanitarian missions to further understanding and co-development with the USA and countries who might otherwise be our enemies. But, no, a technocracy calls for quick technological fixes to all problems. Better we think of ways to beat our enemies than actually talk to some other humans and try to reduce the number of enemies we have. However, such diplomacy often is counter to the interests of multinational corporations (and major campaign donors to American politicos), especially the armaments and aerospace industries and their strong allied industries (oil, steel, and other raw materials).
Maybe this weapon actually works well... so what? It's much better if there's never any reason to use it! We can sleep a few extra minutes of sound sleep knowing that America may be protected by a fairly reliable ABMS, but I'd sleep even better knowing that there were also a lot of my tax dollars going into making the world a better place for humans instead of just for multinational corporations...
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
Yeah, Rob should increase the Karma needed to start at 2 to say, well, how about 40
Also more people should moderate themselves down before posting.
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The problem with relying on deterrance to prevent another country from launching a nuke at us is that it assumes rationality on the part of the other country. That's not an assumption that you can make in the case of countries like North Korea or Iraq, where the leaders don't particularly care if there's a retaliatory launch or not.
You also assume that it's easy to move nukes into a country covertly, but if that's the case, why are Saddam, Kim et al spending so frantically on ballistic missiles? They might just know something you don't.
Ditto for countermeasures; going from a simple ballistic missile to one that's stealthy, manueverable or carries swarms of decoys is not a trivial matter, and since the technology isn't on the market it will likely take a third-world designer quite a while to implement.
The possibility that some other threat might emerge is not an argument in favor of ignoring the threat that does exist.
It is one reason quite a lot of U.S. Americans do not understand our different view. Imagine N.Y., 50 per-cent destroyed or Washington, people dying due to cholera. I guess "your" views of things would different now too.
As a side note, I doubt our politicans would be ever able to make up their mind anyway, but that is a different story.
The EU is slowly joining their armies, aiming to take Soviets place as a military superpower. In a few years they could be willing and ready for WW.
(Note that I am *not* recommending anyone to arm up.)
I read Scientific American too, but they aren't exactly neutral politically.
the army didn't invent cars, airplains, or boats. they didn't even invent worlds original invention the good old spear! the army is not creative. give to $60 Billion to NASA. let them put about a thousand people in a real space station. with a technical and scientific population that can do that, stopping some dinky little sub-orbital rocket ought to be a triveal task.
the pentagon is dying for powerful lazers, but it's not gonna happen until somebody outside of the pentagon needs one. we got atomic weapons, because Bhor, Eninstein, Schrodinger et. al. wanted to know how the world really works, not because the governments of the world wanted super bombs.
everything the pentagon ever paid for that works, is not a secret. the Internet, computers, radar, portable radios, hell even guns. the list of open successes goes on and on. on the other hand, we have the great general bradly unmaned tanks, patriot missles, agent orange. that list of top secret failures goes on and on as well...
basicly the pentagon is good at breaking things, not makeing things. stick to destruction and leave the hard stuff to people with a passion for creation.
> The point is, guys, that defensive military equipment is a very, very good thing, and would be a boon to peace in many areas of the world.
In the case of nuclear arms, the contrary has been proven during the last 50 tense years. As long as the only "defence" against a nuclear attack is retaliation, the suffering of the people on the recieving end of the trajectory constistutes a crime against humanity, certain to result in trade embargos and such from many countries.
As the possibilities to reduce the damage from a nuclear ICBM attack increase, the percieved damage decreases, thus (eventually) making the use och nukes "acceptable" in a conflict.
So what happens is that we (humanity that is, I'm not into specifics right now) just traded an old, very dangerous weapon no-one was going to use for a new, somewhat less dangerous one someone might have the nerve to use. And that's when we (all) will be very sorry.
The Royal Navy has about 64 of them. Thats about the number needed for one good attack on Iraq.
Someone has already posted the people with ICBMs, granted about half of them can't reach us directly, but they can reach allies. And, though this is really another arguement, I think any Nuclear attack would be retaliated for, in some way.
The Need:
The american people have become apathetic to threat of nuclear weapons since the fall of the USSR. Now, the direct threat of a large scale nuclear war virtually disapeared when the USSR fell. They were the only ones with the large enough number of nuclear weapons to destroy the entire US. But with their fall the threat of a nuclear attack has only increased.
With rouge nations obtaining nuclear weapons, or the technology and equipment to build them, we have even more to worry about then at the cold war. Our only safeguard on the US main land, at the moment, is distance. Most of these countries have not developed a weapon that can be launched from their country and hit ours. But it's just a matter of time for them to develop one or get the technology for one. And our allies and outer 'holdings' are still under the threat. Such a defense system virtually eliminates the threat of such weapons.
The Counter Arguement:
It's been shown that the USSR developed nuclear weapons that could be carried in a suit case. Such a defense system would not protect against this. And I belive that this is a more likely attack than one of ICBMs. As I said early, most countries don't have ICBMs, they simply have comparitively short range missiles. Hence, it would be much easier, and much cheaper, to put a bunch of Nukes in suitcases, fly them into the US and detonate them. You won't know it's coming, and you won't be able to stop it.
The Questions:
These are more rehtorical than anything, though feel free to respond, I'm always interested in INTELLIGENT responses to them.
How Can We Build Such A Weapon?
The Anti-Balistic Missile Act we signed with the USSR (and several other countries if I remmeber correctly) back in the 80s when we had Star Wars in development prevents weapon systems of this type. So how can we build one? Well...you could argue that the USSR fell and, hence, all treaties with it are null/void. But that would hurt, cause there are still some treaties there we count on. You could also argue that they can't do anything to stop us. They are destroying their missiles and are way too poor to start development on a system such as this.
Why build such a system?
The treat from ICBMs is considerably small to that of terrorism (with or with nukes). Why build such an expensive system for something that's much less likely to happen than something currently happening? Well, one answer would be that no systems coming from such companies could defeat terrorism. And that's quite correct. But the money is the main point. Why not funnel that money into finding these know terrorist?
The End:
As a final parting comment. I'd be much more concerned about the nukes they can fly into the country with our own air planes than those of ICBMs, but government wants us to belive the only threat from nuclear weapons is that they are launched via ICBMs....
#include "std_disclaimer.h"
- AMW
AFAIK, there is no building named after Edward R. Murrow, in Kansas City or elsewhere. The Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City was, OTOH, bombed in 1995.
I agree ith you on nearly everything. This is one of the best posts I've read.
MAD does not work with rogue countries, nor with China (arguably little more than a big rogue country). China has a plan in place to launch a pre-emptive attack on the US before THAAD comes out (this little factoid came out in the recent spy hearings).
China estimates a US-China exchange would result in about 150M lost in population on each side; IE they lose 10% we lose 50%, after which they come in and mop up with what's left of the US with their still-potent, low tech army.
I can't read the damn article (cypherpunk won't work) but the think the main strategy for this stuff has been trying to hit the missles:
1) Just after launch; over the enemies' territory. This has the "benefit" of irradiating their population with fallout from destryed misslies.
2) In space, via killer sattelite. Clean kill; most everything burns up in the atmosphere.
3) The last place is mopping up the few that are making it into the target country's "dome" with something like the "Super Patriot".
The only thing I'm not quite sure about is -- is this all a waste? I strongly suspect there are new genetic weapons on the horizon that could kill entire populations within hours, with no radiation or explosive effects. And if it's possible to key the genetic weapon such that it doesn't kill your own race (insert Jew, Asian, Chinese, Middle Eatern here), such a weapon would render nukes a impotent relic of the past.
The beyond obvious reason that the THAAD/EKV systems are expensive is because they need to have pinpoint accuracy, on a target that is making course adjustments and moving at a high velocity (measured in miles per second!). A cheaper and much more effective anti-ICBM system is neutron bomb based. When an ICBM is detected, a missile with a neutron (enhanced radiation nuclear) bomb will be sent to detonate in close proximity to the missile. This will disable the ICBM warhead. Also, the radiation emitted from a neutron bomb dissapates really fast (which is why it is chosen over regular bombs). There is very minimal radioactive fallout and no lasting radioactivity. (Mind you, hundreds of even worse gamma ray emitting thermonuclear bombs have been exploded in the upper atmosphere already and we arent extinct yet). The warhead of the ICBM will be disabled, and there will be no effect on humans or, more importantly, my cat. Also, a regular thermonuclear warhead may be used instead of a neutron bomb depending on the speed and type of missile being countered. Anywayz, this system has been proposed but unfortunately the anti-nuclear hug-a-tree hippies are blindly opposed to any nuclear anything .. peaceful, defensive or therwise. Second, the system cannot be tested because of the Test Ban Treaty. And so .. billions will be spent on a system that is less effective, more expensive, and riskier. Try shooting a bullet with a bullet, impossible at best. (Btw, dont send me email telling how the last THAAD test was finally successful in a controlled scenario after X amount of tries). Also, if you know nothing other than misguided environo-nazi propaganda about nuclear physics or radiation and its harmful effects, dont email me.
Reality Check: Part I: "Rogue Nations"- Imagine that you are a third world dictator. Are you going to risk certain death by launching anything serious at the United States? Wouldn't you be more interested in staying in control? Part II: "Terrorists"- Aum Shinrikyo spent an enormous amount of time, effort, and cash trying to attack Tokyo with "weapons of mass destruction" and killed a couple of dozen targets. Their anthrax attacks failed to kill a single individual. This strategy is loony. Get a truck and some fertilizer. You'll kill far more people for a lot less money. Note that the Pentagon still has not suggested a defense that will be effective against Ryder trucks. Part III: Is anybody going to build a ballistic missile without a couple dozen inflatable dummy warheads? The cost of the countermeasures might be a percent or two of the cost of the missile. This allows you to negate tens of billions of dollars of pork for US defense industries. Perhaps the idea is to spend money on a defense system which will never be used so we never have to blame anyone for its ineffectiveness. In that case, I recommend that we focus on the threat posed by extraterrestrials.
Don't forget that this is also ongoing research. If they proposed building 10,000 of these things, that would be questionable. Maybe it works and they build 20 of version 1.0. Then the science advances and better/cheaper stuff is developed. Or the technology is implemented to shoot down about 5 ICBM - from rogue states perhaps that would be lucky to have just 1 ICBM.
;)"
The whole issue of there being easy ways to decoy anti-missle tech is pointless because it costs money to design and implement those technologies. It will be done, but by the time the big bad enemy has mastered this technology, the US should be researching the next big thing. The cold war was fought - in part - on the grounds of hypothetically being able to destroy your enemy and live to tell about it. Neither the US nor USSR achieved that goal, but towards the end, it became more apparent that the US could in theory pay to develop the defenses.
If the US has a feasible plan to shoot down any ICBM, then great! Didn't China just recently steal some ICBM tech anyways? Wouldn't it nice to be able to say in 2005: "Newsflash World! Your ICMBs don't mean dick (ours will continue to work
Yeah I'm more afraid of bio/nano/suitcase nuke/chemical tech weapons, but one freaking thing at a time please. Should the US of 2010 be vulnerable to weapons of mass destruction from the 1970s OR the modern implementation of such? Offensive technologies WILL advance, it's good to see some defensive advances too.
Time to scratch "live forever" off of that list of things to do today.
Maybe you should remind liberals, NYT et al that ICBMs also kill cute fuzzy animals and may damage local ecosystems.
Hey, no, that wouldn't be a good idea. I think that the number should be reduced to 14, and that everyone but me get a 30 point karmic penalty! =P
--- Chandon Seldon ---