Anti-nuke missile defense shield = new MAD policy?

[Termagant]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
For proponents of ABM development, the whole deal is near perfect- they can create an imaginary defense against an imaginary threat, make a lot of money and get a lot of political mileage at the same time...

And, of course, any unlikely success will necessitate the beefing up of existing nuclear stockpiles to maintain an effective deterrent by nations who don't have an ABM shield...

The massive overkill potential on both sides at the height of the cold war makes this seemingly sensible statement into pure gibberish-

"Now, if the aim was still to produce a space based "shield" that could e.g. shot down 30% of all incoming ICMB in a full scale conflict between USA and USSR it might have been possible (and 30% would have been pretty impressive and maybe even worth the money)."

Instead of putting 10K weapon on target, there'd only be 7K... whoop-ti-freaking-do.... total annihilation exists at a much lower threshold than that...

If, at it's peak, the USSR had let slip its entire nuclear arsenal at US/NATO targets, there would not have been "total annihilation."

I railed against Team B in an earlier thread, but one of their conclusions was correct. That USSR general staff felt nuclear war was winnable (but a last option). That was correct because the USSR general staff was exposed to real science instead of the "nuclear holocaust" and "nuclear winter" B.S.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity
It has never worked. Twenty plus years and how many billions spent?

Really? That's funny because it's operational and has been tested successfully.

 

[Balt]

I very much doubt the missile defense system will ever overcome MAD. It's designed to protect against rogue states, not against a superpower with hundreds/thousands of ICBMs.

 

[Lemon law]

Maybe 33% of the time it works in totally optimum conditions--provided you know when its coming, from what exact place its coming from. and that the missile itself has no jamming or masking ability. In the real world I would be surprised if current State of the arts could even shoot down 5% of the bad guys.

 

[Jhhnn]

"I railed against Team B in an earlier thread, but one of their conclusions was correct. That USSR general staff felt nuclear war was winnable (but a last option). That was correct because the USSR general staff was exposed to real science instead of the "nuclear holocaust" and "nuclear winter" B.S."

Heh. "Winnable" as in having something left to win? As in losing the vast majority of both populations, and reducing each other's infrastructure to shambles?

Take a map of the US. Put an X on a few thousand targets. Tell us what's left. Yeh, sure, the Soviets had an advantage in the sense that their area was larger and the population more rural, but the whole concept of civilization for both parties would have disappeared during the first week... Which is why neither side had the utter stupidity to actually launch a nuclear attack.

The sad truth is that ABM defenses as envisioned by the Bushistas are intended to provide a shield against retaliation from the likes of N Korea in the event that we'd attack them in a non-nuclear fashion. The notion that they'd launch nukes against the US or our allies under any other scenario is absurd, simply because only the cockroaches would survive a US counterstrike. And that wouldn't deplete our current nuclear arsenal by more than a few % points...

The only thing that an effective anti missile defense system can accomplish is to allow for greater aggression by those who possess it- which is the whole point, entirely.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: piasabird
I doubt if we could defend a real all-out attack on the USA. Scaling back to 20% would be stupid. If we did that Canada could take us out.

You realize that if we scaled back to 20% of our current budget we would still spend more on our military then any single nation on earth, right?

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
The only thing that an effective anti missile defense system can accomplish is to allow for greater aggression by those who possess it- which is the whole point, entirely.

Agreed, but you've left out the most important aspect of the equation, the hundreds of billions of dollars that will be filling the pockets of a few people. Those same people (and of course, the people who they employ) will always be the ones who are the biggest supporters of any "technology" such as this.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Maybe 33% of the time it works in totally optimum conditions--provided you know when its coming, from what exact place its coming from. and that the missile itself has no jamming or masking ability. In the real world I would be surprised if current State of the arts could even shoot down 5% of the bad guys.

The primary goal of the current system is to give pause to smaller nation states (North Korea being the favorite example) to wonder if their small attack would be successful at all. It NK launched on conus and was intercepted, there may not be an immediate need for a nuclear counterstrike (their would be a counterstrike of somesort!). However, with no chance of interception, launch on threat is going to rule the day. (note: Not that I find the idea of NK actually launching on conus likely)...

Larger attacks (old USSR, China is getting there) would at best be limited, not stopped.

I do agree with techs quesiton about containter ships, but that againj is a different threat vector and needs to be responded to seperately (but as well).

 

[CaptnKirk]

It would cost more to develop and deploy a flight delivery system than it would to make a weapon.

The ICBM concept would only remotely be effective against super-power nations, not 'rouge' nations.

Containerized delivery buried in a sea of shipping crates - suitcase bomb is how a 'rouge' would make it happen.

 

[Jhhnn]

"The primary goal of the current system is to give pause to smaller nation states (North Korea being the favorite example) to wonder if their small attack would be successful at all."

Either you miss the point entirely, or are being deliberately obtuse. The whole point of having nukes is to deter aggression by states like the US, to raise the stakes for potential aggression. The scenario you paint is fantasy, since nukes would only be launched against the US or our allies as a last desperate act of defiance...

The objective isn't to actually use nukes, but to escalate the price of aggression to an unacceptable level. The NKoreans know they don't have a prayer against the US military, but they'd like to convince us that they'll hurt us before they go down fighting...