Question for those who supprt Republican Senate filibuster of START treaty

[Jhhnn]

Yes, get rid of all nuclear weapons. Contrary to the ideological nonsense you are likely to respond with, this does not 'alter the strategic balance of power', and whatever changes it does make are worth it for a world without nuclear weapons posing an ongoing threat for disaster. We're the only ones who can initiate getting rid of nukes - a goal presidents including Reagan supported for good reason. They're not needed for legitimate defense, and are only likely to be used for disaster - terrorist, aggression, etc.

That'll never happen. Otoh, increasingly small numbers of them serves the interests of all the world's people. Even the numbers in the new agreement amount to a huge margin of overkill wrt the ability of either the US or Russia to function in the aftermath of any nuclear exchange. 50 well placed hits would annihilate the economy of either party and a huge % of the population.

 

[CLite]

Werepossum, I don't see how you could have owned yourself more thoroughly.

-The article you linked (http://rt.com/politics/nato-russia-lisbon-summit/) that you quote as why you think START shouldn't be passed has a concluding paragraph that states "The US Republicans must be forced to understand the potentially disastrous consequences their political brinkmanship could have on the international scene.." LOL

-Your retired vice admiral (http://www.usni.org/vice-admiral-obama-was-outmaneuvered-russians-start) who seems to have past credentials is a 88 year old joke now, even if he is still writing books. He suggests that we would use Tridents for our new ABM systems LMFAO, you actually quoted a senile dumbass. Our ABM systems are much more advanced now than our Ballistic missiles and the clause in the START treaty regarding not converting existing ballistic missiles to ABM is a red-herring that Republican leadership has been trumpeting. There is no way our military which is obsessed with the next and best technology would convert ancient ballistic missiles and their respective delivery systems into ABM's. Sea-based ABM is fully based on Aegis and if they eventually develop submarine based ABM it surely won't be based on the trident system.

-You confused ABMT/START, haha.

-You think the Russians are using START to control missile defense. There is an escape clause for both governments, there is not some special escape clause just for the Russians if we build defense. The Russians can withdraw for any reason they want, just like we can.

As I've said before START provides us access to inspections and a good basis for future talks with Russia. It provides us an enormous first-strike advantage because of upload capacity in our MIRV ICBM's, and it has absolutely no effect on our missile defense. Admittedly, it ignores the imbalance of Russian tactical nukes, but I have addressed that in previous posts.

I can't wait for your next round of links, you have been producing goldmines.

 

[Craig234]

That'll never happen. Otoh, increasingly small numbers of them serves the interests of all the world's people. Even the numbers in the new agreement amount to a huge margin of overkill wrt the ability of either the US or Russia to function in the aftermath of any nuclear exchange. 50 well placed hits would annihilate the economy of either party and a huge % of the population.

Whether it will happen or not is an issue for man to decide, and as such, we should discuss the best policy, not silence that for political feasibility, even if we compromise.

It's like the abolitionists discussing the end of slavery, even if the only feasible policy at hand was a far smaller one.

There's a limiting of the possibilities that happens when you 'don't even talk about' the best policy - so the only 'sides' in the discussion are all not pushing it.

What, really, is the block against the elimination of nukes, other than political will? And isn't the political will started by discussing the best policy, even if dismissed at first?

At the least, it helps evaluate whether the permanent acceptance of nukes is a good policy, and may help the anti-nuke side have a better position to compromise from.

If it's decided nukes are a good policy, so be it, but why assume that?

The phrase 'that'll never happen' should be fighting words for a free citizen, when 'that' is the right policy - especially one with the price of nuclear bombs.

It was said when nuclear bombs were created that man had evolved faster in science than in his ability to deal with the nuclear weapons it created.

Isn't it a matter of our evolving to learn to ban them? It's never discussed now, but there was a strong 'no nukes' movement even in the US around 1980 - when we still had the USSR in the cold war. I think we have had their eventual elimination in our treaties long after that, IIRC.

 

[hal2kilo]

It should be perfectly viable because the Iranian missiles needed to reach Europe are significantly less capable than a full blown ICBM capable of hitting the US. The reality, which Russia's leadership actually knew in the first place, is Russian ICBMs go over the north pole region to reach the US anyways, so the missile defense system is in the wrong position to stop this. At worst, the system might hypothetically shoot down a couple of Russian shorter ranged missiles aimed at locations in Europe, and it shouldn't need that much capacity for a long time since Iran will take a substantial amount of time to really build that many nukes.

So far MDA is practically, a total failure. This system has been in fully funded research mode for the last 10 years at least with only a few successful intercepts. They're already building silos in Alaska for f'n sakes. The last shot, in December, everything appeared to be working properly and they still couldn' hit the friggin target. This is with everyone knowing when and where the target missle is.

I know ole Ronnie thought is was immoral, lol, oh the irony, but MAD is the only strategy that works. For every expensive interceptor we build, a cheaper missile with dummy reentry bodies will be flown.

I've been in the business for over 30 years, and my company's made alot of money instrumenting this nonsense. I still think it's a fool's errand.

 

[Jhhnn]

So far MDA is practically, a total failure. This system has been in fully funded research mode for the last 10 years at least with only a few successful intercepts. They're already building silos in Alaska for f'n sakes. The last shot, in December, everything appeared to be working properly and they still couldn' hit the friggin target. This is with everyone knowing when and where the target missle is.

I know ole Ronnie thought is was immoral, lol, oh the irony, but MAD is the only strategy that works. For every expensive interceptor we build, a cheaper missle with dummy reentry bodies will be flown.

I've been in the business for over 30 years, and my companies made alot of money instrumenting this nonsense. I still think it's a fool's errend.

As I offered earlier, it's military-industrial pork, made possible by the invocation of the Boogeyman- first the DPRK, and now the Iranians.

Oink!

 

[werepossum]

It should be perfectly viable because the Iranian missiles needed to reach Europe are significantly less capable than a full blown ICBM capable of hitting the US. The reality, which Russia's leadership actually knew in the first place, is Russian ICBMs go over the north pole region to reach the US anyways, so the missile defense system is in the wrong position to stop this. At worst, the system might hypothetically shoot down a couple of Russian shorter ranged missiles aimed at locations in Europe, and it shouldn't need that much capacity for a long time since Iran will take a substantial amount of time to really build that many nukes.

That missile defense system is largely already in place.

 

[werepossum]

Werepossum, I don't see how you could have owned yourself more thoroughly.

-The article you linked (http://rt.com/politics/nato-russia-lisbon-summit/) that you quote as why you think START shouldn't be passed has a concluding paragraph that states "The US Republicans must be forced to understand the potentially disastrous consequences their political brinkmanship could have on the international scene.." LOL

-Your retired vice admiral (http://www.usni.org/vice-admiral-obama-was-outmaneuvered-russians-start) who seems to have past credentials is a 88 year old joke now, even if he is still writing books. He suggests that we would use Tridents for our new ABM systems LMFAO, you actually quoted a senile dumbass. Our ABM systems are much more advanced now than our Ballistic missiles and the clause in the START treaty regarding not converting existing ballistic missiles to ABM is a red-herring that Republican leadership has been trumpeting. There is no way our military which is obsessed with the next and best technology would convert ancient ballistic missiles and their respective delivery systems into ABM's. Sea-based ABM is fully based on Aegis and if they eventually develop submarine based ABM it surely won't be based on the trident system.

-You confused ABMT/START, haha.

-You think the Russians are using START to control missile defense. There is an escape clause for both governments, there is not some special escape clause just for the Russians if we build defense. The Russians can withdraw for any reason they want, just like we can.

As I've said before START provides us access to inspections and a good basis for future talks with Russia. It provides us an enormous first-strike advantage because of upload capacity in our MIRV ICBM's, and it has absolutely no effect on our missile defense. Admittedly, it ignores the imbalance of Russian tactical nukes, but I have addressed that in previous posts.

I can't wait for your next round of links, you have been producing goldmines.

RT = Russian Times. They are scolding the Republicans because the Russians (and RT toes the Russian government line, like virtually all Russian media and reporters still above ground) want Obamacare for nukes; thus they warn of "potentially disastrous consequences" to help the Democrats pass what the Russians want passed.

If you truly believe the Trident is "ancient", I can only assume you are actually Sherri Shepherd in real life. Lockheed-Martin is still manufacturing Tridents, specifically the Trident II D5 LE block, with deliveries only beginning in 2010. These are quite literally state of the art; there is nothing better anywhere. (You may not be aware that the upcoming Flexible Target Family of missile defense missiles will actually use Trident booster motors.) The idea of using these missiles as part of our and the UK's missile defense system has been kicked around for quite some time. They are fast, already MIRVed, and can be moved fairly quickly and very discreetly into the trajectory fan of any hot spot thought to be likely to launch ICBMs. This is important because a high altitude EMP detonation could do nearly as much economic damage as a land strike, so the closer to launch you can intercept an ICBM the better. MDA is currently working on its Multiple Kill Vehicle, either version of which (single pulse laser or kinetic energy interceptor) would work with a Trident II D5 LE. By contrast, Aegis, whilst a quite capable system, was designed as an air defense system to protect a carrier group from short and intermediate range ballistic missiles and from conventional aircraft. ICBMs were not envisioned as a threat, and the Standard Missile does not have the range to intercept ICBMs with even a single kill vehicle. To my knowledge, Aegis has not been tested to intercept an ICBM*, and at best the Standard Missile would have to be in an ideal spot for interception and armed with a very lightweight kill vehicle. The Standard Missile, even the forthcoming SM-6, is simply not designed for orbital work. Nothing against Aegis or Ratheon, the Standard Missile is simply too small for orbital missile defense.

The Russians don't want to pull out of START; they want to threaten to pull out of START in order to hamstring our missile defense deployment. Perhaps you missed all the threats Russia has been issuing? Russia doesn't even really want an enhanced threat of nuclear war against Western Europe. What Russia wants is the threat of Iran launching a nuke at the Western Europe, with Russia cast as the West's savior. (Odd considering that without Russian help the Iranians probably won't have an ICBM any time soon.) This gives Russia leverage to expand and enforce its energy monopoly, selling oil and especially natural gas (needs a pipeline and is harder to store) to Western Europe. As Poland and Ukraine have learned, Russian control of your natural gas pipeline means no gas whenever you go against Russian wishes. You are correct in that this treaty does not directly give Russia veto power over our missile defense plans. However, the same people that think we must have the treaty will also demand that we make concessions to Russia to KEEP this treaty. Thus this treaty does give Russia practical veto power over our missile defense plans.

And yes, I confused the ABMT with START. Feel free to laugh at that while I laugh at your contention that our "massive first strike" advantage has some practical worth. We are not living in a Cold War world, where either side sees some potential advantage in a nuclear war of any scope. Even if Russia could afford it, there is no advantage to be gained in another arms race of nuclear missiles.

*I forgot, the navy did modify three SM-3 Standard Missiles and used one to shoot down a failing satellite. So the system can be modified for orbital work, as long as you can get in the right location to intercept a known trajectory. Still, this is a much smaller, much less capable launch platform than a Trident.

 

[Craig234]

As I offered earlier, it's military-industrial pork, made possible by the invocation of the Boogeyman- first the DPRK, and now the Iranians.

Oink!

It's also ideological and political pork.

There's always an appetite for the new military technology - the radar that beats the U-boats, the machine gun that beats the rifles, the stealh bombers that beat the detection and anti-air defenses - but our nation was fundamentally changed by the invention of the nuclear bomb and the seductive addiction to 'no matter what we can destroy you utterly' way of thinking that we now can't give up.

That way of thinking has led to an ongoing appetite for more new military technology, always the pursuit of power, and inventing threats to justify is easy.

It's like talking to the codger on his house where he spends all his money on more home security, alarms, guns, booby traps, over some need he has, and he'll just invent that all his neighbors want to kill him and take his things to justify the spending, and any bit of data of neighborhood crime can confirm this for him.

There are Americans who have that strong desire for more, deadlier, bigger without any thought to the problems from it or to the costs.

Talk about cutting spending on it, and to them it's like saying 'let Al Queda conquer us'.

It's crazy. These politics and financial corruptions complement each other. Voices for peace are drowned out - peace is dangerous and weak and surrender, they think.

This is the stuff that makes monsters. It's corrupted Japan, Rome, the USSR, Germany, England, many others and we are not immune.

Chalmers Johnson wrote:

However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.

...our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories...

These massive concentrations of American military power outside the United States are not needed for our defense. They are, if anything, a prime contributor to our numerous conflicts with other countries. They are also unimaginably expensive. According to Anita Dancs, an analyst for the website Foreign Policy in Focus, the United States spends approximately $250 billion each year maintaining its global military presence. The sole purpose of this is to give us hegemony — that is, control or dominance — over as many nations on the planet as possible.

We are like the British at the end of World War II: desperately trying to shore up an empire that we never needed and can no longer afford, using methods that often resemble those of failed empires of the past — including the Axis powers of World War II and the former Soviet Union. There is an important lesson for us in the British decision, starting in 1945, to liquidate their empire relatively voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by defeat in war, as were Japan and Germany, or by debilitating colonial conflicts, as were the French and Dutch. We should follow the British example.

 

[CLite]

If you truly believe the Trident is "ancient", I can only assume you are actually Sherri Shepherd in real life. Lockheed-Martin is still manufacturing Tridents, specifically the Trident II D5 LE block, with deliveries only beginning in 2010. These are quite literally state of the art; there is nothing better anywhere. (You may not be aware that the upcoming Flexible Target Family of missile defense missiles will actually use Trident booster motors.) The idea of using these missiles as part of our and the UK's missile defense system has been kicked around for quite some time. They are fast, already MIRVed, and can be moved fairly quickly and very discreetly into the trajectory fan of any hot spot thought to be likely to launch ICBMs. This is important because a high altitude EMP detonation could do nearly as much economic damage as a land strike, so the closer to launch you can intercept an ICBM the better. MDA is currently working on its Multiple Kill Vehicle, either version of which (single pulse laser or kinetic energy interceptor) would work with a Trident II D5 LE. By contrast, Aegis, whilst a quite capable system, was designed as an air defense system to protect a carrier group from short and intermediate range ballistic missiles and from conventional aircraft. ICBMs were not envisioned as a threat, and the Standard Missile does not have the range to intercept ICBMs with even a single kill vehicle. To my knowledge, Aegis has not been tested to intercept an ICBM*, and at best the Standard Missile would have to be in an ideal spot for interception and armed with a very lightweight kill vehicle. The Standard Missile, even the forthcoming SM-6, is simply not designed for orbital work. Nothing against Aegis or Ratheon, the Standard Missile is simply too small for orbital missile defense.

Aegis has been successfully tested as part of the midcourse interception phase (hit the missile before re-entry), It is already in full production mode and deployed on multiple ships with tests that show an 83% success rate (http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20091004.aspx).

Meanwhile the MKV project you mentioned has been canceled (http://comptroller.defense.gov/defb...fs/03_RDT_and_E/Vol_2_MDA/PE-0603894C-MKV.pdf).

State of the art sea-based ABM defense is from Aegis, not from Trident.

And yes, I confused the ABMT with START. Feel free to laugh at that while I laugh at your contention that our "massive first strike" advantage has some practical worth.

I did not say there was a practical worth, I was stating that START does not handicap us which is what the few partisan Republican leaders have been bitching about. We could destroy the human race even without our extra upload capacity, which is why I think having both parties engaged in discussions and treaties is critical.

What Russia wants is the threat of Iran launching a nuke at the Western Europe, with Russia cast as the West's savior. (Odd considering that without Russian help the Iranians probably won't have an ICBM any time soon.)

We can defend against Iran ICBMs with Aegis from the Mediterranean.

However, the same people that think we must have the treaty will also demand that we make concessions to Russia to KEEP this treaty. Thus this treaty does give Russia practical veto power over our missile defense plans.

You are building a strawman. We are actively producing ABM defenses and have them in production mode ala Aegis and we aren't going to end the program because of Russian threats. Even if our politicians were of the make to capitulate to Russia, they would do this with or without the START treaty. The START treaty does not put any additional pressure on us, the Russians could just as easily threaten to build stockpiles even if we don't sign the treaty.

The SALT and START treaties have dramatically lowered the risk of proliferation by gaining us access to Russian facilities and promoting the return of nuclear stockpiles from their multitude of bases and satellite countries to a much smaller pool of better defended/watched facilities. There is absolutely no reason to end this extremely productive treaty because we do not lose any advantage by signing it. Russia will always be able to threaten for many reasons (like natural gas) but at the end of the day we would be forced to address these threats with or without the START treaty. Signing the START treaty was an absolute no-brainer. Stop attempting to defense partisan assholes.

 

[hal2kilo]

If you truly believe the Trident is "ancient", I can only assume you are actually Sherri Shepherd in real life. Lockheed-Martin is still manufacturing Tridents, specifically the Trident II D5 LE block, with deliveries only beginning in 2010. These are quite literally state of the art; there is nothing better anywhere.

We are currently finalizing our software SPALT to collect the additional LE data blocks.

 

[werepossum]

Aegis has been successfully tested as part of the midcourse interception phase (hit the missile before re-entry), It is already in full production mode and deployed on multiple ships with tests that show an 83% success rate (http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20091004.aspx).

Meanwhile the MKV project you mentioned has been canceled (http://comptroller.defense.gov/defb...fs/03_RDT_and_E/Vol_2_MDA/PE-0603894C-MKV.pdf).

State of the art sea-based ABM defense is from Aegis, not from Trident.

I did not say there was a practical worth, I was stating that START does not handicap us which is what the few partisan Republican leaders have been bitching about. We could destroy the human race even without our extra upload capacity, which is why I think having both parties engaged in discussions and treaties is critical.

We can defend against Iran ICBMs with Aegis from the Mediterranean.

You are building a strawman. We are actively producing ABM defenses and have them in production mode ala Aegis and we aren't going to end the program because of Russian threats. Even if our politicians were of the make to capitulate to Russia, they would do this with or without the START treaty. The START treaty does not put any additional pressure on us, the Russians could just as easily threaten to build stockpiles even if we don't sign the treaty.

The SALT and START treaties have dramatically lowered the risk of proliferation by gaining us access to Russian facilities and promoting the return of nuclear stockpiles from their multitude of bases and satellite countries to a much smaller pool of better defended/watched facilities. There is absolutely no reason to end this extremely productive treaty because we do not lose any advantage by signing it. Russia will always be able to threaten for many reasons (like natural gas) but at the end of the day we would be forced to address these threats with or without the START treaty. Signing the START treaty was an absolute no-brainer. Stop attempting to defense partisan assholes.

Again, the range of the SM-3 is about 500 km, boosting one 20 kg kinetic killer. You can intercept a low orbit missile as long as you can get very, very close to its trajectory fan. 500 km is vanishingly small in the ocean. The range of the Trident II 5D is roughly 7,500 km, boosting eight 350 kg warheads. The Standard Missile is at the end of its capabilities intercepting one short to intermediate range missile from almost directly beneath it, whereas the Trident could be expanded to intercept several over a much larger range. This is why the Russians are interested in stopping missile defense conversion of Tridents but not conversion of Standard Missiles. (That and the fact that while Russian can keep Iran apprised of all SM3-capable ship locations and thus interdicted trajectories, boomers are much more difficult to track, especially so if the Trident II's greater capabilities were to be converted to missile defense.) And yes, I'm aware that the MKV has been defunded. Trust me, the concept remains under development and will eventually be deployed, assuming that the USA doesn't go bankrupt and the progressives don't completely take over. Again, neither we nor Russia are interested in engaging in a nuclear arms race. Only rogue nations like Iran and North Korea are interested in stockpiling nuclear weapons, under the assumption that a nuclear threat will protect them against retaliation. The race now is for missile defense, because a defense also serves the same purpose as an increased offense. And I'm not saying START is bad, merely that signing it effectively gains us nothing and may cost us something. Remember, Obama has already capitulated to the Russians on Poland and Czech Republic; is it really so difficult to suspect he will continue to do so?

We are currently finalizing our software SPALT to collect the additional LE data blocks.

I can't imagine you as Navy. Are you Lockheed-Martin or a subcontractor?