Jake McGuire wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:
Once operational, the greatest rouge threat might be the use
of conventionally-armed missiles against the U.S., something
like the rain of missiles that fell on Israel recently. Such an
attack would quickly deplete an anit-missile system and it
would be politically impossible to respond to it with nuclear
weapons.

ICBMs cost a lot of money - apparently much more than their warheads.
Even the US can't justify putting conventional warheads on them because
it's too damn expensive. Who else is going to be able to afford to do
it. And in a world where ICBMs are only used to carry nuclear
warheads, who is going to take the risk of launching a bunch of them at
the US, hoping that we sit and take it?

Conventionally armed ICBMs are being debated these
days. See, for example:

"http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=556"

I would look at it this way. If I were an North Korean-type
enemy of the U.S. who wanted a deterrent that I might
actually be able to use if I had to (realizing that I could
never hope to use a nuke and have my country survive),
I might be willing to spend an enormous amount of
money on said deterrent. With a quiver of conventioally
armed ICBMs, I would at least be able to make U.S.
civilians pay whenever a U.S. bomber dropped a load
of bombs on my country, if it ever came to war.

If U.S. civilians suddenly discovered that war was real
and not something just to watch on TV, they might not
be so eager to continue attacking me. During the next
"Korean-ish War" I would be able to demonstrate to
them how powerless their Pentagon really was when it
came to protecting *their* lives. The U.S. government
might come under a lot of internal pressure to negotiate
a settlement rather than continue the fight.

- Ed Kyle