Jake McGuire wrote:
I guess we'll just disagree on this one. Hezbollah, as a non-state
actor, could manage to launch a bunch of artillery rockets at Israel
because they were cheap, and precisely because they didn't cause really
serious damage. Non-state actors don't have the ability to scrounge up
ICBMs, ..

I suspect that ICBMs will become more affordable, relatively
speaking, for U.S. adversaries in the future. The U.S. economy
is steadily weakening, relative to much of the rest of the world,
as the U.S. fritters its dollars away on more and more on
imported products. The relatively richer non-U.S. nations will be
able to afford more and more weapons, relative to the U.S.
arsenal, as time passes. As I'm sure you are aware, wars
are ultimately fought by economies rather than by arms.

In addition, ICBM costs themselves would come down
considerably if the missiles were designed to haul conventional
warheads. Unit production runs for such missiles would be
in the thousands, rather than in the hundreds, providing
economies of scale. The missiles wouldn't be costly
monsters like the U.S. Peacekeeper either. They would be
smaller, lighter, cheaper mobile missiles like the Russian's
Topol or the U.S. Small-ICBM concept - or even something
like the proportedly cheap SpaceX Falcon. One thousand
such missiles could be had for perhaps $12 billion in the U.S.,
and probably for much less if produced in a third-world country.
$12 billion is only five day's worth of the U.S. trade deficit,
and would only be 0.2% of Iran's GDP over a ten-year period.

- Ed Kyle