GMD Intercept Success

Ed Kyle wrote:

Once operational, the greatest rogue 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.

First of all, if any Power chose to launch a "rain of missiles" at
American cities, we would certainly respond at least with a
counterattack on the enemy's strategic targets including their missile
launchers; we might respond with unrestricted conventional bombardment
of their cities, if sufficiently provoked.

Secondly, I don't believe that it _would_ be "politically impossible"
to respond to such an attack with nuclear weapons. Israel can't do so
because they don't want to lose American backing; America _has no_
"America" whose backing she needs.
We are not externally restrained as is Israel.

Given repeated scenes of dead American civilians, the political
pressure on any American President would be quite in the other
direction: to end the enemy attack as rapidly as possible, using
whatever weapons did the job fastest. This might well mean a nuclear
counterattack, especially if we didn't have enough conventional weapons
in range and the attacks were continuous.

You are _seriously_ overestimating the extent to which the American
government, and _particularly_ the American people, care about "world
opinion." In fact, in such a situation, any other countries which
openly protested the American action might do well to be cautious:
their words might be remembered on some future occasion when they
needed our assistance.

After all, the Palestinian Authority paid for their impromptu 9/11
street fair with a strong US tilt against Arafat, and a cutoff in aid
which has caused severe suffering amongst the Palestinian population.
Hope they had a lot of fun on 9-11-2001, and hope the memory of that
fun sustains them as their children die of contagious diseases because
there's no money for the local hospitals

- Jordan

Jordan wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

Once operational, the greatest rogue 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.

First of all, if any Power chose to launch a "rain of missiles" at
American cities, we would certainly respond at least with a
counterattack on the enemy's strategic targets including their missile
launchers; we might respond with unrestricted conventional bombardment
of their cities, if sufficiently provoked.

I would only point out that Israel was unable to stop the attacks,
despite total control of the air, just as the U.S. was unable to
stop the Scud attacks during the first "Gulf War". The use of
mobile launchers to perform "shoot and scoot" attacks makes
it nearly impossible to stop such attacks. Even if the launcher
positions are known, it may prove impossible to take them
out. The U.S. was, for example, never able to "take out"
(or even locate) the mortar and rocket positions that pounded
Khe Sanh for weeks during the Vietnam War even though the
positions were all within relatively short range of the base.

Secondly, I don't believe that it _would_ be "politically impossible"
to respond to such an attack with nuclear weapons.

It depends on the circumstances. A nuke-armed China or Iran
threatening retaliation might limit the response options, for
example. I sincerely hope we never have to find out for sure.

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:
Jordan wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

First of all, if any Power chose to launch a "rain of missiles" at
American cities, we would certainly respond at least with a
counterattack on the enemy's strategic targets including their missile
launchers; we might respond with unrestricted conventional bombardment
of their cities, if sufficiently provoked.

I would only point out that Israel was unable to stop the attacks,
despite total control of the air, just as the U.S. was unable to
stop the Scud attacks during the first "Gulf War".

Both Israel and America in both those cases was able to greatly reduce
the frequency of the attacks, and you will note that Scud attacks
proved impossible from territories America _overran_ during the second
"Gulf War."

The use of
mobile launchers to perform "shoot and scoot" attacks makes
it nearly impossible to stop such attacks. Even if the launcher
positions are known, it may prove impossible to take them out.

Given the removal of political inhibitions against using whatever level
of firepower might be required to take the launchers out or to
disproportionately retaliate against the launches, I find this hard to
believe. An America suffering such bombardment against civilian
targets would not be under such political restraints; the political
pressure would instead be on the President to retaliate against the
attackers with as much force required, and indeed under such
circumstances additional casualties inflicted upon the enemy _beyond_
those required would be popularly applauded rather than criticized.

The U.S. was, for example, never able to "take out"
(or even locate) the mortar and rocket positions that pounded
Khe Sanh for weeks during the Vietnam War even though the
positions were all within relatively short range of the base.

Mortars and rocket-launchers are much smaller weapons, and given the
technology of the 1960's it was impossible to track mortar shells in
flight. In general, it is easier to hide a smaller weapon than a
larger one.

Secondly, I don't believe that it _would_ be "politically impossible"
to respond to such an attack with nuclear weapons.

It depends on the circumstances. A nuke-armed China or Iran
threatening retaliation might limit the response options, for
example. I sincerely hope we never have to find out for sure.

Actually, under those circumstances, even conventional ICBM launches
might very well lead to total thermonuclear war. For one thing, we
would not be able to verify that a given launch was conventional until
_after_ it either hit or was intercepted. For another thing, our
leadership would be well aware of the possibility of the tactic you
have just described; they could neutralize this tactic by deciding and
announcing ahead of time that _any_ such missile attack, _regardless of
payload_, would be treated as an escalation to total strategic warfare,
and responded to as such.

This is not some right-wing fantasy, it is the actual doctrine we
operated under during the Cold War.

I hope we check Iran's nuclear ambitions before they try any such
aggression; China is (I believe) too sane to try the experiment.

Sincerely Yours,
Jordan

Jordan wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:
I would only point out that Israel was unable to stop the attacks,
despite total control of the air, just as the U.S. was unable to
stop the Scud attacks during the first "Gulf War".

Both Israel and America in both those cases was able to greatly reduce
the frequency of the attacks, and you will note that Scud attacks
proved impossible from territories America _overran_ during the second
"Gulf War."

According to the following site

"http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief006-10.htm"

There were 4,228 rocket impacts inside Israel from July 13 to
August 13, 2006. "During the first two weeks, rocket attacks
averaged about 100 per day. Then in early August, Hizballah
proceeded to double its rate of fire to a daily average of
200 rocket attacks. There was a decline during the final week,
but on August 13, the day before the cease-fire, 250 rockets
landed in Israel. Israeli counterattacks apparently had no
serious influence on Hizballah's rate of fire..."


Israel's losses and damage from Hizballah rocket attacks include 53
fatalities, 250 severely wounded, and 2,000 lightly wounded. There was
extensive damage to hundreds of dwellings, several public utilities,
and dozens of industrial plants. One million Israelis lived near or in
shelters or security rooms, with some 250,000 civilians evacuating the
north and relocating to other areas of the country.

The use of
mobile launchers to perform "shoot and scoot" attacks makes
it nearly impossible to stop such attacks. Even if the launcher
positions are known, it may prove impossible to take them out.

Given the removal of political inhibitions against using whatever level
of firepower might be required to take the launchers out or to
disproportionately retaliate against the launches, I find this hard to
believe. An America suffering such bombardment against civilian
targets would not be under such political restraints;

The Hizballah war provides a telling example of this problem.
As you can see from the images in the above link, it is easy
to see how the launchers might be hidden within trailers or
tarps to look like commercial transport trucks. Once the
missles were fired, the simple launchers became relatively
expendable, so were not much of a loss if the Israelis were
able to find and destroy them. And the bad guys set up
their launchers among civilians, whose bodies would be
paraded across TV screens whenever Israel did manage to
get off a "counter battery" response. As you note, the only
way to really stop such attacks is to occupy, and hold, the
ground with foot soldiers.

Of course it is hard to image how such an attack with short
range missiles could be carried out against the U.S. as long
as we keep our adjacent neighbors on relatively friendly
terms.

The U.S. was, for example, never able to "take out"
(or even locate) the mortar and rocket positions that pounded
Khe Sanh for weeks during the Vietnam War even though the
positions were all within relatively short range of the base.

Mortars and rocket-launchers are much smaller weapons, and given the
technology of the 1960's it was impossible to track mortar shells in
flight. In general, it is easier to hide a smaller weapon than a
larger one.

The deal with mortars is that their can be a lot of them, they
can be very mobile, and they can be set up to fire a brief mission
en-masse and then be moved or hidden. As for artillery,
the NVA possessed some 130mm pieces that had a range of
31 km, double the range of U.S. artillery. Some of these were
fired from seriously dug-in and hidden positions across the border
in Laos. The NVA would pre-dig artillary hiding places, complete
with reinforced underground bunkers, etc. They would move the
guns out to one of several dug-in positions that would be hidden
under a leafy camoflage, fire a mission, and then move the guns
back into the underground bunkers before the U.S. could find
them from the air. The same type of system can work against
a radar-tracking counter-battery system today, except that the
number of shots fired might have to be reduced.

BTW, most Americans don't really know how throughly the NVA
outfought the U.S. over in Vietnam. The recent Hizballah fight
reminded me a lot of some of the NVA tactics. They dug in
deep, they used lots of long-range indirect fire, they used
surprisingly modern weapons that Israel didn't expect, they
were heavily supplied and supported by outside forces, etc.

- Ed Kyle

Jordan wrote:
snip
Actually, under those circumstances, even conventional ICBM launches
might very well lead to total thermonuclear war. For one thing, we
would not be able to verify that a given launch was conventional until
_after_ it either hit or was intercepted. For another thing, our

Would it actually be possible - in the near term (no air sampling
planes, or ...) to tell if a given intercepted missile was nuclear?
Assuming it doesn't go off.

Ian Stirling wrote:
Jordan wrote:
snip
Actually, under those circumstances, even conventional ICBM launches
might very well lead to total thermonuclear war. For one thing, we
would not be able to verify that a given launch was conventional until
_after_ it either hit or was intercepted. For another thing, our

Would it actually be possible - in the near term (no air sampling
planes, or ...) to tell if a given intercepted missile was nuclear?
Assuming it doesn't go off.

After a successful intercept the warhead should be pretty well
vaporized - maybe spectroscopic analysis of the debris cloud looking
for Pu/U? Seems like it ought to work, assuming you can see the
interception as it occurs (appropriate lighting conditions from the
ground and/or space-based sensors).

-jake

Jake McGuire wrote:
Ian Stirling wrote:
Jordan wrote:
snip
Actually, under those circumstances, even conventional ICBM launches
might very well lead to total thermonuclear war. For one thing, we
would not be able to verify that a given launch was conventional until
_after_ it either hit or was intercepted. For another thing, our

Would it actually be possible - in the near term (no air sampling
planes, or ...) to tell if a given intercepted missile was nuclear?
Assuming it doesn't go off.

After a successful intercept the warhead should be pretty well
vaporized - maybe spectroscopic analysis of the debris cloud looking
for Pu/U? Seems like it ought to work, assuming you can see the
interception as it occurs (appropriate lighting conditions from the
ground and/or space-based sensors).

Spectroscopy of merely chunks of blown-apart warhead seems very chancy,
especially against the background of any explosives in there going off.

If you could guarantee that you could make it plasma, then maybe.

Hmm.
It's just occured that the impact velocity will likley exceed the typical
explosive velocity.
I don't suppose this is likely to cause a fizzle - unless it was a gun
type bomb barely subcritical.