GMD Intercept Success

Jake McGuire wrote:
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.

Right. Since killing small numbers of civilians to convince a country
that it needs to abandon some military venture has ALWAYS worked in the
past.

-jake

Consider who has decided to use such weapons in the past.
Hitler (V-1/V-2), Sadaam (Scud), and Nasrallah (short-range
rockets), among others. Folks who did not, or have not,
necessarily always exhibited sound strategic judgement.
But they did manage to kill quite a few people and cause a bit
of chaos. London's children and mothers had to leave town
again. Sadaam kept CNN busy chasing lost Patriots across
Arabia and Tel Aviv. Nasrallah's rockets all but shut down
the northern part of Israel for a month. The latter barrage
may have shortened the war and may play a role in the
downfall of a government.

The mere presence of such weapons could have a powerful
impact on U.S. strategy far beyond their limited tactical
effect. Today, U.S. citizens don't expect their cities to
be attacked when the Pentagon bombs or invades another
country. How much would U.S. citizens reign in their
Pentagon if they knew that future such attacks would bring
missiles with conventional warheads raining down on them?

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:
Consider who has decided to use such weapons in the past.
Hitler (V-1/V-2), Sadaam (Scud), and Nasrallah (short-range
rockets), among others. Folks who did not, or have not,
necessarily always exhibited sound strategic judgement.
But they did manage to kill quite a few people and cause a bit
of chaos.

They also dramatically failed to create internal pressure to seek a
peaceful solution, just like bombing in Kosovo failed, and like random
air strikes in Iraq failed, like Iraq and Iran failed to intimidate
each other by shooting missiles back and forth, and like sending
suicide bombers into Israel doesn't bring Labor back into power, and
like bulldozing houses in the West Bank hasn't produced a Palestinian
leader who actively looks for peace.

Strategic bombing to crush the enemy's will to fight (what you are
suggesting) has only worked once, when the US nuked two cities in three
days and indicated that they were willing to continue this for as long
as it took (a bluff, but it worked).

The mere presence of such weapons could have a powerful
impact on U.S. strategy far beyond their limited tactical
effect. Today, U.S. citizens don't expect their cities to
be attacked when the Pentagon bombs or invades another
country. How much would U.S. citizens reign in their
Pentagon if they knew that future such attacks would bring
missiles with conventional warheads raining down on them?

Probably not at all. Did killing 3000 people in New York make the US
reconsider it's policy of keeping a military presence in the Middle
East, or did it make them look for something to smash?

-jake

Fred J. McCall wrote:
"Jake McGuire" wrote:

: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.

And yet we're talking about doing PRECISELY that very thing. The
problem isn't just the expense of the things. It's the accuracy at
the terminal end. When the best you can do is hundreds of meters, you
want to be throwing BIG bombs.

Conventional ICBMs have been talked about for a long time. They
haven't happened. They're being talked about now in certain
specialized roles, mainly as a political effort by ICBM types to gain
relevancy, but it's not happening now either.

You may argue that this is for a bunch of minor reasons that are
different every time, or you may argue that it's just an inherently bad
idea.

A hidden weakness of NMD, it's not.

-jake

Jake McGuire wrote:
Did killing 3000 people in New York make the US
reconsider it's policy of keeping a military presence in the Middle
East, or did it make them look for something to smash?

A bit of both, actually.

"http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter/saudi-relations-interest-8-30.html"

"U.S. officials transferred control of portions of Prince Sultan Air
Base to
Saudi officials at a ceremony Aug. 26. ... The last Americans will
complete the U.S. pullout in early September."

You are right about the historical results of strategic bombing.
But I wonder what the difference would be between today,
when the U.S. can attack at will with little fear of counterstrike,
and a future when more and more potential adversaries will
be able to counterstrike. And not just a one-day attack, but
over and over again for days and weeks and months. This will
shift, though maybe only slightly, the balance of world power
I think, because it will limit U.S. actions.

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:
Jake McGuire wrote:
Did killing 3000 people in New York make the US
reconsider it's policy of keeping a military presence in the Middle
East, or did it make them look for something to smash?

A bit of both, actually.

"http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter/saudi-relations-interest-8-30.html"

"U.S. officials transferred control of portions of Prince Sultan Air
Base to
Saudi officials at a ceremony Aug. 26. ... The last Americans will
complete the U.S. pullout in early September."

Right. But there are a hell of a lot more U.S. Soldiers tramping
around a hell of a lot more mosques than there were before.

You are right about the historical results of strategic bombing.
But I wonder what the difference would be between today,
when the U.S. can attack at will with little fear of counterstrike,
and a future when more and more potential adversaries will
be able to counterstrike. And not just a one-day attack, but
over and over again for days and weeks and months. This will
shift, though maybe only slightly, the balance of world power
I think, because it will limit U.S. actions.

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, and launching ballistic missiles at another country is a full-on
no-kidding act of war that prevents any sort of "oh this was all a big
mistake" climbdown and makes those who produce JDAM tailkits very
happy.

Nuclear weapons with ICBMs work as deterrents, because even if the US
can destroy your country in retaliation, we'd rather have Chicago
intact, and so can't shrug it off. I think that the number of 5-ton
explosive warheads delivered to have the same effect is larger than the
number of ICBMs in existence.

It'd be a "they won't ACTUALLY shoot those things at us", followed by a
"how DARE they attack the US!", followed by a "well, surely no one will
make the same mistake again."

-jake

Ed Kyle wrote:

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.

The main problem I see with your proposed strategy, _even if America
KNEW the ICBM's were conventional-armed_, is that, as soon as a North
Korean ICBM hit an American city, there would be immediate popular
support in America for doing whatever amount of damage to North Korea
was required to eliminate the threat. Americans under these
circumstances would get angry at North Korea rather than afraid to
continue the fight, because they would be quite aware that America has
the power to annihilate the entire North Korean population, if
necessary.

Most American citizens do not truly consider foreigners, especially
foreigners from countries Americans never visit on vacations, to be
entirely real, and would have no compunction against killing as many
North Koreans as it took, under those cirucmstances. America,
historically, has rarely responded to attacks on American civilians by
being cowed: the last major attack on American civilians (9/11)
resulted in the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the
overthrow of those countries' Terrorist regimes.

This is a very serious consideration. The American public is arrogant
and _overestimates_ America's military power; any President who
responded to such an attack with conciliation would find his party
losing the next Congressional and possibly Presidential elections. The
temptation on the part of a challenger to promise "payback for
[whenever, wherever this happened]" would be very strong, and if the
incumbent or opponent failed to match this pledge, said challenger
would probably be the next occupant of the White House.

The result of this is that "take out North Korea" would become a
long-term American policy objective. This would be bad for North
Korea, for a number of reasons (more on that later).

Another big problem is that America would _not_ know that the ICBM's
were conventional-armed before the ICBM's hit: there would be a strong
incentive to launch on (confirmed) warning just in case the ICBM's were
targetted on American bases. Admittedly, that temptation would
diminish if we had a full BMD deployed.

Finally, you're assuming that the North Korean ICBM's are accurate
enough to reliably hit urban downtowns. They would probably have huge
CEP's (Circular Error, Probables -- the radius of target point within
which 50% of the shots would fall) and might well simply hit suburbs,
etc. This would actually be _better_ for the North Koreans because the
smaller the American casualties, the less extreme the popular American
wrath.

A big problem from the point of view of the North Koreans is that
America has an embarassingly large number of ways to hurt North Korea.
At the high end of the scale, America could simply target a nuclear
warhead on every North Korean city and major fortified complex --
unlike most nuclear powers, we actually have enough weapons to do this
without seriously depleting our arsenal (and we can always build more).
This would mean the end of North Korea as a nation; South Korea would
probably annex the ruins.

At the low end, America could simply cease all aid to North Korea (in
fact, American aid to North Korea would be politically unthinkable in
the wake of a lethal North Korean attack on an American city with _any_
major weapons) and use her leverage to persuade all American allies to
follow suit. This would probably result in severe famine, with a
Malthusian die-off, within North Korea.

Or, pretty much, anywhere in between. Limited nuclear strikes,
unrestricted conventional bombardment, a ground invasion, sea raids,
etc. etc. North Korea would be fairly helpless in such a situation, as
the extent of the popular American wrath would mean that no President
who killed North Koreans or damaged North Korean property would be
doing wrong in the eyes of public opinion.

Again: unlike Israel, America has no bigger ally restraining her.
It's _very_ important to remember that.

- Jordan

Ed Kyle wrote:

You are right about the historical results of strategic bombing.
But I wonder what the difference would be between today,
when the U.S. can attack at will with little fear of counterstrike,
and a future when more and more potential adversaries will
be able to counterstrike. And not just a one-day attack, but
over and over again for days and weeks and months.

Ed, this is sheer fantasy, unless you are assuming an American
President who is idealistically determined not to decisively strike
back, to the point of making political losses by his party inevitable,
and even perhaps to the point of risking impeachment. Under the
conditions you describe, the political pressure would mount on the
American President to use "whatever means necessary" to stop the
attacks -- and the most obvious means would be our own air and missile
power, including perhaps nuclear weapons.

You do not realize the extent to which George W. Bush _calmed_ public
outrage after 9/11. If he had wanted to -- if he had felt the threat
was severe enough -- he could have called for a nuclear attack on
Afghanistan, and done so to the cheers of the American population.
Under _repeated_ missile hits, the political pressure to strike back
with everything we could spare would be almost irresistible. I'm not
sure that President _Carter_ could have or even would have resisted
that sort of pressure.

This will
shift, though maybe only slightly, the balance of world power
I think, because it will limit U.S. actions.

I disagree. I think that the first time another country actually tries
it, we will see America return to unrestricted strategic, and possibly
nuclear, bombardment as a military tactic.

- Jordan

Jordan wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

You are right about the historical results of strategic bombing.
But I wonder what the difference would be between today,
when the U.S. can attack at will with little fear of counterstrike,
and a future when more and more potential adversaries will
be able to counterstrike. And not just a one-day attack, but
over and over again for days and weeks and months.

Ed, this is sheer fantasy, unless you are assuming an American
President who is idealistically determined not to decisively strike
back, to the point of making political losses by his party inevitable,
and even perhaps to the point of risking impeachment. Under the
conditions you describe, the political pressure would mount on the
American President to use "whatever means necessary" to stop the
attacks -- and the most obvious means would be our own air and missile
power, including perhaps nuclear weapons.

First, recent history shows that there isn't a decisive way to strike
back to stop missile attacks, save for boots on the ground. Boots
on the ground is a much different kind of war than the high-altitude
low-casualty air conflicts that the U.S. has engaged in during the
last few decades. Boots on the ground evens the playing field a
bit.

Second, on what basis would the U.S. be able to justify a nuclear
response to a conventional attack? If the U.S. engages in a war,
during which its bombers strike civilian targets like bridges and
power plants, etc., (inevitably killing civilians) why shouldn't
the other participant in said war have a right to counterattack
against the U.S. mainland? Why should U.S. civilians think that
they are not susceptible to becoming fully involved in any war
that their government becomes involved in? History shows that
it is becoming rare for civilians *not* to be caught up in modern
warfare.

I think that the fantasy is to believe that the U.S. can forever
protect its civilians from involvement in modern warfare.

- Ed Kyle

Jordan wrote:


The main problem I see with your proposed strategy, _even if America
KNEW the ICBM's were conventional-armed_, is that, as soon as a North
Korean ICBM hit an American city, there would be immediate popular
support in America for doing whatever amount of damage to North Korea
was required to eliminate the threat. Americans under these
circumstances would get angry at North Korea rather than afraid to
continue the fight, because they would be quite aware that America has
the power to annihilate the entire North Korean population, if
necessary.


You don't understand too things - how deterrents work and what North
Korean leadership is concerned about. Deterrents work by the adversary
being able to make a promise of what will almost definitely happen
if the other party does something specific. Like take a sufficently
offensive action. What North Korea as a state is concerned about is
regime survival - it is thus irrelevant whetever anybody now living
in the regime doesn't survive the collapse of it.

Consequently it is not relevant what the US response to the use of
teh NK deterrent would be as it would be used (like any deterrent)
once a point of no return was reached.

[snip - blah blah blah]


- Jordan


--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

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