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book - Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance
Ian Parker wrote: Good point. In fact what you are saying reenforcs the point. Lets us look at the problem in a games theory context. Suppose we have 3 countries A, B, C To achieve hegenomy A B + C, since B allied with C will defeat A. In fact to be secure a country needs |B - C| If A |B - C| a country can always defeat the stronger by allying itself with the weaker. Hence China will not have hegenomy if the US in alliance with India can defeat it. As we can see a tripolar world will tend to ratchet its armaments downwards as there willl be a big gap between security and hegenomy. Unfortunately this only works if the countries fight a conventional conflict. All three countries are nuclear armed, and Russia is still in the equation, with considerable military might of its own. In a situation where actual conflict can lead to destruction of any of the opposing powers, economic force replaces military force as the means of fighting that conflict. Things in India are fairly predictable as far as future economic development goes (more of the same) but China is a wild card depending on how its government interacts with its economy. Right now it's undergoing a boom similar to the Robber Baron period in American industry, but the government could pull the leash in if it wants to, and sees its own power slipping away, to a unacceptable degree. The scary thing for the US is the potential impact of a export embargo by China of its low cost products to the US, which is one of the only things that is keeping the cost of living down. That gives China a huge amount of political clout in the world, and the US little choice but to let China do pretty much what it wants in regards to its foreign policy. The Chinese ASAT test worked brilliantly in reminding the West that China could wreak havoc in space if it wanted to at fairly low cost, and that any ASAT combat would hurt the US far more than China, as we have far more space-based assets than they do. It also means that the US allies (few that they are these days) will put pressure on the US to not start a ASAT race, as then their space assets would also be endangered by the orbiting debris. Pat |
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book - Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance
Ian Parker wrote: Indeed yes, a war between nuclear armed adveraries will inevitably be Pyrric. However what you say only adds force to the basic arguments. No there can be no question of hegenomy, or even war of any sort against major adversaries. The sensible thing to do is get a treaty of some sort. Past experience with military weapons treaties shows that the first thing the signatories do is try to evade their clauses in some way to achieve a presumed advantage over the other signatories who are presumed to be obeying the treaty. Cases in point would be the Soviet Temp-2S small mobile ICBM based on the SS-20, and how our Patriot missiles suddenly became able to down Scuds during the Gulf War. In the case of the Chinese and Russians it's going to be pretty difficult via satellite observation to determine what sort of warhead a particular missile has on it, or if the normal one can be replaced by a ASAT interceptor one in short order. Major powers have an interest in [preserving the space environment. For this reason there has to be agreement on what is permissible in space and what is not. On the general question of asymmetry, what worries me is this. Let us tot up the budgets for homeland security, military budgets, not to mention the hidden costs of security restictions. You get a figure running into trillions. Now how much do you think Al Qaeda is spendiing? The figures just don't bear comparison. In the same way the cost of dealing with space debirs, just one thing, is very much greater than the cost of creating it. As I say all you have done is tell me I was understating my case. Game theory came a cropper during the Vietnam War, because the North Vietnamese had never read up on game theory, and didn't know they were supposed to negotiate a peace at the appropriate level of applied military force. In this case a country with only a small space presence (China now, probably India, Pakistan, Japan, Israel, Iran, Brazil, and Argentina in the future) can wield a degree of asymmetric force by having the ability to destroy other nation's space assets while being fairly immune to damage themselves due to lacking them. In any sort of a ASAT combat situation, it's almost certainly the US that comes out as the loser, as we have the majority of all satellites in orbit at the moment, so statistically ours would be more prone to being hit by debris. China on the other hand loses a few satellites due to fratricide from their own intercept's debris, but nothing they can't live without. And they know this, which gives them the high cards in negotiating any ASAT treaty. Then follows problem three after the difficulty in monitoring compliance and the fact that each of the presumed signatories doesn't have equal risk or benefit from such a treaty's acceptance...what about ASATs and ABMs? Most ABMs will have ASAT capabilities, as the Navy intercept of USA-193 showed...so do they get banned as well? Pat |
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book - Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance
On 19 Mar, 19:46, Pat Flannery wrote:
Ian Parker wrote: Indeed yes, a war between nuclear armed adveraries will inevitably be Pyrric. However what you say only adds force to the basic arguments. No there can be no question of hegenomy, or even war of any sort against major adversaries. The sensible thing to do is get a treaty of some sort. Past experience with military weapons treaties shows that the first thing the signatories do is try to evade their clauses in some way to achieve a presumed advantage over the other signatories who are presumed to be obeying the treaty. Cases in point would be the Soviet Temp-2S small mobile ICBM based on the SS-20, and how our Patriot missiles suddenly became able to down Scuds during the Gulf War. In the case of the Chinese and Russians it's going to be pretty difficult via satellite observation to determine what sort of warhead a particular missile has on it, or if the normal one can be replaced by a ASAT interceptor one in short order. Major powers have an interest in [preserving the space environment. For this reason there has to be agreement on what is permissible in space and what is not. On the general question of asymmetry, what worries me is this. Let us tot up the budgets for homeland security, military budgets, not to mention the hidden costs of security restictions. You get a figure running into trillions. Now how much do you think Al Qaeda is spendiing? The figures just don't bear comparison. In the same way the cost of dealing with space debirs, just one thing, is very much greater than the cost of creating it. As I say all you have done is tell me I was understating my case. Game theory came a cropper during the Vietnam War, because the North Vietnamese had never read up on game theory, and didn't know they were supposed to negotiate a peace at the appropriate level of applied military force. In this case a country with only a small space presence (China now, probably India, Pakistan, Japan, Israel, Iran, Brazil, and Argentina *in the future) can wield a degree of asymmetric force by having the ability to destroy other nation's space assets *while being fairly immune to damage themselves due to lacking them. In any sort of a ASAT combat situation, it's almost certainly the US that comes out as the loser, as we have the majority of all satellites in orbit at the moment, so statistically ours would be more prone to being hit by debris. China on the other hand loses a few satellites due to fratricide from their own intercept's debris, but nothing they can't live without. And they know this, which gives them the high cards in negotiating any ASAT treaty. Then follows problem three after the difficulty in monitoring compliance and *the fact that each of the presumed signatories doesn't have equal risk or benefit from such a treaty's acceptance...what about ASATs and ABMs? Most ABMs will have ASAT capabilities, as the Navy intercept of *USA-193 showed...so do they get banned as well? I see what you are driving at, but I do not completely agree. All countries are becoming increasingly dependent on GPS/Gallileo. Even if you do not own, or only partly own a constellation you will want to ensure that your aircraft are kept on track and you emergency vehicles on land know where they are. It is possible, but not cost effective, to have a navigatiional system based purely on terrestrial transmitters. If what you say is true then it is rather bleak as far as this group is concerned. It means that anyone sensible is going to ensure that all their vital equipment is terrestrialy based. I will accept that an agreement may be difficult, but unless we have one no one sensible is going to base anything in space. Anyone sensible is going to rely exclusively on fiber optics for global transmissions. You ask are ABJMs tio be banned. Let me put a proposition to you. ABMs should be allowed, but only for nations that have a degree of dependency on space. If for example a country has autromatic speed control 120km/h on motoways, but 50km/h on the road running parallel to the motorway then it will be allowed ABMs, but not unless. No country should be allowed to have both ABMs and a terrestrially based navigation system. There is one further point about ABMs. They are ASAT, but for the most part only at LEO. GPS is MEO. - Ian Parker |
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