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It's probably not him who is pulling the strings.

 d-usa wrote:
This just lets us boost our defense shield against China/Russia/Etc while playing nice with them.

"It's not you China, we are still cool. You are still friends Russia. It's the North Koreans, they made us do this."

and THAT may get the Russia/China act together and resolve this situation.

 Eggs wrote:
Admittedly the levels of radiation are low, but they are enough to panic people, cause a cleanup headache and score a pretty big media victory.

And then ensure the destruction of the people responsible for doing it. Which is the fundamental problem with dirty bombs, they're not bad if you're a terrorist who just wants to get attention before being martyred, but they don't do anywhere near enough damage to win a military victory and stop the inevitable retaliation from destroying your entire country.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
This just lets us boost our defense shield against China/Russia/Etc while playing nice with them.

"It's not you China, we are still cool. You are still friends Russia. It's the North Koreans, they made us do this."

This is exactly what I was thinking. How nice of NK to provide us with a justification to beef up our missile shield without spooking China or Russia.

Probably not. Even after the announced increase our missile defense isn't anywhere near enough to stop a full-scale Russian attack, so at most it gives us better protection against a rogue missile commander starting WWIII or something.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Eggs wrote:
Admittedly the levels of radiation are low, but they are enough to panic people, cause a cleanup headache and score a pretty big media victory.

And then ensure the destruction of the people responsible for doing it. Which is the fundamental problem with dirty bombs, they're not bad if you're a terrorist who just wants to get attention before being martyred, but they don't do anywhere near enough damage to win a military victory and stop the inevitable retaliation from destroying your entire country.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
This just lets us boost our defense shield against China/Russia/Etc while playing nice with them.

"It's not you China, we are still cool. You are still friends Russia. It's the North Koreans, they made us do this."

This is exactly what I was thinking. How nice of NK to provide us with a justification to beef up our missile shield without spooking China or Russia.

Probably not. Even after the announced increase our missile defense isn't anywhere near enough to stop a full-scale Russian attack, so at most it gives us better protection against a rogue missile commander starting WWIII or something.

Walk a mile a step at a time. The more defense between us and the PRC the better, in my book. Russia's probably not such a threat, as their overt opposition to us is pretty much just posturing for reputation, while the PRC's covert opposition is rooted entirely in greed and malice, while they smile and insist nothing's going on.

 Peregrine wrote:
Good. Everyone should have reliable defense against a limited-scale ICBM attack, it makes it a lot less likely that we will have a nuclear war.

I agree with the first part, but not the second.

Everyone should have a reliable defense against a limited ICBM attack in order to prevent the loss of life and economic damage such an attack would cause, if successful.

However, I'm not sure that capacity significantly reduces the likelihood of nuclear war. Even if we deal only with ICBMs, any nation foolish enough to launch such a weapon against a nuclear state has probably been at odds with that state for some time and so it is likely that, even if the weapon is intercepted, the response will be in kind. Of course whether or not the response is nuclear will depend on the level of hostility, and the ability to determine the payload of the intercepted missile.

Quite honestly, of all the likely targets, only the US is likely to respond to an intercepted ballistic missile with any restraint, and that's merely a function of its military dominance. The other likely (presently nuclear*) targets, India and Israel, probably wouldn't hesitate to use nuclear force in response.


*Japan and South Korea aren't that far away, though attacks on either would likely elicit, at the very least, a massive US conventional response....in addition to fully renewed domestic nuclear programs.

 dogma wrote:
However, I'm not sure that capacity significantly reduces the likelihood of nuclear war.

It's not about stopping a deliberate attack from another nation, it's about two scenarios:

1) A hypothetical attack by rogue elements of the military (the ever-popular "submarine commander decides to take matters into his own hands" scenario). If only a few missiles are launched you can just shoot them down, and if you haven't actually suffered any damage it's still possible to avoid a full-scale conflict. Having that missile defense avoids the scenario where a limited attack inevitably escalates because there's no turning back once major cities have been destroyed.

2) An accident. There was at least one incident in the cold war where Soviet ICBM detection spotted a US "missile launch" which, by official policy, would have resulted in a full-scale response. Fortunately sanity won and they waited, and it was found to be a glitch in the system. However, this is a very dangerous situation to be in, if you think you have an incoming attack on your own ICBM sites you have a very short time to decide whether or not to launch a counter-attack before your deterrent is destroyed. Effective missile defense avoids this scenario and allows more time to figure out what's going on, since you aren't in a "use it or lose it" situation anymore.

Now, it doesn't do anything to stop a full-scale attack capable of saturating your defenses, but there's still a lot of value in having options to avoid escalating a potential full-scale nuclear war to a real one.

 Peregrine wrote:

1) Supposedly you CAN track it based on the exact radiation traces left, weapons produced by different countries have a different "signature". And if you can track it (through this method or some other way) you have about an hour before your country ceases to exist.

Well, you can track where the radioactive material was produced and whether or not it was employed in a fission or fusion bomb, but not who actually used it; at least not with more information.

 Peregrine wrote:

It only works as a first-strike attack, and a first-strike attack is only a good idea if you're a religious fanatic who thinks that eternal paradise is waiting if you can successfully nuke a city.

There are other reasons:

1) Stupidity.

2) Insanity.

3) Desperation.

4) Non-religious fanaticism.

5) The absence of attachment to any given nation-state.

 Peregrine wrote:

1) A hypothetical attack by rogue elements of the military (the ever-popular "submarine commander decides to take matters into his own hands" scenario). If only a few missiles are launched you can just shoot them down, and if you haven't actually suffered any damage it's still possible to avoid a full-scale conflict. Having that missile defense avoids the scenario where a limited attack inevitably escalates because there's no turning back once major cities have been destroyed.

Its possible to avoid nuclear war even if you have suffered damage, provided that you know rogue elements of the military caused them. Unfortunately it is unlikely that rogue elements of the military will make such an attack, and that such knowledge will be available to the party being attacked.

This is of course about avoiding nuclear war, not what is commonly considered to be full-scale conflict (everything up to deployment of WMDs). Any ballistic missile launch will elicit at least a significant conventional response.

 Peregrine wrote:

2) An accident. There was at least one incident in the cold war where Soviet ICBM detection spotted a US "missile launch" which, by official policy, would have resulted in a full-scale response. Fortunately sanity won and they waited, and it was found to be a glitch in the system. However, this is a very dangerous situation to be in, if you think you have an incoming attack on your own ICBM sites you have a very short time to decide whether or not to launch a counter-attack before your deterrent is destroyed. Effective missile defense avoids this scenario and allows more time to figure out what's going on, since you aren't in a "use it or lose it" situation anymore.

That's wrong. If anything the ability to intercept only shortens the time available, because it will never be 100% effective and interception must occur well before the time of impact. As such, any decision made by the relevant authority does not hinge on the incoming missile any more than it did before. It remains a question of determining intent before issuing a response which, given the mutual hostility necessary for such an attack, doesn't lean on interception capacity.

 Peregrine wrote:

It's not about stopping a deliberate attack from another nation, it's about two scenarios:

I should have responded to this first but, I'll be honest, I skipped over it to read the bullet points.

Only the US and Russia can really talk about limited ballistic missile attacks. For pretty much everyone else even one is exceedingly agressive.

 dogma wrote:
Well, you can track where the radioactive material was produced and whether or not it was employed in a fission or fusion bomb, but not who actually used it; at least not with more information.

But if you know who made the nuke you're going to be asking them a lot of very awkward questions, and if you don't like their answer then you're probably going to be sending them a few nukes of your own. There's no such thing as a deniable nuke where, say, North Korea uses one against the US, blames it on "terrorists", and gets away with no consequences.

Its possible to avoid nuclear war even if you have suffered damage, provided that you know rogue elements of the military caused them. Unfortunately it is unlikely that rogue elements of the military will make such an attack, and that such knowledge will be available to the party being attacked.

It's possible to avoid nuclear war when entire cities are radioactive craters and your surviving population is screaming for vengeance, but diplomacy is a lot easier when the attack is limited to "they launched on us, we shot it down, nobody died".

That's wrong. If anything the ability to intercept only shortens the time available, because it will never be 100% effective and interception must occur well before the time of impact. As such, any decision made by the relevant authority does not hinge on the incoming missile any more than it did before. It remains a question of determining intent before issuing a response which, given the mutual hostility necessary for such an attack, doesn't lean on interception capacity.

You're missing the point a bit here.

Intercepting an attack doesn't require any time at all decision-wise. It's a purely defensive action with no possible damage to any other country, you can freely launch interceptors at the first sign of an incoming threat. In fact, you don't even need control from a central authority, there's no risk at all with giving local commanders authority to use their interceptors at-will (other than idiots launching expensive missiles for no good reason and wasting them) and having a policy that you automatically launch as soon as a threat is detected.

Responding to an attack requires a difficult decision. In the absence of effective missile defense you can be faced with a situation where an incoming nuclear attack is aimed at your own nuclear weapons and will quite possibly destroy your only deterrent. So you have a choice: you can launch immediately (potentially before you have time to be 100% sure of the threat) and guarantee an effective response, or you can take the attack and hope you still have the ability to shoot back. Or, if you're a smaller country with few nuclear weapons (and no missile subs) you might instead have a decision between launching your own weapons and taking the enemy down with you, or allowing your country to be wiped out with no consequences. And you have, at most, about 30 minutes to make the decision.

On the other hand, if you have effective missile defense you can choose to shoot down the incoming missiles but not launch your own. Since it is unlikely that you'll suffer any significant damage to your own weapons you can spend more time deciding whether to respond and, if so, how to respond.

We're all going to have a wonderful year...

 BlapBlapBlap wrote:
We're all going to have a wonderful year...

I know I am! I'm moving to Turkey.

 Peregrine wrote:

Intercepting an attack doesn't require any time at all decision-wise. It's a purely defensive action with no possible damage to any other country, you can freely launch interceptors at the first sign of an incoming threat.

That's not the point I've been making, not even since my first post. My point has consistently been that interception is not as important as you claim. I have explained this a couple times.

 Peregrine wrote:

So you have a choice: you can launch immediately (potentially before you have time to be 100% sure of the threat) and guarantee an effective response, or you can take the attack and hope you still have the ability to shoot back.

Again, there is no distinction between a state with missile defense and one without; especially if you assume effectiveness is less than 100% (which it always will be). Nor did I ever indicate that response was the same issue as interception, in fact that was included in my first reply to you.

 dogma wrote:
That's not the point I've been making, not even since my first post.

Of course it is. Read your own statement:

If anything the ability to intercept only shortens the time available, because it will never be 100% effective and interception must occur well before the time of impact.

The part you just quoted was pointing out that this is incorrect, the ability to intercept doesn't shorten the time at all because there's no difficult decision involved in launching interceptors. As soon as you see a valid target for them you launch, period. Unlike launching a nuclear attack there is no possible consequence to using interceptors too quickly (other than wasting missiles).

Again, there is no distinction between a state with missile defense and one without; especially if you assume effectiveness is less than 100% (which it always will be).

Of course there's a difference between the two. Otherwise why would anyone build it?

And so what if it's not 100%? That's why you launch multiple interceptors per threat. If each shot has a 90% chance of killing the incoming missile and you fire four interceptors you've reduced the chance of that missile hitting its target from "near certain" to "very unlikely". If you have a 99.99% chance of a successful intercept you can realistically take the gamble and delay launching a counter-attack, an option you don't have if all you can do is pray that your missile silos can survive a near miss.

And of course that's assuming a single missile against a single target. If, instead, you consider several missiles attacking a widely-distributed nuclear deterrent (for example, US ICBMs) you've now almost guaranteed that some of your deterrent will survive. Even if your missile defense fails and one gets through you still have an effective counter-attack option, entirely removing the "use it or lose it" problem.

To be honest, I don't think modern strategic nuclear warfare is particularly reliant on static silos. The US, Russia and UK all have mobile platforms on subs, with the US having aircraft mounted warheads too. (UK just scrapped theirs). Not sure what the other nuclear states have, but I'm not so sure any state could effectively wipe out another state's deterrent with a 'first strike' style attack.
I'm no expert though, so I could be miles off target.

 Peregrine wrote:

The part you just quoted was pointing out that this is incorrect, the ability to intercept doesn't shorten the time at all because there's no difficult decision involved in launching interceptors.

Oh, we're talking about the decision to intercept?

And here I thought we were talking about the decision to respond an ICBM attack.

Long ranged ICBMs still need silos, as they're the same massive rockets we used to launch the Space Shuttle and satellites into orbit (got to do something with all those cold war relics). Of course, we've got a plethora of SRBMs and such launchable from trucks, subs, and aircraft that are quite a bit more mobile and harder to find and blow up before the bombs start falling.

 Eggs wrote:
To be honest, I don't think modern strategic nuclear warfare is particularly reliant on static silos. The US, Russia and UK all have mobile platforms on subs, with the US having aircraft mounted warheads too. (UK just scrapped theirs). Not sure what the other nuclear states have, but I'm not so sure any state could effectively wipe out another state's deterrent with a 'first strike' style attack.
I'm no expert though, so I could be miles off target.

No... the silos are the old Massive Rockets containing MIRV(?) each with multiple-warheads. These are more used for M.A.D. policy.

The sub nukes? Those are either first strikes or counter-attacks.

just bomb and wipe nk from the face of the planet

Indeed, lets make south Korea an Island. There's a particularly annoying strip of land connecting it to China.

 Doctadeth wrote:
Heh, I'd kinda be more worried about NK spies smuggling suitcase nukes or truck nukes around then ICBMs. You can spot silo construction from a MILE away,

I doubt the Norks have that kind of miniaturization, they're still slinging around uranium/plutonium warheads based on designs that the other nuclear powers abandoned decades ago.

As for Nork ICBMs, I have little faith in their ability to deliver a warhead anywhere let alone to a remote area of Alaska

As for our ability to intercept ICBMs... well i dont have much faith in that either, at least not since we abandoned the xonxept of nuclear interceptors (as in an interceptor armed with a nuclear warhead to achieve proximity kills).

Also, subs are mostly a second strike platform (at least in US doctrine). The bombers and land based missiles are there for the first strike (because they probably wont be around for the second strike, and if you're going to do The first strike you're going to bring out the big guns first). The subs present a second strike option by virtue of the fact that they are theoretically hidden from attack and therefore will be able to retaliate even after large swathes of the American countryside are glowing green. These elements combined in what is referred to as the "nuclear triad" together provide the MAD style deterrence, because no matter what, we will, theoretically, be able to nuke you. Recently the USAF has apparently been looking into mobile land based launchers (both truck and rail mounted) in place of refurbishing existing silos and continuing to maintain costly remote missile fields, etc.

To Alaska?

That far?

Theoretically, yes. Keep in mind that Alaska isn't actually that far from North Korea.

Well, knowing how well their previous tests have done, they better pray to Kim Il-Sung that they bomb doesn't land on Tokyo . . .

 Laughing Man wrote:
Long ranged ICBMs still need silos, as they're the same massive rockets we used to launch the Space Shuttle and satellites into orbit (got to do something with all those cold war relics). Of course, we've got a plethora of SRBMs and such launchable from trucks, subs, and aircraft that are quite a bit more mobile and harder to find and blow up before the bombs start falling.

Just as a note on the capability of our Trident II SLBM:

Approximate range: 7000 miles (from Seattle to Seoul is +/- 5200 miles) so no you cant launch at anywhere in the world from one spot, but one of our SSBN Ohio class subs could technically sit at Delta Pier in Bangor, WA and launch at the Koreas.

What blows me away is that each missile is tipped with usually 4 warheads (475kt mind you, Nagasaki was 22-24 kt) that are launched into the outer atmosphere, and are independently launched from the missile to their independent targets. Each sub has 24 tubes with the potential to carry a missile, and at any given time there are at least 4 SSBN subs on patrol somewhere in the Pacific. Even though they are not always completely loaded and all that, its all classified, it is still a scary thought of the firepower that we have floating about in the Pacific.

Other than the KT numbers above most of this I knew from serving aboard the USS Ohio.

One other thing, it is impossible for a Submarine Captain to launch a missile without a specific launch code that can only be received from off the sub. This was not always the case, during the Cold War a submarine captain was the most powerful man in the world, with nuclear firepower at his fingertips. Edit: The quote in the beginning of "Crimson Tide" about this was pretty accurate.

Every time someone uses the expression "Nork", I can't help put picture the Ogryn.

I'm not comfortable with that particular free association, but I'm not sure I can stop it.

IronWarLeg, I dont know if thats technically true (sit in WA and launch at Koreas). The dangers of launching a rocket while in port aside, there are issues of ballistics, etc. that need to be taken into account. Though they have the range, there are limitations as to which "direction" the missiles can be fired depending on which part of the world the sub is located, or at least thats what ive been told (example, submarine in the Indian ocean wouldnt necessarily be able to launch at targets in india or africa but might be able to hit targets in russia or south america, or vice versa while a sub in the north atlantic might be able to.hit europe but not africa.

Missile turning ability combined with the circumference of the earth?

I imagine weather may also effect the missile's ability to be deployed.


Even if they couldn't launch right out of port I think they wouldn't have to go too far to do it. And we probably have a sub somewhere within striking distance already.

 dogma wrote:
Oh, we're talking about the decision to intercept?

And here I thought we were talking about the decision to respond an ICBM attack.

YOU are talking about decisions to intercept. Here's the conversation:

Me: Missile defense gives you more time to decide how to respond, since you can shoot down an attack aimed at your own missiles and avoid the "use it or lose it" scenario where if you don't launch within 30 minutes you don't launch at all.
You: Missile defense shortens the time to decide because you have to decide whether to shoot down or not.
Me: No, because you always shoot down. We're talking about a decision to respond.

 Peregrine wrote:

You: Missile defense shortens the time to decide because you have to decide whether to shoot down or not.

I said no such thing, but don't let that stop you from ranting. If you want proof, just calm down and read the thread.

 dogma wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

You: Missile defense shortens the time to decide because you have to decide whether to shoot down or not.

I said no such thing, but don't let that stop you from ranting. If you want proof, just calm down and read the thread.

Your own words:

If anything the ability to intercept only shortens the time available, because it will never be 100% effective and interception must occur well before the time of impact.

 Peregrine wrote:

Your own words:

If anything the ability to intercept only shortens the time available, because it will never be 100% effective and interception must occur well before the time of impact.

Which is not the equivalent of:

 Peregrine wrote:
Missile defense shortens the time to decide because you have to decide whether to shoot down or not.

As I commented above we have not been talking about the decision to intercept.