Context: China very recently claimed to have struck a ship at sea over a thousand miles away with an ICBM fired from the interior of China. That's an obvious threat to US carrier group-based force projection
So this demonstration looks likely a response to that, not specifically about WMD threats this time
Probably both these tests were under ideal conditions, as usual, but they're about sending a message as much as anything practical
Nope, this demonstration was requested/required by congress a couple years ago. The timing is just due to the deadline starting to run out. It's not a proximate response to the Chinese test.
Moreover, the Chinese test was an intermediate range missile, not an ICBM. The scenario tested here is more like NK taking a single shot at the west coast.
EDIT: I'm not saying the US should ever go to war with North Korea, only that there is no possible outcome where North Korea goes to war with the US that does not result in the total decapitation of military capacity of North Korea. It would be like when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to "demoralize the American people". It just doesn't work that way.
If a major conflict with NK happens, the victim will also be South Korea. Seoul is close to the border, and is targeted by a colossal array of weapons. Not destroying it will always be a large bargaining chip in NK's hands.
I would hope not, but it seems increasingly common for people to undervalue deterrence, and in that context I can imagine someone spending an enormous number of American lives in a misguided attempt to appease an adversary.
I don't know the local details, but I would be very surprised if a fully industrialized developed nation such as South Korea doesn't have a full military arsenal pointed right back at the agrarian, backwards North Korea. Especially since several of the Korean chaebols have quite advanced military arms.
South Korea would obviously wants support from the US and the rest of the world, but I'm pretty sure they can flatten North Korea right back if they're fired upon.
It is obviously not a deterrent if you are not willing to follow through with it. The word you are looking for in that case is not "deterrent", but "bluff".
It's not a question of who would win, but NK could indiscriminately bombard Seoul, which is very close to the border. This could kill millions of people and destroy the economic center of SK.
I'm not a military expert, but from what I've read (and watched) my understanding is that the "Seoul sea of fire" scenario is slightly over-egged for the following reasons:
- NK has a LOT of artillery, but the majority of this artillery doesn't actually have the range to target Seoul from within NK.
- To significantly damage Seoul, NK would have to concentrate most of the necessary artillery into a rather small area. That would make the artillery easy for the south to target, and difficult for the north to mobilise away quickly (say if they needed to retreate for whatever reason). It would also leave this force more vulnerable to something like an encirclement.
- Assuming hostilities are unavoidable, there would be little military benefit to NK doing this. It would leave military assets in the south free to retaliate in any way they see fit rather than having to recoup from damage a bombardment would bring. It would also further jeapordise any attempts for a peace settlement, or international aid (which NK would surely need due to its military inferiority when compared with the south).
- It is likely that the north would be unable to hold the border for that long, and would be pushed back, so any potential artillery barrage wouldn't last for long.
- NK has a very weak airforce compared to the south, so the amount of functional artillery it could field would drop quite quickly due to airstrikes.
That said, Seoul being targeted is a terrifying prospect, and it would likely happen in a conflict, but I think you are slightly overstating this scenario.
Also, any attack on Seoul would also hurt the economy of SK yes, but a war with the north probably wouldn't last long enough for that to be a factor (although admittedly this is hard to predict with any certainty). And even if the souths economy contracted, say, 50%, it is still larger than the north by an order of magnitude).
I'm not an expert on this, but it sounds like CapricornNoble down thread is :-)
If we assume Seoul is largely destroyed, the economic damage I'm thinking of comes from a few different places, not from the war going on but from the aftermath. Many people could die, causing both a loss of expertise and simple manpower. Housing would be destroyed, such that those that did survive would need emergency housing. The massive destruction of property would burn up trillions of dollars in real estate investment. And lastly, specialized commercial and industrial properties would be destroyed. I don't know to what degree Seoul is an industrial capital, but there's likely some of this at least.
This doesn't make sense. Seoul is at risk because it is very close to the border where-as Pyongyang is much further from their mutual border.
There are, of course, other considerations, but Seoul would be very difficult to defend from 'simple' weapons like artillery. The US is very proud of it's ability to fire artillery 40 miles (64km), but Pyongyang is much further than that.
If NK attacks SK then the US will obliterate NK. The US does not need to use artillery to obliterate Pyongyang. Pyongyang cannot be defended against US weapons. Seoul and allies cannot defend against NK weapons.
This completely misses the point of the GP (or is that GGP) though. It's not a debate whether NK could survive, it couldn't, but Seoul is indefensible.
Everything I've read suggests the Seoul is a casualty of any conflict. Regardless of the eventual 'winner'.
Precisely this. There is no real winner in war (I'm a US Army Veteran of OIF II circa 2003-2004), only one side that might lose less. Taking a life breaks many people, even trained infantry. Look at all of the veteran suicides due to PTSD from war as proof of this.
Once someone on either side has been killed in war, both sides permanently lose. There are no take-backs, only damaged soldiers on both sides and casualties.
There is some work being done on shooting down artilery and mortar projectiles & Iron Dome deployed in Israel regularly shoots down small unguided missiles.
It can't be done in both directions. The reference to Seul's proximity to the border is that it's within the range of North Korean artillery. The reverse isn't true.
Yes of course, the US has had the technical ability to glass North Korea since the 50s or 60s, but that's not the "it" we're talking about here.
The point oblio is maintaining upthread is that because SK and her allies have much more advanced weaponry NK doesn't have a chance of standing against them in a conventional conflict. That's true, but misses the point.
Before NK had nuclear weapons one of their main deterrents was that they'd had years/decades to fortify conventional artillery at the border pointed at Seul. So even if their military couldn't stand a chance in a conventional war they could plausibly threaten MAD by holding Seul hostage.
That's the context in which the border proximity is brought up. Replying to that by saying that Pyongyang is 150 km from the border or whatever is irrelevant.
Yes of course the US could win an all-out conventional war with an enemy 50, 150 or 1500 km from its border. That was never in question.
The question was whether a relatively weaker enemy could present an outsized threat due to some strategic geographic position.
That's been the case with NK precisely because mid-century artillery technology can be dug-in close enough to the border to matter.
Whereas if the border happened to be 150 km away those assets could be taken out by missiles once they tried to move in position to shoot on a major target like Seul.
Whether the NK artillery actually poses a strategic threat is another matter. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all mapped out be the US/SK and would be taken out in the first 5 minutes of a conflict by targeted missile attacks.
But it's not just a strategic question, but whether e.g. NK can make threats that are taken seriously by the SK population for it to pressure its government to make some concessions to NK.
>>I wouldn't be surprised if it's all mapped out be the US/SK and would be taken out in the first 5 minutes of a conflict by targeted missile attacks.
Sadly no. There are so many UGFs (underground facilities) on the JIPTL (Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List) and we don't have anywhere near enough ordnance of the right types staged to hit them all before Seoul is a smoking crater. I've participated in 5 or 6 of the big Korean Theater exercises[1][2], working at a Corps-level HQ. The entire country is a reinforced underground fortress. Remember how we shelled Iwo Jima for several days and still barely scratched the defences on Mt Suribachi? NK is like that, but worse. They've had 60 years to dig in, and instead of a small island a few miles wide, the fortress is the size of Indiana.
And we don't have enough B2s in Seoul to make a real dent using MOAPs either I take it? Thanks for the links, that is really interesting. Hopefully neither of us see "war with NK" in our lifetimes.
I certainly hope you dont mean nuclear weapons. Indiscriminate killing of civilians on their home country by a belligerent nation using a WMD is more than enough reason to start a real global war. Whoever fires it first loses. No matter who it is.
This is not 1945.
Thats why diplomacy is the way forward. Our species cant go through a global war with countries outdoing each other to kill civilians.
> Why would SK and allies use the same weapons as NK instead of the far more advanced (capable) weapons SK and allies possess?
You are right that they might not use the same weapons, but long-range precision guided artillery is expensive. Because the shells are expensive, not all countries have enough to use them without limit as was the case in WW2 - where in the last few months of the Western Front the allies preferred to expend munitions rather than their own soldiers' lives.
The problem is that a significant portion of the South Korean civilian population lives within range of NK artillery in place along the DMZ including parts of the capitol, Seoul. According to this article that's about 45 miles.
South Korea would be completely destroyed with the first attack by NK anyway (if talking about WMD)
NK has enough completely conventional artillery in range of Seoul to deliver a Hiroshima level attack. Their WMD programme is about deterring outsiders.
My point is that everyone treats South Korea as being a 8 year old in a bad neighborhood.
As crazy as North Korea is, if they fire first, South Korea isn't just a sitting duck.
North Korea would probably be obliterated just from South Korea hitting back, let alone if anyone else allied to South Korea jumps in.
Micro scale MAD. North Korea is just grandstanding for food, it doesn't really mean that they will follow through. I mean, they're a dictatorship, so who knows.
If the Korean peninsula goes hot again tens of millions of South Koreans will die within days. Probably within hours.
There's no doubt the US and allies will be victorious, barring massive strategic blunders, but there's also no way to prevent horrific levels of destruction.
To say nothing of China stepping in and kicking off WWIII.
> The limiting factor in a North Korean artillery bombardment campaign will be the quality and training of troops and materiel.
That, combined with how quickly and effectively the US and South Korea can start firing counterbattery missions and establish air superiority to attack the Northern batteries from the air.
Modern counter battery fire is no joke - and the reason most modern artilery is on unarmored all terrain trucks.
The idea is to deploy, fire a few shots and the GTFO as quickly as possible, as the other side has detected your projectiles via counter battery radar and likely sent their own, all possibly within seconds of your first round being fired & often in an automatic manner.
Its reportedly even crazier for mortars - mortars shells move much more slowly than artillery shells, yet you can platform the origin of their trajectory just as well.
This can theoretically result in the mortar being destroyed by a counter battery artilery shell before the first mortars shell it fired even impacts.
So no wonder fixed artilery emplacements might be considered less viable when cutting edge artillery tech is considered.
Considering the nuclear arsenals in place and the fact that no-one has anything to gain, any discussion about a conflict with North Korea is academic at best.
>>>Considering the nuclear arsenals in place and the fact that no-one has anything to gain, any discussion about a conflict with North Korea is academic at best
Hardly. NK nukes don't really change SK's MAD vulnerability calculus; it's more of a factor for the US. I worked with a guy who was present in 2010 during that year's Key Resolve....when the "exercise" suddenly became very real due to the sinking of the Cheonan.[1] He was dialed into the video teleconferences that were held by the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the ROK military leadership was absolutely furious and was legitimately ready to basically re-start the war, and that it was the USFK Commander (the US military 4-star who would command the fight) who had to talk the ROK generals down from the ledge.
It came up in conversation I think during 2016's Ulchi Freedom Guardian because the NKs were launching ballistic missiles during the exercise and we all experienced a "pucker factor" for a moment because we weren't sure if they were escalating the conflict or not. Then the missile trajectories indicated they'd land in the ocean and we could breathe again. Fun times.
No. The Korean military leadership was absolutely ready and willing to restart the war.
I have no idea how you could read what I wrote and conclude "see nobody was serious". Seems like the worst case of normalcy bias I've ever witnessed on HN.
It's their job to be ready and it's understandable that they were emotional. I did not say that they were not serious. I said, and maintain, that non-one was going to seriously suggest restarting the war or act on such suggestion. No if you tell me that the SK's military command was seriously advising to restart the war then I would tell you that either this is BS or that some generals should have been sacked (and perhaps they were).
This is not normalcy bias. This is keeping lucid and realising, as said and repeated, that war in Korea is not a realistic prospect, instead of going all Dr Strangelove after watching to many movies.
Again, the Korean War was painful for all involved at the time. Today war is simply not possible anymore by any assessment of the situation.
The worst thing that could realistically happen in Korea is a collapse of North Korean regime. This could trigger a limited civil war but everyone would have an interest in limiting the fallout, and this is why people tend to be very cautious about any suggestion of effecting "regime change" in the North.
>>>No if you tell me that the SK's military command was seriously advising to restart the war then I would tell you that either this is BS or that some generals should have been sacked (and perhaps they were).
With the caveat that I wasn't the one there, so this is second-hand: Yes, that's how it was communicated to me. The Korean 4-stars were advising restarting the war, and the sole American 4-star to have any say in the matter was the only voice of sanity. I dunno how much of that conversation made it to the South Korean President, so I don't know if he fired anyone afterwards. I'm not sure what the formal process is for the ROK-JCS, USFK, CFC, etc... to make a recommendation to the Korean President, as well as the US President, as well as the United Nations Command. All I know is that if left to their own devices in 2010, the ROK JCS would have invaded the North, knowing full-well what the consequences would be.
Things coming down to only one, single, yet influential person saying "that's a bad idea" should highlight that maybe we don't have sufficiently robust institutional controls in place to avoid a bloody conflict indefinitely.
>>>The worst thing that could realistically happen in Korea is a collapse of North Korean regime.
I'll absolutely agree with this though. There is a very poor understanding of the morale and motivations of most of the NK flag officers. We don't know which ones will outright surrender. We don't know which ones will say "Fuck it, attack the Imperialists!" We do have a reasonable understanding of the Kim regime's priorities: regime survival. So the status quo is preferable to the almost-guaranteed chaos that will ensue should the NK commanders suddenly find themselves in a power vacuum, especially if caused by a hostile foreign actor.
There has been an awful lot of "academic" skirmishes involving real live fire in that conflict over the years. Each one of these is playing a little with fire. Sometimes, things escalate for no rational reason.
Yes, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo to make a specific point, the point had nothing to do with the war we ended up with.
It's naïve to say "we were just trying to make the point X, we didn't think it would escalate" when the actors involved have the resources and incentive to react with interest.
Full-scale wars are not started by accident, certainly not when 3 or 4 countries involved have nuclear weapons, not least North Korea itself.
If anything North Korea developing its own nuclear arsenal took war off the table. That was the point, although full-scale war was probably already off the table, but a more limited action to topple the regime probably wasn't.
It was an irrelevant example, and an incorrect one.
A war on the Korean peninsula already happened in the past and it went quite badly for all involved.
Now it is 2020, with very interconnected economies between all involved and with the US, China, Russia, and North Korea having nuclear arsenals.
Therefore it is indeed borderline madness to suggest that anyone might decide to start a full out war on the Korean peninsula, it is even more ridiculous to suggest that this might happen "by accident" (like it is ridiculous to suggest that WWI started by accident).
In the real world of today one might look at Chinese-Indian relations. Probably 10s of soldiers on both sides died recently. Are the nukes flying yet? Of course not, no-one is suicidal and both sides won't attempt anything beyond their skirmishes in one or 2 remote valleys.
It's only sensationalist news channels that peddle the risk of war with North Korea.
If China will say "jump" to Kim, he will, for as long as the physical security of Kim's family is provided (which is pretty much the one, and only carrot China been using with them)
Why would NK generals ever agree to a war? They are on the top of the food chain in NK. If they went to war they would lose instantly. Better to just sabrerattle and get some benefits rather than start a war for no reason. There is no ideology or religion behind NK unlike groups like ISIS. If Kim Jong Un tried to push for a war, he would be deposed in a second and replaced by someone who “gets it”.
The Japanese generals and admirals agreed to the attack on Pearl Harbour despite the admiral leading it reminding them that their own wargames showed such a scenario as leading to Japan's defeat--pretty much as what actually happened, with US industrial capacity eventually swamping Japan's war effort, even with the Southern Resource Area secured.
Taking a swing at Mike Tyson in the parking lot before the match is pretty dumb, but if your alternative is facing him in the ring it's probably your best option. That was the context of Japan attacking the US at Perl Harbour[1].
The US had already effectively declared war on the US at that point from the point of view of Japan. They'd demanded an unconditional withdrawal from China.
There's some alternate history where Russia never sold Alaska and Japan military bases there. What do you think if the US had done in 1941 if Japan demanded it withdraw from the "occupied" territory West of the Mississippi and return it to native control, while amassing a fleet in Russian/Japanese Alaska?
Furthermore, maybe Japan just wanted the US withdrawn from New Mexico & Nevada[2] (post 1937 occupied territories), but left the demand delibirately ambiguous so as to suggest everything west of the Mississippi (Manchuria)[2] (search for "was later deleted").
I'm not suggesting those are morally equivalent, but merely that Japan at the time pretty much saw it that way. Manchuria was around half of the empire's territory.
So suggesting that Perl Harbor wasn't reasonable is a pretty big stretch. Unless one of your options is to effectively become a vassal state of the US (unconditionally abandon >50% of your territory) war was inevitable.
At that point they could either take the initiative at Perl Harbor, or wait until the US attacked them at its leisure.
There are too many inaccuracies to address in this, but I do want to touch on your idea of Japan becoming a "vassal state of the US." This is out of touch with what Japan had been doing in China and Manchuria. Japan had invaded Manchuria (which had never been Japanese territory)in 1931. Japan had secured some rights from Imperial Russia to operate the South Manchuria Railway Zone. They leveraged this to expand their foothold in China and Manchuria; the Chinese government was too weak to really contest this and eventually the Japanese directly attacked China.
There's no way to paint the conflict in the region as justified. The Japanese were clearly seeking to expand their empire, after having tasted victory defeating Imperial Russia. Just because countries stood in their way doesn't justify their actions, and simplifying it down to fighting Mike Tyson isn't very critical thinking.
How is whether or not a state is prepared to take implied threats of war unless large and unconditional concessions are made out of touch with Japan's record in China and Manchuria?
I'm not suggesting anything about Japan's moral right to engage in those campaigns.
I'm replying to fatbird's upthread comment to the effect that a general in the Empire of Japan could realistically decide on either of "how about we let them attack first?" or "how about we just do what they're suggesting for nothing in return, and stop being such dicks to everyone?".
Which is essentially what the suggestion that the attack on Perl Harbor wasn't "rational" from the Japanese perspective amounts to.
The whole problem of how they ended up in the situation that culminated with their defeat in WWII is pretty much that no one person could steer them off the course of inevitable destruction.
So a general deciding to attack Perl Harbor is making the best and most rational decision he can make and has power to make, within a framework of decision making that amounts to steering the country into the iceberg.
I do take back that they would have become a "vassal state of the US". Vassal states get something tangible in return, the US wasn't offering anything except implied war and destruction in return for unconditional demands. I think "puppet state" or "satellite state" is a more apt description in that context.
Again, you're writing nonsense, both from a historical and logical point of view.
The Japanese military establishment in the 1930's was hellbent on expanding their influence. They had defeated Imperial Russia, and felt like it was their time in the sun. They had complete dominance over the government, and chose, yes chose to undertake a path of aggression towards their neighbors. First they started with Manchuria, and installed a puppet government. Then they moved on China.
Unsurprisingly, this provoked concern amongst other countries that had interests in the region. The Dutch (Indonesia), the British (Singapore and Malaysia), and the US (Philippines) realized the threat posed by the expanding Japanese empire. At the time the US was still in the midst of the Great Depression and was in no state to challenge Japan militarily, so they used an oil embargo to try and persuade the Japanese to adhere to international agreements.
It wasn't until 1941 that the US cut off oil to Japan. At this point, Japan had already invaded and controlled Manchuria, invaded and controlled a majority of China. When Japan seized control of Indochina, the US and allies attempted to influence Japan to leave Indochina by seizing US held assets, and embargoing oil. Japan had anticipated this and began a regional war attacking both the US, Dutch and UK territories.
You seem to imply that these things just "happen" and that no one is in control or making decisions. While history often seems to have an impetus of its own, it's the result of choices leaders and people make. Tojo and his warmongers sought out conflict in the region, dismissed counsel from wiser heads, and set Japan on a course to ruin.
Hirohito made a choice to continue to allow the militarist factions in the Japanese government to hold sway. But to point to the day the go ahead was given to Isoroku Yamamoto as the crux of the issue is to miss the point; he holds responsibility, as did the other military leaders and the Emperor. They knew the risks when they invaded Indochina; they knew the latent power of the US, but they underestimated their foes, and overestimated their own ability to wage war.
Attacking Pearl Harbor was irrational, both in hindsight, but also in terms of what the Japanese knew at the time. It was less than a year before the IJN began to experience catastrophic losses, and after Guadalcanal, there IJN was on its back foot for the rest of the war.
What could Japan have done differently? They could have restrained themselves from invading Indochina and prompting the expect oil embargo. If that wasn't feasible, they could have relinquished control of Indochina, though that would have caused a tremendous loss of face. They could have attacked and invaded the Dutch East Indies to gain oil, and odds are the US wouldn't have gotten involved. Great Britain was pretty busy with fighting Germany at the time and wouldn't have been able to help the Dutch much. If they did, the Japanese would easily defeat them in Singapore, as they did on Dec 8th.
The isolationist sentiment in the US at the time wouldn't have allowed the US to intervene. We weren't intervening in the European war, despite Lend-Lease, and sure wouldn't have intervened in Asia unless directly attacked.
> You seem to imply that these things just "happen" and that no one is in control or making decisions [...] Tojo and his warmongers sought out conflict in the region, dismissed counsel from wiser heads, and set Japan on a course to ruin [...] Hirohito made a choice to continue to allow the militarist factions in the Japanese government to hold sway.
Uh, no, I did not imply that in the least.
I think you're just on some rant against a strawman view that the Empire of Japan wasn't militaristic or an aggressor nation in Manchuria or Pearl Harbor / WWII.
I didn't suggest anything of the sort, I was merely replying to the narrow question of whether an admiral on Isoroku Yamamoto's staff could be considered irrational for going along with the Pearl Harbor attack.
I don't think that's the case for exactly the reasons you seem to agree with and are arguing for.
What options do you think an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan at the time when, as you've noted, his boss's-boss's and boss's-boss's-boss's etc. are clearly in favor of that general strategy?
The idea that the Hull note was perceived as a casus belli isn't some fringe conspiracy theory. If you e.g. read the Wikipedia articles involved such as [1] and [2] they cite scholars who agree (and others who disagree) with that view.
You're simply changing the goalposts. First you start off with saying that the oil embargo was casus belli since the US
<demanded unconditional withdrawal from China.>
This is factually incorrect. The goal of the oil embargo was to get Japan out of Indochina, not China or Manchuria. Japan could have finessed this by installing a puppet regime (ala Manchuko), but their arrogance wouldn't allow that.
Now you move from
<a general deciding to attack Perl(sic) Harbor is making the best and most rational decision>
to
<an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan>
Yamato is the architect of both the tactical plan of attacking Pearl Harbor, as well as the strategy of reducing American seapower (by attacking PH) and then defeating them in a decisive battle (Midway). He's not some lower ranking officer, he's the intellectual and martial spirit of the IJN.
This also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the power and influence of Yamamoto. Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family. Yamamoto could have used this influence earlier, to moderate Tojo's ambitions, and to avoid conflict with the US. He knew that Japan could never defeat the US over time, but still acted irrationally in a way that failed Japan.
You're also confused about the timing of the oil embargo, and the Hull note. The oil embargo (along with other trade restrictions and confiscation of Japanese assets) began immediately in July 41 after the Japanese began to make obvious preparations to attack either the British in Malaya, or the Dutch in the East Indies.
The Hull note was a last ditch attempt in late November to forestall war. At this point, war was inevitable; the attack on Pearl Harbor had been planned since Spring of 41, and the Kido Butai had already departed before the Hull note was sent.
> You're simply changing the goalposts. First you start off with saying that the oil embargo was casus belli [...] you're also confused about the timing of the oil embargo.
Where did I mention anything about the oil embargo? You're the one who brought that up, and now you're arguing with yourself.
The historians who are of the opinion that the Hull note amounts to a declaration of war aren't talking about the aspect of it that relates to oil.
Nobody thinks a refusal to trade goods amounts to a declaration of war, rather the part where the US implicitly threatens "or else" if Japan doesn't sign on to some version of a wide ranging policy agreement it didn't find palatable.
> Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family.
It sounds like you're in agreement with my point then.
This whole thread is about the supposed irrationality of Japanese admirals subservient to Yamamoto. Not about what Yamamoto could have done.
I invite you to re-read fatbird's upthreads comment while you're looking for some place where I directly or indirectly mentioned anything about oil (I didn't), I.e.:
> "The Japanese generals and admirals agreed to the attack on Pearl Harbour despite the admiral leading it[...]"
Thank you for this assessment. If you're as versed in other historical wars as the Pacific front, I would love to hear your assessments of Operation Barbarossa, Israel's six-day war, and the Russian intervention in Krim. All conflicts are difficult to find non-biased assessments of, but those three each have nuances that that are rippling through the years and I would love to further understand them.
LOL, not that there's any shortage of history books about each of the well known, studied-to-death, events that you are asking about. Just go to any library. Notice, though, that there may be several very different views of the same event, all of them equally unbiased.
That’s literally my point. Everyone, including them, knows they’d lose and the gravy train would stop. There is no way they’d ever do a premature attack. It’s insane.
Well the kicker is that the North Korean foreign policy is predicated on them trying to appear as insane as possible to other people, without really being actually too insane. And maybe ironically, not really an act that any sane person want to play or be a part of.
But the people involved literally don't have a choice. What do you think their alternative is? Let it be, go home, take a beer out of the fridge, lay down on the sofa, watch some football and call it a day? That's not how the life of those generals looks like.
Easy to claim what "a sane person" would do from the arrogant POV of a western average citizen, but reality looks very different.
Their defense policy is the same as the US: don't attack, else you risk slagging of your city/ies. This is the core of MAD. You don't maintain MAD by not promising you are going to shoot back.
Soviet generals were all for a war with the US at the time of the Cuban Missile crisis even though they knew they'd come off very badly. I don't think there was anything unusually irrational about them - people just do crazy things in situations like that.
Because they thought the US would nuke them first.
And from what i read there we're enough crazy generals who wanted to exactly do that during the cold war.
Why would it be irrational for the US to attack (a non nuclear-ready) NK? If NK didn't have nuclear weapons, invading it would be an option for the US- as they did recently with Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. I'm not sure what the gains would be, but it's not completely irrational to start a war when you have such overwhelming military superiority.
It is 'more rational' for an American president to avoid war with NK and leave it as something for his successors to deal with. Kicking the can down the road is easier than a war where potentially a few million South Koreans get killed in the crossfire.
This is, after all, what American presidents have been doing for the past few decades.
Same reason why the Korean War ended. China wouldn’t like a US-friendly country so close to its borders. NK is a great buffer zone and a great way to keep US distracted over South Korea. If NK gets overtaken it means Korea would extend all the way to china’s borders which they would not accept.
Also in the mid 90s during Clinton times, the level of engagement between US and NK had warmed enough that US even agreed to supply nuclear reactors to NK. If I am not wrong one of them was even actually partially installed in NK, before construction was halted abruptly by the NK nuclear test.
War was desired by all parties - at least in the beginning. People celebrated when war started - look up archive photos and movies. Everybody thought that they'll have a nice fight, down a beer at the pub afterwards and be home by Christmas - effectively rehashing the last Prussian war 30 years before.
What nobody perceived at that time is technology changed enough to make the war catastrophic, and it took 2 world wars for that perception to sink in.
Depend on a lot. Kim could pull a much more literal version of Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre to find someone willing to follow the orders, who knows how that would play out.
The ideology of the NK leadership is survival. They're not trying to spread Juche throughout the world with messianic zeal, all they want to do is stay on top of the dung heap.
Side note: Even if the leadership were True Believers (which I agree they aren't), Juche doesn't seem like the kind of ideology that could really be used to justify expansion. I understand it to be pretty ethnocentric. At most it would support unifying Korea. But I don't see it trying to expand outside "the homeland". You might see import substitution, less-open borders, restrictions on foreigners, stuff like that. If Korea had some grand historical claims I could see it going irredentist, but I don't think those claims exist.
Their ambitions are curbed by their capacity, nothing more. The initial phase of NK existence was militant expansion, arrested only with crushing military defeat.
The broad framework of Communist states at the time was establishing world dominance through force and persuasion, although they couldn't agree on the exact pace and methods. NK was in this respect not an outlier, the Kim v1 likely seeing his role in the new world order less marginal than ruling half a peninsula. In particular, anti-Japan sentiment was and still is cultivated throughout society. In 2020 it can not be ascribed to realistic self-preservation interest.
And in either case, the very fact they do have ideology means a lot. Certain decisions are going to be made not due to strategic and personal interest but to an abstract rulebook not necessarily in sync with reality. Therein lies a huge danger not covered by assumptions of rational actor model.
NK is barely surviving. They don’t have enough ammunition and fuel for a full blown war. They don’t care about religion or doctrine. They are not trying to spread communism. They have no delusions they can take the Korean Peninsula.
Without anything motivating themselves besides just trying to survive, the motivation of everyone to fight is very low. That doesn’t make for a good dedicated army. Most NK soldiers would surrender as soon as they could.
there is no possible outcome where North Korea goes to war with the US that does not result in the total decapitation of military capacity of North Korea.
The one where a million Chinese soldiers turn up at high speed, just like last time, leaps to mind.
1 million Chinese soldiers or 10 million it doesn’t matter, America will not respond with a measured response to a nuclear strike on its soil. It will respond with an overwhelming nuclear response. If China wants to send their men to die that’s on them. MAD is the only thing keeping the world relatively peaceful right now, and if one side blinks and refuses to respond the whole system crumbles and all out war breaks out for the 3rd time in recent history.
It seems to me that a million conventionally armed soldiers today is like a legion of horse mounted soldiers in WW1. Technology has advanced so much since the last total war that any future war would look completely different (reference is to horses used in battle vs tanks during WW1).
That seems incredibly optimistic. It seems to me that one of the possible, even likely, outcomes is a nuclear exchange starting with an NK thermonuclear weapon obliterating a major US city (LA instead of a naval base in Hawaii), followed by the decapitation you reference, followed by a PRC nuclear response, followed by what “Wargames” referred to as Global Thermonuclear War.
PRC can either fire and also lose a few cities, or not fire and be ignored.
MAD works because everyone knows that starting or joining a nuclear firefight is literally suicide. What would compel them to fire if they're clearly not being targeted?
And, of course, for cases of a war starting because of a false belief that they were about to be attacked there is the real life case of Able Archer 83:
> What would compel them to fire if they're clearly not being targeted?
A thinking that they can win: Tojikistan, Karabag, Transnistria, Georgia, Donbas, Crimea, Syria, Libya — all set a very damning precedent of the West conceding to use of force.
These are cases where the West did _not_ want to escalate. Too small and at the end of the day the only consequences for the West are the refugees and terrorism. Both can be "handled" by closing borders and turning up the surveillance state.
If China decides to shoot back, all bets are off. It would be exactly the error the Japanese made when they attacked Pearl Harbor and thought they can get away with it. That would directly affect the West and our leaders could not say anymore "will be fine, we're taking the high road here" unless they want to be lynched by a mob.
There's a huge difference between a village in the middle of nowhere in a country Westerners don't care about and a major city in a developed country being attacked. And I say that as someone from about 500 km away from Transnistria, not as a Westerner.
Also everyone knows that the US is both highly militaristic and highly jingoistic.
> Also everyone knows that the US is both highly militaristic and highly jingoistic.
That was certainly true up through the early 2000s, but this stereotype is by now out of date. On the left, America is self-loathing, and on the right it's become quite isolationist.
i don't think so, a clear military attack on American soil by a foreign nation would mean lines around the block at local military recruitment offices in every city/town across the nation. Congress would have a full declaration of war signed in an hour.
Terrorist attacks like 9/11 leave doubt about who to go after and at what scale to retaliate but a clear attack on a city by a foreign state as an act of war is a different thing. Gloves would come off and the complete full force of every resource ( military, political, economic, etc ) would be brought to bear.
It depends on the specifics, of course. If a specific country directly attacked the US, of course I'd expect (and even demand) a military response. But these days, I wouldn't expect a non-state's terrorist attack to lead to the sort of misguided, ill-informed adventurism that ultimately led us to invade Iraq.
This definitely goes in the TIL pile. I'm fairly well traveled
E.g. I've visited most of the Balkans, Sarajevo, Mostar, but I had not heard of Transnistria.
Oh, China absolutely wants to control/exert influence in NK, I just don't see them being at all interested in military takeover of the country -- except perhaps if it falls into the "wrong" hands, in which case they might invade to install a compliant regime and then GTFO (see also: Korean War).
Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria .. all set a very damning precedent of the West not quite having the terror-liberating forces it proclaims to have.
>A thinking that they can win
The only way to talk about war is to be prepared to understand 'the other side' of your argument. In this case, you're setting yourself up to have to answer the question: in the 21st century, which nation state has started the most wars, committed violent hostilities, and murdered innocent citizens at massive scales, the most?
> PRC can either fire and also lose a few cities, or not fire and be ignored.
That's unlikely to be the scenario. The big problem for China is that they're responsible for the current North Korea regime existing. China has been directly, intentionally propping up and protecting North Korea from day one. The American people will not find it acceptable to exchange Pyongyang for Los Angeles or New York, much less trade several of North Korea's cities for several major US cities.
The American public would demand a nuclear strike against China in retaliation, a more equitable outcome - Shanghai for Los Angeles, Beijing for New York - for those ultimately responsible for what North Korea is today.
That's where hundreds of millions of people could die from a North Korean strike. It's why China should have never enabled and tolerated the Kim regime in the first place, and now it's too late to fix that historic blunder. Any nuclear strike from North Korea will likely result in a nuclear strike against China.
This is equivalent to the Israeli Samson option (which is why you don't want Iran getting nukes).
If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.
Fortunately the public doesn't have unmoderated access to ICBMs.
It's also notable that the USA has also tolerated the Kim regime, because it gives them an excuse to be present in force in South Korea. It's not like the CIA couldn't have the Kims removed if they put some effort into it. PRC would have to pretend to be angry about it, but it would also get them out of the awkward situation.
Iranian assassination, and he's backing a huge proxy war in Yemen that has been devastating. I'm sure the "Made in the USA" bomb fragments on the ground that blew up Yemeni children will be attributed only to the Saudis and not the US.
Trump is culpable for much, but technically the conflict in Yemen started before he was president. The claim above still seems accurate, though I think we can safely say such a claim is damning with faint praise.
I'm referring to the Trump-ordered assassination of Qasem Soleimani. He was Iran's equivalent of the Secretary of Defense, and also a folk-hero to Iranians. Soleimani was assassinated by US drone strike in January 2020.
Iran responded with a carefully-targeted retaliation - a small missile strike against an unused/unmaintained US military installation in Iraq. There were no casualties.
Iran chose a target with low strategic value and no personnel present. Just enough of a strike that they could sell it as retaliation, but not enough of a strike to escalate into a full war.
I won't pretend to know if the assassination was warranted or necessary. But it's easily something that Iran could have used to justify a war.
> The American public would demand a nuclear strike against China in retaliation
This... doesn't seem likely.
> If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.
Okay, I see where you're coming from, but this was not the scenario being discussed. The scenario presented was "NK lobs a single nuke at Los Angeles." The expected response is closer to "US decapitates NK before they can fire any more, everybody shits their pants, but no additional nukes are fired."
Decapitating NK in one fell swoop might be possible... decapitating China is highly unlikely. The US should therefore not initiate firing nukes at China unless a substantial number of US cities have already been hit, because doing so would all but guarantee that those cities would be hit by China in the next volley.
The US should therefore not initiate firing nukes at China unless a substantial number of US cities have already been hit, because doing so would all but guarantee that those cities would be hit by China in the next volley.
A ballistic launch towards NK looks an awful lot like a ballistic launch towards China, is the problem there. Will China "wait and see" where it lands?
It would certainly be unnerving, but I would expect their command and control procedures to account for some amount of context.
In this case, the context would be:
"Holy shit guys, NK just launched a rocket that looks like it's headed for LA!"
[3 minutes later]
"And now the US just launched 14 rockets, and they might be headed for us, but they're probably headed for NK."
China's best option is to wait and see, because if they decide to fire, and were wrong about China being targeted, they'll see another round of launches three minutes after that one, and those will be headed for China.
They've played this all out. MAD really does work.
If NK launched a nuke against an American city, and the American president told the world "I am decapitating NK in response," I don't think China would look at a strike against NK as "Oh no but what if it's a strike against us secretly, let's start a nuclear war with America just to be sure."
China doesn't want to enter WWIII any more than the US does. And the US response to an NK attack is very predictable.
my thought too, if NK launched everyone would stand back and let the US extract its pound of flesh. However, I think any country who has every helped NK ( China, Russia, etc ) would be suffer in every way except militarily. Think being cutoff from US financial markets etc.
The US could setup a conventional non-nuclear response that takes Pyongyang off the map, probably within a few days. That would be the safer strategic option and the rest of the world would not criticize such a response, while a nuclear response would not be appreciated by many others.
The US could setup a conventional non-nuclear response that takes Pyongyang off the map, probably within a few days.
Any strike on NK has to decapitate it instantly, or the conventional artillery along the border will pound Seoul into rubble in the meantime. Ballpark figures are 10,000 pieces, some dug in, some mobile, each capable of firing 10kg high explosive and keeping it coming until their ammunition runs out. It's a hard problem for any military planner.
If the SK capital was on their south coast and it was only farmland within artillery range of the border than NK would be an easy problem to solve (obviously if that were the case NK would have developed other weapons to compensate). Notwithstanding China of course.
A conventional strike would thus have to be two-pronged: (1) overrunning the DMZ to neutralize the artillery and prevent a counterstrike, and (2) attack Pyongyang. Of course, this is probably the scenario war planners on both sides have analysed ad nauseam. Success is thus highly questionable. And if it takes long enough for China to intervene again, WW3 will come and scores will be settled.
Really a pity we don't have a space lift system that can launch 100 tons into LEO, figure 25 tons per 20 foot long tungsten rod (or DU). One could imagine a hundred of those things saturating the region beyond the DMZ pretty hard.
Is there any indication whatsoever that DPRK has, has developed, or even CAN develop, now or in the future, thermonuclear devices?
It’s my understanding that they have designed and produced only fission weapons. I’ve never heard a single piece of information ever that suggests that they can, could, or would produce a fusion bomb.
“possible, even likely” in the context of a DPRK fusion bomb, given what I have seen and read thus far, seems like complete fantasy to me. Do you know something I don’t?
Is it even possible to build a fusion bomb that's "low hundreds of kiloton"?
The first ever (and presumably smallest?) one the US ever did ("Ivy Mike") was two orders of magnitude larger than that (~10MT).
There is no question that the DPRK has fission weapons, but ojbyrne asserted a thermonuclear attack, which I have never seen any indication is within the present or predictable future capabilities of the DPRK.
Oh, hang on. It would appear the DPRK has actually made this claim, according to WP, but it seems to be disputed.
> Is it even possible to build a fusion bomb that's "low hundreds of kiloton"?
Yes, and in fact most thermonuclear devices nowadays are in that range as its more efficient than a smaller number of megaton range bombs. Eg the most common US warhead (fitted to Trident) is the 100 kiloton W76 and each Trident missile can carry 14 of them, each independently targeted.
> starting with an NK thermonuclear weapon obliterating a major US city
That doesn't seem smart at all. I think that a nuclear explosion on the ocean, right in front of a major city (NY, LA) but at safe distance, would be a better start. It provides the same amount of threat with no victims and no pressing need for blind retaliation.
But why would you do damage? Since NK could never possibly win a "damage" war with the US- disabling the US ability to retaliate or defend itself- the purpose of an attack by a country like NK can only be that of preventing further attacks or retaliations. And inflicting serious damage on the first shot is ensuring that such retaliation will happen.
What NK needs is to make clear that the cost of attacking it can be unsustainably high, while provoking the least possible response.
NK doesn't need to fire anywhere close to the US in order to do this. We're already watching them, and for the most part, they've already made it clear that attacking them might cost us a city or two.
Putting on a nuclear waterworks in front of Los Angeles would be psychotically risky, because the US would need to decide whether or not to return fire before the US target is known. "Vaguely near Los Angeles" might as well be Los Angeles because of measurement uncertainties, late-stage course corrections, and MIRVs.
As usual, the winning move is not to fire anything that might be construed as a nuke towards any of your enemies, unless you are prepared to die.
Most probably the US riposte will be in the air (and there's not recall capability) before the US can be sure that the target is the sea 10km from the major city and not the major city.
It isn’t about me. I was merely pointing out how there is no way whatsoever the leadership of North Korea would ever preemptively strike the US west coast with a missile. It might or might not hurt the US, but it guarantees the end of their entire way of life.
I’m pointing out the silliness of thinking they would do it when they have the most to lose.
A much likely scenario would be for Kim family just sitting it out in some bunker in China, while his country burns.
The type of leaders with such disdain for their own countries are like those well known African tinpot dictators who effectively live in Europe (and to the great delight of their European hosts...) most of the time, while their henchmen plunder their countries back home.
1. I don't think NK would first strike, I see no reason but I might just not think broad enough.
2. I don't have numbers, but say NK starts 40 ICMBs, the US shoots down 95% then 2 ICBMs would reach the US, at least California and NYC wouldn't be livable for decades.
3. I don't think this balances out
"decapitation of military capacity"
2 ICBMs can not render our coasts unliveable for decades. Our coasts are extremely large relative to the fallout radius of any single known nuclear warhead.
Perhaps I haven't been clear what I meant so you've assumed I've meant coasts.
I have no detail knowledge of the fallout radius or radioactive decay, I would assume an ICBM hit would render the valley and Manhattan unliveable, but I haven't been in both places for more than five years so I might be wrong.
NK nukes, which are fairly small, would mess up the skyscraper blocks of NYC and San Francisco city while leaving the rest of those cities mostly intact. And that’s in comparison to cites — the state of California is massive. When I visited Davis CA, I could see the hills to the west but not the mountains to the East. You could lose a nuke in one of the smaller forest fires.
I guess we differ, I could not shrug away the destruction of a million people city as "messing up" - as someone who lived through the cold war of the 80s, who watched "The day after" while new Pershings were deployed to Germany and who felt the impact of Chernobyl.
That is a complete mischaracterization of GP. This is a very dangerous conversational pattern, where someone makes a factual assertion and the reply is to something which wasn't said, and reimagines the original comment as evil in some way.
Whenever I see someone do this, I generally stop talking immediately, but I am sticking up for GP on this one.
The comment you are replying to in no way made a statement about what is or isn't awful. Simply a comment about the size of various things.
In principle that is possible, but NK weapons are relatively low-yield and the estimated number of warheads they could manufacture in total is relatively low; and as bad as damaged reactors are, they’re significantly less bad than a nuke in a city, even a small nuke like NK’s.
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly hope the USA strategic and tactical defences are capable of facing even the worst case estimates; but, as a civilian, NK nukes and ICBMs never put me off visiting the USA and played no part in my ultimate decision to not bother trying to move to the Bay for work.
Just for the record, Japan didn't attack pearl harbor to "demoralize" the US, they did it with the aim to fully decapitate the US Pacific fleet, and it almost worked if it weren't because US Pacific carriers were off to the sea at the time and not in the dock
Besides that, please don't do the dumb US jingoism, it is just so tiring overall
> Just for the record, Japan didn't attack pearl harbor to "demoralize" the US, they did it with the aim to fully decapitate the US Pacific fleet, and it almost worked...
Hold on, it didn't "almost work." The carriers being out of port made the attack much worse for Japan, but the operation was a fairly dramatic strategic failure. Japan knew that the US industrial capacity at the time could produce new ships quickly, so the main aim was to buy time to gain a larger foothold in Asia that could withstand a total US war (especially because US strategy clearly regarded Germany as the bigger threat).
The US Atlantic Fleet had four carriers at the time (Yorktown, Ranger, Wasp and Hornet); the Pacific Fleet had three (Enterprise, Lexington, Saratoga). Notice something about those names? Shortly after the US was attacked, the Yorktown and Hornet were transferred to the Pacific Fleet. After the Lexington was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Wasp was also transferred. At the same time, new carriers were entering service in the US at a fairly quick rate. The Essex was commissioned in December 1942, and then the Essex-class Wasp, Yorktown and Hornet were all commissioned in 1943 (after the aforementioned were sunk in battle).
Also, if you look at the tactical situation at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombers and torpedo aircraft were heavily biased in targeting lower-value battleships instead of the high-value cruisers and destroyers. Battleships had the prestige at the time, however, and pilots who knocked one out would receive greater glory than those who knocked out a more pedestrian destroyer or cruiser or even submarine.
Finally, one of the aims of Japan was to undermine US morale. It may not have been the main strategic aim, but it was an explicit goal. In fact, that's often an aim of "decapitation" operations: sow chaos and prevent your enemy from organizing.
So, no, it's not "US jingoism" to point out these fairly obvious facts. The US was simply better prepared for a conflict. It probably is today, too.
Do you actually think NK would stand a chance against any of the major powers of today? I don't think this is anything about patriotism and simply stating facts. NK is not a world power and picking a fight with a world power won't end well.
There are few circumstances where this refrain, so often repeated, would be so stupidly ignored by any of USA's enemies.
Presumably, a feeble opening shot such as this would be a precursor for a counter-, counter-attack, for which USA is not prepared. Because, after all, the USA is sure it will obliterate its enemies - and thus, the 'eye for eye' response would have to be something USA is really, really not prepared for.
Such proclamations as are allowed here, lend me to the thought: I wonder what that is?
Please. The US couldn't even "decapitate" Taliban after 19 years and 1 trillion dollars. Nor could the Soviet Union. Nor could the British before that. You can't win a land war in 21st century without turning the place into a glazed desert, which is not going to happen due to the proximity of South Korea and due to the fact that the American people aren't totally nuts. The US tried this several times and failed every time, including in Korea. Kim Jong Un will get his ICBMs eventually, and there's nothing anybody can do about that. Better plan for that eventuality now.
The US won a land war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military, twice, easily.
You can't win a guerrilla war against a motivated foe (which is what the situation in Afghanistan is), without a long-term total occupation and cultural cleansing.
The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture. The US hasn't primarily been trying to destroy the Taliban (the US can't do it without that mass force and it knows that), it has been primarily trying to hold the Taliban at bay while trying to build up the central government of Afghanistan. This is sort of a replay of the same failed strategy in Vietnam (when the US left Vietnam the south held the extreme majority of territory and population; the south folded rapidly regardless, which is exactly what is going to happen to the government of Afghanistan, unfortunately).
The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture.
Kabul in the 1970s was a groovy, swinging place with women in miniskirts and men wearing tie-dye (as was Tehran). It's the Taliban who imposed the present culture after ejecting the Soviets (with US help). Western strategy should have been to revert it to that, but instead it was to somehow replace the Taliban with a regime that was equally religiously hardline but just happened to be US friendly, and that was obviously never going to work...
While I certainly agree the ideal would be to revert Afghanistan to the pre Soviet-invasion culture, that's a task impossible for any foreign power to accomplish. It would have to come from within, be organic, to be sustainable. No outside power can afford the cost necessary to give Afghanistan a long-term umbrella required to develop relatively quickly. The US couldn't afford to do it, nobody else is going to be able or willing to try. The reason the US is willing to side with less than ideal groups is because there are no practical alternatives, you need a large pillar to put in place or it'll all just fold that much faster when confronted by the Taliban. There are few large pillars in Afghanistan in terms of power structures. The moment the US is gone, the Taliban will immediately press and crush the central government (regardless of which group is in power at the time), any agreements the Taliban sign will be ignored just as North Vietnam ignored everything they agreed to and immediately resumed their conquest.
The Northern Alliance was able to very rapidly smash the Taliban with the help of the US (the Taliban can't easily hold Afghanistan as a military force, so chaos and civil war is guaranteed in the near future). The challenge now and in the future is how to make any positive progress stick. The various powerful groups there, and their perma foreign sponsors (eg Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc), are not going to stop trying to topple eachother. The only thing giving Iraq a shot at being an independent, functional nation is their oil resource providing considerable funding to support a central government; Afghanistan of course lacks anything comparable. I don't know where the economy is going to come from to fund a potent central government in Afghanistan (while the Taliban operates on the cheap in comparison). It obviously takes a very long time to build up an economy from scratch in a location like Afghanistan.
The moment the US is gone, the Taliban will immediately press and crush the central government (regardless of which group is in power at the time), any agreements the Taliban sign will be ignored just as North Vietnam ignored everything they agreed to and immediately resumed their conquest.
The Afghans have a saying, "you have watches, but we have time". No American or Western electorate was or is willing to commit to a permanent presence. So here we are!
Democracy means giving some level of choice to folks, and in countries with lots of non-urban non-groovy folks that means the rural parts get what they want. See voting in modern Iran, Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood was elected), etc.
Afghanistan is only about 25% urban. The Cold War era led to a couple of decades of countries trying to figure out their alignment and less internal strife, but by the 70s the internal rumblings were becoming clear.
We could keep Cairo, Tehran and Kabul groovy as long as we're comfy keeping the boot on the majorities necks.
> Kabul in the 1970s was a groovy, swinging place with women in miniskirts and men wearing tie-dye (as was Tehran).
Imagine thinking you have a coherent picture of what the culture in Afghanistan and Iran was like in the 1970s just because you saw those half-dozen photos people post over and over on reddit.
Imagine thinking you have a coherent picture of what the culture in Afghanistan and Iran was like in the 1970s just because you saw those half-dozen photos people post over and over on reddit.
Imagine thinking you have something to contribute to this discussion, if you’re not going to enlighten us...?
I'm pointing out your lack of knowledge on the issue, which is an order of magnitude more of a contribution than you spewing your Dunning-Kruger level take on the history of the conflict in Afghanistan.
You seem to think that a small number of photographs showing young people in popular western attire from a largely rural country's capitol in 1970s implies that the country at large had something approaching a liberal western mindset on culture and religion at the time. You also seem to be incorrectly conflating the Afghan Mujahideen, the Taliban, and the Northern Alliance.
I'm not going to write a dissertation on the topic on HN, but I'll just say that it's very clear that you don't know as much about it as you think you do, and I implore you and anyone reading the thread to go and read on this 40-year conflict in some detail if they want to gain a meaningful understanding of it.
> The US won a land war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military, twice, easily.
That's one way to look at it. Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion), and will lose again in 10-20 years as the Iraqi elites wait it out and things revert to the mean. Oh, and we lost in Syria as well, although not funding and not arming ISIS did help to alleviate some of the problems in the last few years. Assad is still right where he was, and he will remain there for decades to come.
This is much like Napoleon "winning" the war against Russia in 1812. Captured Moscow. Pissed on the floor in the Kremlin. And then he got chased back all the way to Paris and exiled.
Except in the Middle East it's even worse than that. The US tends to forget that those folks represent much older civilizations and they live on a different time scale. They can literally sit it out for 20-30 years while we sink trillions of taxpayer dollars there and while our soldiers are torn apart with an occasional IED. They also culturally don't give a flying fuck about "democracy" or whatever. There's really not a hell of a lot that can be done about that, and there's no way to "win" under such circumstances.
If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.
That's why there won't be a permanent "victory" there, in any sense of the word.
> Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion)
Your history is badly mixed up. There wasn't a first invasion, so your premise is wrong from the start. The first Iraq war wasn't meant to topple Saddam at all, which is why George HW Bush wisely didn't attempt to invade Iraq with an occupation force. The first Iraq war was to push Iraq out of Kuwait and smash the Iraqi military to reduce them as a regional threat (eg to Saudi Arabia). It was a huge concerted success (the US was joined by a very strong, diverse coalition). Saddam's once vaunted military was left in shambles, their hardware and capabilities were dramatically reduced. And then aggressive sactions prevented Saddam from rebuilding the military effectively.
> Oh, and we lost in Syria as well
The US didn't lose in Syria. From the position of the warmongers in DC, it was a stellar victory. On the cheap Syria was reduced to rubble and is a non-actor now, they've been almost completely destroyed. Russia is still the dominant big political-military ally of Syria, so nothing changed about that. At worst the US neither gained nor lost, at best - again, from the perspective of the hawks in the Pentagon - Syria is crippled as a regional power. Israel and several other regional powers are also thrilled with Syria's situation, to say the least. It'll take decades for Syria to just get back to where they were before. As a player in the Middle East, they got almost entirely neutralized.
But it's not "mixed up" if you start from the premise that a full land war cannot be won. Consider why Saddam was not deposed in the Gulf War. It's because to depose him the coalition would have to go all the way to Baghdad and endure a guerilla war, something that a conventional army just can't really endure. That's why Bush did not go for it - he knew Saddam would not go quietly into the night, but he also knew he could not win the land war against Iraq. So the operation ended in a withdrawal, much like the second gulf war will also end in a withdrawal, allowing the local elites to re-emerge. Epic fail.
That's like saying we "won" in Afghanistan just because the Taliban temporarily moved elsewhere. As long you don't have permanent control of the country, you haven't really "won" anything there. And I don't think you will argue that we have any kind of permanent control there, then or now, or can realistically get it in the future.
At least the Gulf War achieved something worthwhile. Later Iraqi and Afghan wars achieved nothing whatsoever.
There is no clear endgame in Afghanistan, other than "the beatings will continue until moral improves".
In North Korea, on the other hand, the endgame is clear: the downfall of the Kim regime, mostly likely followed by integration into South Korea (if China allows, and that's a mighty big if). You're not going to have ordinary North Koreans head for the hills and turn into partisan guerrillas fighting for Juche.
>You're not going to have ordinary North Koreans head for the hills and turn into partisan guerrillas fighting for Juche.
Maybe, but they might be willing to fight invaders. The Korean War that killed 2-3 million civilians doesn't make the US seem like the good guy. The US will be seen as imperialist invaders by the ordinary citizen of the DPRK.
The key difference here is the existence of South Korea. Sure, if the US were to waltz in alone, they'd be treated as the invaders they are. But every North Korean has been fed a steady diet of "Korea is one!" since birth and they're all well aware that their kinsmen in the South are materially better off in every conceivable way -- so when said kinsmen lead the invasion and form the new government, they're not going to get violently rejected in the same way.
The fall of East Germany is instructive: while that imploded internally instead of being triggered from the outside, there was absolutely zero violent resistance to West Germany coming in and essentially taking over. North Korea isn't going to be same level of cakewalk, but it's closer to this end of the spectrum than Afghanistan or Iraq.
> You're not going to have ordinary North Koreans head for the hills and turn into partisan guerrillas fighting for Juche
Famous last words preceding every single failed US military intervention. In fact, preceding most other military interventions in other countries. Probably what Hitler thought as he was invading the USSR. Or what the USSR thought when invading Afghanistan (where, by the way, one of my uncles served, and got his right arm blown off).
Truly, those who have not studied history are doomed to repeat it.
It's too unrealistic. If North Korea would blink, and go for a desperate all in attack, it will likely do so with China backing it. This country is being run over the phone from Beijing after all.
The most realistic, and highest success chance scenario is that North Korea will coordinate attack with China.
In all conceivable scenarios, NATO will have more resources even after 100% one sided nuclear attack on it (3000-4000 warheads,) and be able to subdue both China, and NK with conventional forces, and standing armies alone.
Not to say, China's neighbours will not stand still too.
Even a whatever pyrrhic victory will likely be the end of political regimes in both NK, and China.
If they will attack, they will weight in that price first.
What could NK conceivably offer China that would pay for getting into a shooting war with another superpower?
If China does support NK in such a situation, that support would be limited to things which are entirely deniable- material and perhaps some light cyberwarfare. Certainly no extra ICBMs, and nothing that would stop the U.S. from rolling over NK in short order (for all that it certainly increase the cost for the U.S.)
It would be extremely disruptive to the region which would result in opportunities to use the Chinese army to make gains on disputed territories while the world was occupied with the big war elsewhere. I did not say this was likely.
NK is more independent from China and a thorn in their side than you might think. NK's nukes can fly to Beijing faster than they'll fly across the Pacific. Korean nationalism is also strong in NK and they have no desire to be China's puppet given the historical implications. NK's greatest years where when the USSR/Russia was strong and they could count on Soviet economic assistance and military counterweight against China.
Plot twist. America hacked North Korea’s nuclear defense system, and launched their nukes at Beijing from North Korean soil, to frame North Korea.
To all outside observers, this looks like North Korea did it. But Beijing is now turned to glass, and the Chinese command is transferred to the military division in Chengdu. The world is tense, as it awaits China’s retaliation.
However, China doesn’t fall for the bait. They begin their investigations in earnest, and discover the true mastermind behind the nuclear attack: The United States.
World War 3 begins. China launches 1000 ICBM missiles at the United States. Thus ending all known life as we know it on American soil. The American military counterattacks and launches all their nukes at China. Both sides are turned to glass.
The world gasps at what just happened. Russia now proceeds to take over the world. Well played.
Romania also had guns on the border with USSR, but it did not prevent USSR from spending all of its anger for this geographic region on the tiny Albania.
Chauschesku was bas a bastard, bit it was their bastard, unlike Enver Hoxha.
How are you going do "defend" with your nukes, when the first think the enemy will do is to shoot your silos, airfields, and send their whole fleet to hunt down your icbm submarines?
You don't need to defend your ballistic missiles if you already fired them.
Ballistic missiles are an inherently offensive weapon.
The Chinese Anti-ship ballistic missiles (AShBM) are veery different beasts. First of all, they have a different trajectory that is more difficult to intercept, so that they can maintain lower altitudes.
These lower altitudes allows the ballistic missile to maneuver. This makes their trajectory unpredictable, which makes missiles like the SM3 almost useless.
In combination with this, China also has hypersonic glide vehicles, which are not only harder to target, but also fly on non-ballistic, fully unpredictable trajectories at such altitudes that the horizon becomes a real issue.
To top it all off, China and Russia are both in the advanced stages of construction (Russia is farther ahead and should Comission them soon) hypersonic cruise missiles, with possible sea-skimming terminal modes.
All in all, the SM3 missile is pretty much useless against that threat.
The better explanation is that this is a test that congress asked for, and that if anything is more suitable to target North Korea, not that it's very likely it would be perfectly effective against North Korea as they have second-stroke capability and sure as hell won't send a single missile with a single warhead, more like 15 real missiles with a mix of decoys and nukes plus multiple dummy missiles with no real payload. But it's a start against a North Korea class threat.
Anyways, here's a lesson from modern warfare, never rely on countermeasures.
Thanks for this. I think I was probably wrong. Because the US reportedly used the SM-3 but did not use the SM-6 in this demonstration. That latter weapon has been claimed capable of stopping missiles with the characteristics you described, like the Chinese DF-21
As a general heuristic, in modern warfare, countermeasures seem not to be very reliable. If you have to rely on countermeasures working perfectly for your mission profile, you're probably doing things wrong.
That's not to say they can't help you win, but even if it seems that they are perfectly effective history shows that they generally aren't.
During my time in the Navy, there was a paper being passed around the officers concerning removing aircraft carriers from the fleet. Reason being that a single shot to the flight deck would render them useless in the aspect of air warfare and defense.
The one trillion dollar question (actually possibly even more than that) is the cost of sinking an aircraft carrier in a symmetrical conflict.
Aircraft carriers are great if you need to project force into a territory occupied by groups over which you have superiority. Against an enemy with state of the art anti-ship missiles deployed along the coast, modern radar and satellite capabilities, all bets are foo.
Some people think in such a conflict, aircraft carriers are overpriced targets that can be disabled or even sunk in the first hours of a conflict for the cost of a few missiles and a few light ships to launch them. IIRC a red team managed to disable most of the US Navy in that fashion in an exercise a few years ago.
There are countermeasures deployed, several layers of them, and missiles have counter-counter measures. Only very few are actually deployed and really tested on the field.
We know in good conditions, they work, on some missiles. In a real conflict, how many will they stop? 100%? 99%? 50%? 20%? How well can missile decoys fool countermeasures? What hidden tricks have different sides kept in their sleeves in preparation?
We will learn it on a very fateful day that could either see the record on tonnage sunk on a single day or a very fast conflict deescalation from the attacking side (assuming US would be the defending one, credible in the case of China)
We already saw the US navy get dominated by unconventional warfare in the Millennium Challenge
"After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
So yeah lots of the big ships might not be that useful in a present-day conflict if they can get destroyed by suicide-attack boats. Of course that puts the whole need for the amount of military funding/pork into question and that makes the military-industrial-congressional complex very nervous.
I honestly wouldn't put too much stock in that wikipedia article. Military training exercises are more like sparring matches, not a free-for-all with no rules. The constraints section also says that the ships were closer to shore than they would normally have been in order to not interfere with civilian ships that weren't part of the exercise.
Prior Air Force here (not Navy). A couple of things to remember when thinking about the 2k2 challenge:
- It was 18 years ago. Deployments, new technologies, RCA's and congressional studies have impacted the current military force in substantial ways. A lot has happened since then.
- US FoF exercises are largely augmented during runtime to simulate "unforseen" battlefield conditions. The purpose of these rules/scripts/interjections is to artificially insert some degree of randomness into the scenario that demonstrates the individual/leadership's ability to react.
- A large component of US FoF exercises, plans, and results and analysis are classified. Though admirable, the Wikipedia article pulls its sources from secondary sources at best.
I think USN confidence of current abilities is reflected by the fact the Pompeo, as much of aChina hawk he is, no longer sends US carriers through the Taiwan strait. Clinton sent two during the third strait crisis. My understanding is USN is 5+ years out from having credible counters to Chinese AShM right now.
I don't think Pompeo's reasoning for not doing that is because he thinks China is going to start a hot war with the US by taking down two of its many aircraft carriers. A true war hawk would be salivating at the thought of China stupidly killing a few thousand Americans.
I have no military background, but from an armchair general (admiral?)'s perspective, it really sounds like the US investing too much further into aircraft carriers is a dumb plan for a peer conflict. The Russian strategy of arming every little corvette with a shitload of powerful missiles seems like a smarter idea for the 21st century.
Like you said - maybe anti-missile countermeasures can deter a missile. Or two. Or a dozen. But what if you have flotilla of cheap corvettes and frigates slinging swarms of hypersonic missiles at your valuable CBG?
Not necessarily - carriers are a peace-time fleet.. their value is in force projection and unparalleled logistics.
When it comes to a shooting war though, the US Navy has an entirely separate war-time sub fleet. The carrier fleets would back off to a safe distance and provide logistic support until the subs and bombers decapitated enemy weapon and radar systems, and air superiority could be established. Then the carriers could move in to provide close air support missions and targeted air strikes.
The follow up question is - assuming supercarrier battle groups are still relevant in warfare beyond bullying third world countries that can't fight back...
The US Navy has...10? nuclear supercarriers in service (IIRC there is a Ford becoming active soon and another in construction, but a Nimitz or two scheduled for retirement).
Plus the gator navy has more non-nuclear amphibious assault ships that are arguably carriers in all but name (and also arguably at close to if not equal to other nations' dedicated carriers)
That's not a good mission profile at all when a stealth bomber, range 10 000km, takes off with a hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile with a range of 2000km, and sinks your carrier before it can even be of any logistic use.
The US Military is ultimately reliant on naval domination for its logistics, and it's naval domination requires carriers and large surface vessels as submarines can't do area denial. If the US military loses that ability, it can't secure its supply chain, and it will be crippled.
The unopposed aircraft carrier caused an anomaly where the US was able to have supply chains of infinite sizes without any issues. If the current threat materializes, then the US Military Doctrine for force projection crumbles.
> That's not a good mission profile at all when a stealth bomber, range 10 000km, takes off with a hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile with a range of 2000km, and sinks your carrier before it can even be of any logistic use.
So far it's maybe remotely plausible in the second American Civil War, because no foreign enemy yet posses this capacity. No stealth bombers, and no hypersonic cruise missiles.
Otherwise yes a lot of hypothetical tech that can disable carrier fleet. Photon torpedoes, Yuri's mind control, genetically modified Krakens..
China and Russia have hypersonic missiles which can evade US targeting, and India is catching up fast. Russia and China are also developing stealth bombers.
Bottom line is that carrier groups are already sitting targets and unlikely to last long in a superpower conflict.
This argument already played out between the carrier and sub fleets during the Cold War. The carrier is not the next battleship, that’s just lazy analysis.
The tactics in the Cold War were based essentially on preventing the enemy from knowing to a good level of certainty the position of the Cold War, for long enough to send submarinesm.
You’re ignoring the part where the carrier fleets withdraw out of range of any potential threats during the A2AD phase of an emergent combat theatre until the environment is safe for them to resume closer area support.
This is likely what is going to happen. The issue is that without those aircraft carriers it will be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to gain a foothold and maintain forward positions.
10 000km is a very long distance.
And of course, air bases closer to the theater will be bombarded using missiles, and thus the US would be deprived of air support.
Hopefully the idea is that any serious military clash with China or Russia will inevitably lead to a massive nuclear exchange ("hopefully" because it significantly reduces probability of such clash). In such war carriers will be effectively useless and the biggest role will be played by strategic nuclear weapons. Meanwhile carriers are useful for projecting force, protecting trade routes and fighting with weaker enemies, i.e. for all other scenarios except a full-blown nuclear war.
No. That logic only holds if one or more of the parties are willing to escalate a conventional conflict to a nuclear one. Russia for example, would be willing to escalate a conventional war to a nuclear one in the event of an imminent ground invasion of Moscow.
But the most likely wars are not ones of nuclear powers marching onto another's capital, but instead wars over bordering countries. Neither Russia nor the US would escalate an invasion of the Baltic's, Neither China nor the US would escalate an invasion of Taiwan.
Both of these hypothetical wars are potential conflicts because a victory for Russia and China in those conflicts would be extremely advantageous and desirable to the point that even a very low risk of nuclear esculation would be worth it to them.
>Neither Russia nor the US would escalate an invasion of the Baltic's, Neither China nor the US would escalate an invasion of Taiwan.
I highly doubt it. Baltic states are part of NATO, assuming Russia blitzkriegs them (it's a really HUGE assumption since they have relatively little geopolitical or economical value for Russia, the Suwalki corridor would be nice to have, but not considering the associated risks), leaving occupation unanswered will mean that US leadership position in the world (together with NATO) will be effectively dead. So further escalation will be practically imminent.
I think China's invasion of Taiwan will not be left unanswered as well, in addition to the huge reputation hit similar to the scenario with Baltic states, Taiwan has a big geopolitical (cornerstone of the first island chain) and economical value (not only TSMC) for the US. Further escalation is highly probable as well. A contained clash could've happened in the South China sea, but since China got entrenched there, the US Navy got quite careful to not overstep itself in this region. And this balance will continue to tilt only further to China's favor.
A limited conflict could in theory happen with a limited invasion of Russia, since its current nuclear doctrine is quite defensive (esp. compared to the US'), but the "threatens the existence of the state" condition is a bit vague, so assuming that Russia will use all its available military to defend itself, it will either drive invading forces out using conventional means (which would include counter-attacks on "decision centers"), or in the end will use nuclear weapons.
I wouldn't call the Baltic states "the most heavily fortified border of NATO", even according to the NATO analysis they will not be able to resist a full-scale Russian invasion for more than several days. The goal of the forces deployed there is just to buy time for consolidation of forces deployed in the rest of Europe for counter-attack before the states get fully occupied.
Balkans also have a little of value for Russia in the current state. A more interesting target would be to take control over Georgia or Azerbaijan (not necessary using military means), to establish a better control over oil and gas routes from the Middle Asia.
But a more realistic, much more valuable and easier target is the south-east Ukraine. If degradation of the Ukrainian state institutions continues with the current speed and the ongoing cold civil war will not be cooled down by a more sensible cultural and language policies, I will not be surprised to see in 5-15 years a full collapse of the state, significant social and economic instability, with breakaway regions following the Yugoslavia scenario, some of which will fall under the Russian "protectorate" for gradual later integration. We already can see early signs of it in the results of municipal polls, weak central government, and totally unprofessional behavior of the "elites" (who in the *#!? right mind spends most of money from the COVID fund on road construction and other non-medical goals?! who launches a full-blown constitutional crisis using clearly unconstitutional means instead of slightly tweaking the law in question or trying to engineer a constitutional reform to restart the corrupted constitutional court? who pays a ton of money to "anti-corruption" departments which after working several years haven't return a dime to the budget? who effectively strangles small businesses when they are already hit by the pandemic? etc. and etc.).
A second Trump term would have seen the US leaving NATO. This would leave the EU relatively defenceless because only France has a truly independent nuclear deterrent - the UK's deterrent is effectively part of the US arsenal - and the EU has very few conventional forces of its own.
But Putin's plan appears to be to destabilise the EU from within by promoting extremist far-right governments with more or less obvious Russian influence and anti-EU sentiments.
See also Brexit, Poland, Hungary, and the Ukraine, and the - so far - less effective far right movements being promoted in France, Italy, Portugal, and so on.
This is much cheaper and more effective than sending in the tanks. You can promote regime change with a few social media troll factories and by buying or otherwise persuading local politicians.
It's not a coincidence that the threat of a hypothetical EU army was one of the main pro-Brexit talking points sold to British racists, or that significant funding for Brexit came from Russia.
As for goals - for Russia it's partly about revenge, and partly about the destruction of Western liberal values. Putin has said as much in public on a number of occasions.
My opinion is that the main driver behind the rise of far-right movement is the refugee crisis, caused by the US-led destructive interventions to Syria and Libya, which got amplified by questionable refugee policy, effectively promoting human-trafficking business.
The almighty Russian meddling can only tip public opinion a bit in the desired direction, but can not create it from nothing.
The "US-led destructive interventions" were requested by European countries who've been meddling with Syria and the surrounding countries since WW2. Stop trying to blame European issues on the USA.
It doesn't necessarily have to be with a peer state like China or Russia though. It's not hard to imagine an otherwise weaker state (say, Iran, or North Korea) also being able to utilize a similar strategy at some point in the future.
The Kalibr and Oniks missiles are already available for sale if I'm not mistaken, and there is intention to sell the hypersonic Zirkon too.
Carriers don't act in vacuum. In both cases the US has enough ground bases and allies around those countries to suppress anti-ship capabilities first and then move carriers in. Of course in a surprise attack a carrier could be sunk using those weapons (esp. in the Gulf), but it's a one time opportunity only.
Even South Korea is building their own aircraft carrier even though they have no foreseeable overseas conflicts. That's because despite all the talk about anti carrier missiles, a carrier's combat effectiveness still harder to degrade than land based airstrips because they can dodge. An airstrip covered in bomblets and mines is useless even if its aircraft hangers are intact. South Korea is investing in carriers because in a combat scenario with North Korea once the air force has sortied they still need a place to land and resupply. Even if all the airstrips in South Korea are cratered at least there's a carrier out at sea you can resupply at instead of ditching them after one sortie.
All this revolves around the fact that launching and relaunching aircraft takes a lot of real estate, whether on land or on a floating metal island. Until there's a replacement everything that combat aircraft can do, maybe autonomous missile swarms that you can fire at a region and forget because they're intelligent enough to pick targets without someone in a plane handing them targeting info, then carriers will continue to be necessary.
Also, radar and wireless equipment powerful and sophisticated enough to detect and flag targets while bombarded with ECM is much more expensive than the missiles and we currently can't make enough of them to send on one way missions.
Almost every aircraft used in countries' air forces are not carrier compatible.
And while the US Navy is effectively like...the third? largest "air force" in the world, the very few other countries that even have fixed wing carrier naval aviation assets to begin with would be lucky to have a few dozen fighters at most.
I see most carrier projects as a prestige item at this point. They aren't completely useless (yet), but I don't think their return on value during an active shooting war against a peer state is worth it.
If South Korea was serious about using their proposed carriers in the manner you mention, they'd be replacing their remaining F-35A order with F-35Bs.
China is also in a position where it can use carriers like how the US uses them - as a big stick to punish third world countries that can't fight back. Most other countries aren't in that position.
SK is ordering 40 F35As and 20 F35Bs. 20 will fill the one carrier they're building. You're right that only carrier compatible planes can use this strategy, but having some planes usable after the initial sortie is better than none. Carriers and STOVL planes are more expensive after all, there's a cost benefit trade-off to be made here. But carrier survivability compared to airstrips does give them uses beyond just bullying countries overseas, at least until we get rid of the need for recoverable air assets entirely.
An attack on a carrier group is one of the conditions for the use of nuclear missiles. If you hit a carrier group (and especially if you hit a carrier group and win), you're gambling with mutually assured destruction.
I've always thought that too, people like to point out some adversary has a state of the art anti-ship missile. Let's say a US carrier is sunk, then what? It's as if that would be the end of the ordeal and there would be no response.
Also not a military expert, but thought I'd chime in. It's complicated, and depends a lot on your objectives. If you just want to defend the waters in your region, using a bunch of smaller surface combatants backed up by land-based aircraft can seem like a more attractive option. Especially when you consider the extreme difficulty and expense in developing advanced aircraft carriers. But here's some things to keep in mind. The biggest is that this is a game of reconnaissance. Ever since the advent of large fleet carriers in WW2 navies have had access to extreme firepower capable of striking at extremely long ranges. So it becomes a race to find the enemy before they can find you. Aircraft have the clear advantage here. They are faster, cheaper, can cover more ground, and with a powerful surface search radar can detect a ship from outside the range of SAM batteries. So you need aircraft to search for enemy ships, and you need to destroy your opponents reconnaissance aircraft before they can find your ships. Again, this is a job that aircraft can do very well. Carrier-based fighters can intercept aircraft at ranges exceeding that of even the most advanced surface combatants, and that means you don't have to expose your destroyers or frigates by turning on their radar.
Don't get me wrong, carriers absolutely have their downsides. They are very expensive, and if they are hit it will take them out of action (but not necessarily sink them, carriers can take a lot more punishment than you would think). A proper airbase on the other hand is cheaper, and can be repaired fairly easily and quickly if struck. It's also a much easier target since its location is known in advance and it isn't mobile. A good balance would be a series of small ad-hoc bases distributed around, like the Swedish Bas90 system or the USMC expeditionary advanced base concept, though both have their drawbacks.
In short, I don't think there's a decent replacement for the carrier if you need to carry out offensive operations. And I'd note that China, while developing some very advanced long-range anti-ship missiles, is also working very hard to develop their own carrier fleet, so the PLAN doesn't seem to think the idea is outdated yet.
I would assume that the actual state of the art in missile defense would be kept under wraps in terms of capability testing, but the US military is such a leaky boat that who knows.
This seems a losing battle in a real war with a capable enemy. The attacker has to be right only once and can try multiple times whereas the defender has to be right every time.
I should have been more specific that my comment was about defending a super expensive asset like an aircraft carrier. I am pretty sure it’s cheaper to destroy an aircraft carrier vs building it. It also takes very long time to replace one. In world war 2 it showed that cheaper mass produced weapons usually were superior to expensive super high tech weapons in the long run.
Since then, it seems like his warning fell on deaf ears. His most recent article indicates they're still proceeding with building even more aircraft carriers.
Any fixed base has little to no chance surviving modern war. As demonstrated by Iran in the Saudi oil field attack, even a country which has been economically isolated for decades can develop accurate cruise missiles which can devastate a known coordinate.
At least a carrier can move 50 km/h, meaning that you need a sophisticated kill chain in order to hit it. Where as a fixed coordinate could have been pre-targeted years ago, and just waiting to be destroyed.
It's entirely probable that the aircraft carrier will fill the role of the battleship in WW2; after all armies are famous for fighting the prior war. Unfortunately nobody knows what will eventually relegate the aircraft carrier to second tier status.
The blunt truth is no one knows. The only real naval combat since WW2 was during the Falkland islands conflict. There anti-ship missiles proved to be highly effective. Technology has advanced considerably since then as well. Presumably the major militaries have gamed it out as accurately as possible, but the blunt truth is it's untested thinking.
The anti ship missiles deployed there were also used against much smaller ships.
If modern carriers have the same quality of damage control as previous ones, they should be able to survive some hits; we can see from WWII how carriers were able to survive hits by kamikaze aircraft carrying a lot more explosives than one of the Exocet missiles used in the Falklands war
How often was a ship shot from under the waterline before torpedos or in the middle of the deck before dive bombers? If I were taking lessons from history, advances in naval technology have nullified or neutered entire fleets over less.
To your actual question, if you look at the Battle of Midway at least the Akagi was fatally struck on the deck — carriers today are significantly more advanced in both technology as well as doctrine than those, though.
> at least the Akagi was fatally struck on the deck
Along with the Soryu, Hiryu and Kaga!
Afaik the “carrier debate” is the argument among navy nerds. I certainly don’t know enough to comment one way or the other. But my take is that if we’re in a real war with someone who can credibly sink a carrier group, a much more important concern is going to be how to restore civilization from the ashes.
Really? Don't you just have to poke some holes in the deck? I mean, getting there is tricky, but you don't need apocalyptic weapons, just ability to dodge missile defense.
Commonly enough for people to plan for it before dive bombers became a thing. After the gunnery advancements of the early 20th century, engagement ranges could be long enough for plunging fire. Battleship shells coming down at 40° off vertical aren't that different than an AP bomb.
That's not to say that these defences were sufficient. Battleships were designed with an "immunity zone" - a range where incoming fire of the designed caliber (generally the same caliber as the main battery) would be at a high enough angle and low enough velocity to fail to penetrate your belt armor, and shallow enough angle to not defeat the relevant deck armor. 2000lb AP bombs at terminal velocity were very much not within the design specifications.
> carriers today are significantly more advanced in both technology as well as doctrine than those, though.
For that matter, even other carriers in that same battle show that damage control by a carrier against bomb hits was possible - the Yorktown survived several bomb and aerial torpedo hits before eventually being sunk by a submarine. She was able to make sufficient repairs to launch fighters again after the first set of bomb hits, too.
Modern carriers are probably better represented by the Yorktown than the Akagi, but no one will really know for sure until the shooting starts.
> Battleships were designed with an "immunity zone" - a range where incoming fire of the designed caliber (generally the same caliber as the main battery) would be at a high enough angle and low enough velocity to fail to penetrate your belt armor, and shallow enough angle to not defeat the relevant deck armor.
Did you accidentally switch belt and deck armor? Isn't deck the one protecting from high angle and low velocity, and belt armor protecting from shallow angles?
I didn't switch it, and you're right - belt armor is most likely to be hit at shallow angles, and deck armor at high angles. That being said, a point-blank shot will still treat belt armor like paper - and a max-range shot will go right through the deck. That's because both the deck armor and belt rely heavily on angling - you get a lot more effectiveness for a given thickness of armor if your opponents are courteous enough to hit it at an angle.
Which means that the belt armor is most effective at max range (though also the least likely to be hit) - shells coming in at 45° will bounce right off. And deck armor is best up close - 5° down angle is going to come up against quite a few feet of metal before managing to penetrate the handful of inches of thickness you could fit in a deck.
The trick to an immunity zone is to find the balance between the two.
You can't land cargo planes on your cruisers and destroyers. Fighting a war without support from the country you are invading requires a lot of logistics.
This test (FTM-44) was a long planned test that got pushed back several times, congress had to mandate it to occur before end of 2020. Was scheduled for Q3 back in Feb [0]. But timing certainly serendipitous in response to Chinese tests.
Is there any plausible scenario in which American carriers aren't all at the bottom of the ocean after the first five minutes of a conflict with China?
The scenario in which both China and the US are trying to minimize escalation to avoid all out nuclear war while still countering some regional moves or proxy wars.
US wargaming had repeatedly found that escalation to nuclear exchanges is all but a given if serious attempts are made by either side to destroy naval and air base capability, and it's safe to assume their PLA counterparts reached similar conclusions.
As an example, in a Chinese move against Taiwan or Japan, anything that crossed into attack range would get destroyed, but there would be no counter-attacks against Chinese facilities and bases. Does that play out in reality? Let's hope we don't find out.
>but there would be no counterattack against Chinese facilities and bases.
I think this is the key asymmetry in a US-China war, and whether US aircraft carriers can be sunk or not is irrelevant. At the end of the day, a carrier is a floating air base, and both China and the US need aircraft to provide targeting data for their munitions. In a sense Chinese airstrips are even more vulnerable to missile strikes as they can't move or hide, yet they can't be attacked because that could invite nuclear escalation. If sinking a US aircraft carrier posed the same risk of nuclear escalation would we even be worrying about their vulnerability to missile strikes?
This seems more like a strategic problem than a tactical problem regarding carrier defense. If China is more committed and willing to escalate than the US, then sooner or later there'll be a line where China's willing to cross but the US won't.
In these escalation scenarios either both sides commit to non-escalation or it doesn't matter. I don't know if current US policy had a nuclear retaliation for a strike against a carrier group, but it is such a high probability that any adversary likely considers is as true.
China or whomever attacking a carrier to destroy it with anything other than 1945 style surface warfare tactics leads to nuclear war, even if it's not the final decision point. The response to such an attack leads to nuclear war in enough projections.
I doubt it. Losing a military asset means the US will start throwing civilian assets into the pot and gambling with MAD? The civilian population will revolt when they realize that the Navy wants to double down with NY and SF because they're throwing a tantrum over losing Nimitz.
In the same way, the US should keep strikes on Chinese military facilities on the table. But escalation is much likelier because those facilities are located in civilian areas and near nuclear missile sites. That's a perfect analogue of the strategic asymmetry. China and it's civilian population actually lives in the area. The US is just visiting with military assets, and losing a civilian is a tragedy but losing a member of the military is the job they signed up for.
With their vast size carriers have hundreds of water-tight compartments and it's very unlikely to sink a carrier even with multiple direct hits.
It's a pretty hard problem to hit a carrier in the middle of the ocean.
1. It's difficult to locate a carrier group in the vast ocean, even with the help of satellites. The earth's curvature make surface level radars ineffective.
2. A carrier is not a sitting target. The carrier battle group is armed to the teeth to neutralize any threat from air, sea, and underwater within its defense perimeter. Its AWACS can detect objects upto several hundreds miles away.
3. Ships getting close need to overcome the barrage of fire power from the CBG's fighters, missiles, destroyers, and submarines.
4. Aircrafts getting close need to overcome the CBG's air defense - fighters and destroyer's AEGIS system.
5. Submarines are a realistic threat, but USN has lots of experience countering that.
6. Long range cruise missiles fired from outside of the defense perimeter could be a threat, but cruise missiles are slow and can be shot down. Also see 1 for guiding the cruise missiles thousands miles away toward a moving carrier.
7. Hyper sonic cruise missiles are a bigger threat but they have much shorter range. Their firing platforms would be destroyed trying to get close.
8. Ballistic missiles are the new threat but they have their own problems. Target location (see 1). Their terminal radar has a very short time window to locate and lock on the carrier after exiting the descent EM blackout. It takes time to fly to the general area. A 5000 miles/hour missile would take half hour to travel 2500 miles. Meanwhile the carrier is moving away, could be up to dozens of miles away.
U.S. have ballistic missile launching detection mechanism (radars and satellites) that can detect the missile at the moment of the launch.
The SM-3 test adds a new arsenal of defense against the ballistic missiles. It's certain that the laser based defense system probably is being tested or may be have already been deployed.
Edit: realistically drones will be a bigger problem for a CBG going forward.
- You don't need to sink an aircraft carrier to mission kill it. Even one hit to the deck will probably neutralize it's ability to launch/recover aircraft.
- Submarines and satellites are/will be enough to locate surface naval fleets.
- Once you've located your target, you can simply overwhelm it's defenses with massive missile barrage. Whether the missiles are ballistic, hypersonic, or traditional sea skimming AShm doesn't matter. The economics are in the attackers favor. Defenders must target each incoming with multiple anti missiles, and can only carry so many. The enemy will simply win by sheer numbers as they have no practical carrying capacity.
It seems pretty clear that carriers would need to be far, far away from any near peer adversary in a shooting war. At least until enemy subs and satellites are out of the picture. Even then you risk ballistic missile attack from the Chinese interior if your location is somehow discovered.
The slower under water submarines would have a hard time searching for moving surface ships in a radius of couple hundred miles.
Satellites are very good at focusing at narrow strips of area. Searching over a wide angle of field of vision still is a hard problem.
You have to get close to the CBG to start the overwhelming campaign. The delivery platforms are likely to be destroyed long before they get close enough.
The CBG itself has a massive arsenal. It can deliver its own overwhelming firing. Besides carrying planes the carrier is a huge missile firing platform.
> You have to get close to the CBG to start the overwhelming campaign. The delivery platforms are likely to be destroyed long before they get close enough.
Not anymore, see ballistic anti ship missiles (range ~ 1800 miles), long range bombers equipped with long range missiles, and long range hypersonic missiles likely spotted on their long range bombers:
> The CBG itself has a massive arsenal. It can deliver its own overwhelming firing. Besides carrying planes the carrier is a huge missile firing platform.
You can fit more missiles on the continent than you can on ships. That's really the end of the argument.
It depends how the conflict starts. If China launches a sneak attack with no warning then they would have a pretty good chance of taking out whichever two or three carriers happen to be in the western Pacific Ocean at the time. But if the conflict starts with a minor incident and then escalates the US Navy might have a chance to shoot down most Chinese reconasaince satellites first. Those antiship IRBMs have limited sensors and guidance so they have to be precisely targeted at launch to have a chance of hitting anything. The best way to do targeting is with a constellation of radar satellites, but those satellites are relatively easy to shoot down.
No country right now has a monopoly on ASAT technology and geosynchronous satellites are not exactly uncommon either. Should ASAT be used in a regional conflict, the entire world's access to space could easily be denied due to the after effects. It unlikely that shooting down satellites would be the first choice in a small conflict.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Radar reconnaissance satellites are in lower orbits, not geosynchronous. Any conflict between nuclear armed superpowers wouldn't be small, and avoiding orbital debris wouldn't be a priority.
USA's big demonstration of its anti-satellite capability was at only 250km. Sandbagged, perhaps, but we don't know. Again I feel it is much, much more likely that both sides will simply try to take over the other side's space assets, rather than using kinetic anti-satellite weapons that litter space with tiny chunks of garbage.
> might have a chance to shoot down most Chinese reconnaissance satellites first… The best way to do targeting is with a constellation of radar satellites, but those satellites are relatively easy to shoot down…
Seems wasteful, better to have root access (like via X-37b) to them now ahead of time and reroute attacks en route in real time if/when the time comes. Using enemy infrastructure to take out their own seems most efficient.
The whole "Hack A Satellite"[0] partnered with USAF and DDS seems like its leaning operationally in that direction more and more for at least recruitment.
The NRO do apparently have football field sized antenna arrays parked near comm sats, so I would guess the hack the satellite thing was to find how much further ahead they are rather than as a proof of concept
If you are considering cyberwarfare the targeting of satellites of weapon systems, and not what most people consider cyberwarfare, I think all sides would be prudent to target such capabilities equally.
China's "carrier killer" missiles are all IRBM's, which have significantly less velocity than ICBM's, and thus are easier to intercept. Given the capability demonstrated in the article you cannot conclusively say that the PLARF would succeed in an attack on a CSG.
It's also relavant because there is a huge debate in defence community right now.
On the one hand you have many saying that the aircraft carrier might go the way if the battleship - more and more redundant in a world with landbase anti ship missile systems.
On the other hand there are some saying that ships will envolve to meet the threat.
There isn't a one-size-fits-all replacement, though there are a couple of ideas. The USMC has their expeditionary advanced bases concept which is certainly an option. The idea is to leverage the fact that the F-35B can take off and land on improvised runways, like a parking lot or a flat grassy strip somewhere. You have a flight of F-35Bs and maintain 3-4 of these improvised bases, each meant to only support a couple planes. And every few days you pack up one of these bases and move them to another spot. Since you're always moving your opponent has to continuously search for these bases, and even if they find one and destroy it, they've only destroyed some supplies and maybe 1 or 2 planes that happened to be on the ground at that base at the time. And locating these bases will be difficult since they will be small, and there's a continuous CAP looking to shoot down surveillance aircraft, as well as SAM batteries. The big question is if they will be able to transport enough fuel, munitions, and spare parts to these bases to support them, and if the F-35Bs will be reliable enough. It also requires that you have friendly territory, or at least secured territory, to operate from. In the case of a Sino-American war, I believe the idea is to use islands in the Philippines, or Japan. This has some info on how it could work: https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/expeditionary-advanced-mar...
That isn't really a replacement for a carrier, though, more of a supplement.
Along that same line of thought; What do you think about developing fighter sea planes and then have two or three fighters and a support boat at whole bunch of different/changing sea locations?
Another idea. For the expense of a carrier could we just keep planes in the air? Especially if they’re drones and don’t have to take care of pilots.
Actually read an article recently about the sea planes idea: https://warontherocks.com/2020/07/bring-back-the-seaplane/ . It's an interesting idea, but something where there will need to be a lot of research before it is viable. It's unclear if you can create a decent modern fighter that is also a sea plane. However, if you could, using those with a seaplane tender would be much easier from a logistics standpoint than the EAB. Even if you can't make a decent fighter seaplane, having a seaplane tanker would be very helpful for extending the range of the carrier air wing, as mentioned in the link.
For the drones, it's complicated. Airborne refueling has been a thing for decades, but off the top of my head there's never been airborne re-arming. But even if you had that you would still need to land for maintenance. But still you could probably keep these drones in the air for multiple days, maybe even a week at a time. But the logistics of managing so many tankers gets complicated fast. Check out the Black Buck raids for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck . And that's just for a bombing raid, if you want to maintain a combat air patrol you'll need even more tankers running continuously, and a bunch more fighters since for every one on station there will be multiples coming to/from a base or a tanker. I think long-range drones will definitely be a part of future warfare, but I think you still want a carrier to base them. I think all you need to do is move the carrier further away from anti-ship missile platforms, and increase the striking range of the air wing to compensate. There's a very lengthy write up on this if you are interested: https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pd...
We have private companies softlanding (almost) inert ICBMs on barges in the middle of the sea. I dont think this military capacity comes as a surprise to anyone... ;-)
I guess it depends on how strictly you define a ballistic missile. I would think most warheads have some sort of terminal guidance. The only difference is that Falcon use the engines mainly to shed speed so that it does not burn up during entry, and dont destroy the barge on "impact".
But, yeah, when they do boost-back to the Cape, the analogy breaks down even more.
The US Navy has some of the best missile defense systems in the world right now. An Arleigh Burke Flight IIA destroyer has a 96-cell vertical launch system for missiles. Each cell could hold an SM-2ER surface-to-air missile with a ~100 mile range, an SM-6 with a ~150 mile range, an SM-3 with ~600 mile range for ballistic missiles, or 4 ESSM missiles with a ~30 mile range. On top of that you have a Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) which is a 20-mm autocannon designed to shoot down incoming missiles up to 1 mile away. On top of that, the US Navy has a networking system that allows targeting missiles using remote sensors. So a E-2D Hawkeye early warning aircraft could detect a low-flying cruise missile traveling below the radar horizon of the destroyer, and then even though the destroyer radar can't pick it up it could launch a missile and have the Hawkeye's radar guide it to the target.
The exact numbers would depend a lot on the type of missile attacking, the angles they are coming in at, whether there are external sensors in the area, weather, etc. But a destroyer escort is more than capable of intercepting an incoming missile. In perfect conditions, where you detect and are tracking the missiles at extreme range, a single destroyer could likely take out dozens of cruise missiles. Scoring a hit on a carrier would require some combination of: advanced missiles (fast, stealthy, maneuverable, etc), multiple missiles, element of surprise, attacking from multiple directions at once, and jamming or otherwise degrading sensors.
The 20mm Phalanx CIWS has proven itself in its land based version, which has been used to defend against rocket, mortar, and missile attacks on bases. The anti missile missiles on carriers such as the RIM-7 and RIM-116 have not been tested in actual combat though. Carriers usually carry a bunch of these, and are usually surrounded by other ships armed with them as well
On a related note, I don't know how ships are the ultimate "god-mode" for a country. They are literally sitting ducks - shot 1 of 100 successful missiles at the them and it's sunk.
Unironically, it does seem worth spending the entire GDP of Hawaii on a 1 / 6 chance of intercepting an ICBM, if there's a nontrivial chance that you're likely to have a small number of ICBMs incoming towards cities. Other than second-order effects where anything which breaks MAD increases the risk of nuclear war, but I hope a 1/6 chance of interception of one missile wouldn't be significant enough to change the balance of power enough to make nuclear war more likely.
I would much rather live in a world where there are viable options for responding to a handful of ICBMs that don't involve escalation.
Effectively, a credible ballistic missile defense + an arms treaty that caps the number of interceptors leaves relative great power parity stable.
But it does eliminate the "rogue state" or "rogue silo" threat. And arguably, makes them less attractive to pursue in the first place, thereby furthering non-proliferation.
If you're Iran, are you going to suffer all the economic pain of breaking sanctions, in return for a non-credible threat?
I was going to say that the US was limited by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (the Soviets and the US were limited to two ABM installations each), but the US left the treaty in 2002, because of the threat posed by Iran.
Do you seriously believe this nonsense? The pull was clearly targeted against Russia, in the same way as pull from the INF was targeted mostly against China. Russia even has proposed to share radar data on its south borders with NATO systems, but to no avail.
An anti-ballistic missile treaty no longer makes sense, when there were only two or three sides and all of them had enough missiles to overwhelm their adversary, there is no point in even trying to build an ICBM defense program.
There is a huge precedent of ICBM defense programs being canceled due to large costs and questionable benefits in the face of a full scale attack from Russia.
That is no longer the case, now North Korea has a handful of missiles, with no ballistic missile defense the US would be vulnerable to an attack from North Korea.
Sure, such an attack would result in a retaliation. But the duty of the government is not to avenge it's citizens but to protect them in the first place.
There's a classic clip of Putin breaking out in laughter when an interviewer suggests the missile shield in Eastern Europe is meant to defend against Iran: https://youtu.be/7LyfwHYB8xw
I would be more worried about North Korea. They have already shown their lack of respect for human life by the treatment of their own people and their overt threats to South Korea. They even make propaganda showing attacks against the US and other countries.
In a rational world we would not need a military except we are far from living in one. Worse we live in a world where we accept nations like North Korea and worse prop them up all because of the threat they project. This will simply encourage them further.
Iran is a threat to its neighbors and a lot of this is from purely factional religious differences. Reducing the world's oil usage could actually make things worse as we end up with a larger humanitarian issue, similar to Venezuela where the economy needs that money
> an arms treaty that caps the number of interceptors leaves relative great power parity stable
I don't know much about this topic, but why would you want to cap the number of interceptors? Surely we would want everyone to have lots and lots of interceptors such that nuclear warheads are devalued (not worth stockpiling because their effectiveness is lower)? What's the worst outcome in an arms race on interceptors? Nations spend too much on interceptors?
I guess it would be bad if the interceptors were highly concentrated in a single nation or coalition, but as long as each coalition has plenty (relative to the number of warheads) it shouldn't be a problem. Note that the distribution doesn't even need to be very even--let's say each nation is capped at 100 warheads and Russia has 1000 interceptors and the US has 10000--the US doesn't have much leverage on Russia despite an order of magnitude more interceptors. So as long as all of the interceptors aren't concentrated on one side of an engagement (and it would be very unlikely for this to be the case for any enduring period of time) all is well.
And of course, there's the additional deterrent of a globalized economy. Most nuclear countries depend on the global economy and have a strong incentive not to devastate it by way of nuclear warfare. The odds of an isolationist country like NK owning all of the interceptors is pretty low IMO.
> Increased counterparty desire to build more ICBMs
I'm assuming a cap on ICBMs. If nations aren't going to obey these caps then why should they obey a cap on interceptors?
> Increased belief in a successful first strike / acceptable response casualties
It doesn't follow that (num_interceptors > num_counterparty_ICBMs) will lead to a successful first strike (notably it doesn't follow that the counterparty doesn't have interceptors of their own).
Arms control treaties are negotiated in the current context, in country's best interests.
Even a desire to build more ICBMs is harmful, as it makes a country less likely to voluntarily agree to ICBM limits in the future. But absolutely agree that ICBM and missile defense are intertwined, so only make sense to negotiate strategic arms control covering both.
I would say that it does follow that "sufficient" interceptors, relative to a counterparty's ICBMs, leads to a "successful" first strike.
Where "success" in this calculus means acceptable losses.
The lynchpin of MAD is that no one is insane enough to argue that the incineration of a major city is acceptable for a first strike.
Without ballistic missile defense, that destruction is effectively guaranteed, as long as the counterparty has available ICBMs and is able to launch them.
With ballistic missile defense, there's a chance that destruction could be averted. And that chance drastically balloons the risk of a first strike being launched.
To put it another way: you're the president, and you're at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs. Open conflict with Russia has broken out in Eastern Europe. Massive amounts of Russian reinforcements are transporting towards NATO lines.
No BMD: if we escalate to nuclear, and the Russians retaliate (as stated by their nuclear posture), American cities have a 100% chance of being vaporized.
BMD: ... American cities have a 75% chance of being vaporized.
That's a terrifyingly different decision, because it opens the possibility that someone decides to take a risk. Because there's a chance things will work out favorably.
I guess I'm arguing that there is a dynamic you're not considering with respect to whether or not to initiate a nuclear strike. I agree with you that an aggressor is more likely to initiate a strike if they believe they have a very high chance of a successful strike (where "success" is defined as destroying the target) and a very low chance of retaliation. However, the scenario we're debating is one in which Russia has its own interceptors so the risk of a successful first strike (US striking Russia) is about the same as the likelihood Russia succeeds in retaliating.
If both nations have lots and lots of interceptors relative to the ICMB cap (assuming for the moment that both countries adhere to the ICMB cap), then the odds of any country initiating a successful strike (first or second) becomes relatively and equally low. At that point, it's more effective to pursue conventional (i.e. non-nuclear) warfare, and even if a country does initiate a desperate nuclear strike, it's less concerning because the odds of a catastrophic loss of life are significantly reduced.
Would you argue that we would be better off if we fought conventional wars without body armor of any kind? Or would you argue that this is somehow different than the interceptor question? If so, how is it different (degree vs kind and why)?
(By the way, I don't see a US president--barring perhaps the current one who doesn't seem concerned with his own best interest much less that of his country--accepting a 75% chance of the destruction of US cities in order to stop a Russian advance)
Good points, although the decision does bring in the anti-ABM research progression as well.
In that, if I am facing an adversary with sufficient ABM capability, I am inventivized to try technologies that moot that advantage. E.g. nuclear kamikaze UUVs/smart torpedos, stealth cruise missiles, short range/quick reaction strikes etc.
I think non-parity relationships are somewhat alien to us today, whereas the 50s and 60s were full of "someone could nuke someone else with impunity" periods.
And I guess I look at it as: MAD is preferable to a Pandora's Box future where sides are continually researching, developing, and deploying new weapons and reevaluating their relative advantage. Advantage in an arms race being especially troubling because it's use-it-or-lose-it -- e.g. the internal calls for the US to use nukes against China before they developed their own during the Korean War.
> Would you argue that we would be better off if we fought conventional wars without body armor of any kind?
It's absolutely a related question.
To some degree, yes. Or a corollary in whether it's just to fight wars in which one side uses drones/UVs and the other side uses people.
Modern wars end when one side's will to continue it ceases. And, for better or worse, casualties have driven that. What happens when one side doesn't take casualties (e.g. Yemen)?
How many aggression wars did Iran starts in modern times? How many the US did? At least three. Your definition and example of a rogue state needs some correction.
"Rogue state" [0] is actually a defined term that Iran qualifies for because of its efforts to proliferate nuclear weapons.
Also, Iran has participated regularly in proxy wars including the one in Yemen with Saudi Arabia [1] so your thesis about aggression wars is a little misleading when they've participated in a proxy civil. Note that recently Israel claimed credit for killing an Al Qaeda leader who was living openly in Iran.
I think Iran is too often scapegoated in the Western world but I also want to be realistic about where Iran is really at fault.
>is actually a defined term that Iran qualifies for because of its efforts to proliferate nuclear weapons.
So something it stopped doing over a decade ago makes it a "rogue state?"
>Also, Iran has participated regularly in proxy wars including the one in Yemen with Saudi Arabia [1] so your thesis about aggression wars is a little misleading when they've participated in a proxy civil
Your source actually doesn't outline any concrete Iranian involvement in Yemen, just some Saudi accusations prior to their invasion. Even then, the US participation alone dwarfs the alleged Iranian involvement.
>I think Iran is too often scapegoated in the Western world but I also want to be realistic about where Iran is really at fault.
These are the two main issues they're scapegoated for, so this statement is a bit confusing.
> So something it stopped doing over a decade ago makes it a "rogue state?"
It was doing it last year after the US unilaterally pulled out of the agreement [0]
> Your source actually doesn't outline any concrete Iranian involvement in Yemen, just some Saudi accusations prior to their invasion. Even then, the US participation alone dwarfs the alleged Iranian involvement.
Iran never out and out talks about who they support and how. Note that Qasem Soleimeini was killed in Iraq. The point being the Iran meddles in their neighbors affairs.
> These are the two main issues they're scapegoated for, so this statement is a bit confusing.
No, they're scapegoated as being terrorism funders/stronghold or attackers of "freedom" (whatever that means). When they're called out for actually doing something that the international community frowns upon that's not scapegoating.
>It was doing it last year after the US unilaterally pulled out of the agreement
And who are we should thank for it? Iran clearly sees the difference between North Korea and Libya, and it clearly does not want to be the latter. The US stupid move was just the last droplet. Hopefully with the new administration the situation can be salvaged.
>Note that Qasem Soleimeini was killed in Iraq. The point being the Iran meddles in their neighbors affairs.
Oh, wow. According to the Iraqi prime minister he was on a diplomatic mission to ease tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He was unlawfully (under both US and international law) assassinated in a clear and blatant violation of the Iraq sovereignty.
And compare the Iran "meddling" with the US openly creating military bases in Syria without any authorization from the Syrian government (you think anything you like about it, but it's still an internationally recognized government) and open military support of rebel forces, often closely related to jihadists. Also we have the rejection of the Iraqi parliament′s call to withdraw US troops.
>>Note that Qasem Soleimeini was killed in Iraq. The point being the Iran meddles in their neighbors affairs.
>Oh, wow. According to the Iraqi prime minister he was on a diplomatic mission to ease tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia...
He was on both the US and EU anti-terrorism list, and there was a Security Council resolution banning him from traveling outside Iran.
>And compare the Iran "meddling" with the US openly creating military bases in Syria without any authorization from the Syrian government
Iran has military bases and militias on Syria predating the US ones, these took direct part in the mass civilian deaths there.
>Also we have the rejection of the Iraqi parliament′s call to withdraw US troops.
Their call was non binding since the agreement was with the Iraqi government (imagine the GOP Senate calling for something ignoring President Biden's wishes). The US army does not wish to withdraw since ISIS still exists, we saw what happened last time Iraq tried to deal with them alone.
No, only the US designated him as a terrorist and IIRC on a really flimsy grounds (as in CIA operatives could be designated terrorists using similar criteria). EU only personally sanctioned him.
>there was a Security Council resolution banning him from traveling outside Iran
These restrictions were lifted in 2015 as part of the Iran nuclear deal framework. US unilateral withdrawal didn't change the fact that UN sanctions have been lifted.
>Their call was non binding since the agreement was with the Iraqi government
The call was aimed at the government, which due to the US pressure ignored will of the Iraqi people represented by the democratically elected parliament.
>since ISIS still exists
ISIS got chance to exist mostly due to the US chaotic meddling in the region. Not only it weakened Iraq by direct invasion, but it also fueled the Syrian civil war. Syria is perfectly able to not let ISIS reappearance with the Russian help and negotiated relationship with the Kurds, but I don't see the US leaving Syria any time soon.
>on a really flimsy grounds (as in CIA operatives could be designated terrorists using similar criteria)
Yet nobody did that. Maybe the criteria aren't so 'similar'.
>These restrictions were lifted in 2015 as part of the Iran nuclear deal framework. US unilateral withdrawal didn't change the fact that UN sanctions have been lifted.
These restrictions were not to be lifted immediately. That particular limit was due to expire only this October.
>ISIS got chance to exist mostly due to the US chaotic meddling in the region.
Maybe al-Qaeda + Assad and Iran's support for insurgents during the Iraq war played a huge part. They encouraged fanaticism which shockingly turned against everyone.
>Yet nobody did that. Maybe the criteria aren't so 'similar'.
For the same reason no one designated GRU or Mossad operatives. The weight of the state behind them and absurdity of the act. But the US government has decided to stretch definition of terrorism (and frankly deflating its value even further in the process) to somehow limit actions of IRGC, which were clearly outplaying the US in the ME region, not in the last because of the Soleimeini's masterful leadership.
>These restrictions were not to be lifted immediately. That particular limit was due to expire only this October.
>The UN Security Council resolution endorsing this JCPOA will terminate all provisions of previous UN Security Council resolutions on the Iranian nuclear issue -1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1835 (2008), 1929 (2010) and 2224 (2015) –simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation of agreed nuclear-related measures by Iran and will establish specific restrictions, as specified in Annex V.
In October expired the UN arms embargo, which is irrelevant to the 1747 resolution affecting Soleimeini. If you read news just a little at the time, you may recall that economic sanctions against Iran have been lifted long before this October.
>Maybe al-Qaeda + Assad and Iran's support for insurgents during the Iraq war played a huge part. They encouraged fanaticism which shockingly turned against everyone.
Wow. Are you even aware that Iran is a Shia state and mostly supports Shia militia groups in other countries, while ISIS was predominantly Sunni? And that Assad is from the Alawite minority, who is also Shia? If anyone has supported al-Qaeda in the Syrian civil war it's the US and Turkey. The former has acknowledged indirect "accidental" support of the al-Qaeda branch via "moderate" rebels.
To conclude: you demonstrate utter lack of knowledge in this area.
>For the same reason no one designated GRU or Mossad operatives.
Most countries don't support terrorist (sorry, 'resistance') organizations and don't officially announce it on every corner. It turns out Iran not even bothering with cover makes designation very easy.
>Read the sources, ok?
You're mixing JCPOA (not a UN text) and several different types of sanctions.
>Are you even aware that Iran is a Shia state and mostly supports Shia militia groups in other countries, while ISIS was predominantly Sunni?
ISIS started from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni group that Iran and Syria were happy to support so long as they bothered Americans more.
>Most countries don't support terrorist (sorry, 'resistance') organizations and don't officially announce it on every corner.
Yeap, and the US is not included into this list of the "most countries" as well. Simply instead of "resistance" they call them "pro-democratic rebels" and they have a long tradition in this area (e.g. search for a humble "freedom-fighter" Osama). So we got back to the starting point.
>You're mixing JCPOA and several different types of sanctions.
Again, I've linked the document, which clearly lists the 1747 resolution as to be terminated. AFAIK it is the only UN resolution affecting Soleimeini. So do please clarify what exactly I am "mixing"?
>ISIS started from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni group that Iran and Syria were happy to support so long as they bothered Americans more.
LOL what? When ISIS has started making territorial claims Syria was already for two years in the midst of the hot civil war, Asad was losing territories to the Sunni rebels supported by the US, Iran at the time tried to help Assad by supporting Shia militia, but its supply lines got disrupted by ISIS, which motivated them to persuade Russians to help Assad.
If anything, it's American support of Sunni rebels in the hope that they will overthrow the Assad government resulted in the creation of ISIS as a quasi-state. One of the big American goals in Iraq is to prevent creation of so-called Shia Crescent and the Suni rebellion was a great way to achieve it. This is why you haven't seen much US action against it until they started to threaten Bagdad, and even after ISIS lost all its territories the US supported "moderates" which are close to the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch. Though in the end it spiraled out of control. As usual... Controlled chaos rarely stays controlled for long.
If your next message will be as ignorant as the last two, I no longer see the need to continue this discussion.
>Simply instead of "resistance" they call them "pro-democratic rebels"
Which is mostly accurate (the rebels part, we have no idea what regime they would have set up). Iran officially supported Hamas and Hizbollah, the former even after it's been declared a terrorist org. When one does those things so openly, it's no wonder the designations follow.
>(e.g. search for a humble "freedom-fighter" Osama).
Al-Qaeda (or the Taliban) didn't even exist at the time.
>So do please clarify what exactly I am "mixing"?
Your original comment mixed JCPOA (a text at most binding members who signed it but does not override UN resolutions), nuclear sanctions (removed under UN 2231, not the JCPOA), economic sanctions (not all removed, since quite a bit is not nuclear), terror sanctions (e.g. Solemani), etc.
>LOL what? When ISIS has started making territorial claims...
ISIS existed before they made 'claims'. The organization is what Al-Qaeda in Iraq evolved into once they got radical beyond even what Bin Laden wanted (Bin Laden opposed targeting Shiites). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was supported by Assad and Iran. Just recently someone assassinated an Al-Qaeda head in Tehran.
>If anything, it's American support of Sunni rebels in the hope that they will overthrow the Assad government resulted in the creation of ISIS as a quasi-state.
Ah, yes, the US created ISIS conspiracy theory. Lets remember the US left Iraq and was happy to be out until ISIS called it back. ISIS then took over Mosul first, and only then became a quasi-state. The holding in Syria came later, and it was the US (with SDF) which threw them out.
All these stories admit these were the people that fought with Al Qaeda's Iraqi branch (supported by Assad etc.), were imprisoned by the US, and decided to keep fighting after being released. 'Conclusion': US created ISIS. Right. Maybe Iran and co. should have been more careful with their choice of proxies.
No, the articles say that ISIS has been created in Bucca. From the Guardian article:
“[al-Baghdadi] was respected very much by the US army,” Abu Ahmed said. “If he wanted to visit people in another camp he could, but we couldn’t. And all the while, a new strategy, which he was leading, was rising under their noses, and that was to build the Islamic State. If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no IS now. Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.”
Yep, it's an evolution of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (that's why all these people were in jail in first place), built under their noses [their = the US]. In English, that means it was hidden from the US, not complicity.
Now, if Assad and the Mullahs didn't support Al-Qaeda in Iraq in the first place, or if they got their Iraqi pawns to keep the lid after the US left, maybe the jihadists wouldn't have been strong enough to create ISIS later on.
>It was doing it last year after the US unilaterally pulled out of the agreemen
"Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely for civil nuclear purposes." There has been no evidence that they've had a nuclear weapons program post 2009.
>Note that Qasem Soleimeini was killed in Iraq. The point being the Iran meddles in their neighbors affairs.
It's pretty rich to criticize Iran for foreign meddling when describing a US assassination taking place in a country on the other side of the globe.
> "Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely for civil nuclear purposes." There has been no evidence that they've had a nuclear weapons program post 2009.
Iran had a 2-3 month breakout period in 2013 [0]. Stockpiling enriched uranium after stating a desire to wipe a particular country "off the map" seems to imply that there was more going on than civilian nuclear weapons.
>It's pretty rich to criticize Iran for foreign meddling when describing a US assassination taking place in a country on the other side of the globe.
US, Russia, and to a lesser extent China meddle the most in foreign affairs across the world. Hell, the US quite literally caused the current Iranian regime to come into existence through foreign meddling. What's your point? This doesn't convince me Iran should be refining Uranium.
>Iran had a 2-3 month breakout period in 2013 [0]. Stockpiling enriched uranium after stating a desire to wipe a particular country "off the map" seems to imply that there was more going on than civilian nuclear weapons.
So still zero evidence that they've had a nuclear weapons program post 2009, just you think they must really want one because they keep getting attacked by a nearby nuclear power.
>What's your point?
That your reason for wanting Iran to be forbidden from refining uranium is basically a fear that someday they'll be able to treat the US (or other western ally) how we treat them. If you object to that treatment, stop treating other countries like that with labels like "rogue state."
>If mass enriching of uranium isn't part of 'nuclear weapons program', well, it's a funny definition you have
There is absolutely zero evidence that Iran is enriching uranium to weapons grade levels.
>t's the Iranian government calling 'death to [far away nuclear powers]' not the other way
Ignoring how the phrase "death to x" is an aggressive translation of "down with x," how is that worse than actually using weapons to attack Iran? Killing people is worse than saying they should die.
>There is absolutely zero evidence that Iran is enriching uranium to weapons grade levels.
They're just collecting it since it looks shiny. Not because it's a shorter step to weapons grade from there.
>Ignoring how the phrase "death to x" is an aggressive translation of "down with x," how is that worse than actually using weapons to attack Iran? Killing people is worse than saying they should die.
A translation often used by the government itself. Which isn't shy about supporting 'resistance' killing people.
>They're just collecting it since it looks shiny. Not because it's a shorter step to weapons grade from there
Or for the civil nuclear program.
>A translation often used by the government itself. Which isn't shy about supporting 'resistance' killing people
You haven't answered why saying it is worse than killing people.
That said, the Iranian government generally translates it to "down with x," and had further elaborated that they are calling for an end to policies that are imperialist and hostile towards Iran. Similar statements are common in US politics regarding Iran.
Iran already receives nuclear fuel from Russia. It makes 'perfect' economic sense to risk massive sanctions to enrich 100x times the amount of 'fuel' Iran needs for a single 1000MW nuclear generation unit in Bushehr just so they could ditch their supplier. In a country with nearly free gas and oil. Which everyone accepts has done nuclear weaponization work.
>You haven't answered why saying it is worse than killing people.
I'm saying the Iranian regime kills people too, just with a slightly different cover.
>That said, the Iranian government generally translates it to "down with x,"
The US has shown it will impose sanctions on Iran no matter what, so yes it does make sense to divert away from the only resource they ever have a chance to sell.
>Generally". Weasel wording doesn't impress.
I can't say that every use of the term over fourty years has been translated as "down with," but that's hardly "weasel words." They've made very clear what they mean by the statement.
> The US has shown it will impose sanctions on Iran no matter what, so yes it does make sense to divert away from the only resource they ever have a chance to sell.
1) The country was far less sanctioned before the nuclear program.
2) Iran has a huge oil glut, no need to divert.
3) It's absurdly without economic sense even then. The expenses due to sanctions and diplomatic conflict are 1000x of any profit. If there's any profit compared to available imports from Russia.
4) It's a country with past weaponization program.
We know what it's really for.
>They've made very clear what they mean by the statement.
Yep, very clear. Just examine their attitude to Israel which gets the same statement.
Nothing you say makes any sense. Even you seem to agree that Iran suspended their nuclear weapons program for a decade and sanctions didn't improve, so why do one and three mean anything? Two ignores Iran's status in OPEC, and four shows nothing. Yet you act like they've completely unprovoked start massing nuclear weapons without a shred of evidence.
>Just examine their attitude to Israel which gets the same statement
Disliking the imperialist policies of a state that regularly bombs you makes sense.
>Even you seem to agree that Iran suspended their nuclear weapons program for a decade and sanctions didn't improve
>four shows nothing
We have very different definitions to 'nuclear weapons program'. My definition includes creating massive stockpiles of enriched Uranium, especially for countries with acknowledge weaponization programs and no other reasonable motive.
According to your definition, if someone built an empty bomb, set it aside, and started working on creating some explosives that someone 'suspended the bomb program'. Perhaps the explosives are just for fireworks! Right.
>Two ignores Iran's status in OPEC
That only strengthens my point. OPEC gives a maximum export quota which most states are easily capable of exceeding. Might as well use it for internal purposes given the marginal price of extra production is zero.
>Disliking the imperialist policies of a state that regularly bombs you makes sense.
It's usually Iran which inefficiently does the 'regular bombing'. It's Iran that supplied EFPs to insurgents during Iraq war, and whose sellswords fire rockets at the Green Zone regularly. A rocket killed an Iraqi child just yesterday.
>My definition includes creating massive stockpiles of enriched Uranium,
Something this thread seemed to agree restarted in 2019.
>OPEC gives a maximum export quota
Production quotas.
>It's usually Iran which inefficiently does the 'regular bombing
It is a fact that Israel regularly bombs Iran. What Iran does is a separate matter I am not defending, though if you blame them for weapons sales I hope you similarly blame the US and Israel for the results of their weapon sales.
>Something this thread seemed to agree restarted in 2019.
Your argument was "Iran suspended their nuclear weapons program for a decade". That would put it in 2011 - exactly when Iran did mass enrichment, so I found it very odd.
>Production quotas.
You're right on the name. However, the intent is to control the market by controlling supply in the market, not to limit domestic use of oil. Nobody in OPEC cares about domestic use since it doesn't come at the expense of other member nations.
>It is a fact that Israel regularly bombs Iran
I suggest looking in a map. It's Iran that has troops and supports 'resistance' on Israeli border and not the other way around, and every once in a while these 'militants' fight with Israel.
Nope, Iran has every right to behave as it does but that also gives the collection of countries that act in congress together the leeway to label it a 'rogue state'. The center point of this subthread was whether such a label is appropriate.
Does it? What if the US had Iran's military and Iran had US' military?
The wars conducted by US are questionable at best and a poor example of how developed nations should behave. However, looking at the worst sides of a developed nation and comparing them to the best sides of a dictator state, isn't quite adding up.
I didn't say unilateral, although I support that as well. The United States is the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, and is also one that I reside in. If I lived in Russia or China, I would advocate for unilateral disarmament in those countries as well. Nuclear weapons are an absolute horror and should be completely eliminated from this planet. The United States (unlike China) does not even have a "No first use" policy -- it reserves the ability to use nuclear weapons aggressively or pre-emptively.
“Hawking's rationale was that humankind would eventually fall victim to an extinction-level catastrophe - perhaps sooner rather than later. What worried him were so-called low-probability, high impact events - a large asteroid striking our planet is the classic example. But Hawking perceived a host of other potential threats: artificial intelligence, climate change, GM viruses and nuclear war to name a few.
In 2016, he told the BBC: "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or 10,000 years.”
If you're a resident of any large city living under the threat of nuclear annihilation, you'll take a 16.6% chance of living over 0% any day of the week.
Not to pick on Detroit, but a SS-25 would do something like this:
It's not as if they shot 6 missiles at once and it only caught one. They did 6 tests, likely tuning the system every time and the current configuration is able to catch shoot down the missile.
When adjusting for an improving system it’s best to ignore the first success. As in they shot down one, now how soon can they hit the next one. The issue is if they has a 1 in 1,000 shot they could have still hit the on the 6th test it just doesn’t provide much info.
The article states one of the earlier tests failed because the ICBM was inadvertently marked as a friendly by a sailor. So, I'm mostly agreeing that 1/6 is meaningless at this point, not showing if it's highly precise or not at all.
I remember the first interception tests of missiles had terrible success rate, but it got better. That's why you test them. Now Iron Dome has around 90% success rate at interceptions in real conditions. And it is hard to get the precise info but it looks like a lot of the failures happened at a time were a malfunction put the system offline.
It is worth doing R&D on these if an attack is likely.
If it is not, getting rid of MAD without having a replacement mechanism is scary, but in this crazy world and the current proliferation, MAD is becoming an increasingly dangerous bet.
The US anti-ballistic missile defence system is not designed or intended to work against China or Russia. It's not adequate. The goal is to shoot down handful missiles from rogue states like North Korea or Iran.
You're probably correct, but do you think it's outright impossible to develop such a defense? What if we increase the stockpile of anti-ballistic missiles or continue to fund R&D?
As a sibling post to yours points out, effective anti-ballistic missile defense against a state such as Russia or China ruins the MAD strategy and might lead to interesting game play.
Eventually it is a numbers game. It is likely cheaper to make large numbers of relatively fast offensive missiles than it is to make an equal number of fast AND exceptionally accurate defensive missiles. This is why the US Department of Defense is going in so heavily on microwave and laser technologies. By layering multiple overlapping technologies like this (along with upgraded satellites to pinpoint launches as they happen and help determine the target), you have a much higher likelihood of success. However, if it was just missiles vs missiles, the aggressive side always has a better chance. They just need to have 1-2 successes to cause mayhem. The defender has to have 100% success to prevent mayhem.
It's not impossible, just not economical. Terminal intercept ABM systems like Aegis only protect a small area (10s to 100s of km radius) around the missile system - perfectly adequate for the defense of a carrier group which is their primary purpose. The missiles they are defending against have a range of many thousands of kilometers, or in the case of ICBMs can hit anywhere in the world, and thus one missile might threaten many thousands of potential targets. If your adversary is a poor pariah state only interested in a limited region, then making 10 interceptors for every one of their missiles might be viable, but if your adversary is a major power with a strong industrial base, they can easily build more missiles than you can build interceptors to defend against.
For a truly effective ballistic missile defense, you need a theater-level interceptor. The US is also actively working on this in the form of its Ground Based Mid-Course Defense (GMD). Nominally such a system can defend large sections of a continent and thus the cost of defense would be comparable to the cost of offense, but in practice mid-course intercept is much harder - you need a much more powerful missile and the adversary can use decoys and other counter measures. The current GMD program is only aimed at defeating rogue states like North Korea because their countermeasure capabilities are presumed to lag substantially behind the major powers. While it is not inconceivable that GMD's technical hurdles will one day be overcome, this system would not defend against hypersonic glide vehicles already under development by the major powers.
The history of warfare is a constant race between advancements in weapons and defenses. It is reasonably safe to assume that in the 40 some odd years it would take to develop an effective defense against any new delivery system, a further new delivery system can also be developed. Even if defense catches up for a bit, it will be momentary.
The PLARF have a significant inventory of IRBM's who's purpose is annihilate Guam, Okinawa, and other forward American bases (or allied bases). In addition to these, the PLARF have Anti ship ballistic missiles which would target surface groups. US ballistic missile defense is crucial for America's ability to defend against those.
It's not just China. Everyone will want one. Europe, India, Israel, Russia, USA. Everyone is within range of someone who can have an ICBM by the end of the century.
And unlike bombers and tactical missile launchers, there's no ethical issues, because this saves civilians.
Of course it has ethical issues. This could throw MAD strategies out the window. If a country can suddenly legitimately defend itself against an ICBM attack while still being able to destroy the opposing country, nuclear war strategies become "interesting". You just have to teach Joshua that even if one country survives, the planet might not remain habitable for the people living in that country. "Learn goddamnit, learn!"
MAD only lasts until it doesn't. I don't think someone like Trump would have handled the Cuban Missile Crisis well.
There's also the risk that these systems fail. Even if they blocked half the ICBMs, it costs too much to let the others in. But it also costs too much to not invest in such a system.
>And unlike bombers and tactical missile launchers, there's no ethical issues, because this saves civilians.
Tell it to sanctions against Iran which blocked acquisition of the S-400 anti-aircraft system. Stronger defense capabilities can totally change balance of power. This is why Russia is very nervous (and rightfully so) about deployment of the US air-defense systems in Europe, since strengthening of defensive capabilities over a certain threshold can transform preemptive nuclear strike against it from incredible stupidity to just a difficult decision.
TBH, I think Israel is within spitting distance of being able to do as well as the US. Iron Dome is so good that the US has bought a few and will probably wind up buying more. And that’s the low end of their missile defense options.
And then they scrapped them, because Israel would not allow the US access to the source code so they could fully integrate it in the the US battle network:
Your math is off. The actual chance assuming they're each independent is 42.1%. I'm usure how much the assumption they're independent holds up in this case.
Modern nuclear missiles (from the US, Russia, and China at least) are all MIRV[1] designs. Each missile might contain, as an example, 10 independent micro-warheads each capable of mass casualties. That means for every single offensive missile fired, the defender has to be 100% effective at countering 10 separate threats.
ABMs should be much cheaper than ICBMs, so if you get another ICBM, I can just buy more to match. This is because the command and control associated with an ABM is much simpler. I don't need to worry so much about operating after nuclear weapons have already gone off. I don't have to worry about making sure that the fire order comes from the president. See target, be sure it is a target, shoot the target.
This doesn't get into virtual attrition. You may have previously targeted 1-2 nukes at different places. But now you don't know which ones will actually get intercepted. So you have to send enough warheads to make sure one gets through, or give up on the target.
If they have them more to send. At least for a while, North Korea's supply will be heavily constrained. Iran even more so. Another major world power would be a problem though.
Military expenditure doesn't magically evaporate, it's used to pay people, predominantly in the US. It contributes to the economy just as other government spending does.
Same thing with maned space missions. completely pointless waste of money. if we colonize a planet we will need machines to do it for us. if not completely automated then remotely controlled. no point in doing it any other way. I'm not even sure what the point of the ISS even is anymore.
Then you may not be aware of the medical applications of low/zero gravity environments. It's a fascinating topic. It's very early days on this stuff since the costs are so high, but the potential is there: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exomedicine
There's a big emotional difference between sending a robot and a human to explore. The latter is clearly much more relatable and inspiring to people. So whether it's a pointless waste of money depends on what you're trying to achieve. But I'd argue that the inspiration and unifying aspects are two of the biggest payoffs of space exploration, and robots don't quite cut it there.
Also, humans are much more flexible than the robots we can currently create, which is pretty useful.
sure. if we plan to go there someday. but it doesn't need to be humans that does all the manual labor when machines can do it faster and more efficiently.
If they ever actually use it, then YES it will have been worth it, and many times over. Because we'll still have Hawaii. (Hawaii's GDP is just a very ironic choice as one of the major reasons for AEGIS ballistic missile defense is for defending it)
The F35 is just a stealth movable radar and the Navy is just transport for vertical launch cells that are used to shoot offensive missiles like the Tomahawk and defensive missiles like the referenced SM-3.
The future of warfare is crazy. If war ever breaks out in the Pacific you’ll probably have the combatants launch all of their missiles at each other in the initial days of the fight and whoever has ships/planes/missiles remaining at the end “wins”.
So, we're safe against cities attacked by enemies! Unless they use UPS and a biological agent, or something. Or get sick and fly here for legitimate business reasons. Or mail the parts for a missile to a bungalow in Burbank and put it together there.
The purpose of a system is what it does; the purpose of the military industrial complex is to funnel government funds into the hands of large private firms. Actual military/defense outcomes are secondary.
No. The Soviets were pretty much oriented towards "Launch on Warning" in the 80's so the US made sure to notify them for tests. And then only fired from places like Vandenberg on the coast of California. Any launch from a silo out in the middle of Kansas would be a war launch (or a really really unfortunate accident.)
There have also been test firings from missile subs. But again, lots of notification, and done from a latitude/longitude that made it obvious it was a test.
Twice a year an active ICBM is picked at random from the mid-west, the nuclear warhead is removed, and the rocket is taken to VAFB where it is launched at Kwaj. The entire purpose of this very common event is to make sure that ICBM's work as expected. I live in the area and am woken up by these tests. If you live on the West Coast, you can see them. You can also Youtube them (VAFB missle test).
I am not sure that you mean by "actual combat conditions", but Russia quite regularly tests its ICBMs by launching them to the Kura test range [0] in Kamchatka. Tests usually have distance of 5-6 thousand kilometers and often include tests of MIRVs [1] with mass-equivalents of nuclear warheads.
If you take Command and Control[0] to be an authoritative source, then no I don't believe so. We've come close to accidentally launching on both sides but no combat deployment has occurred, if it did it would likely be the end of our current civilization.
They admit it was a the edge of the engagement envelope which I think is correct not to exaggerate the capabilities. I actually find this stuff interesting. There is a proposed ER (extended range) upgrade for landed based THAAD batteries, and I believe I saw a booster upgrade for sm3 too
The article is a little thin on the details of the test. Is anyone aware as to how these tests are performed? Is the tracking station informed that a missile will be inbound from a particular area at a particular time and day or is there some randomness injected into the scenario to mimic real life?
The DEW line has been partially gone for a while.[0] I do recall driving to visit my grandparents in northern Ontario in the 90s and we'd pass one of the old Pinetree Line radar stations. You could see it off on a hill from the highway. I think [1] was it and I think it's finally been cleaned up.
Geopolitical considerations aside, how is tech development on big projects like AEGIS (or, the other counterexample is how the air forces develop things like the JSF systems electronics, airborne command and control systems/AWACS, etc).
It would seem just isolating on the problems needing to be solved that this would be as intriguing as, say, Space X developing autonomously landing first stage rocket boosters and drone ships...but I'd imagine the development process and culture to be dramatically different.
Is it possible to launch two ICBM missiles simultaneously, where both are side by side, so that it looks like only one missile on radar. Or three missiles.
Then, the United States launches one missile defense to knock out one ICBM, but only to discover that there was another hidden missile flying next to it.
Boom. Secondary missile hits its target. Mission Accomplished.
Also, most ICBM are MIRV. So this defense missile must hit the ICBM before it splits up into 10 different warheads.
there is no good chances to stop Russia's, China's or US' missiles - there are just too many of them, so any percentage getting through makes the whole effort meaningless. NK's and Iran's (and others to join the club in the near future) missiles are the ones which one can do something about - until the time of course when those countries get to the numbers where the missile defense would stop making sense again.
Chinese arsenal is only estimated at around 300 (soon to be doubled). 68 DDGs have 90 VLS tubes each, so theoretical limit of 6120 shots, practically much less. But I think this development, if also proven on more realistic conditions (midphase decoys etc) would spurn China to further ramp up nuclearization.
I recall the Soviets threatening to place pre-positioned bombs on US soil if Reagan ever deployed the "Star Wars" missile defense shield which make their response and a first strike option way more viable for an American leader.
Is a launch from the marshall islands to hawaii really representative of a ICBM strike? Seems to be more similar to a IRBM strike, which is going to have a different flight arc and re-entry speed than an ICBM that actually has to build up enough energy to arc from a continent away.
It wasn't from Marshall islands at Hawaii as the target. The simulated target was the west coast, with it flying out roughly near Hawaii. There's a open source intelligence blog that confirmed this by noting where the navigation warning areas were announced during the test: https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2020/11/sm-3-block-iia-miss...
Yes I remember many a canned peashoot demonstration for missile interception defense projects. And really I don't want to waste my time trying to parse if this is yet another bait and switch to keep the funding rolling.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but our surface navy is a bunch of sitting ducks to a semi-modern state military like China. Missile guidance can seemingly be adapted in so many ways to bypass point defenses, from raw speed, pop and drop, decoys, swarms, and other techniques.
Finally, I bet cruise missile tech can be adapted quickly to drop torpedo warheads for the "last mile" if the aerial point defense is that effective and a 40-50mph ship actually is that hard for guidance to target.
RE: swarms, I still remember the... was it the Millenium war exercise where a general used swarms to defeat the "good guys" and they basically stopped the exercise and forced them to restart and not use swarms?
You gotta keep the military industrial complex running, there is a lot of people making a lot of money from it. Not much changed since the end of ww2, the US is constantly on the look for enemies to keep the machine running, it's all a spectacle. They lost Vietnam and Afghanistan fighting literal farmers equipped with soviet era guns, what do you think will happen if they ever go against China and it ends up in an ICBM war, can they stop one ? ten ? fifty ?
Finally! Those intercontinental missile were really killing me!
/sarcasm
World is burning and hundreds of thousands are dying from a pandemic. Pretty sure those ressourses could easily be spent in a much more beneficial way.
Does not make it better. If we had started to allocate more funds to solving real problems instead of develipong more weapons that are hopefully nerver going to be use, the world would be better off.
This is bureaucratic inertia. It starts with Reagan's SDI program, repackaged by each of the Bush's. It's like a booger we just can't flick off. So they keep spending money without any real idea of how it fits into a deterrence policy.
It isn't going to alter the strategy of an all out attack by China. And it won't alter the outcome. It's nonsensical to consider this worth the money without protecting specific targets. It's not good enough to just randomly save a few cities.
If this is about DPRK, it's an announcement in advance that your diplomatic strategy has a decent chance of failing.
If this is about giving a president defensive options, it's not going to do that because they will just say "these are really bad odds" and go for a preventative/preemptive strike instead. They know that too so you've just invited your adversary into a surprise first attack scenario as possibly their best chance.
It's a nonsense program, and even more ridiculous to tweet about it.
You seem to be very confidence in the lack of viability of ballistic missile defense in an age when American forces are threatened by hundreds of Chinese conventional ballistic missiles.
The progress of human civilization may rely on the U.S. nuclear triad being invulnerable to a sneak attack.
The problem is that the triad has been left to rot. The ground-based ICBMs haven't been upgraded in decades and probably don't work well. The subs were supposed to be replaced but were not and there aren't that many of them at sea at any given time. And the bomber fleet is out-of-date as well and way overdue for an upgrade.
It's questionable whether or not it cannot be defeated with some kind of sneaky first strike. Which leaves room for an adversary to find (or think they found) an opening. This could end up being the biggest mistake in history.
A good option seems to be to pay SpaceX to create a fourth prong of floating platform ICBMs in the ocean, or whatever Musk & co can come up with. Of course the U.S. gov should have full command of it.
SpaceX could also work on a redundant anti-North Korea missile defense system. I don't think there's much reason to work on a missile defense system against the major powers, since a solid M.A.D. system makes an attack from them highly unlikely.
SpaceX should put the Assured back in Mutually Assured Destruction. And they can use the profits from these projects to make life multi-planetary, which would provide another level of insurance for humanity.
Thos post if based off some serious misunderstandings, two main flaws:
1 - Subs are the ultimate trump card, the rest of the triad is almost irrelevant.
US subs are modern, numerous, and, like all half-decent subs, are basically untrackable. 24/7/365 dozens of them carry hundreds to thousand of nukes, ready to strike even if continental US dissapears. Its the same for other nuclear powers.
2 - Spacex has absolutely no competency in this area, and this personality cult is unhealthy.
Your post would be better without the snark and cult comment...but:
1. The Ohio class subs are quite old and no one knows with any real certainty that they remain untrackable. It's entirely possible they are being tracked through some unknown mechanism like new classes of drones, sensors, info leaks, spies, etc.
And your response proves my point: everyone is banking on the Ohio class subs as the trump card. But if they're wrong, we're in a very precarious situation. Hence the need to revamp and expand the other legs of the triad.
2. SpaceX had "no competency" in creating rockets and spaceships until they did. And now they're objectively better than most governments at it. Creating a reentry vehicle that launches on one of their existing platforms doesn't seem implausible, at all. This is probably easier than most of their previous work.
Unlike the legacy U.S. defense companies, SpaceX delivers on a budget and time scale that makes choosing them the obvious option. But it probably makes sense to have another company also work on improving the nuclear response.
IIRC there’s only actually 14 SSBNs in the current US fleet. So ~a dozen, although probably only half are on patrol at any one time. That’s still 120 Tridents that could be fired in any response.
It's very plausible that we would place assets in orbit to intercept ICBMs, similar to the Strategic Defense Initiative. If DoD wanted to develop such a system, there's a good chance it's going up on a SpaceX rocket as a classified payload. Claiming they have no competency is silly since a good portion of their business is National Security Space Launch missions.
Having competency launching classified payloads that could possibly be part of a missile defense system requires about as much competency in building missile defense systems as a driver who transports vaccines has in developing vaccines.
How about this, then - the progress of human civilization relies on MAD being solid for all involved. The US is one of the groups involved, and thus human civilization relies on the US nuclear triad being taken seriously.
I don’t see them doing that. All they are saying is progress rests on the US being able to fend off rogue sneak attacks, else everyone else is too unprepared for a foe who is willing to begin MAD. It’s anti nationalistic in fact and looks to assure the world isn’t susceptible to a sneak attacker.
So this demonstration looks likely a response to that, not specifically about WMD threats this time
Probably both these tests were under ideal conditions, as usual, but they're about sending a message as much as anything practical