I started a thread a month ago on death disparity and its effects. As you can see in that thread, I’ve since revised this premise of tactics to metaphorically apply to national policy making. I’ll call it the Invincible Soldier premise in shorthand - the gist is that the harder you are to kill, the more value is attatched to your death, and the harder people will try to kill you. This has obvious tactical effects - driving the enemy into ambushes, hit and run strikes, attacks on supply routes and, of course, civilian targets (in short, terrorism). It also has less obvious effects - with an invincible force, those in power will use it with less discrimination and thought (for example, Kosovo, Iraq). In short, you become careless.
I want to apply the Invincible Soldier premise to the ABM system being deployed by the Bush Administration.
Throughout the Cold War, there was a careful balance between first strike and MAD capabilities. Both sides realized the potential and consequences of war with each other - as a result, most actions were very careful, with a few heated exceptions. For the most part, both sides maintained a lasting equality of force, and agreed not to develop ABM capabilities, which would, as I outlined above, lead to an Invincible Soldier scenario and increased risk of use of nuclear weapons.
With the USSR down and out and other nuclear nations either friendly or still in the process of developing said capabilities and ICBMs, it would seem that now would be an opportune time to create a defense against these threats and cut them off at the pass. I disagree with this logic, for several reasons:
This simply encourages terrorism. With an effective ABM shield, enemy nations will simply find more sinister methods of delivering weapon payloads.
The system may not be effective. Relying on 100% defense may prove to be foolish - even a slight failure of the system could result in horrible tragedy. By all accounts, no one outside idealistic policymakers seems to believe that the missile shield will be effective at all.
Policy making with the assumption of a 100% effective system would lead to wild abandon and bad decision making, as well as alienating the US from much of the world.
Like an idol raised to a higher platform, the Invincible Soldier becomes a more feared and hated target, increasing the likelihood that he will be attacked.
In short, a ABM shield increases the risk of nuclear conflict, decreases the openess of dealing with enemies, and decreases the playing hand of the US in international relations. This is an enourmously expensive system with questionable effectiveness with no justifiable use at the present time that will create political havoc and increase the chances terrorist attacks, especially of nuclear sources.
I agree with most of your analysis except I would quibble with the “questionable effectiveness” part. I think that we know enough about the system that they are currently deploying to say that it is unquestionably ineffective. “Questionable effectiveness” is perhaps a goal for the future, one which they are still rather far away from.
You state that the ABM shield is the Invincible Warrior, but imply that the US (not necessarily the ABM shield) will be attacked because it has an IW. I assume that you don’t mean that the ABM shield itself will be the target of nuclear attacks just 'cause. That may be a semantics issue though and I might not be making the proper logical leap.
My understanding is that those who have/will have nuclear weapons capability aren’t necessarily plotting (by plotting, I don’t necessarily mean actively seeking to use them against) to use them on the US, but rather their local neighbors: Israel vs. the surrounding Muslim states, India & Pakistan, China & Taiwan, N. Korea and S. Korea. Thus, using the the ABM shield specifically to defeat these threats makes no sense as there are no threats. However, given the current global climate and the apparent increasing anti-US thought, it may be a good idea to have one of these should a hostile country decide that since the US has better defenses against “suitcase bombs” but no adequate protection against ICBM-type weapons, that would be the better one to use.
I don’t believe that the addition of an ABM shield in and of itself will dare others to find a way around it.
This may be good time to bring up your thread about natural “weapon systems” and the restraint it brings - if we apply that to a national level, it would seem that the more powerful weaponry one has, the less likely it is to be used. The Cold War and numerous threats, but no actual use of nuclear weapons would follow that thinking. If we drew that logic out, the ABM system would appear to be pointless.
Which means a more limited number of targets does it not? If you can only smuggle in a cargo container bomb then Chicago, for example, would be safe. No such limitations exist for an ICBM.
But the harm would exist even if the shield did not.
As an aside, I thought the initial plans for this missile shield were basically for ship based theater defence. Did I miss a change in policy? Yeah I know that sounds stupid.
But currently there is no way for an opponent to attack the US due to their own limitations. Your Invincible Soldier exists by default. By maintaining the inability of others to attack the US the US is maintaining the status quo. This, I suppose, means that you’re as hated as you’re going to get. See? There is a silver lining.
An ABM shield removes the temptation for small states to acquire nuclear ICBM technology in an effort to apply threats of force to the US. I’m unsure how that has anything to do with openness when dealing with enemies as their abilities and yours would be obvious. The ability of the US to project force and apply theater defence to allies (i.e. Japan, S. Korea) allows them to extend the current degree of diplomatic freedom they enjoy.
In the current world any state that allowed terrorists the ability to attack with nuclear weapons would be removed from the planet. The precedent would be too enormous for other states to ignore. Terrorists seem to exist as proxy fighters or ideological warriors. They lack the resources a state can provide which limit their ability to inflict massive damage to any country. The fact that they may use methods not covered by an ABM shield shouldn’t preclude the elimination of the threat that can be.
Well, perhaps this would be true in a world of infinite resources. However, in a world of finite resources, it makes sense to deal with the most likely threats. Inspecting container ships may seem pretty boring by comparison to spending a tens of bijillions of dollars on cool technology but it may be a much more effective use of resources.
No, the initial plans are for deployment in Alaska of interceptors to serve as a defense against ICBMs directed against the U.S. mainland. (The use of theater missile defense is a different issue…and one for which there is much more justification.)
Ah. I remember reading about the the test firing off of an Aegis Cruiser. Seemed obvious that they’d develop that first and then expand from there. I need to catch up.
Which ties back to the point you first addressed about limited resources. A ship -> region -> national program would seem cost effective even in addition to cargo container inspection.
The anti-missile shield Bush is putting up has exactly one use:
To prevent other countries from blackmailing the U.S. by threatening a missile launch. Today, that threat comes primarily from North Korea.
To counter that threat, the administration doesn’t have to have a shield that works 100%. It just has to be a credible deterrent. When Kim Jong Il says, “Remove the sanctions or we will destroy Los Angeles”, Bush wants to be able to say, “We have Los Angeles protected, and if you try, we will wipe you off the planet.”
Of course, he could simply say, “Do it and we’ll destroy you”, but the knowledge that the U.S. can’t tolerate the destruction of LA turns it into a global game of chicken. And in this case, the North Korean driver is nuts. You don’t want to play nuclear brinksmanship with a nutjob. Putting a shield up helps reduce the possibility that the attempt at blackmail will even be made, and if it is, it gives Bush a credible reason to say ‘no’.
I thought that our freedom encouraged terrorism. Regardless, NMD has nothing to do with terrorism. You cannot not institute a defensive measure on so weak a theory. Maybe circling aliens will feel threatened by NMD, and launch their Total Doom War when the first NMD units are deployed?
Possibly. Then again, nuclear missiles have never successfully been used, but look at how many are out there. NMD will act as a deterrent, and if we are lucky, may even shoot down a missle or two.
Dunno about all that. If policy makers are not bright enough to understand our actual capabilities, then having or not having NMD seems to be the least of our concerns.
As long as we are at the top of the pack, there will be little (and stupid) dogs that will want to take a nip at our heels. Not much we can do about that. It strikes me as silly to abandon an entire class of weapons because it may piss off someone; We didn’t have NMD, and 9/11 happened. I am pretty sure that we had no NMD at the time, yet Pearl Harbor was attacked. Enemies will always find an excuse; Our job is to have as much military capability as is economically feasible. Bugger the PR.
Do you realize that the Russians have a deployed ABM system? Shitty ABM, sure, but ABM nonetheless. Somehow, people don’t go into bouts of handwringing and doomsaying about it. Funny that, no?
Great! So, now we brinkmanship with two nutjobs involved…one who is in North Korea and one who is in the White House and is possibly being told by yes-men that the NMD system has a reasonable chance of working when it fact it doesn’t and is essentially untested in operational situations.
Yeah, I really want to have Bush playing nuclear brinkmanship on the basis of a supposed defense system that he does not know if it will work…Or worse, thinks it will work when it won’t. Especially when the guy has already shown he is, at best, incapable of distinguishing what he knows from what he thinks he knows. (After all, that is the one alternative to the idea that he just outright lied about Saddam’s WMD.)
The ABM treaty allowed each country to deploy one system but covering only a single location, not the whole country. Russia chose this system near Moscow. (Is it still operational? Was it ever likely to work? I doubt it. Here is a history of it in fact.) The U.S. also built one, called Safeguard, defending some of its missile launch sites. Here is a history of it. It was a boondoogle that was abandoned only 5 months after it was made operational in 1975. History tends to repeat itself, no?
Here is more about the radar, which the Soviet Union admitted in 1989 was in fact in violation of the ABM treaty and then subsequently dismantled over the next few years:
Blackmailed? Ha. If the US is going to avoid being blackmailed, it will come through decent leadership, not any kind of new technology.
Were we blackmailed throughout the Cold War? Are we being blackmailed by China? Is Russia having their way with us and we just don’t read about it in the papers?
The idea that teensy ol’ North Korea with its handful of missiles and a few nuclear weapons could blackmail a country with something like 4000 nuclear warheads and the world’s strongest military is just silly. You can give the Dear Leader all the money he could possibly want and his arsenal still won’t come near that of the Soviets during the '80s, when the US was most certainly NOT blackmailed into capitulation.
And don’t bring that “but Kim Jong Il is a whacko” argument. Mao in the 1970s was as crazy as anyone ever has been, he had nuclear weapons, and we most certainly were not being blackmailed by a looney with nuclear weapons. There’s no reason that we should allow that to happen with the DPRK in the 21st century, with or without a questionable missile shield.
North Korea is a threat, but let us not lose our heads. Throwing scores of billions on an ineffective missile defense is making a molehill of a threat into a mountain of hysteria.
On second thought, maybe Kim Jong Il is being successful in blackmailing us. He’s convinced the White House that it’s a good idea to throw $10 billion of our national wealth down the drain in the next year to deploy something that everyone acknowledges is not operationally effective. Yup, we’re getting screwed.
If North Korea wanted to nuke us, why would they invest all their money in ICBMs? ICBMs were outdated in the '70s. WHat, we’re afraid NK is going to field a whole half dozen ICBMs? Why do you think both sides in the CW agreed to the no-ABM treaty? Hint: It wasn’t out of kindness for mankind.
They had other weapons systems online. SLBMs, mainly. America had MRBMs in Turkey. ABM systems can do fuck all against this - they were already outdated.
The missiles NK is developing aren’t to nuke DC - they are to nuke Japan, to nuke SK.
NK doesn’t and will never have the capacity to be a deterrent to the US. They aren’t stupid. They play a lot of Starcraft. They know this. They don’t have to nuke us. They can nuke our friends.
If they DID, for some bizarre reason, want to nuke us, they wouldn’t use ICBMs. It would be far easier to do a version of a SLBM, or a MRCruiseM), or just a bomb on a boat in SF Bay or NY or, if they wanted to be real clever, Panama.
In a way, we are forcing them to go that way.
ICBMs are nice and all, but they are way outdated already. This would have been a great idea… in 1962. What do you think the Russians were developing for the past 30 years? Ultra-fast interceptors that can shoot down cruise and MRBM/SLBMs. Guess they figured that it was their best defense if they started the whoel shebang, because no force in heaven or hell could have stopped a sudden attack, even with a flawless ABM system. The major coastal cities would be thrashed before it even fired up.
I don’t get your point. An ABM system is potentially capable of shooting down ICBMs, MRBMs, SLBMs, or any other long-range ballistic missile (ie, not cruise missiles).
The ABM Treaty was concluded in order to maintain the deterrent effect of all long-range ballistic missiles so that there would be more or less an even strategic playing field on which arms control agreements could be reached. It most certainly did not have anything to do with cruise missiles or SLBMs.
“The ABM Treaty stopped what inevitably would have become a defensive arms race,” Nixon wrote in his memoirs. "The other major effect … was to make permanent the concept of deterrence through mutual terror." Link.
At least some of these methods are also potentially less suicidal since they won’t necessarily leave a message saying, “Hey, U.S. with your thousands of nuclear warheads, our return address is…”
Precisely my (unspoken, thanks point. Initial blame (and return fire) would probably be at a Muslim nation. I’m not saying that we wouldn’t suspect NK, but they certainly wouldn’t be the first word out of our mouths, and they may just get away with it. Or, we would trace the radiation or something and wipe them off the map. Either way.
Hm, I’ve always read differently - that the SLBMs were too close and too numerous to count on intercepting. Basically, within minutes, they would surface and fire, then split into MIRVs minutes later, with basically no chance for any ABM system to respond (as compared to the 10-30 minutes for MRBM/ICBMs)
NK doesn’t have any ballistic missle subs, and if they did get one, it would probably be a shitty one like an old Zulu or Golf. To keep it fair, we should recommision an old Gato to go after it, when and if they get one.
Still, I don’t follow the logic. Because an enemy may use a different means of attack (that they don’t currently have the capability of performing), we shouldn’t try to defend against means of attack that we do know they have?
Also, I wouldn’t agree that ICBMs are ‘outdated’. They are certainly limited, but when you positively, asbolutely must destroy it in about 30 minutes or less, the ICBM is your friend. If it works.
NK doesn’t have ICBMs, either Hence my talk about them hitting SK and Japan instead of the US.
Meh. I think they are outdated technologically, militarily, and politically. No way, no how, are we going to use 'em. If we HAD to deliver a nuclear warhead, it wouldn’t be ICBM-delivered. At best, we’re talking tactical, small yield cruise missile, I think.
point. Initial blame (and return fire) would probably be at a Muslim nation. I’m not saying that we wouldn’t suspect NK, but they certainly wouldn’t be the first word out of our mouths, and they may just get away with it. Or, we would trace the radiation or something and wipe them off the map. Either way.