On a stupid TV show (“7Days”) Cuba launches several nukes towards Miami, the US launches Patriots to take out the nukes. On the show they get all but one and Miami was toast.
Does the US have Patriot Missiles deployed to protect the country against a rouge missile attack?
Does China have missiles that can reach the US mainland?
If Cuba, China or Canada launched a nuke against the US, how likely are we to respond with nukes?
Once launched, can we stop our own missiles? (a self-destruct or a disarm command)
I doubt if they have Patriots deployed anywhere on US soil. That would rouse eco-freaks and other nuisances to protest.
Of course China has missiles that can reach US territory. They stole the plans (or rather were given them…) by a certain adulterous president…
If Cuba used nukes, well it’s hard to say. I doubt if a response in kind would occur because of the proximity to US shores. Rather a huge conventional attack, like Baghdad and Serbia combined and multiplied a hundred times over.
I think sub-launched missiles have a destruct mode, because of the lower reliability of the system. ICBM’s probably do not. They WERE intended to be a sort of Last Response to a Soviet first strike…the idea being that no one would be left to send the destruct codes…
China can strike any target in North America. Remember, their missiles are US-designed!
They wouldn’t hit Canada tho, because we have so very many of their citizens (and agents) here. Especially on the west coast!
San Fran, eh? Hell, even North Korea can toast you whenever they get the urge!!
I’d venture to say that if Patriots were any good at stopping an ICBM, the U.S. wouldn’t be trying to invest money in an “umbrella” shield to stop missile attacks on the U.S. In other words, we’d already have such a defense.
If a nuclear power on leage with China was to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S., I’d say it’s all over. China wouldn’t bother to go at it half-assed (what would be the point?) so we’d both blow our proverbial wads launching all we have to convert the other nation into a massive sheet of molten glass and radioactive rock. Mutually assured destruction and all that.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
It would be a violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to deploy Patriots to defend the U.S. mainland against a rogue missile attack. This is why there are those who consider the ABM treaty a dangerous anachronism which should be unilaterally discarded–the enemy has changed.
It is not a violation to deploy Patriot batteries in a theater of war. If you pay attention you will find that the missile defense systems now under development include the word “theater” in their title somewhere, e.g., JTAMDO: “Joint Theater Air Missile Defense Organization”.
“I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body, until I realized who was telling me that.”
Emo Phillips
Pluto, good point about the ABM Treaty. However, I dare say that if some ex-Soviet Satellite was to launch an ICBM at us and we had the anti-missile missile sitting around, then ABM Treaty be damned. At least, I’d like to hope so.
However, it has proved a major hurtle in getting a full anti-missile defense system off the ground. For obvious reasons, the idea that we could stop another nation’s nuclear launch and they couldn’t stop ours doesn’t sit well with the other nuclear powers of the world. Sure, you can argue it in the sense that we’re supposed to be attempting a global removal of nuclear arms – but the truth is, if both you and your opponent have swords, you don’t want him to get a shield before you do.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
According to a quick websearch, China has something like 24 ICBMs and 20 SLBMs. I’m not saying that this is a threat to be taken lightly - but it’s nowhere near the USSR threat in the Bad Old Days.
There was a documentary on British TV recently that dispelled the “Patriot myth” somewhat. Apparently it’s performance was actually quite poor, stopping very few warheads. Additionally, I believe it has a fairly short range; to ensure an overall defence of the continental US, you’d need multiple batteries in every large city and base. This, I would guess, is behind the drive for an ABM shield system with a longer range.
Incidentally, I agree completely with you, Jophiel; Britain is in a delicate situation in that Blair is supporting the idea (and actually helping move it forwards) but France and Germany are not at all keen; Russia has apparently been offered “free use” of the system to mollify them.
Not sure if they mention anything about self-destruct, but when Pres. Reagan publicly made a statement years ago (duh) about recalling our missiles in mid-flight, the general opinion seemed to be that we had no such ability.
I lead a boring life of relative unimportance. Really.
“I doubt if they have Patriots deployed anywhere on US soil. That would rouse eco-freaks and other nuisances to protest.”
I don’t know about the other nuisances (peaceniks?) but why would the eco-freaks squawk about Patriots on US soil? Patriot missiles aren’t atomic, you know, and the last time I checked, the eco-nuts don’t complain about the MUCH larger rockets NASA uses to launch satellites and the Space Shuttle.
The point of the ABM Treaty was to limit superpower nuclear proliferation. If the enemy has an effective ABM defense, how do we counter it? We build more warheads and missiles so we overload their defenses. Then we add a few dozen dummy warheads along with every missile. Now they beef up their ABM system to counter our counter-threat, and so on.
All ABM’s do in a superpower conflict is escalate the arms race. You are correct in that there should be an effective system in place to counter rogue or accidental launches, however. The Patriot does not fit this bill because, despite the good PR, it’s performance in the Gulf War against missiles was lackluster at best. It was unable to distinguish between the falling warhead and the other pieces of the Scud on similar trajectories.
For what it’s worth, the Patriot was not originally intended to stop missiles, but is a decent anti-aircraft missile. The Army got Raytheon to make some modifications to try to make it effective against missiles, which as everyone now knows was not completely successful.
Missile defense is a very hot topic in the U.S. defense industry. There are three or four active programs developing new anti-missile-missiles, including upgrades to Patriot. Current technology is still short of the goal (one program, Theater High-Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), is notable for its highly publicized failures) but it won’t be long.
Once theater missile defense (TMD) moves from the drawing board to production systems the question of abrogating the ABM treaty will also move from theoretical to practical. As was pointed out above, ABM was intended to put a brake on the arms race and, IMHO, it had its intended effect. In the current absence of two balanced superpowers and the increasing likelihood of a third-world state finding the political will to strike a blow against the United States, some sort of defense now seems likely to increase our nation’s safety.
A missile is not the only way to deliver a nuclear weapon to the U.S. A bomb on board ship in the harbor of any coastal city could do significant damage.
Actually, there are a good number of environmentally concerned groups who are concerned about NASA’s launches. The SRBs used by the shuttle leave a large number of chemicals behind. At low altitudes this may not be a problem but they are burning at a fairly high altitude where the chemicals can remain for a very long time.
There is also concern about chemicals from the SRBs contaminating the areas of the ocean in which they land.
Then, there is the fact that all of these launches are occuring on the Florida coast in an environmentally sensitive wetlands area.
Oh, and I guess you missed the concern about the plutonium reactor on the Casini Saturn probe…
While I am not sure that I personally agree with all (or even most) of the above, there are indeed many groups who have (some possibly valid) concerns about NASA’s launches.
“Sometimes I think the web is just a big plot to keep people like me away from normal society.” — Dilbert
