Ted Kennedy and the ABM system

[Guardsman Bass]

If anything, now is the best time to build ABM.

Financial chaos notwithstanding?

No, of course not - spending tremendous amouns of money on ABM would be a very bad idea.

However, my points are still valid - there hardly would be a political crisis for buidling ABMs now, or at least they would be way smaller than during the cold war.

For that matter, where is the "tremendous amounts of money" coming from? The budget (or at least the one on the books) at the Missile Defense Agency website has never exceeded $10 billion in the past 20 years. That's peanuts - we could easily afford to spend double the money on that, particularly if we're throwing around sums in the hundreds of billions anyways.

[FedRebel]

However, my points are still valid - there hardly would be a political crisis for buidling ABMs now, or at least they would be way smaller than during the cold war.

Do you see anything else in that crystal ball of yours?

You can't predict the future, people have tried and the future keeps biting them in the ass

Overall it is far better to have an ABM system and not have to employ it, than to not have ABM and watch helplessly as your cities vanish under mushroom clouds

ABM has a 'special' incentive for the anti-nuke crowd, with missiles obsolete nuclear deterrence is hopelessly out of reach for many nations which lack the infrastructure to build bombers. Those aspiring nuclear powers would be forced to abandon their quest, those present nuclear powers would be forced to scrap their missiles and missile subs (and a couple of these guys lack the infrastructure to produce bombers, effectively reducing the number of nuclear powers.)

[Surlethe]

How much would fully implementing ABM infrastructure cost? If it only takes a few tens of billions of dollars, that's hardly a drop in the budg- err, bucket compared to the rest of the budget, and its marginal benefit would probably be much greater than most other budget items (e.g., another Arleigh Burke).

[Stuart]

There are many expensive things that I prize more than ABM, such as UHC, fixing the broken economy, improving our infrastructure, fighting our massive deficit, foreign relief efforts, improving American education, going to the Moon and Mars, building nuclear/alternative energy plants, or even a few more F-22s if there's still somehow money around.

Why?

[Anguirus]

There are many expensive things that I prize more than ABM, such as UHC, fixing the broken economy, improving our infrastructure, fighting our massive deficit, foreign relief efforts, improving American education, going to the Moon and Mars, building nuclear/alternative energy plants, or even a few more F-22s if there's still somehow money around.

Why?

UHC: obvious IMO. Brings our standard of health care to First World levels, makes me feel a hell of a lot more secure personally as I'm never likely to be rich working in my chosen field.

Fixing the broken economy: has a much greater impact on whether I personally live in comfort, live in poverty, or die prematurely, as well as that of my potential children. Moreover, as we have gone this long without spending large sums on ABM, I feel like it's an item to invest in when we have the money to do it, not when we are spiraling down the rabbit hole of depression.

Infrastructure: Long-term investment in our future will employ people and make things better for their children. Go ahead and roll in the energy investment I mentioned later with this category. ABM won't do us much good when the oil and coal start running down. The political battle that must be fought right now is regarding nuclear energy. The President should (and isn't really, but he's got a lot on his plate right now) be using political capital to sell liberals on new nuke plants and not a technology that is (however wrongly) seen as provocative and wasteful. Also in this category is public transit: we are a car culture that is probably not sustainable. The sooner the country invests in fixing that, the less of a shithole we'll be when we get the change to protect it with ABM.

Fighting our massive deficit: See above. We are already spending money that we don't have. We should be spending it on improving day-to-day life for all American citizens if we must spend it at all. We are already the military gods of the planet.

Improving American education: If we have ABM but lack the knowledge to maintain it, we've just become the Skull Islanders from King Kong. Large swathes of the American public are terribly educated, and as I understand it we are losing ground in academic circles to many other nations. As a country that consumes vastly more than it produces, the USA must provide a service to justify the rest of the world's investment in us. During the Cold War those services were protection for our allies, and an amazing educational system for students from almost any nation. These seem to me to be worthwhile things to stay good at. We retain military supremacy. But let's not lose the post-Cold War peace.

Going to the Moon and Mars: AFAIK we have the biggest and best space program or any other nation, and a powerful emotional investment in it thanks to those heady Apollo days. Investment is perhaps the best thing Bush ever did (EDIT: Except for fighting AIDS). It is my firm belief that space development is critical for economic reasons and, in the super-duper long term, probably the survival of the species beyond the next few hundred thousand years. Due to the current economic turmoil, a huge Moon/Mars project is not the highest spending priority, but NASA needs to keep its hand in as one of the largest space agencies or space development in general will be profoundly depressed. I suppose military space investment could prove productive as well, but that has moral and political limitations (and practical...I'm not sure I trust the Pentagon's competence much farther than I can throw them after the Iraq debacle.)

F-22s: Bitchin' awesome plane. More seriously, I do understand the argument for a force that can, say, wtfpwn the Chinese air force more than I do the argument for one that stands in the way of some nation will committing suicide just to glass New York or something. I'm simply not afraid of Iran, NK, China, or Russia throwing an ICBM our way. I don't see it as a realistic threat in a reasonable timeframe. It has, however, served our national interest many times over the last few years to have an air force that no one even wants to think about tangling with. So IF we manage to fix all that other shit that's wrong with our country, I would still consider a conventional war more likely than a nuclear one, or even a sovereign nation's use of a single ballistic missile for nuclear terrorism.

[Starglider]

All those things are worth doing, but you forget that a comprehensive ABM system would allow a reduction in spending on ICBMs. Maintaining the highly expensive SLBM force in particular becomes less necessary when land based weapons enjoy solid ABM protection. When the technology profilerates, which it is doing so already and will even faster if the US pushes forward, ICBMs will be obsoleted within the span of a few decades. That saves the US the (considerable) expense of replacing/modernising/maintaining its ICBMs, SSBNs, silos and their associated command/control networks entirely. Some of the money saved will probably go to alternative strategic strike options (e.g. cruise missiles and bombers), but even still eliminating ICBMs will save more money than installing a comprehensive ABM network will cost, while providing a much more positive capability for the defence of the nation.

[Surlethe]

Wait, AGI won't make ABM obsolete?

[Starglider]

Wait, AGI won't make ABM obsolete?

I'd answer that, but Stark would flip out and kill me. Though he'd have to get in line behind Darth Hoth.

[Stuart]

UHC: obvious IMO. Brings our standard of health care to First World levels, makes me feel a hell of a lot more secure personally as I'm never likely to be rich working in my chosen field.

Fixing the broken economy: has a much greater impact on whether I personally live in comfort, live in poverty, or die prematurely, as well as that of my potential children. Moreover, as we have gone this long without spending large sums on ABM, I feel like it's an item to invest in when we have the money to do it, not when we are spiraling down the rabbit hole of depression.

Infrastructure: Long-term investment in our future will employ people and make things better for their children. Go ahead and roll in the energy investment I mentioned later with this category. ABM won't do us much good when the oil and coal start running down. The political battle that must be fought right now is regarding nuclear energy. The President should (and isn't really, but he's got a lot on his plate right now) be using political capital to sell liberals on new nuke plants and not a technology that is (however wrongly) seen as provocative and wasteful. Also in this category is public transit: we are a car culture that is probably not sustainable. The sooner the country invests in fixing that, the less of a shithole we'll be when we get the change to protect it with ABM.

Fighting our massive deficit: See above. We are already spending money that we don't have. We should be spending it on improving day-to-day life for all American citizens if we must spend it at all. We are already the military gods of the planet.

Improving American education: If we have ABM but lack the knowledge to maintain it, we've just become the Skull Islanders from King Kong. Large swathes of the American public are terribly educated, and as I understand it we are losing ground in academic circles to many other nations. As a country that consumes vastly more than it produces, the USA must provide a service to justify the rest of the world's investment in us. During the Cold War those services were protection for our allies, and an amazing educational system for students from almost any nation. These seem to me to be worthwhile things to stay good at. We retain military supremacy. But let's not lose the post-Cold War peace.

Going to the Moon and Mars: AFAIK we have the biggest and best space program or any other nation, and a powerful emotional investment in it thanks to those heady Apollo days. Investment is perhaps the best thing Bush ever did (EDIT: Except for fighting AIDS). It is my firm belief that space development is critical for economic reasons and, in the super-duper long term, probably the survival of the species beyond the next few hundred thousand years. Due to the current economic turmoil, a huge Moon/Mars project is not the highest spending priority, but NASA needs to keep its hand in as one of the largest space agencies or space development in general will be profoundly depressed. I suppose military space investment could prove productive as well, but that has moral and political limitations (and practical...I'm not sure I trust the Pentagon's competence much farther than I can throw them after the Iraq debacle.)

F-22s: Bitchin' awesome plane. More seriously, I do understand the argument for a force that can, say, wtfpwn the Chinese air force more than I do the argument for one that stands in the way of some nation will committing suicide just to glass New York or something. I'm simply not afraid of Iran, NK, China, or Russia throwing an ICBM our way. I don't see it as a realistic threat in a reasonable timeframe. It has, however, served our national interest many times over the last few years to have an air force that no one even wants to think about tangling with. So IF we manage to fix all that other shit that's wrong with our country, I would still consider a conventional war more likely than a nuclear one, or even a sovereign nation's use of a single ballistic missile for nuclear terrorism.

All of which is meaningless when several cities go skywards on the back of fireballs. You personally might not be concerned about the threat of Iranian, North Korean, Chinese, Russian or whatever missiles come our way but that's because you have no responsibility to defend against such threats and (obviously) no knowledge of the severity of such threats. YOu don't carry the weight of making informed decisions. You don't have the responsibility of having to live with the knowledge that you were wrong.

For your information, it's a standing rule. One never, ever plans on enemy intentions, one always plans on the basis of their capabilities. The capability of Iran and North Korea in particular to launch a ballistic missile attack on us is close and its growing closer withe very month that passes. Withoput ABM, if anybody fires a ballistic missile at a US city, that city is gone. Destroyed with everybody in it. That means the threat is that if a missile is launched millions of people will die and quadrillions of dollars worth of damage will be done. The economic damage will be such that any item on your list will be impossible for decades in not a century or two. All we can do about it is to reduce teh launching country to radioactive glass.

So, in the absence of ABM, one of the countries listed can simply make the threat. Pay up (whether the ransom be a political action or lack of action, cash or its equivalent) or we'll launch and your citizens will die. It won't matter if you glass us because that won't bring your citizens back or undo the economic damage. If we knuckle under, we've lost, if we don't and they launch, millions of dead and quadrillions of damage.

With ABM, they make the threat, they shoot, we shoot it down. No harm done and all our options are still open.

Whether you think a threat of the type mentioned is likely or not is utterly irrelevent. All that matters is whether the capability exists.

Something to think about. More than a dozen nations are developing ABM systems and more than a dozen more want to buy systems other people are developing. What you're proposing won't leave the worl without ABM, it'll leave the United States undefended in a world where ABM is commonplace

[Stuart]

How much would fully implementing ABM infrastructure cost? If it only takes a few tens of billions of dollars, that's hardly a drop in the budg- err, bucket compared to the rest of the budget, and its marginal benefit would probably be much greater than most other budget items (e.g., another Arleigh Burke).

BMD costs around USD9 to 10 billion per year. That's out of a USD532 billion defense budget. So, BMD costs us less than 2 percent of all defense expenditures. Also, we're over the peak now, the RDTE is pretty much completed on the near-generation systems and most of the real money is in production. So, we can add a lot of extra missiles for relatively little cost. We laos have a line of coutries ready to pay money for BMD systems and its quite likely we'll actually end up making money on the production side of the program.

[Anguirus]

For your information, it's a standing rule. One never, ever plans on enemy intentions, one always plans on the basis of their capabilities.

Ok, but whose rule is this?

Isn't the very definition of "enemy" based on intentions? It's not like we are prepping contingency plans against the rest of NATO.

What would the effects on the Chinese economy be if they decided to glass New York?

Pay up (whether the ransom be a political action or lack of action, cash or its equivalent) or we'll launch and your citizens will die.

Again, I have to question how a nation would get to the point at which it can launch an ICBM reliably and accurately, and then decide to bet its existence against making the most prideful and militarist nation on earth "knuckle under."

Yes I think your scenario is possible, but I don't consider it likely. Still more worried about getting fucked in the ass by American health care.

Something to think about. More than a dozen nations are developing ABM systems and more than a dozen more want to buy systems other people are developing. What you're proposing won't leave the worl without ABM, it'll leave the United States undefended in a world where ABM is commonplace

Ok, I'm thinking about it.

1) How far along are these efforts?
2) Do you really think that American Democrats (most of whom could scarcely be called liberals) would not invest if there was a legitimate concern that America would be "undefended"?

I understand the virtue of planning for future security threats that may not be readily apparent, but I also find this specter of nuclear devastation that you are calling up to be rather remote. There are sovereign nations out there run by crackpots, but those crackpots don't get to be in charge without thinking thoughts that aren't "Death to America." And holding any nation to ransom with nukes, let alone the USA, is such a disruption of the international status quo that national leaders prize that it's hard to imagine anyone with real power trying it. And it's hard to imagine anybody without real power having an ICBM.

[Count Chocula]

Isn't the very definition of "enemy" based on intentions? It's not like we are prepping contingency plans against the rest of NATO.

Your line of thought here is in error. Both capabilities and intentions must be accounted for in defense planning. For all their new-found "capitalist" productivity, China remains communist. The leadership in China remains Communist and is using quote-unquote free market economics to reinforce the Communist Party's hold on China's military and economic power. China's not stupid enough to actually launch nukes at America, but they have nukes, their system of government is antithetical to America's system of government, and their industrial espionage is top rank. They took over Hong Kong from the Brits. Taiwan remains a bone of contention (a state with which we have a mutual defense pact), and the Spratly Islands are still objects of dispute. Prudent planning dictates that the US have defense against a foreign state that has nuclear weapons and policies in opposition to our own. NATO does not fall into that category.

Russia is, if anything, less stable now than when it was the core of the USSR. Many of the breakaway republics, like Ukraine, had Russian nukes in their possession when the USSR dissolved. IIRC, not all of the breakaway republics' nuclear arsenals have been fully accounted. I'm projecting, but if I were a US defense planner, I'd look at Russia as a former multi-generational enemy that has lost control over its nukes, and plan accordingly...based on our estimates of their capabilities, their decades'-long existence as an existential threat to the United States, and the shambles of a superpower they now are, with less control over their nuclear arsenal than at any time in the Cold War. Putin is former KGB...no, that's not reassuring to an American defense planner.

Then you have nuclear Pakistan, which is at military loggerheads with US ally India, batshit insane North Korea and their missile program, and Iran with their nuclear program. Simply based on the present and predicted nuclear capability of non-allied foreign states, it's only prudent to defend against their possible threat. Most arms, from pistols on a cop's hip to nukes in an SSBN, serve as deterrents. An operational ABM system is, likewise, a deterrent to foes who may consider launching on the US. Since we're not mind-readers, planning for the worst-case scenario is the rational approach to defense.

Kennedy helped kill the ABM program repeatedly, when the USSR was a tangible threat and whom we were fighting through proxy on a daily basis. Meanwhile, while we abandoned our cities' ABM defenses, Russia was ringing their capital with ABM missiles and building mass nuclear bomb shelters. HIS VOTES AND CAMPAIGNING LEFT US WITH NO CONTINENTAL DEFENSE, ONLY LAUNCH UPON ATTACK CAPABILITY, which would have done nothing to lessen the impact of a Russian missile strike.

In my opinion, his actions on missile defense were equivalent to him driving off a bridge into a river, bailing out of an upside down car, leaving his passenger to suffocate to death, then waiting over 8 hours to report the crash. Oh wait....

[Rye]

There are many expensive things that I prize more than ABM, such as UHC, fixing the broken economy, improving our infrastructure, fighting our massive deficit, foreign relief efforts, improving American education, going to the Moon and Mars, building nuclear/alternative energy plants, or even a few more F-22s if there's still somehow money around.

Why?

Only one country has been nuked in war, and that was by the USA. Nobody's going to start a nuke fight with the US any time soon, which means the real people dying from all those things that aren't nuclear weapons matter more. Fighters and going to the moon I'm not convinced about, but seriously, on what basis can you claim nuclear threat to the people of the united states is more dangerous than the healthcare situation? Which is more likely, the thousands dying from a lack of healthcare, or the thousands dying from a lack of ABM? Why don't you treat the absence of healthcare or the prevalence of poverty as an enemy? That might fix your ideological blinkers.

[TimothyC]

It's not like we are prepping contingency plans against the rest of NATO.

What makes you think that there isn't a room in the Pentagon with those plans in it?

[TimothyC]

Nobody's going to start a nuke fight with the US any time soon, which means the real people dying from all those things that aren't nuclear weapons matter more.

Are you willing to bet not just your life, but the lives off all of your fellow Brits on the line to prove that assumption right? Because I for one am not willing to risk American lives on the assumption that on there is no one out there that wouldn't lob an ICBM at the US, not when the relative cost of missile defense is so low.

[Surlethe]

Guys, it's not like this is a "have your cake xor eat it" situation. As Stuart noted above, missile defense is so cheap that it doesn't even compare to the whole defense budget, let alone the cost of health care. We're not talking like 30% GDP spent on this, we're talking like 0.07% GDP spent on it. Additional spending on BMD will not seriously hamper any of the entitlement programs we're talking about; if worse comes to worst, Congress can just tell the Pentagon to reallocate funds from elsewhere in the military-industrial complex, since it's just 2% or so of the military budget.

[Stuart]

Ok, but whose rule is this?

People who actually do strategy for a living.

Isn't the very definition of "enemy" based on intentions?

No, its based on geo-physical realities.

It's not like we are prepping contingency plans against the rest of NATO.

Do you want to bet on that?

What would the effects on the Chinese economy be if they decided to glass New York?

More likely to be Los Angeles. The point is, the Chinese may well decide that's a price worth paying.

Again, I have to question how a nation would get to the point at which it can launch an ICBM reliably and accurately,

Not a problem. That's a level of tehnology easily within reach of even lower-middle class countries

and then decide to bet its existence against making the most prideful and militarist nation on earth "knuckle under."

Why not? I can think of several countries that made that bet.

How far along are these efforts?

In some cases, entering service now. In at least one case, already in service.

Do you really think that American Democrats (most of whom could scarcely be called liberals) would not invest if there was a legitimate concern that America would be "undefended"?

Yes,

I understand the virtue of planning for future security threats that may not be readily apparent, but I also find this specter of nuclear devastation that you are calling up to be rather remote.

Once again, what you think doesn't matter. You've admitted that you don;t know enough about this area to understand what is going on. The professionals in almost 30 countries disagree with you. Obviously, you're not thinking enough.,

And holding any nation to ransom with nukes, let alone the USA, is such a disruption of the international status quo that national leaders prize that it's hard to imagine anyone with real power trying it.

It's hard for you to imagine it. I don't have to imagine it, I happen to know that it's already been done by both China and North Korea.

And it's hard to imagine anybody without real power having an ICBM.

It's hard for you to imagine it. It's not hard at all for anybody who actually understands this area.

[RedImperator]

Guys, it's not like this is a "have your cake xor eat it" situation. As Stuart noted above, missile defense is so cheap that it doesn't even compare to the whole defense budget, let alone the cost of health care. We're not talking like 30% GDP spent on this, we're talking like 0.07% GDP spent on it. Additional spending on BMD will not seriously hamper any of the entitlement programs we're talking about; if worse comes to worst, Congress can just tell the Pentagon to reallocate funds from elsewhere in the military-industrial complex, since it's just 2% or so of the military budget.

I'm pretty sure we could find ten billion dollars' worth of stupid bullshit to cut out of the defense budget. I don't buy any of the arguments against ABM, but the cost argument is particularly weak.

[Stuart]

Nobody's going to start a nuke fight with the US any time soon,

In your opinion. That opinion is in defiance of reality. I suggest you investigate things a little more closely. There was a North Korean cargo ship on its way to Myanmar quite recently that was believed to be carrying long-range missiles and components for a fissile seperation plants (that's right people, Myanmar has a nuclear program, hysterically funny though that may seem). There was a strong move to have the ship boarded and inspected. The North Korean government officially threatened that if it was stopped and boarded, that would be considered an act of war and North Korea would respond by hitting South Korea, U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons. So what you don't believe has already happened.

which means the real people dying from all those things that aren't nuclear weapons matter more. Fighters and going to the moon I'm not convinced about, but seriously, on what basis can you claim nuclear threat to the people of the united states is more dangerous than the healthcare situation? Which is more likely, the thousands dying from a lack of healthcare, or the thousands dying from a lack of ABM?

You're missing the point. The casualties in a nuclear strike, even a limited one, won't be measured in thousands, they'll be measured in tens of millions. The economic and society damage will be such that nobody will get any health care for a very long time to come. This is the real problem, its been so long since a city got nuked, nobody really understands what nuclear weapons do any more. Let's use your figures, thousands die form lack of health care and a realistic estimate of the deaths caused by a nuclear strike. In other words '000s as opposed to '0,000,000s. That's four orders of magnitude. Is the threat of a nuclear strike four orders of magnitude less? Not if you are keeping up to date with world news it's not. Yes, a nuclear strike is unlikely at this time. But it's not so unlikely that a proper threat evaluation doesn't place it very high on the priorities list

Why don't you treat the absence of healthcare or the prevalence of poverty as an enemy? That might fix your ideological blinkers.

Because its not my job. And I'm not the one wearing ideological blinkers, you are. Take a long, hard look at the state of the world the way it really is. It's not a nice place at all, it's a very dangerous place and the risks in it are very real. What you're doing is that you're shutting out all those risks and dangers, not least because you find them too horrifying to contemplate. So you wish thema way and concentrate on something that makes you feel good. So, take off your ideological blinkers and try to imagine coping with 30 million people suffering massive third degree burns and only a couple of hundred hospital beds to treat them in.

This is how you do threat evaluation. There are two factors, the prevalence of the threat and the severity of the threat. The prevalance of the threat is how likely is it to occur, the severity of the threat is how destructive to the country as a whole will that threat be? These two are multiplied together and the resulting ranking gives us our priorities. That sounds simple but doing estimates of the prevalence and the severity end up producing reports that give one a hernia if one tries to lift them. What this means is that a very common threat that has relatively trivial results (from a national viewpoint) may be - and usually is - much less significant than a less probable threat that has much more devastating consequences. A nuclear strike, even a fairly limited one, has consequences that are so devastating that even a relatively low prevalence pushes it right to the top of the priority list.

I'm pretty sure we could find ten billion dollars' worth of stupid bullshit to cut out of the defense budget. I don't buy any of the arguments against ABM, but the cost argument is particularly weak.

You're absolutely and unequivocably right there. We could hack a lot more than USD10 billion out of the defense budget right now without noticing the difference. Only, Congress would never allow us to do it because it would take away the pork they send to their constituencies and diminish their personal ego trips. No party comment there, Republicans and Democrats are both equally guilty. The cost argument or the "other things are more important" argument is, as you say, extremely weak. Mostly, its just cowardice, people have lost the technical argument against ABM so they fall back on teh "we should do other things first" knowing that the list of "other things" is endless. It's just a way of stopping the system without having to justify doing so.

[D.Turtle]

That's, IMO, pretty close minded and, well stupid, almost as dumb as "disproportionate" force. Who does this opposition come from? And are they unaware that ABM is already employed, and was the subject of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which was signed in 1972? Besides, Patriot, SM-3, S-300/400, Arrow and in the near future THAAD and MEADS all have ABM capability.

Opposition to ABM runs through all parties - some more some less. The only ABM system that could get enough support would be a combined system with the Russians -to make it absolutely clear that it is not aimed at them.

Do the people involved realize how narrow the margin between us and a nuclear war was? On occasion it boiled down to one person making the right decision (or the right person being drunk and incapable so he couldn't make the wrong decision). On at least one occasion the presence of an ABM system around Moscow provided the necessary rational to prevent a nuclear exchange (it's one missile, ABM Moscow can handle it, we can afford to wait).

No, most people do not realize how close some close calls were.

Frankly, most people aren't that interested in the technical details of such a system - a (debunked) argument along the lines of "you can't shoot all of em down, so don't bother", "suitcase nukes", etc. is enough for most people. Though most opposition comes not from the technical side, but from the political/strategic side: Implementing ABM could restart an arms race between east and west.

Do these people also realize that the game has changed? In the Cold War, the people on both sides were cold-hearted, rational professionals who didn't want to start a war and went to great lengths not to. Despite that we came close on more occasions than you'll ever know about (and if you think being nuked is bad, try being nuked because of a misunderstanding over a Canada Goose). Now, the people on teh other side are irrational and a goodly proportion of them are part of a death-cult. They don't mind dying as long as they take us with them. The game has changed, ABM is a reaction to that change.

So, ABM would have made the world a lot safer in the Cold War and it would make it much safer again in the years to come.

Actually, opposition to ABM is mostly BECAUSE the game has changed - there no longer is an enemy as dangerous as the Soviet Union to defend against. The thinking is that people supporting ABM are the ones who haven't realized that the Cold War is over.

German defense policy always had two legs: deterrence and disarmament. So you need a deterrent in order to make an attack too expensive, and then you negotiate disarmament agreements in order to lower the threat of war. The common view is that a strong deterrent is no longer needed (hence the massive downsizing of the Bundeswehr), and that further disarmament could be endangered by ABM.

In short, the entire view of defense policy in Germany is completely different from the American one.

Personally, I think a limited ABM system is a good idea, but the vast majority of Germans is of other opinion.

[Anguirus]

Ok, but whose rule is this?

People who actually do strategy for a living.

Isn't the very definition of "enemy" based on intentions?

No, its based on geo-physical realities.

It's not like we are prepping contingency plans against the rest of NATO.

Do you want to bet on that?

I will concede these points. I imagine that there are contingency plans against just about every country on Earth (i.e. War Plan Orange), however I wonder if all of them are kept up-to-date.

What would the effects on the Chinese economy be if they decided to glass New York?

More likely to be Los Angeles. The point is, the Chinese may well decide that's a price worth paying.

Under what circumstances?

Again, I have to question how a nation would get to the point at which it can launch an ICBM reliably and accurately,

Not a problem. That's a level of tehnology easily within reach of even lower-middle class countries

Which countries? Perhaps the newspapers have been maliciously lying to us all, but I was under the impression that North Korea's nuclear program was a pretty far cry from actually successfully launching inter-continental missiles. I thought that the ICBM club (not the nuke club) was pretty much Russia, China, and NATO.

and then decide to bet its existence against making the most prideful and militarist nation on earth "knuckle under."

Why not? I can think of several countries that made that bet.

Aside from your NK example below, any recently?

How far along are these efforts?

In some cases, entering service now. In at least one case, already in service.

What is known about the effectiveness of these particular systems, given that they cannot have been fired in anger?

Do you really think that American Democrats (most of whom could scarcely be called liberals) would not invest if there was a legitimate concern that America would be "undefended"?

Yes,

Ok, why? If you had the magical power to insert everything that you know about ABM and its effectiveness directly into the brains of every Democrat, as well as how to implement it at a reasonable cost, what reasons would they have for continuing to reject the program? Is the problem that they are ignorant? Are they concerned (overly) about the repercussions to international politics and strategy? Or are they all Fifth Columnists?

I understand the virtue of planning for future security threats that may not be readily apparent, but I also find this specter of nuclear devastation that you are calling up to be rather remote.

Once again, what you think doesn't matter. You've admitted that you don;t know enough about this area to understand what is going on. The professionals in almost 30 countries disagree with you. Obviously, you're not thinking enough.,

All this "proves" is that there are a large number of strategic professionals who disagree with me. It does not prove that we should drop everything and invest in ABM regardless of political or economic circumstances. Why don't I ever hear of Pentagon officials screaming their heads off about how badly this is needed? Most everything I've heard about ABM comes from this very board.

And holding any nation to ransom with nukes, let alone the USA, is such a disruption of the international status quo that national leaders prize that it's hard to imagine anyone with real power trying it.

It's hard for you to imagine it. I don't have to imagine it, I happen to know that it's already been done by both China and North Korea.

Link? I feel like I would recall something as drastic as the horror story you describe above, so presumably you are referring to something less...extreme. (I confess I was ignorant of the Norks threatening to go apeshit over the Myanmar freighter, which is a good example.)

And it's hard to imagine anybody without real power having an ICBM.

It's hard for you to imagine it. It's not hard at all for anybody who actually understands this area.

How do you conjure an ICBM without significant infrastructure and population?

Look, as I said, I am not an expert on international strategy or military technology. I'm just some skeptic on an Internet board with no credentials and a liberal bent who's more worried about the economy, health care, and the energy crisis than getting nuked. So convince me.

Surlethe has done a splendid job winning me over, actually, with the "0.07%" argument. My apologies if I missed this before. I certainly agree that ABM should be of higher priority than a lot of crap that passes through Congress. However, I'm still vastly more concerned about domestic issues.

[Rye]

Nobody's going to start a nuke fight with the US any time soon, which means the real people dying from all those things that aren't nuclear weapons matter more.

Are you willing to bet not just your life, but the lives off all of your fellow Brits on the line to prove that assumption right? Because I for one am not willing to risk American lives on the assumption that on there is no one out there that wouldn't lob an ICBM at the US, not when the relative cost of missile defense is so low.

Yeah. Shit, I'll even bet money on it too. £100, that by the end of the next decade that Britain or the US will not be nuked. Willing to take that bet? I will also bet that thousands more people will die in the US from the debacle that passes for healthcare than nuclear weapons. You willing to take me up on either of those? You're not going to risk American lives, sure, but you're not going to risk your own money on the offchance you're going to get nuked, either, are you?

RedImp is right, in that the either/or situation is a false dilemma. If the money was only going for one or the other, healthcare would still be superior because nobody's going to nuke you for the time being. If the world can go through a cuban missile crisis, I see no reason for anyone else to attack you or me with nukes and I do see obvious reasons for why tens of thousands will die for wealthcare. The piddly amount of money spent on ABM can be justified far more than other things, but not healthcare, in my view.

That opinion is in defiance of reality.

So what you don't believe has already happened.

NK threatening the surrounding nations is NOT starting a nuke fight with the US and you know it. Nukes for rogue states with any semblance of civilisation are the peacemaker, they want safety, they don't want to be laid waste by everyone else's stockpiles, which is what they damn well understand to be the direct result of launching on anyone else.

[[R_H]]

That's, IMO, pretty close minded and, well stupid, almost as dumb as "disproportionate" force. Who does this opposition come from? And are they unaware that ABM is already employed, and was the subject of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which was signed in 1972? Besides, Patriot, SM-3, S-300/400, Arrow and in the near future THAAD and MEADS all have ABM capability.

Opposition to ABM runs through all parties - some more some less. The only ABM system that could get enough support would be a combined system with the Russians -to make it absolutely clear that it is not aimed at them.

So because they don't want to upset the Russians, there's opposition to any system that doesn't include those poor Russians. What about the alternative of reducing dependancy on Russian gas and telling them to fuck off?

Do the people involved realize how narrow the margin between us and a nuclear war was? On occasion it boiled down to one person making the right decision (or the right person being drunk and incapable so he couldn't make the wrong decision). On at least one occasion the presence of an ABM system around Moscow provided the necessary rational to prevent a nuclear exchange (it's one missile, ABM Moscow can handle it, we can afford to wait).

No, most people do not realize how close some close calls were.

Frankly, most people aren't that interested in the technical details of such a system - a (debunked) argument along the lines of "you can't shoot all of em down, so don't bother", "suitcase nukes", etc. is enough for most people. Though most opposition comes not from the technical side, but from the political/strategic side: Implementing ABM could restart an arms race between east and west.

"Pefect is the enemy of good enough". That's some flawed thinking, I mean, it's better that lots of people are injured/maimed or killed instead of a few. If I'm not mistaken, suitcase nukes have very little in common, dimension-wise, with actual suitcases.

The arms race is still on, all blocs are improving and developing armaments.

Do these people also realize that the game has changed? In the Cold War, the people on both sides were cold-hearted, rational professionals who didn't want to start a war and went to great lengths not to. Despite that we came close on more occasions than you'll ever know about (and if you think being nuked is bad, try being nuked because of a misunderstanding over a Canada Goose). Now, the people on teh other side are irrational and a goodly proportion of them are part of a death-cult. They don't mind dying as long as they take us with them. The game has changed, ABM is a reaction to that change.

So, ABM would have made the world a lot safer in the Cold War and it would make it much safer again in the years to come.

Actually, opposition to ABM is mostly BECAUSE the game has changed - there no longer is an enemy as dangerous as the Soviet Union to defend against. The thinking is that people supporting ABM are the ones who haven't realized that the Cold War is over.

German defense policy always had two legs: deterrence and disarmament. So you need a deterrent in order to make an attack too expensive, and then you negotiate disarmament agreements in order to lower the threat of war. The common view is that a strong deterrent is no longer needed (hence the massive downsizing of the Bundeswehr), and that further disarmament could be endangered by ABM.

IMO, the deterent now is ABM and it would also encourage further disarmament, because the countries that don't have enough missiles and too few/no strategic bombers have no way of using WMDs against ABM-possessing nations.

And history demonstrates that disarmament agreements can contribute to the threat of war, instead of reducing it (ex. WW2).

In short, the entire view of defense policy in Germany is completely different from the American one.

Personally, I think a limited ABM system is a good idea, but the vast majority of Germans is of other opinion.

What do you mean by limited ABM?

[D.Turtle]

So because they don't want to upset the Russians, there's opposition to any system that doesn't include those poor Russians. What about the alternative of reducing dependancy on Russian gas and telling them to fuck off?

Its not about offending them, its about not wanting to restart the Cold War. The prevalent viewpoint is that the Cold War is over, Russia is no longer a direct threat, and ABM might restart an arms race that could stop or reverse disarmament.

"Pefect is the enemy of good enough". That's some flawed thinking, I mean, it's better that lots of people are injured/maimed or killed instead of a few. If I'm not mistaken, suitcase nukes have very little in common, dimension-wise, with actual suitcases.

Like I said, the technical reasons are bunk, but they are not the reason opposition against ABM is there.

The arms race is still on, all blocs are improving and developing armaments.

The nuclear arms race are way down, conventional forces are way down, and there no longer a strong drastic strategic/political adversary to the US or Europe.

What arms race? The only ones still acting like there is a massive arms race and spending accordingly are the US.

IMO, the deterent now is ABM and it would also encourage further disarmament, because the countries that don't have enough missiles and too few/no strategic bombers have no way of using WMDs against ABM-possessing nations.

Like I said, I favor ABM - it raises the bar to join the nuclear club to such an extent that only very few countries can realistically reach it.

And history demonstrates that disarmament agreements can contribute to the threat of war, instead of reducing it (ex. WW2).

So you want everybody to always have a wartime military with the appropriate spending? You do realize that many countries almost bankrupted themselves paying for WW2?

Hell, a good argument can be made that WW2 was cause by the victors trying to get the money back they spent in WW1 - and you want to keep that level of spending indefinitely?

What do you mean by limited ABM?

10-20 interceptors or so - enough to neutralize any theoretical Iranian or NK nukes, not enough to be a real threat to the Russian and American nukes. That is something that I think can be realistically implemented (politically) within a pretty short time frame.

[Stuart]

Which countries? Perhaps the newspapers have been maliciously lying to us all, but I was under the impression that North Korea's nuclear program was a pretty far cry from actually successfully launching inter-continental missiles. I thought that the ICBM club (not the nuke club) was pretty much Russia, China, and NATO.

Say again, anybody who can put a satellite into orbit. That's the hallmark for true ICBM capability. There, we are measuring as far down as Iran (which is a long way down the industrial scale of development). In terms of IRBMs (which put all of Europe and the southern USSR at risk from the Middle East and means the West Coast of the USA can be reached from Asia) we reach as far down the industrial scale as Libya. There's nothing really difficult these days about missile technology; it's very well dispersed. For example, North Korea and South Korea have both launched satellites, that proves they have ICBM capability. So has Japan. Indonesia as well. Pakistan and India have both IRBMs and are developing ICBMs. India is developing an SLBM. China has ICBMs SLBMs and IRBMs

Aside from your NK example below, any recently?

Let's see, Japan in 1941, North Korea in 1950, the USSR in 1956, China in 1958, China in 1963, North Korea in the late 1960s and 1970s (several times), the USSR in 1968, USSR in 1973, (SNIP) Iraq 1991, China 1996, North Korea (several more times). You get the message. That's justa handful off the top of my head.

What is known about the effectiveness of these particular systems, given that they cannot have been fired in anger?

They work. Very well. You'd better pray we never get to use them in anger.

Ok, why? If you had the magical power to insert everything that you know about ABM and its effectiveness directly into the brains of every Democrat, as well as how to implement it at a reasonable cost, what reasons would they have for continuing to reject the program? Is the problem that they are ignorant? Are they concerned (overly) about the repercussions to international politics and strategy? Or are they all Fifth Columnists?

A lot of the problem is ignorance. This is a highly complex area and it needs a lot of study to get right. Most politicians aren't qualified to udnerstand the intricacies of the subject they are dealing with. They are elected at local constituencies and their eyes are focussed on local affairs. They are also venal, they see the public purse as a way of buying votes. They support issues that will buy them votes and ignore those that don't. They ignore critical threats in the face of obvious problems. They think in the short term, the time to the next election, not ten or twenty years down the road. Finally, the damage that will result from even a limited attack on the mainland is so horifying that they subconsciously don't want to think about it. If they don't, it won;t happen. You're doing exactly the same thing by the way. Don't be embarrassed about it, that's what most people do.

All this "proves" is that there are a large number of strategic professionals who disagree with me. It does not prove that we should drop everything and invest in ABM regardless of political or economic circumstances. Why don't I ever hear of Pentagon officials screaming their heads off about how badly this is needed? Most everything I've heard about ABM comes from this very board.

Straw man. Nobody has ever said we should drop everything else. And if you haven't heard Pentagon people sceraming that ABM is needed, you haven't been listening.

Link? I feel like I would recall something as drastic as the horror story you describe above, so presumably you are referring to something less...extreme. (I confess I was ignorant of the Norks threatening to go apeshit over the Myanmar freighter, which is a good example.)

Did you know that the commander of China's strategic nuclear missile authority threatened to fire a nuclear missile at Los Angeles if the US interefered with looming hostilities between China and Taiwan? (Things were a bit tense back then). Just a for-instance. Been a lot of cases like that, in some cases the US backed down, in some cases the threatener did. By assuming that the threatener will always back down, you're taking one hell of a risk

How do you conjure an ICBM without significant infrastructure and population?

Ask Pakistan. Come to think of it, ask Pakistan why they should want one. That's a very good question. The SRBMs they have are perfectly adequate for their needs. The truth of the matter is that ballistic missiles are status symbols. Once one has them, one gets taken seriously. It's like battleships before World War One. Back then, if one wanted to be taken seriously, one had to have a Navy with a battleship. Didn't matter if one needed it from a strictly military viewpoint, politically, owning battleships was necessary to be taken seriously. Building battleships meant that one was taken very seriously. If WW1 hadn't happened, there would have been quite a few more. Note that between 1914 and today there has been precisely one battle where opposing battlefleets lined up and had at each other (Jutland).

Surlethe has done a splendid job winning me over, actually, with the "0.07%" argument. My apologies if I missed this before. I certainly agree that ABM should be of higher priority than a lot of crap that passes through Congress. However, I'm still vastly more concerned about domestic issues.

That's nothing to be ashamed of, as I said earlier, so are most people. That adds extra importance to people who look beyond domestic issues and try to think ten, or twenty, years ahead. The problem is that we do live in the world and its a very dangerous place. Turning the table around a little, to quite a few people, we are that danger. It's easy to say that we should simply spend all our cash on teh things we list but think on this. To some people, that very list you mention makes us a danger to them The things that the U.S. stands for make us a danger to them, whether we are actually out there promoting them or sitting here enjoying them. The argument about "there are other things we should buy first" is seductive but its fundamentally fallacious. There are always other things we need.