Peter Brookes, a former deputy Undersecretary of Defense, examines the case for missile defense in an article for the Hoover Institution. The existing evidence strongly implies that despite denials, Iran, North Korea and a number of states are working to acquire a nuclear weapon and a missile delivery system. Not just the ‘nuclear genie’, but the ‘missile genie’ is out of the bottle.
Ten years ago, there were only six nuclear-weapons states. Today there are nine members of the once-exclusive nuclear-weapons club, with Iran perhaps knocking at the door. Twenty-five years ago, nine countries had ballistic missiles. Today there are 28 countries with ballistic missile arsenals of varying capability.
The key difference between the Cold War world and today is that nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are becoming, from the point of view of availability, ordinary weapons. That will change the politics of nuclear weapons, but we haven’t realized that yet. What Brooke’s article doesn’t emphasize enough is how much of the current thinking about missile defense is rooted in Cold War politics. Missile defense, for example, was regarded as a destabilizing element in the US-Soviet balance of deterrence. MIssile defense carried the political baggage — at least in the left — of being associated with Ronald Reagan. But in a world where nuclear armed missiles are proliferating, the politics should change; and missile defense ought to be no more sinister than a lock on your front door or the body armor on a cop. It’s no different from high boots in a field full of snakes.
What about uninventing the danger? Brookes explains why this is particularly difficult. He shows that the know-how to build a nuclear weapon is out there, never to be recalled. Then he describes how the “long pole” in the building of a weapon, the production of fissile material, is a technology which can be slowed down by sanctions but has never been wholly stopped. Finally, he demonstrates that ICBM technology is inseperable from a peaceful space program. In general technological progress since the 1940s means that these once unattainable weapons are now within the reach of whoever is determined to get them.
In the calculus of probabilities, if Barack Obama’s “world without nuclear weapons” is less likely than intercepting a rogue missile inbound, it may be time to put a little more money on the missile defense technology and not to trust entirely to diplomats and politicians.
While the Bush administration has taken significant steps to develop sea- and land-based missile defense systems, the next White House and Congress should continue supporting missile defense programs to enhance our national security. Indeed, just this summer, the Washington Post broke a story claiming the international nuclear smuggling ring once run by the prodigious Pakistani proliferator A.Q. Khan had also managed to acquire the blueprints for an “advanced nuclear weapon.”
Owned by three Swiss members of Khan’s international cabal, a laptop containing 1,000 gigabytes of data (roughly equivalent to the information contained in a local library) on designs and engineering for nuclear weapons was discovered by investigators. Regrettably, according to the story, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea) believes the nuclear weapons designs found on the laptop could be mated — in theory — to the ballistic missiles used by “more than a dozen developing countries.”
In fact, the iaea, which reportedly verified the destruction of the data by Swiss authorities, cannot guarantee the nuclear warhead designs were not shared with others, according to a report by David Albright, a weapons expert who has been investigating the Khan network. While North Korea, Iran and Libya — the three states with which Khan had the most intimate contact — are the most likely recipients of the Pakistani’s atomic assistance, there may be others who received this nuclear know-how as well, although some experts view the report as alarmist. (Not surprisingly, Khan, who has been under house arrest in Pakistan since 2004, denied that he was involved in any way in proliferating nuclear weapons designs. Of course, others in his nuclear network may have done so.)
While I do believe that the nuclear wannabes will eventually be able to marry a ‘home-grown” bomb to a an effective home-grown delivery system, I doubt that any of them (I speak in particular of N. Korea and Iran) will have an effective combination anytime soon.
A radicalized Pakistan — on the other hand — is probably already capable of delivering one of its nukes on one of its missiles over an intermediate range (can’t reach Europe or Israel).
The fact that others (such as the grreat powers and Israel) have already created effective and succesful nuclear weapons and delivery systems doesn’t mean that it is now easy for others to do the same. Every new player — especially semi-isolated rogue states, have to at least partially reinvent the processes involved with both nuclear weapons production, and large missile development.
The whole point of what I said above — and on previous posts — is that we shouldn’t base our valid concerns about proliferation and hostile intentions and capabilities on overwrought and inflated notions of what would-be new players are, or will be, capable of doing. The reality is sobering enough without succumbing to hysteria.
I think we’re past genies and bottles. The genie is now loose and I strongly doubt that Obama seriously believes the genie is a real threat (socialized health care is a more important issue). We’ll need to have a nuclear incident and then in a post-Obama era, construct a process to deal with it. In the meantime, buying real estate in New York or Tel Aviv is probably a bad idea.
Anyone care to hazard a guess how these geniuses came about learning how to stabilize their missile launching capabilities?
Pascal: Well as to the Iranian, Chinese tech, pilfered (sold? bribed?) from us?
Which begs a question: How much more damage will be done under the Obama/Soros Reich?
Iranian-Iranian issue
Eggplant: Is it possible that they can construct a itsy-bitsy one and just take out Georgetown, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
LOL Mongoose: Why isn’t there an internal equivalent of your namesake to stop such vipers then and now?
Well, we do what we can.
I thought Paki nuke scientist Khan had stolen nuclear secrets from one of the smaller European countries (who probably got it from us). Belgium or Switzerland or like that, maybe a NATO ally.
And then he trotted around the Middle East and North Korea and sold his information, which Musharref and Pakistani leadership flip-flopped to paint him internally as a Muslim hero *sharing* information to be used against the infidels. I want to know where his profits ended up.
“…much of the current thinking about missile defense is rooted in Cold War politics.”
True. Consider, for example, one argument against the Reagan era missile defense, that it could never be good enough. The argument went that in an all-out “nuclear spasm” war a missile defense that even took care of 90% of the incoming Soviet warheads would not be good enough, given the horrific results of the 10% that got through.
But today you are not talking about thousands of incoming missiles but very few. Nor will the other favorite argument – that “balance of terror” be destabilized by missile defenses – be applicable either. The states likely to be the source of the launches will not merely build hundreds of new missiles or add penetration aids and maneuvering warheads in response to the missile defense capabilities of their targets, because they can’t.
A question I think that has yet to be answered is how we would respond to a failed or intercepted attack. The chance of failure during launch for one of the newcomers is very high. For new space launches by new outfits it is 75%. They can – and are – do a lot of testing of components, but nothing beats an all-up test. And that test will be a flag the whole world can see. So any attack will occur with a relatively untested vehicle. Missile defense adds to the uncertainty of that attack. But I think it adds to our own uncertainty as well. If the nuke does not hit us no one will want to reply in kind.
The WSJ editorial dated 11-24-08 (apologies to the author) discusses how one EMP nuke over Chicago can take out the USA grid and cancel all of the electronics coast to coast. That would effectively put America back into the 19 century. Murphy’s Law states that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and if a multiple of things can go wrong, then the worst possible will take place. In this, prevention or pre-emption trumphs remorse and apology.
Then according to Murphy’s Law, the Muslim nuke would fail to explode over Chicago, no?
“….The genie is now loose and I strongly doubt that Obama seriously believes the genie is a real threat….”
————
A good time for a scavenger hunt? Terrorize the terrorists. Like a cat plays with a mouse play with them. Start with the ‘pirate’ ships, follow them to port and blow them up.
Nahncee: I think it more likely that the nuke would fail to explode over Chicago but instead go off at 150,000 ft over, say, Madrid. I seriously doubt that the people launching on us will have the safety systems, re-entry vehicles, guidance, and fuses (a big deal, believe me) required to deliver the weapon with the accuracy required for such a knock-out blow.
The politicians have the problem of looking good enough on missile defense to avoid populating the light poles in the DC area if we get hit and at the same time look bad enough on missile defense to satisfy their moonbat supporters. So way back in the late 80’s and early 90’s they publicly supported it (passed the missile defense act) while quietly and obtusely sabotaging it in the budget (too many examples to list). Such a dilemma, poor chaps. Anyway, let’s get those light poles ready!
Within living memory, Alaska & California have been hit by earthquakes with more power than a nuclear bomb. Washington State has seen a volcanic eruption with many times the power of a nuclear bomb. Texas & Louisiana have been hit by enormous storms with the destructive power of untold numbers of nuclear bombs.
And yet life goes on, in all those places.
Yes, a nuclear explosion on US soil would be a tragedy — but it would not be the end of the world. It might, however, be the end of whoever set it off, and missiles would leave an unambiguous trail back to the sender.
Protection for the US will not come from new defensive weapons. It will come from the unquestioned certainty that the US is ready to respond to attack with the offensive weapons we already have. The big weakness for the US is that many people doubt the coming leadership has the fortitude to respond to an attack.
Kinauchdrach: “Protection for the US will not come from new defensive weapons.”
What about the possibility of a missile-delivered nuclear EMP attack which could come large tanker or cargo ships near any of our ports or coastline – with no certain return address.
Someone told me once the number of nuclear weapons which it was calculated, would be enough to “kill” the USA. The number had apparently been derived from a Cold War study by a think tank. I’ve no idea whether the number is real or whether the person was pulling my leg. However it is a surprisingly large number.
Considering the damage Japan (which is a far smaller country) took; and the proportion of casualties to the population that Russia endured (largely self inflicted) during the Second World War the large number has a ring of truth to it. Any enemy who strikes America with a handful of bombs will kill millions, but that will not physically prevent whoever is POTUS from facing the biggest moral problem of all time. What to do in response.
The case for annihilating the source of a nuclear attack on America or the West would rest on the idea of deterring its repetition. The case against it would rely on the fact that the response can be far, far more destructive than the attack itself. Over the next four years, during Barack Obama’s watch, it is unlikely that a non-Russian nuclear missile can reach the USA, but it is not impossible for a container bomb to attack to materialize. We live in interesting times.
Kinauchdrach: “Protection for the US will not come from new defensive weapons.”
Correction: What about the possibility of a missile-delivered nuclear EMP attack which could come from large tanker or cargo ships near any of our ports or coastline – with no certain return address?
Kinuachdrach said:
“Within living memory, Alaska & California have been hit by earthquakes with more power than a nuclear bomb. Washington State has seen a volcanic eruption with many times the power of a nuclear bomb.”
Mankind is nothing compared to the power of nature. However nuclear weapons can be incredibly destructive. Google “Tsar Bomba” if you have any doubts. My guess is the bad guys will smuggle something like a Tsar Bomba into an American port on board a freighter and detonate the thing just prior to reaching the docks. We could lose more Americans in a single day from such an attack than the total US casulties from all 20th century wars. The only defence against such a scenario is through denying the bad guys access to the technology (which we have so far failed to do). Maybe if McCain had won the election we might have dodged that bullet. Now I think our fate is sealed.
Too lazy to personalize every response, so to various posts above.
1. Chinese got their missile stablization tech from that ever accomodatin’ first black President, Billy Boy Clinton, in return for a bag of gold. Expect more of this in future.
2. A major point of missle defenses during the Cold War was to preserve return-strike status. The notion of a Ruskie first strike that would wipe out the U.S. ability to respond was seriously jeapordized by a defense system, even one that let the bulk of the attack arrive. Once we had that card in our hand, the Ruskies could never know if it would flip up as an Ace, a Ten, or even a lowly Deuce. As long as it didn’t flip up a Joker, they were at risk. They were evil bastids, but they were not insane.
3. What? An a-bomb up the butt side of Manhattan would be no worse than an Alaskan earth quake? Mister, that’s crazy talk. Though your other point that our best defense is the belief by others that we will respond with a strong offense is true enough. That doesn’t eliminate the need for a defense system, though. The danger isn’t JUST a gang of pishers with high-hopes (just what makes that little Abduhl, think that the U.S.A. he can rule?). The danger may be an ever weakening US matched by an ever stronger China. They might well go for it. If the Barackasaurus doesn’t just hand it over.
4. Would those of you forseeing the big kaboom kindly start discussing other targets than old New Yawk? Some of us have to live in the blast zone, and all that talk is seriously bad karma. I vote for DC, myself (when Congress is in session), followed by LA, and then Chicago.
Wretchard writes: Someone told me once the number of nuclear weapons which it was calculated, would be enough to “kill” the USA. The number had apparently been derived from a Cold War study by a think tank.
That’s interesting. I recall quite vividly from my youth the much discussed notion of the Doomsday Bomb. That is, one single A-bomb or H-bomb or whatever big enough to wipe out the earth. I always thought that seemed a little outlandish.
Does anyone know if such a thing is possible? And/or known or rumored to exist?
No small part of the missile defense initiative is about protecting in theater assets from more localized ballistic nuke strikes — in particular, carrier groups and ASG’s.
This is not all that openly stated, but is clear enough.
This application, of course, does not directly involve the kinetic systems in Alaska or the proposed site(s) in the EU, but it does involve the linking X-band radars, signal processing and data processing systems that these larger system depend on, as well as smaller versions of these on missile cruisers (and maybe the new version of Aleigh Burkes and ddg1000′s, if they ever get built) networked into a larger C4 system.
In particular, the airborne laser system and the early phase kinetic weapons (e.g., THAAD, next gen patriot, etc.) seem to assume some sort of aggressive forward posture which is more ad hoc and temporary, not a inter-continental mid flight kinetic strike such as the fixed sites that are getting all the press. This forward posture assumes some sort of direct engagement by US forces, or the imminent threat of such.
Obama will pull the plug on all of this — this has to be one of the major concerns of behind his foreign “backers”.
It is really an awful development as they are making real headway with this.
This is a true measure of the Democrats because they perfectly well know the issues — this is not ignorance at work here. They intentionally seek to weaken the USA. Cannot have one of the “states” in the new internalization order to have more power than any other one, don’t you know.
Eggplant: One of the arguments against missile defense in the 80’s was that if successful it would result in a Fortress America situation in which the leaders of the USA would sit back and do whatever they pleased to other nations, secure from attack. Like Bill Clinton in the 90’s, bombing his way through another day, only using Nukes.
My response was that the detonation of merely a half dozen nukes offshore of major U.S. cities – not even in the ports – would be so horrific in effect that would deter any U.S. “Cowboy With a Nuke” actions. It would not seriously damage the country’s ability to strike back and vaporize any adversary but it would be more than sufficient to prevent us from getting too casual about who we blew up. In fact I think we later found out that the Soviets actually deployed such weapons.
Given the coming Obamanation, what worries me is that a major power – Russia or China – will supply a nuke to a bunch of crazies they consider expendable in hopes of crippling the U.S., throwing us into chaos, or at least causing us to withdraw internationally. And if they set it off in a port or just offshore and then we figure out or even strongly suspect who supplied it, then what will we do? Merely talking to them likely will result in blood in the streets of DC. The alternative may well be lots of blood in lots of streets all over the world.
Peterike, those of us who live in the DC area don’t like a target painted on our backs, either.
My guess for a rogue nuke attack is either Miami Beach or Las Vegas.
There is no reason not to believe that once we are prostrate for am attack on New or Wahsington, or an EMP attack that takes out the either nations circuitry, that it will not be quickly followed by attacks from other places, like say Russia.
We are not longer an a trigger launch.
It would be a matter of the fear off the Submarine leg of the triad.
If there was open treason on this end, that would cover that.
I cannot see Obama nuking Beijing or Moscow.
Even if there were a coup, it would be too late to matter.
BTW, to compare a wipe out of NYC or Washington with a volcano in the hinterlands or the LA earthquake is absurd. It would take decades to recover, if we could recover at all.
We would be a devastated and vulnerable continent worse off than Africa or the internal regions of Russia
Why is it that there are still people out there – manifested by views on this board as expressed at #15 – who still think that the Mullahs are pliable to Mutually Assured Destruction when the words of the Mullahs strongly suggest that they are not at all impressed with what massive retaliation can do to their country? Here we are, in the year 2008, and very many people still do not understand that it is a religious mindset that is supporting the genocidal instincts of the Islamic enemy. Our retaliation means nothing to people who do not value life and who EXPECT (honestly, and they’re not blustering)the 12th Imam and the Mahdi to come in on the clouds amidst the nuclear holocaust.
They don’t care if the dying gasp of the Jewish State sends hundreds of nuclear weapons hurtling towards all the Iranian urban centers. They don’t care what our boomer subs will let loose on them. They just don’t care.
As for those who want to get rid of ballistic missile defense, however they articulate it, in one form or other they believe that is has always been US who have destabilized the world from the very beginning. They really do believe if we would only unilaterally disarm that the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, and the Pakistanis (and everyone else, for that matter) would also beat their swords into ploughshares. Need I elaborate more on the insanity of this mindset?
“Would those of you forseeing the big kaboom kindly start discussing other targets than old New Yawk? Some of us have to live in the blast zone, and all that talk is seriously bad karma. I vote for DC, myself (when Congress is in session), followed by LA, and then Chicago.”
I take some glee in teasing my Obama-voting liberal friend who lives in Long Beach, LA’s port, that if she sees a group of swarthy-looking men asking where the nearest synagogue is and carrying a large suitcase that’s ticking, that she might want to high-tail out of the area toot sweet.
LA is ginormous, physically. I’ve looked out of an office building towards the ocean and wondered how far a tsunami wave would reach, and equally looked towards Long Beach from downtown LA and wondered how far a nuke in the Long Beach harbor would reach. Or how far inland from LAX an explosion would go. Maybe I’m in denial, but I don’t even think one nuclear bomb would kill Los Angeles, let alone America.
Rand Corporation actually studied this very possibility:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2006/RAND_TR391.pdf
considers the effect of a nuke in Long Beach Harbor.
A little light reading with your turkey…
Inland Empire
Have a look here NahnCee.
http://www.nuclearterror.org/blastmaps.html
For those who want to play in their own sandbox:
https://www-gs.llnl.gov/hotspot/index.htm
has software that allows
” fast, field-portable set of software tools for evaluating incidents involving radioactive material. The software is also used for safety-analysis of facilities handling nuclear material. Hotspot provides a fast and usually conservative means for estimation the radiation effects associated with the short-term (less than 24 hours) atmospheric release of radioactive materials. ”
Cheers!
Inland Empire a/k/a Downwind of San Pedro…
The US currently has the capability for nearly instantaneous detection of a hostile missile launch. NORAD will know within seconds the lat/long of where its coming from. A missile defense system to be effective at stopping an incoming ballistic missile has to be fully operational and deployed. We ain’t there yet. A space based missile system that would assure destruction of the launcher (code named Retribution) could instantly target where the missile was launched from and respond. Unless its the US, Russians or Chinese who can launch from subs, it will more than likely come from a land based launch site. An EMP attack could be carried out from a SAM launched from a freighter and that will be impossible to defend against unless a missile shield is in place. The EMP scenario seems much more plausible as it wont require much targeting sophistication but it will require detonation sophistication which is easier to come by. The nuke in a container is getting less likely as we have moved much of our customs stations and inspections offshore…but nothing is fool proof.
The rogue sea container hypothesis is always popular, but unless the bomb in question is truly large, a groundburst does not do sufficient damage.
An air burst is much more effective.
Think of a “rogue” airliner with an A-bomb in the cargo hold, and an air burst over a major city. That would be much more devastating.
My personal opinion is that despite talk by the Chinese, they really do not wish to attack us; they need us as a trading partner. They probably feel it is their eventual destiny to dominate world politics, but not yet.
The Russians, who knows? There has always been a sociopathic streak in Russian politics, from the Czars, to the Bolsheviks, and now to Putin and his oligarchs.
As one of the commenters has already alluded, does President elect Obama and the other leaders of the Democrat Party really want to completely defend the United States against these threats? Recall these words of Barak Obama: “I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COl4soeox6Y
Just as they believe in Marxist equality for the masses, i.e.: government-enforced economic equality (of a low order for the non-governing masses); they appear to believe in a Marxist equivalent for the equality of nations, i.e.: UN-enforced national equality. By this irrational Marxist thinking, the United States must be taken down several notches.
If the Rand Corporation is talking about insurance companies reimbursing for lost homes in a nuclear incident in Long Beach and only 60,000 casualties out of a population of 3.8 million it seems to me that is a decidedly non-lethal event both for Los Angeles and the rest of America. The report talks about evacuating millions of people, but again doesn’t that take a pretty hearty infrastructure for the outside to be able to come in and scoop everyone up?
I’m also wondering about the effects of radiation poisoning and how widespread that would be in an area such as the Los Angeles basin. Even if you go over the mountain and into the San Fernando Valley it seems to me that would protect against a lot of the exposure.
It’s been a while since I did any reading on the subject, but I’m remembering there weren’t *that* many deaths from radiation poisoning in Japan. Nor were there that many deaths after Chernobyl except for the Russians who were really up close and personal to that accident, but then maybe the Russians just didn’t bother to count and follow up, and if they did they decided to keep it a secret.
Hey NahnCee, today’s hydrogen bombs are much, much larger and more powerful than what we blew up over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I’m assuming the Iranians will have something substantial to put on their rockets. While the rockets will not reach us, they most certainly will reach Israel and, with upgrades, could reach Europe too.
I think the Chicoms probably have their vassal state, North Korea, on a short leash and would not allow the North Koreans to send the rockets over here. Besides, I don’t think the Communists are suicidal. MAD works with atheists who believe when you die you go into the eternal darkness. They don’t want to die.
But the Islamic mujahadeen believe in the glory of their own deaths. They don’t fear death the way the Communist atheists do. That’s part of the equation that the practitioners of realpolitik vis-a-vis the Islamic world do not include.
@sigintel #31; Yes sir. Spaceborne detection
and interception SHOULD be of top priority.
Ballistic missles are rather soft targets.
Minor damage that would cause a B17 to say “that tickles” will cause a missle to at least spin out of control if no disintegrate.
But if you wait to shoot at them from the ground up only, you can only shoot after they are over the horizon and on final approach. Not much time. From space you have enough time and observation to luanch multiple intercepts during all phases of their flight.
‘Nuff said.
A little historical reminder: In 1945
Japan had seven (count them, seven) atomic
bomb factories ready to produce. The only thing they lacked was fissionable material.
Had Hitler not dawdled, the submarine called
U234 would easily have made it to Japan with
its load of 560 Kilograms of U235 (Czech pitchblend or uranium oxide) just right for making bullet ignition (Hiroshima-like) fission bombs.
And in addition to the explosive bombs, Japan also knew how to make “dirty bombs” with the
residue.
It was a race and the Enola Gay won but a short nose. Do not underestimate what your enemies can do.
“but only by a short nose”.
If the Rand Corporation is talking about insurance companies reimbursing for lost homes in a nuclear incident in Long Beach and only 60,000 casualties out of a population of 3.8 million it seems to me that is a decidedly non-lethal event both for Los Angeles and the rest of America.
I’d like the name of that insurance company. My policy doesn’t cover it.
For those 60,000 dead, it sounds like a decidedly lethal event, to me.
Dave: can you point me somewhere for a cite on the facts n your post of 37?
Mongoose: There is an entire book out on the Japanese atomic bomb program. I have a copy. I will get you the name when I get back home.
The Japanese were far ahead of the Nazis in theory having not made the calculation error that led Heisenberg to conclude that a Uranium bomb was too massive to be practical.
The Japanese virtually duplicated the Manhatten project, but very poorly. They moved the project to Northern Korea to avoid B-29 attacks, where it was captured intact by Guess Who.
There is also a whole book out on the U boat that was transporting Uranium to Japan. One was sub sunk and the other was captured by us, and the uranium was sent to the Manhatten Project.
When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the effects were described to Japan’s leading physicist he knew at once what it was. The note to him that we put in the instrumentation package that was dropped with the bomb merely confirmed it.
Fred:
So, what do you think the theological version of a nuclear weapon would be against Muslim zealots? In other words, how can we attack them in a manner that would actually hurt them? I do have my own ideas, I but I’d like yours.
Thanks RWE, I look forward to getting the titles of those books.
I’m with fred@35, you cannot threaten a fanatic who believes that his insane suicidal death will gaurantee his place in heaven anymore than you can threaten a blind man with turning off the lights.
Here is a scenario that I think is a truly serious threat. Container ship with a nuclear-tipped missle on board launches a low arcing missle from just outside the Customs Authority’s inspection zone. This missle is set to explode while still ascending over the target city releasing an EMP that cripples the city and dusts it down with dirty radiation. Communications and power go down, millions exposed to radiation and workers cannot go back into the affected area to begin repairs without specialized equipment. Far worse than an earthquake of hurricane, no directly traceable fingerprints, and probably not within the design scope of the anti-missle shield.
It is probably futile to attack the religious faith of our Islamist enemies; this didn’t work during the Protestant vs. Catholic Thirty Years War of Europe. People will keep their religious faith despite threats or violence. We must attack and defeat the totalitarian Islamist legal system, i.e.: Sharia Law and the violent means to bring it about, i.e.: Jihad. I fault President Bush for not identifying totalitarian Islamist Sharia Law as the enemy of human liberty, and therefore the enemy of the United States; he has only declared war on “terror”.
I do not perceive the purely religious aspects of Islam as a threat; it’s the totalitarian political and legal system that we, the United States of America, must mock and deride – and defeat.
given the fact that life goes on in hiroshima and the basic fact that no, not all people – pace kissinger’s study – would be killed… isn’t the whole point of nuclear conflagration in this day and age to kill the international economy? even if the Russia, for example, is crushed, so what – they’ll still be stronger than the Syrian, Iraqi, Azeri, Georgians, Poles, Ukrainians, Ingush, Chechen, Persian, etc.
wouldn’t a nuclear attack simply be to reset the global world order, first predicated on English commercial dominance, and then succeeded by American?
i mean seriously. isn’t it?
of course, it is more probable, in my amateur opinion, that enough PR and actual effort has gone into countering the islamist bandits that a nuclear attack on mainland USA could plausibly be attributed to an al Qaeda or Hezbollah.
that’s the problem, i think. it’s no longer about “plausible deniability,” it’s more about plausible attribution. any “plausibile” would stay the US Commander in Chief, politically, from the appropriate response.
in the absence of a response, the USA would change, that afternoon. would not a failure to respond, or an inability to respond, to a city-killing attack cripple the legitimacy of the sitting president? would not foreign governments be pressured to kick out US bases since they could be regarded as a possible target for nuke attack?
and then – political chaos in domestic USA to make the Bush years pale in comparison. woohoo! then we would see what the Left is truly made of.
i’m sorry, i truly think this is the basic plan of attack, and that such an attack is coming. our enemies – the KGB, the Chinese, their Islamist proxies – cannot possibly pass up an epochal chance at such low-hanging US fruit. Obama and an economic crisis? even kennedy had seen combat, and almost the whole living world had been toughened by a world at war only 15 years earlier. no no – if there is no such attack during this administration, i will be shocked at the incompetence of our enemies or the competence of our intelligence services.
Mongoose: the book on the submarine sinking is entitled Battleground Atlantic: How the Sinking of a Single Japanese Submarine Assured the Outcome of WWII.
You can get it over at Half.com for 5 or 6 bucks including shipping. I have not read it.
By the way, free floating unmanned platforms are being placed off the East Coast to detect suspicious cargos far out to sea.
By the way, y’all may be interested in this Sandia paper on Post Cold War Deterrence:
http://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/white-papers/poni.pdf
My apologies to the author go to Brian T. Kennedy of the Claremont institute for writing “What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do”.
America without electronic devises, such as telecommunications,financial records, heat,transportation, and civil defense pushes the terrifying index of catastrophic. The gravity of the threat should not be underestimated. The 19th century would be only the first stop backwards into barbarism.
#42: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JK18Aa01.html
These are terrorist we’re talking about. It matters little to them where the first launched hydrogen bomb tipped ballistic missile lands, they will have just seated themselves at the table with the big boys.
And given we’ve never had extended negotitation with a nuclear power that believes suicide is a blessing the calculus for those negotitations becomes something otherworldly.
I think in the end the West will sacrifice Israel for we are already known as a fierce opponent but a worse ally. But will that be enough to sate them given Islams philosophy? NO … in the words of Winston , “we will just be hoping the crocodile eats us last”
Nahncee,
“a nuclear incident in Long Beach and only 60,000 casualties out of a population of 3.8 million it seems to me that is a decidedly non-lethal event both for Los Angeles and the rest of America.”
That would be from some type of “dirty bomb.” The main effect would be the psychological damage – probably a couple orders of magnitude greater than 9/11 – and the resulting effect on the world economies. And imagine the panic as everyone living in coastal communities tries to go inland to get away from subsequent attacks.
Alexis,
I think the only way you can effectively stop the Islamic fanatics is to pre-emptively strike them: destroy their weapons. Retaliation, while it may serve its own purposes, is shutting the barn door after the horses have left.
But it seems most of the country has been browbeaten, during the past eight years, into a mood of rejecting the concept of pre-emption. The Bush Doctrine is dead. Cause of death: massive propaganda campaign by the political oppositions’ means of communication. The President either did not fight back or did so only feebly.
Habu @ #51
That is exactly how I see things playing out. Israel is effectively finished. Kaput. It was a great idea and definitely worth defending, but the West has decided to throw them under the bus.
It’s never a good situation to be the last item at the table the enemy is reaching for.
Israel’s immanent demise is both their fault and ours. Specifically, in both countries you have a left-leaning population that wants to do the Kumbaya with the head-choppers. That’s suicidal and breathtakingly ignorant. But there it is.
Even with our embryonic missile defense as it’s currently designed, we are still vulnerable to space-launched nukes. With the likely abandonment of our missile defences and the probable severe cutbacks in NASA and our military in general, the coming years will present an exceptional opportunity for the Chinese to eliminate the U.S. permanently.
An initial attack using 2-4 EMP bombs launched from space to knock out our civilian and most of our military infrastructure (including satellites) followed by space or ground launched neutron bombs to massively kill the inhabitants of our large population centers would be an effective stategy. As for the submarine leg of our “triad”, US research on a means of using satellites to track nuclear submarines was conveyed to the Chinese during the Clinton administration (along with information on EMP, neutron, and other nuclear weapons). Neutron bombs are best for this kind of attack because they don’t create the radioactive fallout of other types of nuclear weapons.
We are vulnerable to this kind of attack now, but the new administration will very likely increase our level of risk and present an opportunity too good to pass up.
A fictional description of such an attack and links to supporting information on my website.
If I recall correctly, the Star Wars program and missile defense in general was opposed mainly for these reasons:
1) Threat of destabilization of the “nuclear balance” leading to a renewed arms race, or causing panic and irrationality by the USSR
2) Technology wasn’t feasible – could never stop the full USSR arsenal in the event of an all out attack
3) Too expensive
And then the 4th objection, which was never talked about in the press, but many here will realize its truth:
4) A viable missile defense would empower the U.S. and allow it to conduct foreign policy and war with less fear of nuclear retaliation
The first three reasons seem obsolete now, as noted by others. The Cold War is dead and the delicate nuclear balance is no longer something we care about. While missile defense might not be able to stop the entire Russian arsenal, we face threats today of much smaller nuclear attacks, perhaps as small as a single ICBM. And the immense advances in computer technology and research have cut deeply into the costs for such systems (and can anyone really complain about billions for missile defense when the U.S. has been throwing around taxpayer money like a drunken sailor?)
So then, we are left with Objection 4 as the only remaining argument against the U.S. developing ballistic missile defense. The Left opposes it because Americans would no longer fear the threat of massive nuclear retaliation, and the Left wants to keep the U.S. restrained and docile – Lilliputians holding down Gulliver.
A docile U.S. leads to the rise of trans-nationals and NGOs who answer to no one. A docile U.S. allows its rival nation-states to act militaristically, rattle sabers, and expand their borders and influence because those rivals can take comfort that their nuclear stockpile will deter strong U.S. responses.
Whether done out to weaken the U.S., or with the simple-minded desire to “end war” by restraining the U.S., the Left’s opposition to missile defense is a travesty bordering on treason.
Doesn’t that kind of attack essentially trigger a variant of the 3rd conjecture.
Also most people seem to be ignoring the SM-3′s that the US Navy is issuing.
Missile defense is essential to national security. And the developments in technology required to make it work are worth 10X what is spent to achieve them.
This became an issue early in George Bush’s first term and he stuck with it despite the usual nay-saying from the Left.
In July of 2001, two months before 9/11, I wrote this scenario to describe the threat and how it could play out:
http://unionsquarejournal.com/martin_mcphillips.htm
Note the mangled variant spelling of bin Laden, which I never bothered to correct.
Fred,
Of course I expect Israel to hiy Iran first. I thought W would do the job in conjuction with the IDF but he appears to be a beaten man (although he play’s his cards close to the vest). The lastest reporting which could easily be disinformation has W begging the IDF to hold off…who knows? When Iran is hit it’s not going to be a protracted conflict.
Another recently discovered club in our bag is that Americans aren’t idiots. We put the brakes on and oil fell through the floor. But I see no better time to have the OK Corral scene than when things are already in the dumper. Let G build components for a 20,000 plane UAV Air Force.
I know I’m old fashion but when someone has been causeing me a huge headache since the Barbary Days, has attacked us globally, then it’s time to get them settled down. The Earth doesn’t need all those 6th century tribes anyway , we just need their oil.
To the PC weenies ..too bad.
well – Cold War geopolitics are only dead because someone has figured out how to use apostles of the new caliphate as a delivery device. otherwise russian and china still have many thousand warheads targeting the US, and we have the same. absence of overt ideological conflict may simply be a way of adding to the “benefit of the doubt” to one side.
consider: you are standing in Van Courtland Park subway station, watching the mushroom cloud rising above midtown Manhattan. You hear – as I heard on 9/11 – the president coming through a car radio (all cars have now pulled over to watch and flung their doors open and turned their radios up) – he says, “we believe based on preliminary evidence that this weapon was stolen from the former Soviet republic of Kyrghyzstan by Islamic militants associated with al Qaeda.”
think perhaps that it takes quite some international effort to make the case that “a nuclear warhead/bomb was stolen” sound plausible to you. perhaps this whole jihad is really intended to deny the real culprits? you know, the countries who actually have nuclear weapons and can make them in all sizes? who know how to smuggle billions of dollars worth of drugs in semi-trucks and ship hulls into the continental USA?
hm? possible, yes?
i hasten to add: not that there isn’t a real jihad. of course there is. but there has *always* been a real jihad…
Buckets: It does not border on treason, it is smack dab in the middle of it.
And the old argument, against SDI were mostly nonsense too.
The Left and the Democrats hate this country and everything good it stand for. This is not about misguided kumbyjaers — those folks are just the useful idiots that the hard liners use. These people are a fifth column for the most dangerous enemies we have ever faced, they know exactly what they are doing here.
RWE: what was the other books that you mentioned? (Thanks in advance)
Comment #46 touches on an interesting issue, that between the levels of analysis between the individual, the state and the globe, we find divergent security interests.
While no individual, state or globe much prefers incineration, the individual, or simply myself, wonders about the performance of funds thrown at 1% doctrines as above, especially given what is prowling about in northern Mexico. Terrible forces have been loosed there and a true fight seems under way.
No doubt that true patriots Habu and Fred can see through the news media they consume and so divine our impending doom. While playing strategery with our game theory hats on is fun, nothing could more please the wastrels lurking in our military-industry. Ask yourself how long your willing to accommodate the 1% doctrine, and then, if you’re feeling open m inded, explore why you find doubtful AGW 1% doctrines.
Absent from the commonplace and automatic hysteria towards the “islamoids” is any mention of Mexico’s descent into darkness. Monsters still do prowl the earth and lately they’ve been beheading journalists, Mexican journalists. I’ve little more security than any given Mexican journalist. The monsters of Juarez present a more immediate and proximate threat to the United States. Ignore at your peril.
Corn pone,the regulars here don’t “ignore” the problems of Mexico, immigration, etc. But this thread is not about that. The fact that one threat exists does not make another potential threat disappear.
Indeed, the times grow ever more perilous on many fronts, and we just elected an adolescent to be in charge of it all.
Mongoose: Besides “Battleground Atlantic”
there is also “Japan’s Secret War” focusing on
the technical/scientific aspects of their program(s). Do not have a copy but am sure you can find the title on line.
An interview in Soldier of Fortune with Paul Tibbets discussed the seven cyclotrons. How the six in mainland Japan were destroyed but how the seventh one in Wonsan, North Korea fell into Stalin’s hands.
(BTW while the Rosenbergs et al were certainly guilty, they were not very effective. Most of their information
confirmed data already known. Wonsan was THE prize)
A 1st Marine Division newsletter of the early 1990s discussed the codebooks found in Shuri Castle Okinawa. These codes were not among those broken by our code-breakers as they had not been on the air often enough to be monitored sufficiently. But they did reveal
a lot of nuclear data and plans for same.
Lastly, I once saw surviving members of the U234 interviewed on TV. Once they learned
what they were carrying and how it would have been used, they were grateful that they had not delivered the cargo. (U234 also had a ME262 and a V2 on board).
At least at the Belmont Club, I make my assertions and get asked for documentation, which others can help provide. Most audiences either think I am delusional or that I am flat out lying.
Ditto for telling aabout the rather extraordinary amount of equipment and supplies concealed in mainland Japan for
“ketsu-go”—-final fanatical defense of the homeland.
Oh, and one more book: Not about nukes but relevant. “The Last Mission” about how a
diverted flight of B29s prevented a coup that would have prevented the Emperors surrender message from ever having been broadcast.
There was Divine Navigation that night.
Dave: thanks a bunch for taking the time to fill me in on this and point me to some documentation. BTW, I was not arguing with you or in anyway way suggesting that you were talking out of your hat. I just wanted to get on top of the facts. That is all.
Thanks again.
RWE said:
“By the way, free floating unmanned platforms are being placed off the East Coast to detect suspicious cargos far out to sea.”
I’m skeptical of this. What is the floating platform going to detect? It would have to be purely passive so irradiating a suspicious cargo and looking at the back scatter is not an option. There could only be four possible emissions coming from a terrorist nuke, i.e. neutrons along with alpha, beta and gamma rays. All of those emissions would attenuate almost immediately. Add to this the background noise from cosmic rays and natural radiation. I don’t think this floating platform is physically possible.
peterike said:
“Corn pone,the regulars here don’t “ignore” the problems of Mexico, immigration, etc. But this thread is not about that.”
I was reminded of Herman Melville’s book when I read Corn pone’s comment. However it’s easy to get that one wrong.
Iran will have lots to think about before attacking Israel.
For one thing they cannot launch a massive attack without also wiping out the Palestinians and a good chunk of Jordan from fallout as the winds go from west to east. They would need to hit Jerusalem and hard to imagine any Muslim doing that.
They would also need to hit the Israeli missile sites and Diamona which are also close to Gaza and the W Bank.
More likely they would just go for the major population centers on the coast but Israel with its 200+ warheads in the Megaton range, advanced missiles, and subs could easily launch a massive counterattack and still have plenty of reserves.
Also any Iranian attack would have to get through Israels missile defense system so they would need to use up lots of missiles and precious warheads. Israel doesnt need to worry about any of that when they counter attack.
A limited attack would not likely ‘wipe out’ Israel because of its better civil defense, hospitals, and high tech economy, not to mention being buddies with the US and American Jews who would pour massive effort into recovery. Iran on the other hand would cease to exist.
There is no way we should let Iran get nuclear weapons but they are really draining their resources and political capitol to get something they probably cant use. They would be much better off with an upgraded conventional military.
Spindok said:
“Iran will have lots to think about before attacking Israel.”
There is the assumption of rationality.
What if the motivation is to cause maximum chaos so the 12th Iman rises up like the Great Pumpkin?
Given that Obama is now our President, is it reasonable to assume the Iranians are more rational than us?
Right now, today, life is good (I wish it could stay that way). I’m trying to stay focused on the rear view mirror because what I see through the windshield is way too scary.
yeah iran has a big problem because it cannot really rely on hezbollah and hamas as plausibly deniable actors: everyone’s going to know iran was behind it.
again, i think the issue will be to create some required minimum level of genuine public confusion over the actor. if the attack is on america, the political left and the basic decency of americans is a powerful feature of any enemy’s arsenal. if the attack is on israel, presumably the event will be self-contained because (1) i doubt the usa would nuke anyone on israel’s behalf, and (2) if israel gets hit hopefully operation samson is true and – bam, no more middle east.
since i’m engaged in shameless and useless predictions here, i’d guess the attack would be on the usa, since the thing with israel is really only useful as a way to piss off and make vulnerable and distract the USA. looks like the obama team the US government are not going to allow a bush-style succession problem though so maybe the first year won’t present the best opportunity to attack.
i mean, presumably 9/11 was a test, a rehearsal, and our enemies learned things that we are not aware are significant.
or not. could just be a saudi trustfund baby and his egyptian doctor muscle out in the hindu kush got a one-off. who knows? i just can’t really imagine, for all the martyrdom talk, that iran would nuke israel solo and just sit back and wait for the 10 megaton sunrise over Tehran. i mean… why? i’m sorry, pure jihadi hate is just not a sufficient answer.
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has the best 20 year track record on Iran I know of – way ahead of the CIA and any other intelligence agency. This is his take (Aug 08) on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Aminiwahckjob is about 18th on the pecking order with his support limited to the nationalists in the major urban areas. De Mesquita named two people, one of which will replace Amininwhackjob (I don’t remember the names). As a point of reference de Mesquita was the only person to publicly pick Kahmenei as Khomenhi’s successor a few years before it happened.
de Mesquita says that the Ruling Council lets Aminiwhackjob speak out about nukes to measure the international reaction. Aminiwhackjob does not make policy.
As to the state of Iran’s nuclear enrichment, de Mesquita says that Kahmenei and the Ruling Council are likely to develop the know-how but will stop short of actually enriching weapons grade uranium out of concern for international reactions. This goes against the conventional wisdom.
One argument for Iran going all the way to a nuclear bomb, regardless of consequences, is Islamic suicidalism. de Mesquita’s take is that to substantiate that argument one would have to produce other examples of irrational actions by Iran’s Ruling COuncil in the past 20 years or so. There are none.
Absent somebody with a better Iran track record making the better argument, I would have to adopt de Mesquita’s position.
Fred:
I think you are correct in your analysis, so far as it goes.
One thing I find rather odd is how polite Westerners have been. It takes a certain level of cultural sensitivity to know what works and what doesn’t, but Islamists (particularly the terrorist variety) appear to be hypersensitive to insults. This means that carefully crafted yet gratuitous insults are the way to go.
It think the West does have a form a deterrence against terrorism. If terrorism causes people to become more contemptuous toward Islam and more likely to turn Islamists into a laughingstock for humor, that may have a deterrent effect.
It might not be politically correct, but making jokes about Muslim ritual is fair game. For example, I have a question for you. Do you know of any religion that specifies jumping jacks as part of its ritual? After all, I’ve heard that some people turn calisthenics into a religion.
Peter Boston said:
“de Mesquita’s take is that to substantiate that argument one would have to produce other examples of irrational actions by Iran’s Ruling COuncil in the past 20 years or so. There are none.”
Let’s pick out a few easy ones:
1) Making it national policy to use young boys to clear mine fields as Iran did in the Iran-Iraq War.
2) Making Ahmadinejad (a certifed lunatic) President of Iran.
3) Having a nuclear development program and claiming it’s for peaceful purposes only while the country is floating in petroleum.
4) Publicly annoucing intent to genocide Israel.
5) …
Peter – exactly. ahmadinejad is just an antenna, perhaps as even 9/11 was just an antenna, like a – weren’t depth charges or something like that once used to find the lay of the ocean floor?
it’s like BOOM! “Ok, now let’s see what happens…” and in the meantime you get the nice direct effects of the boom, which are really supposed to be collateral but which the victims regard as primary. very nice & confusing!
Just as Islamic theology and Bolshevik Marxism are primarily weapons against the existing order (rather than cogent explanations of reality), so this nuclear gambit in Iran seems like it’s more of a global disinformation campaign – part of active measures against the USA/NATO.
i mean, look at Russia’s new overtures regarding “domestic” nuclear capability in Venezuela. *VENEZUELA* for god’s sake.
come on. this is not simply some historical synchronicity regarding nuclear tech proliferation and whatnot.
and what about this huge rash of chinese hackings into the White House and Pentgon…? and the arrest of that guy at NATO the other day who was a spy for the Russians since the mid-1980s?
come on come on, we need much clearer Big picture here. the media is used primarily to keep our attention small and petty and rancorous. we can do better!
Peter Boston,
Totalitarian government – whether Iranian Islamist Theocracy, Fascist, Nazi or Communist – is irrational. The American Declaration of Independence is rational.
Eggplant
de Mesquita’s admonition is to demonstrate irrationality at the international level. None of those things you listed qualify.
Storm Rider
I agree with you but that is not the argument.
wait wait –
(1) right but the 20th century demonstrates how awful revolutionary-totalitarian governments can be, beyond imagination. using young boys might present advantages vis a vis available fighting population.
(2) ahmedinajad was appointed after bush became president, as far as i remember. since iran is not a democracy and he does not run the country, his persona must serve some purpose.
(3) unless it was believed – remember it was disclosed after we’d invaded iraq – that the us would be in no position to respond, particularly since the anti-Bush, anti-US active measures had proven so successful even from the moment it was announced the USA was seriously considering invading iraq.
(4) well but it does serve a purpose to keep up the impression that the islamic nutjobs are going to even mass-suicide-bomb themselves (like suicide-by-cop, suicide-by-israel). it sort of contributes to the impression that apparently suicidal strategic attacks are reasonable, though according to an exotic logic.
honestly, iran is a sh*thole. just like saddam’s excuse that he “kept WMD fiction to defend against Iran,” that iran would have a bomb is just ludicrous. pakistan at least faces india, who detonated their first bomb in ’74. i mean, that makes sense. but iran? armed with russia nuke tech? where the whole underbelly of the russian nearabroad is a giant portion of historically islamic asia?
i’m just sort of playing devil’s advocate here. i just can’t imagine the guardian council really decided to liquidate probably the islamic revolution to kill the jews (and a ton of arabs).
i mean, if they were that stupid, shouldn’t they have been hit by a car by now?
Mongoose: The book I have is indeed “Japan’s Secret War” by Robert K. Wilcox, a 1985 work. It is available at half.com.
Eggplant: All I know is that people are looking at setting up logistics support for the free floating platforms. As to what they can detect and how they do it I know nothing.
I am wondering about the “free floating” part. That would have to imply guidance and propulsion or else they would end up on the beach somewhere or lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
Maybe they are going to be stationed in the approaches to ports and scan the ships somehow as they go by.
Maybe they will have big signs that say “Osama’s Mother Wears Army Boots” or “Iran’s Imams Love Pork BBQ” and their destruction will serve as an early warning.
Or perhaps big signs that say “President Obama bids you to go home in peace.” That ought do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyUX6wV1lBQ
“In this time of nuclear weaponry we cannot afford to wait for the fight to come to us….This generation is so goddam spoiled and lazy they wouldn’t know a real threat to their freedom until it interrupted the power source to their X-Box and killed a half million people….How dare we not learn from such things. This is not a goddam video game!….Now the current leader in Iran has made it very clear that he wants to destroy America and threatens a second Holocaust against the Jew! And this leader is obtaining nuclear technology right under our noses. The difference between him and Hitler is that Hitler built up his war machine in secrecy! How stupid and ignorant should we be? If Hitler would have had nuclear weapons he would have used them. If Japan would have had them they would have used them. You had all better wake up.”
As Sigintel mentions, space-based missile defense is the most cost-effective. Of course, “militarizing space” is a major lefty shibboleth. No wonder, it would actually work. The coolest idea of all of Star Wars was and is Brilliant Pebbles. I believe they could be built with Off-the-shelf components right now. Put a constellation of those carriers in the skies above the Northern Hemisphere, and we would be infinitely safer than we are now.
Any President who refuses to weaponize space with defensive systems, or who will not deploy ground-based missile defenses should be labeled as a fool or a traitor, or both; and he/she should be impeached.
I’m beyond disappointed that no leader from the Republican Party has spoken words to this effect, and that’s one reason why I am still an Independent. Where are the courageous voices in the Republican Party? Are any Republican political leaders strong and brave enough to risk it all – give me liberty or give me death?
Storm-rider: Where indeed.
Alot of you are missing obvious points:
While there are radical Islamistist willing to kill themselves for Jihad you fail to realise the large majority of Muslims do not beleive in this. Not to mention the fact that Islamic Matrydom is only acceptable when the impact of that death outweighs the consequences. In other words the likelyhood of a crazy Arab with a suitcase nuke or Iran launching a nuclear weapon against Isreal are low because most of the people who would make that decision realize that the retaliation far outweighs the effectivieness of that kind of strike. This doesn’t prevent a Cuban Missile Crisis like situation from getting out of control but then again none of the Arab states have the nuclear capability to do something like that for some time.
A more effective strategy in the long term would be to first focus on destabilizing the oil cartels; the primary source of funds that the Arabs are using to develope nuclear and ballistic technology. Alternative energy(nuclear power plus alternative fuels) will be more effective at reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation amongst the crazies than any missile defense system will ever accomplish. Thats not to say that there is no place for missile defense in our arsenal; but we have period of time before that needs to be implimented to be effective and I would rather we focus on changing our energy source then focusing on missile defense. This double whammy will make the Arab states largely ineffective on the world stage; killing their international power.
Destroying the oil market will be a bigger blow to fundamental Islam than any defense system.
Hurricaine,
Your point about oil is a good one – addt it to the to-do list – should have already been done.
“While there are radical Islamistist willing to kill themselves for Jihad you fail to realise the large majority of Muslims do not beleive in this.”
Even though this statement is true, it misses the point. The spread of Totalitarian Islam does not require every Muslim to be a warrior; it just requires them not to speak out against Sharia Law and Islamic Jihad. The vast majority of Muslims can just be quiet and go along with whoever is the stronger horse. Your statement could easily be altered to fit Germany in the 1930′s:
“While there are radical Germans willing to kill themselves for Nazism you fail to realize the large majority of Germans do not believe in this.”
A hell of a lot of good it did the world back then – that most Germans were not radical.
“”"”"”"”The WSJ editorial dated 11-24-08 (apologies to the author) discusses how one EMP nuke over Chicago can take out the USA grid and cancel all of the electronics coast to coast.”"”"”"”"
I’m skeptical of the extent of the damage that would be wrought, although it was still be extensive. I think it’s more likely that the damage in such a scenario would be “confined” to the central U.S. and South-central Canada That’s a lot of territory, and a lot of damage, but it is not “the whole continental U.S.”
This is not a quibble, this kind of quantifying and sticking to realistic scenarios matters.
Also, where would this nuke be delivered from? A nuke that finds itself 300 miles above Chicago would have to be on at least a 3,000, and perhaps as much as a 5,000 mile intended trajectory (which would be cut in half at its apex above the Windy City). That means it would have to have been launched from either the North Atlantic (a retrograde trajectory), or, more likely, from the North Pacific near the N. American coast (where, golly, NO ONE WILL NOTICE IT, EVEN THOUGH IT’s HUGE) to take advantage of the Earth’s direction of rotation, an issue that matters for ballistic missiles traveling those kinds of distances.
A missile capable of travelling that distance while carrying the likely-sized warhead that can be developed in the near future by a rogue state (and that can also cause the devastating EMP damage stated) would have to be a fairly substantial missile. Remember that American Trident missiles carry refined, American-designed warheads that are powerful for their compact size (and are also THERMOnuclear). A rogue state would be trying to fire an over-sized fission-only bomb, and would need a fairly large rocket. As a matter of fact, we’re talking about something 50-70 ft. long, and massing between 45K and 60K pounds.
So what are they going to launch this most-likely liquid-fueled, 18-wheeler-sized rocket that they have-to-fuel-near-time-of-launch from? A converted oil tanker? Floating fishing factory? Any guesses? Anyone? And no one will notice the alterations needed to carry both missile and fuel depot and launch pad? Or, does everyone really expect that rogue states will have both the compact, combat-ready, solid-fueled missile technology and small thermo-nukes to be launched form a submarine platform within the next 5-10 years? I don’t think so. Neither should any of you.
We should be more concerned about the fact that they could deliver chemical warheads (and maybe biological. Maybe) with what they’ve got now from more concealable points of departure.
A chartered, mid-sized freighter aircraft could do a suicide airburst over a major city. But, this means that the intended bomb would have to be smuggled into the continental U.S. in several large sections, and kept concealed for long durations. The aircraft would have to be prepped for the effort over at least days, if not weeks, without arousing suspicion, and ditto for loading the bomb onto the plane (again, disassembled — the final assembly would be done on the plane itself, hence the prep period).
The above scenario is possible, and not improbable, but one hell of a lot more difficult then sneeking cardboard cutters and mace sprayers inside shaving kits onto a passenger plane.
A more likely American target would be a border town, via truck nuke.
El Paso (by way of Juarez, Mexico), and Laredo (by way of Nuevo Laredo). The truck would be park on the bridge or border crossing, and devastate both communities on either side of the Texas-Mexico border.
“”"”"”Someone told me once the number of nuclear weapons which it was calculated, would be enough to “kill” the USA. The number had apparently been derived from a Cold War study by a think tank. I’ve no idea whether the number is real or whether the person was pulling my leg. However it is a surprisingly large number.”"”"”"
No major nuclear exchange would ever go above several score to a few hundred total striking large swathes of the northern hemisphere. Cataclysmic, indeed, but not a “world-ending” scenario. Civilization-ending, perhaps, and then only for Western civilazation. All those other thousands of nukes would never be put into play before it was all over.
The Left only wants other countries to “weaponize space.” They definitely do not want the U.S. to do it, because they want this country laid low and hemmed in. They want us to be susceptible to nuclear blackmail. I’ve known this for decades; back twenty to thirty years ago when I was on the Left my fellow-travelers wanted the Soviet Union and China to best us in the Cold War. Anything at all that would give the U.S. an advantage, they were against.
And so now some of the more subtle, hidden, and powerful among them, the ones with the right connections, are politically placed to have an impact on policy. They have arrived and they have the forum. And they aren’t going to let go of their long term objectives. Their major benefactors are people like the naturalized American citizen (who has no loyalties to this country)George Soros and Canadian expat living in China Maurice Strong (he’s from a family of Communists in both Canada and the U.S.). Both consider the United States to be the enemy of humanity. Both are diehard socialists who played in the capitalist pig dog game to get their financial chits on the monopoly board game. And now with financial and institutional power they are parlaying their resources towards their deeper, longer term goals.
Roderick Reilly,
What’s to keep an Islamist terrorist organization or nation from finding a “lost” Russian plutonium-based fusion warhead(s)? Is that possibility worth ignoring? Would you stake the life of your family, and your nation, on it? Doesn’t the history of the twentieth century tell us that worst-case scenarios often do come true?
Or could Russia simply transfer a missile to some power and say “hey, they bought it in Chechnya!”
besides, don’t you need a highly trained – superpower special forces-trained – group to be able to deal with such a piece of equipment?
i love it when the missile guys get on Belmont. I don’t know any of this stuff.
As for 300 miles above Chicago, keep in mind that ballistic missiles go very, very, high. They go about as high at apogee as they go far in distance. Getting to 300 NM will be no problem, since it will get there on the way down, anyway. The distance will be a challenge.
In contrast, space boosters generally go to much lower altitudes (100-200 miles)and then fire upper stages as required to attain the required orbits. And they require much more energy to do so than do ballistic missiles. A stock LGM-30 Minuteman III ICBM can’t put anything into orbit.
An orbital nuke would be one way of getting the weapon in place but that would require much more energy and greater sophistication than a ballistic missile, completely aside from the command and control problems associated with detonating it. I suppose they could use an INMARSAT transceiver to do that if they could figure out where the payload was.
I have no idea how large a weapon would be required to produce the required EMP, but I think it very likely that it would exceed Iran or North Korea’s space launch capabilities for at least the immediate future.
As for weaponizing space, every ballistic missile that is launched already does that.
As for weaponizing space, most of us boys of a certain age can’t understand why we ever ended the X-15 program, with over 250 sub-orbital launches, a true rocket plane.
We need a quick ‘apollo program’ on scram-jets, and we could launch a fleet of sub-orbital detroyers post haste, imagine squadrons of B-52′s at 50,000 feet launching two to four Auroras each over the North Pole.
Of course, all of the above is just rambunctious sci-fi boy thinking. The true solution is the Sword of Damocles, space-based carriers that shoot updated X-15 clones DOWNWARD into stratospheric space above enemy launches.
These clones don’t need pilots, they only need a shed load of high-impulse, self-steering simple radar guided rockets to shoot down anything within a thousand cubic miles of sky. (that’s a small swath of sky, I admit) These remotely piloted space fighters will carry minor upgrades of currently deployed technolgy. In the airless void of space, minor mods to air-to-air missiles will work like charms, using current targeting tech and rocket engines.
Missile Defense is technically feasible, and a rapid response program would employ thousands of high-paid Americans! Isn’t that what our Office of the President-elect wants?
All these scenerios have been debated ad nuseum since the start of the Cold War.
The problem with all these scenerios is that the American response would not really be hindered by any single nuclear strike. The US military probably (and should have) failsafes to make sure strike orders can be issues with little to no delay. The danger has always been that an adversary would deliver a big enough strike to disable our ability to strike back. This is the entire cornerstone of the MAD doctrine; create a big enough system that only an overwhelming strike could knock us out; and no one has it. The Soviets knew any first strike on their part would result in an overwheleming response by us; hence they never truly were willing to use it. That’s why both sides really backed down during the Cuban Missile crisis; Kennedy and Kruschev knew any attack would be the apocolype.
The fundamental difference between the Soviets and the Arabs is Islam. But that only has influence if we have a Cuban Missile Crisis type situation. However the amount of resources Iran or Lybia would have to devote to creating that type of nuclear arsenal is even today prohibitively expensive.
That is why I prose to use our technological power to destroy the oil market. Removing oil as a commodity will render the financial power of the Middle East ineffective. They will not be able to invest enough resources into developing nuclear weapons. This will also remove the Islamic power based because as the nations get poorer their population will rise up against them. Then we deal with whoever is left over. That would be the right time to develope a missile defense system.
Current terrorists in India are reduced to machine guns. Not even flying airplanes into skyscrapers. Next they’ll be shooting arrows in Afghanistan when they run out of bullets. Palestinians have been throwing rocks for years now.
Why on earth are we worried a jot about these morons *ever* being able to put together something as sophisticated as a nuclear bomb, let alone transporting it, let alone getting it to go off on target at the right time.
exactly. but we have to worry about their being used as a delivery device.
Assuming a nuke attack on the US, is the only person able to order a response the President?
So what if we had a scenario of a nuke going off in the US and Barry reacts exactly as you would expect a Leftist to act: he does nothing but suck his thumb. Even in the face of massive public opinion and even the cretins in Congress pretending to want to strike back. What if he just says no? Is there any alternative course of action?
#100 peterike,
“Is there any alternative course of action?”
Yes, there is, but I’m not supposed to expound upon that here.
fred: Yes, there is, but I’m not supposed to expound upon that here.
Well yeah! But let me rephrase. Is there any official alternative course of action?
Really interesting discussion. Thanks, one & all.
Random thought #1 – re the challenge of exploding a large nuclear bomb over Chicago. Ever seen those huge Russian heavy lift aircraft that are sometimes parked at Houston Intercontinental? There to pick up very large very heavy loads of oil field equipment & carry them direct to the Middle East. Then fly back.
Random thought #2 – re the long march of the internal enemy. Suppose that Soros et all do want to weaken the US, and Barry is their boy. Having achieved the summit of power, they could now disarm the US. Or they could instead use the US military power they now command to advance their global aims. Shades of the temptation of the Ring-Bearer in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings — destroy the source of power, or use it?
re #83
brilliant pebbles is the way to go for ballistic missile defense IMO. Fewer technical hurdles that anything you can do from inside the atmosphere… and a side benefit is that it could be used to deniably sabotage ballistic missile testing by rogue states.