Trump and Project 2025 want to resurrect the failed GOP effort to build a magic shield in space that they promise will protect America. It is a cruel joke.
Joe, you seem determined to ignore what may be the best argument against missile defense systems. Nukes can be delivered to America by means other than missiles, thus making missile defense irrelevant, no matter how effective or affordable it might be.
How hard can it be to smuggle nukes in to America? Or perhaps, smuggle in just the nuclear material, and then build the bombs from locally sourced parts. Or take out America's ports by setting off the nukes just before they reach the inspection sites. Or count on the fact that only a tiny number of shipping containers get a real inspection. Or smuggle parts and nuclear material over the borders the same way billions of dollars worth of drugs come in. Or forget about nukes altogether and attack America with biological weapons instead. And probably a hundred other strategies that would never occur to amateurs such as myself.
If I were attacking America I might do this. Set off one smuggled nuke in one city, and give the media some time to feast on the horror show footage. Then announce a 2nd detonation was coming to some other unnamed city. And then set that one off to earn credibility. And then stand back and watch as America's cities emptied out, the economy collapsed, and social and political chaos paralyzed the nation. Two nukes. That might be all it takes.
If America did have an effective Iron Dome our enemies would just adapt their attack strategies to go around it. Even if an Iron Dome worked perfectly and we could have it for free, that wouldn't really matter. We'd still be at serious risk of national destruction that could come out of the blue when and how we least expect it.
I try not to repeat everything that I have written over the years on the futility of missile defenses. I have often commented on the paradox of defenses against nuclear weapons. If, by some miracle, we could actually build an effective ballistic missile defense, our enemies would deliver them by other means. That is one reason Russia is working on long-range underwater nuclear drones and cruise missiles.
This is an old problem. When Robert Oppenheimer testified before Congress on the destructive power of a nuclear weapon delivered to an American city, he was asked how we could stop it. "With a screwdriver," he answered. We would have to open up every crate delivered to our shores to check for a smuggled bomb. Tom Clancy wrote about exactly this problem in "The Sum of All Fears" -- a nuclear bomb smuggled into the country in a Coke machine and placed at the Super Bowl in Baltimore.
The only way to get rid of the threat of nuclear attack is to eliminate the weapons. Defense is futile. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said long ago: "But let no one think that the expenditure of vast sums for weapons and systems of defense can guarantee absolute safety for the cities and citizens of any nation. The awful arithmetic of the atomic bomb does not permit of any such easy solution."
You might have considered mentioning smuggled bombs in your recent articles, as they make the rest of your argument unnecessary. They may also make ICBM treaties unnecessary.
I would be interested in your further thoughts on the smuggled bomb issue. A future article perhaps? I have questions like....
How hard would it be for the US to determine the source of a smuggled bomb? Could an attacker successfully disguise their identify, or would that be technically impossible?
Could an attacker unleash chaos in America with just a handful of bombs by causing panicked citizens of large cities to evacuate out of fear that their city might be next? How realistic would you judge that scenario to be?
How effective are nuke detection systems at the nation's ports?
What methods would be required to smuggle nuclear material in to the country without detection? Easy? Hard? Impossible?
Could the parts needed to assemble a bomb be obtained locally within America without alerting the authorities? Or are these highly specialized and tightly controlled parts which wouldn't be easy to obtain?
Who in the nuclear weapons expert community specializes in the topic of smuggled bombs?
And so on. I'm sure you can think of more related issues. Thanks.
Joe writes, "While it is true that new technologies have increased the lethality of missiles, the missile threat to the United States has decreased dramatically. Arms control treaties and the collapse of the Soviet Union slashed the number of nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed missiles threatening the United States."
Ok, but the number of weapons is not how we should be measuring the missile threat to the United States. Fifty nukes would be sufficient to destroy America's largest cities and propel the nation in to unprecedented social and political chaos. The arms control treaties and reduction of the number of weapons didn't make America safer, it made the nuclear arsenals more affordable.
The missile threat to America should be measured by the number of NATIONS who have nukes that can reach America, and by factors like technical failures, bad luck, leadership changes around the world, the geopolitical situation at a given moment in time etc.
Star Wars redux. More nonsense from the ever expanding malignancy in the White House. What do you think the odds are copresident Musk gets the contracts? He’s already proven he knows how to blow up missiles. His do all the time.
This is an unexplored issue. One of the major obstacles to any space-based defense is the enormous cost of launching all the weapons into orbit. Space X (and Blue Origin) would benefit substantially from Trump’s plan, should it ever advance into production and deployment.
Joe, you seem determined to ignore what may be the best argument against missile defense systems. Nukes can be delivered to America by means other than missiles, thus making missile defense irrelevant, no matter how effective or affordable it might be.
How hard can it be to smuggle nukes in to America? Or perhaps, smuggle in just the nuclear material, and then build the bombs from locally sourced parts. Or take out America's ports by setting off the nukes just before they reach the inspection sites. Or count on the fact that only a tiny number of shipping containers get a real inspection. Or smuggle parts and nuclear material over the borders the same way billions of dollars worth of drugs come in. Or forget about nukes altogether and attack America with biological weapons instead. And probably a hundred other strategies that would never occur to amateurs such as myself.
If I were attacking America I might do this. Set off one smuggled nuke in one city, and give the media some time to feast on the horror show footage. Then announce a 2nd detonation was coming to some other unnamed city. And then set that one off to earn credibility. And then stand back and watch as America's cities emptied out, the economy collapsed, and social and political chaos paralyzed the nation. Two nukes. That might be all it takes.
If America did have an effective Iron Dome our enemies would just adapt their attack strategies to go around it. Even if an Iron Dome worked perfectly and we could have it for free, that wouldn't really matter. We'd still be at serious risk of national destruction that could come out of the blue when and how we least expect it.
I try not to repeat everything that I have written over the years on the futility of missile defenses. I have often commented on the paradox of defenses against nuclear weapons. If, by some miracle, we could actually build an effective ballistic missile defense, our enemies would deliver them by other means. That is one reason Russia is working on long-range underwater nuclear drones and cruise missiles.
This is an old problem. When Robert Oppenheimer testified before Congress on the destructive power of a nuclear weapon delivered to an American city, he was asked how we could stop it. "With a screwdriver," he answered. We would have to open up every crate delivered to our shores to check for a smuggled bomb. Tom Clancy wrote about exactly this problem in "The Sum of All Fears" -- a nuclear bomb smuggled into the country in a Coke machine and placed at the Super Bowl in Baltimore.
The only way to get rid of the threat of nuclear attack is to eliminate the weapons. Defense is futile. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said long ago: "But let no one think that the expenditure of vast sums for weapons and systems of defense can guarantee absolute safety for the cities and citizens of any nation. The awful arithmetic of the atomic bomb does not permit of any such easy solution."
You might have considered mentioning smuggled bombs in your recent articles, as they make the rest of your argument unnecessary. They may also make ICBM treaties unnecessary.
I would be interested in your further thoughts on the smuggled bomb issue. A future article perhaps? I have questions like....
How hard would it be for the US to determine the source of a smuggled bomb? Could an attacker successfully disguise their identify, or would that be technically impossible?
Could an attacker unleash chaos in America with just a handful of bombs by causing panicked citizens of large cities to evacuate out of fear that their city might be next? How realistic would you judge that scenario to be?
How effective are nuke detection systems at the nation's ports?
What methods would be required to smuggle nuclear material in to the country without detection? Easy? Hard? Impossible?
Could the parts needed to assemble a bomb be obtained locally within America without alerting the authorities? Or are these highly specialized and tightly controlled parts which wouldn't be easy to obtain?
Who in the nuclear weapons expert community specializes in the topic of smuggled bombs?
And so on. I'm sure you can think of more related issues. Thanks.
Joe writes, "While it is true that new technologies have increased the lethality of missiles, the missile threat to the United States has decreased dramatically. Arms control treaties and the collapse of the Soviet Union slashed the number of nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed missiles threatening the United States."
Ok, but the number of weapons is not how we should be measuring the missile threat to the United States. Fifty nukes would be sufficient to destroy America's largest cities and propel the nation in to unprecedented social and political chaos. The arms control treaties and reduction of the number of weapons didn't make America safer, it made the nuclear arsenals more affordable.
The missile threat to America should be measured by the number of NATIONS who have nukes that can reach America, and by factors like technical failures, bad luck, leadership changes around the world, the geopolitical situation at a given moment in time etc.
Star Wars redux. More nonsense from the ever expanding malignancy in the White House. What do you think the odds are copresident Musk gets the contracts? He’s already proven he knows how to blow up missiles. His do all the time.
This is an unexplored issue. One of the major obstacles to any space-based defense is the enormous cost of launching all the weapons into orbit. Space X (and Blue Origin) would benefit substantially from Trump’s plan, should it ever advance into production and deployment.