After this was published, I believe the US and USSR concluded that there was a fundamental problem: Devices that block missiles cost much more than a missile.
Assuming the cost gap narrowed, one side could theoretically outspend the other (by a little), forcing the other side to make more missiles, including them dummy missiles, which are much cheaper than nukes.
In response, the missile defense side would need to make more missile defense systems, and the cycle would continue.
Basically, it creates a situation where the Nash equilibrium leads to one side going bankrupt, and being vulnerable to a first strike.
Rather than break the mutually assured destruction equilibrium, the US and USSR ultimately decided not to build these systems.
Of course, weapons manufacturers keep trying to revive the idea, as it leads to infinite military expenditures...
Missiles in the Israeli-Palestine conflict are not a "real" threat. Even if they were unstoppable they wouldn't be able to damage Israel in any significant way. Likewise, any real military effort that would credibly end Palestine would get any political party in Israel booted out of power, or frankly, thrown in jail. Hell, Israel has a bit of a habit of throwing ex-politicians in jail even now.
Missiles in that conflict are "ads". They have to do something that will attract attention for less damage to either side than can be expected in donations(/sales) it delivers for both sides and apparently, missiles it is.
By that I don't mean that Palestinians or Israeli are at war for attention-for-donations. Of course there is a real conflict there. But this way of "running" the conflict can exist (for any length of time) because the value of the donations/weapons sales > the value destroyed by the actual conflict. It's not the cause of the conflict, it's just a Nash equilibrium in the conflict.
Very interesting, also it comes before the news that the nuclear pumped X-Ray laser concept came about from misreading the results of a test. Teller used this faulty data to imagine a satellite system that could shoot down 10s of missiles from each satellite. When that seemed to be 'too little', the capabilities of these satellites jumped by an two orders of magnitude twice, each time in response to criticism.
"It might be possible to generate as many as 100,000 independently
aimable beams from a single x-ray laser module, each of
which could be quite lethal even to a distant hardened object
[e.g., an RV] in flight. " https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1988/eirv15n44-19881104/e...
This was due to an imagined gain of 10^6 to 10^12 over the xray output of a single device. In the PDF it is given as fact that they were able to achieve these gains, where as it was found that there was never any evidence of any x-ray lasing gain found in any nuclear test.
I hope there is a shit ton more devs interested in national security and military application development than there was 3 years ago. If you don't know yet, even if we don't want war it can fucking land on your doorstep (or someone else's).
Yeah but... at some point more money doesn't really matter. It's what you're working on and who you're working with, i.e. how you're spending your time, that is the real reward.
I've had experiences working with different agencies and teams in the federal government that I wouldn't trade for a spotted hog.
Don't a large proportion of them think that would be immoral? They protest when their workplaces get government contracts for relatively benign things let alone weapons development
More worrying is the current zeitgeist amongst the GenX and the upcoming workforce:
1) Hard work is considered fascist
2) Everyone is gung-ho about mental health and yet no one can define what precisely it is
3) Racism, gender identity and climate change dominate discussions
4) Authoritarian views (No free speech, cancel culture, struggle sessions)
And we have CIA ads where the ideal person is only concerned with themselves, never mentions they are American and never look up to something beyond their own self-identity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g
We're doomed. I am an immigrant to America and my folks back home are saying "What happened!?"
> These various programs and policy recommendations came to a head in President Reagan's March 23 "Star Wars" speech. Reagan had been interested in high-tech defense systems from the years he was Governor of California. his interest in this area grew during the 1980 Presidential electoral primaries with the advice of Dr. Edward Teller (Lawrence Livermore Laboratory). In late 1981, Teller met with Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham (US Army, ret.) and Karl Bendetsen (Hoover Institution) at the Heritage Foundation, where the three formed a small group on space policy and continued to offer advice to Reagan.
That's not how things work, at all. Ballistic missile defense is meant to reduce the number of nuclear warheads that make it through, not eliminate the threat entirely. Extant ballistic missile defense doesn't even come close to eliminating the threat, and that's without considering Status-6.
Consider, for instance, that there is no way in hell you could touch North Dakota with Status-6. If Russia wanted to attack missile silos in North Dakota, they would need to use their own ballistic missiles for it. Ballistic missile defense reduces the chance that they could succeed in any sort of decapitating preemptive strike. That it can't also stop a nuclear-powered torpedo is irrelevant; that's simply not what it's meant for. Other threats are/will be countered by other systems.
Which kind? 'Hypersonic' is a speed regime, not a technology in itself.
Hypersonic cruise missiles are not in the purview of ballistic missile defense, unless they have a ballistic stage, in which case they might be. Hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, having a ballistic boost-stage, are countered by some forms of ballistic missile defense, but not all.
Ballistic missile defense is a defense against ballistic missiles. Not torpedoes, cruise missiles, artillery shells, nukes smuggled in shipping containers, frogmen going up a river with a SDV, or anything else. Pretty much just ballistic missiles, or at least weapons with a ballistic boost stage.
I was responding to this, specifically, but did not elaborate enough:
"in North Dakota, they would need to use their own ballistic missiles for it"
There are a lot more ways to fly a nuclear weapon to North Dakota than just ballistic trajectories. Bombers, cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, etc.
Russia can barely maintain the gear they have that costs orders of magnitude less than a hypersonic missile / nuclear torpedo. Whats the chances their hypersonic missiles / nuclear torpedos even work?.
I wouldn't make any decisions on the thought that they won't work. Even if 90% of their currently deployed nukes don't work, that's still 160 deployed nukes that work, which is enough (not for outright extinction, but still). And 90% would be a high estimate given that Russia is genuinely very capable at rocket tech.
Not irrelevant, because there are more than one “potential enemy”, each with different capabilities. But yes, when one medium of nuke delivery gets more defended, another medium should be considered to keep MAD in balance.
Assuming the cost gap narrowed, one side could theoretically outspend the other (by a little), forcing the other side to make more missiles, including them dummy missiles, which are much cheaper than nukes.
In response, the missile defense side would need to make more missile defense systems, and the cycle would continue.
Basically, it creates a situation where the Nash equilibrium leads to one side going bankrupt, and being vulnerable to a first strike.
Rather than break the mutually assured destruction equilibrium, the US and USSR ultimately decided not to build these systems.
Of course, weapons manufacturers keep trying to revive the idea, as it leads to infinite military expenditures...