The military utility of the American ABM systems to be directed against Russia depends on the assumption that Russia will be unable to deploy its own ABM systems. And this appears false. Rather after a lag Russian ABM systems are very likely to appear(see similar US reasoning over the Atom bomb, Stealth fighters etc). The American monopoly of ABM's is likely to be a short run affair. And at its end any number of countries may share the illusion that a nuclear first strike with the protection of their ABM systems is the safest policy in an international crisis. The world will of course then be a much much much more dangerous place for every country including the USA.

Russia will develop ABMs whether we do or not.

Which is better:

- both sides have ABMs

- only Russia has ABMs

Has Federation of American Scientists ever come out in favor of a weapons system? The answer is no. Pacifists are by nature opposed to weapons. The FAS has opposed every major weapons systems developed since their founding. So no one whould besurprised that they are opposed to missile defense as well.

Butt's main arguement isn't that missile defense won't work, it's what might happen if it does...or at worst only partially does. It is telling that instead of proposing we make a more robust, potent system Butt argues that we simply dismantle a less than perfect system. Apparently we are to believe that no defense is better than an imperfect one.

Common sense is totally nonexistent when it comes to the military - industrial complex. If there were more common sense there would be less kickbacks for the politicians.

Reuters, Monday, June 13, 2011

"South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin on Monday asserted that North Korea likely has the ability to build a compact nuclear warhead, suggesting it could place the weapon on a missile. Kim did not offer any specifics to lawmakers for his contention except to say Pyongyang has had adequate time to master the technological hurdle. The aspiring nuclear power has carried out two nuclear tests to date and is suspected to be readying for a third detonation. North Korea is not known to have yet constructed a missile capable of reaching the United States, but U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in January said he believed Pyongyang was five years away from achieving that goal."

Kaseman- Your post was the best!! Woolsey has prostituted himself, starting back as a henchman for Ahmed Chalabi, and receiving several hundred thousand dollars to help sell the Iraq War. Today, we have to ask why he is doing all, "The Sky is Falling" screeching? When the end sum of their argument is that the Russians will give all those secrets to the Iranians and Syrians, we can presume that he is getting paid by the Israelis to stir the pot. Beware of the former Generals who are also doing this screeching such as Barry McCaffrey, "The Sky is Falling" , "The Iranians have the bomb and are working on the missile to deliver it". All of these statements would flunk the BS stench test!

Do not afraid, brothers!
Russia will save and defend the USA!!

Russia start up bilding new base/
Base missile and air defense + new big radar - at CUBA!
Not only for Russia - specialy for US defense too!
New russian base will protect US from angry Iranian missiles.
Iran's missiles threaten US territory - from Venezuela.
New Russia base will defend.
PERGRUZKA!

Then why does everyone want it or is working on it?

The Indians have their own hit to kill system under development that's very conceptually similar to the old NIKE-ZEUS using a former IRBM as an interceptor.

The Chinese after a 30 year hiatus, recently restarted their midcourse defense program and a few years ago, staged an early midcourse intercept test.

The Russians have continued to keep the Moscow ABM system in operation, and have upgraded it to use hit to kill warheads instead of nuclear. They are also working heavily on the S-500 system which will have significant ABM capabilites.

The Israelis (with US aid) have successfully worked up and deployed the Arrow ABM system and are working on the next generation Arrow interceptor.

Japan really likes our ABM capabilities so much that they're willing to fund a significant portion of the SM-3 Block II capabilities development; and are the key foreign partner in the USN"s AEGIS BMD programme with their Kongo DDGs.

The Saudis have recently started to look at buying DDG-51s, rather than specialized LCS; because the LCS hull cannot support what the Saudis want -- namely the electrical and other support needs of BMD.

If ABM simply can't work; then why are so many people pursuing it on their own or in collaboration with the US?

Why did the Russians keep in service their Moscow based ABM, and continue to lightly upgrade it over the years, eventually downloading the remaining nuclear warheads from it and operating it as a Hit To Kill system?

If ABM simply didn't work; why did the Russians waste so much money in building the A35 system, then modernizing it to the A35M system, before replacing it with the A135 system?

If ABM didn't work; why did the Russians continue to keep in service the A135 system, despite tight budgets in the post-communist era for military funding?

Why are they working on a mobile ABM system in the S-500 if ABM doesn't work?

Why are the Indians chosing to continue into Phase II of their ABM R&D efforts, which will result in a system capable of handling missiles with an intercontinental capability if ABM doesn't work?

Why is France wasting money on developing a tactical ABM capability for their Aster 30 if ABM doesn't work?

Why does the UAE possibly want to spend $7 billion on buying THAAD if ABM doesn't work?

Etc etc.

Unless you're seriously going to suggest that there's a global conspiracy by the arms makers to make everyone buy useless wares...

Balloons? They don't re-radiate in the same spectra as actual re-entry vehicles which are made out of various ablatives and alloys to survive re-entry.

Also, at the altitudes that ballistic missiles debuss their warheads, there's still air -- it's why the International Space Station has to be reboosted annually -- so the mass of the decoy or warhead matters.

The Balloons also have to be inflated fast enough to be able to show up on sensors fast enough to prevent them from being discarded as obvious decoys. Pressurizing something in the near vacuum of space in that amount of time is going to be a very tricky technical task.

Indeed, one of our GBI tests "failed" because the target missile failed to deploy it's decoys and countermeasures successfully; preventing the kill vehicle from getting a chance to test it's sensors against the countermeasures.

If we have hang-ups with our decoys, what makes you think Iran or North Korea will be able to achieve 99% reliabile decoy deployment?

Detonate a nuclear warhead in the target vehicle cloud.

Specifically an enhanced radiation warhead designed to emit mostly X-Rays and neutrons.

The balloons will be popped, and everything within the cloud will be subjected to quite a lot of acceleration from the high energy X-Rays impacting them; quickly filtering out the lightweight decoys from the actual warheads.

Additionally, the neutrons will penetrate the warhead casings and quickly render them duds. Certain parts of nuclear weapons are very voracious neutron absorbers; and if you pump a lot of neutrons into them; they well, melt; destroying the precision needed for an implosion warhead.

This was all known in the 1960s -- hence why SPARTAN had a five megaton enhanced radiation warhead with a lethal kill radius measured in at least hundreds of miles.

At a time of tight budgets, doubling down on a risky, easily foiled technology is more foolish than ever. "Anyway, the biggest threat is from NK, not Iran. If anything, we should be investing in a Pacific defense not a pie-in-the-sky idea for a Euro defense...contractor pork." Wow, I guess the fact that we have a very strong operational relationship with the Japanese Navy, and have conducted inter-service ABM tests between US Navy warships and Japanese Warships, where one warship of one nation tracks finance The military utility of the American ABM systems to be directed against Russia depends on the assumption that Russia will be unable to deploy its own ABM systems. And this appears false. Rather after a lag Russian ABM systems are very likely to appear(see similar US reasoning over the Atom bomb, Stealth fighters etc). The American monopoly of ABM's is likely to be a short run affair. And at its en.

Someone who is dishonest would use just the cost of the SLBMs (about $55 million each); to claim that we could add 100 more SLBMs for $6.6 billion USD flight simulator reviews. This means that if you want to add 120 x SLBMs in 5 x SSBNs on patrol in our deterrent force, you are going to have to buy 216 x SLBMs in 9 x SSBNs to reach that level; driving costs up to $29.8 billion. ($11.8 for the missiles, $18 for the SSBNs).