Reuters reports the following:
The United States has moved its ground-based interceptor missile defense system from test mode to operational amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, a U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a Washington Times report that the Pentagon has activated the system, which has been in the developmental stage for years.
"It's good to be ready," the official said. . . .
While military officials . . . note the United States has a limited missile defense system, they have so far declined to comment on any details about the capabilities or potential use of the system to intercept a North Korean missile.
This is not an issue I have followed much, but given the little I had read in recent years, this story comes as a surprise. Are there readers who can shed light on whether this means missile defense is a reality? And, if so, what does this mean for U.S. security? Or is this just much ado about nothing?
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This could be fun to watch.
But now, with the Cold War over and the Long War trending our way for the moment, North Korea finally shows up with the perfect scenario for a missile defense system: a single, small,fairly primitive country with a marginal missile system a long way off. If there was ever a nuclear threat we could actually counter with the best anti-missile defense system this planet has ever seen, it's North Korea's.
And they know it.
If North Korea launches, they have a small but real chance of hitting an American city. That small but real chance of inflicting damage on us will be followed by swift and certain annihilation. Our missile defense allows us to call North Korea's bluff (if it is a bluff) instead of having to stick our superpowered tail between our legs and run. As long as we have a President with the guts to stand our ground, we won't go wobbly. (Real estate prices in Seattle may go down, however.)
So--it's operational, in a geopolitical sense, even if it isn't CERTAIN to work in a mechanical engineering sense.
Of course, the SFPD does not monitor those announcements and there is no chance that anything will happen - unless of course there just so happens to be a cop wandering through the station.
Seems like the same theory at work.
Blowing it up during launch phase from a Aegis cruiser would just be cheating, not to mention an act of war (since it would still be over NK territory) so probably not a very good idea. Even if it was feasible it really wouldn't prove much of anything. All it would prove is that we have the capability to hit large slow moving objects with ship to shore missiles from international waters when we know exactly where they are and have plenty of warning when they are going to be launched. I think everybody knows we can already do that.
There are three portions of an ICBMs path: launch, orbit, descent.
In launch, it has a fairly straightline path and it moving "relatively" slowly - just beyond escape velocity. However, the time it takes to break into orbit is under a minute I believe. So, if we can detect the launch, get permission to shoot at it, and have something in range with which to shoot the missle.
In orbit, it has a very long period of flight. However, it is outside the atmosphere, so reaching it is fairly difficult unless we have satellites already in place. Then there is the question of counter-measures: the rocket splits into multiple pieces, or ejects a large number of large radar and heat signature items to distract targetting computers and hopefully we can hit every single one of those targets to get the real one.
In descent, you have something like a quarter of a minute to hit it as it is accelerating downward at 9.8 m/s^2 plus any additional boost due to fuel. If you could possibly hit it, you then have the potential to release nuclear fuel into the atmosphere.
In trials, we've hit targets that are in a launch style pattern, though without escape velocity speeds. And we've only hit them on a less than 50% success rate.
Body armor isn't perfect either, but I gladly wore it when I was in Iraq.
Well, if we had spent 10's of billions of dollars (actually probably 100s) on researching body armor and it was still completely worthless (wouldn't even stop a air rifle pellet) then I would be as sarcastic about that too and would be telling you about my ass monkeys tearing through your body armor to rip your heart out with their little ass monkey paws.
I read that North Korea threatened a missle launch shortly before the last time the US entered into an agreement with it about its nukes, so I think this is just more of the same tactic---e.g., "if I act out enough, the West will give me more assistance and stop threatening sanctions."
I fear more that North Korea will sell this technology to someone else who is likely to launch a missle at us--e.g., Al Qaeda---than I do that North Korea will use this missle to attack the USA or Japan. If Al Qaeda were to take over another country, such as Somalia, it would have the capability to base such missles on land and use them against the US or its allies. That may be a reality for us within the next few years, if press reports about connections between the Islamist warlords' in Somalia and Al Qaeda are true.
To show you how unreliable the current system is, there was a scheduled test intercept about a year ago. They had to cancel it because it was too overcast and they were not sure the interceptor could work in cloudy weather. I just hope if North Korea ever launches a nuke at us, they pick a clear and sunny day.
The body armor analogy is actually quite poor in this case. If your body armor functioned as poorly as the missile defense system you would never wear it due to its inconvience and cost. The missile defense system we have is actually there as a deterent, to make North Korea think that there is a chance, however small, that a launch will be intercepted. As such it may actually function quite well without ever hitting a missile.
For the reasons noted by other posters the chances of an actual intercept are quite small. We have a much better chance of hitting the missile platforms before launch.
Amazing.
They couch their points in uninformed and sometimes deceitful comments about how it won't, can't, or didn't work. They point to old tests as if nothing has changed.
So I guess the question is what they would say if it turned out to work. What would be their objection then? For there would be an objection. I'm just a bit puzzled about what it would look like.
And BTW, the Fairbanks Daily New-Miner is a supporter, having fired reporter Dan O'Neill shortly after an expose he did.
I guess asking questions like "how much will it cost?" and "will it work?" don't apply to the military.
My father actually works for the DOD as an aeronautical engineer. He was part of the team at the DOD research labs that researched the Star Wars program during the 80s. He teaches various courses at the graduate level, lectures on the subject of missile guidance systems and simulations, and is an AIAA fellow.
I'll do you all a favor and ask him about it to see if he will write a little primer on it for us all.
Get back to you all.
Well it hardly seems reasonable that the military would conceal the fact that it had an ABM system that works, would it? You will notice that nowhere does the military actually claim the system works.
As for rocket scientists saying the system works? Where are they? They simply don't exist. There are many who say the challenges can be overcome, but find one who says we have an operational system.
The issues of countermeasures are well known and even the strongest advocates of the system who know what they are talking about will quickly change the subject if you bring it up. Look how no one wants to discuss it here.
So I will say it again--countermeasures. Offer me a solution, even if we do manage to get the interceptors to work. Give me a shoot down method, I will offer an infinitely cheaper countermeasure that will defeat it.
Their pseudo-missile versus our pseudo-missile-defense.
Antonio
even if this is true it doesnt change the fact that the system doesnt work, nor is it likely to in the foreseeable future.
So Hattio, are you saying that's reason to doubt that there are 9 interceptor missiles deployed at Greely and 2 at Vandenberg? That's all the linked-to article says.
...and almost all of those countermeasures proposed by missile defense opponents are easily defeated by this stuff called "atmosphere" (if they're light enough to go on board the missile without much weight penalty), or cause a dramatic reduction in payload (if they're real enough to be truly confusing for the outgoing rocket).
Good countermeasures are really only useful if you have a massive amount of payload space set aside for them (in which case, you effectively "shot down" a couple of warheads before the thing even launched), or if your reentry vehicle has a moderately large amount of "jinking" capability (basically, none of the currently deployed ICBMs have anything like that installed, and the North Korean system certainly won't).
You can say "countermeasures" all you want, but they're not the magic wand some folks seem to think they are. Even with a "good" set of decoys and jammers, a sufficiently powerful radar can burn right through, or discern the differences due to physics of the packages.
...and for the folks who keep harping on the various "cheats" the system has had during tests: most of those were to test if the interceptor could get to the target at all, and the weather delays that have happened were for telemetry reasons (you don't want to run a test if you can't see what really happened).
A missile that achieved escape velocity wouldn't be a very effective weapon against a terrestrial target. The fact that a missile is ballistic implies that it follows the arc of a bullet after initial propulsive impulse. That means that the entire course of a missile is determined after the fuel is spent early in the ascent phase, unless it breaks up into several pieces. No ballistic missile will still be expending fuel in the descent phase; if it did it wouldn't properly be termed "ballistic."
How many millions of people does the system have to save to be worth the cost? Every dollar we spend on missle defense could be used to fight global warming. I'm good with the tradeoff.
There doesn't seem to be a "doubt the Star Wars boosters will actually allow their wares to be put on the spot" column in this thread, but I'll check it off, too.
Trying to get one lousy NK missile, with such egregiously ample warning, &failing to do so, would cause heads to roll ... in any institution with "shame" and "accountability." Of course, we're talking about Rumsfeld's Pentagon, so those don't apply.
In September 2004, the Navy will deploy an Aegis destroyer in the Sea of Japan capable of detecting and tracking missile launches from North Korea and China
Seems like excellent anticipation by the Administration and the Navy. This has the potential to be a spectacular event.
Either way: less payload, less warheads, and a much more complicated system.
Well, in the bizarro world of this administration, they kept their promise of deploying an ABM system by installing the missiles eventhough the supporting radars are not in place, and the missiles actually haven't passed their test phases. So basically what is "deployed" are Potemkin missiles, nothing more.
Right ... another random analogy that bears no relation to the facts regarding missile defense. Next, please!
"Modern" -- as in those developed by the US &Russia. However, this appears to be the first ICBM out of North Korea. They're far more like the "classic" ICBMs that didn't have all the bells and whistles. That's what makes it a best-case test for the US- going up against 1960s tech, not 1990s tech.
To guarantee that something not yet perfected cannot ever be perfected is to be silly, at best.
My best guess is that our missile defense system is 20% hardware, 70% tactical bluff and 10% cold sweat on the part of the career military who thought they were in an engineering program.
Missile defense is based around two basic concepts -- one, that we're far, far richer than anyone likely to launch a missile at us, and two, that the existance of ANY missile defense will prevent our enemies from knowing whether or not missiles launched at us will actually hit.
One could argue that missile defense isn't cost-effective -- that, for example, the money we'd spend defending Seattle is more than we'd lose if Seattle actually got nuked. But arguing against it on the grounds that it doesn't work or can't work is dippy. Of course it can work! There's no law of nature that says you can't hit a fast-moving object with another fast moving object.
The slightly more sophisticated argument is that missile defense puts us on the wrong side of an asymmetric arms race. In other words, if for every dollar (or won) that they spend on offensive weapon systems, we have to spend too many dollars (or won) on defensive systems, we are bound to actually lose this arms race.
And that may sound like a silly concern when comparing the United States to North Korea, but it isn't if the cost factor is high enough. The US economy is something like 400 times the size of the North Korean economy, so if the cost factor is that high (which is in fact possible), we actually could be in parity when it comes to an arms race.
Sorry, I meant to address your M-16 example. That is actually a great example of my point: bullets are very cheap, and human beings are very expensive, so it is worth expending a lot of bullets to destroy one human beings.
I had the pleasure of confronting one of your CWRU professorial colleagues -- Larry Krause -- at the Cleveland City Club a few years back about missile defense. He had published an op-ed in the NYTimes claiming that missile defense would never work, it was too expensive, it would cause and arms race etc. I asked him about the internal contradictions in his arguments, (e.g., if it was so obvious that missile defense would never work, why did he claim that nations like China would be so threatened that it would spark an arms race?) which he could not answer. The basic gist is that missile defenses have been tested with varying degrees of success and have been built and deployed despite the best efforts of people like professor Krause and the Clinton Administration which tried to kill missile defense. Whether or not it will work in practice is yet to be seen, but surely it is better to have a chance at defending against a missile attack than to be utterly defenseless as we were before President Reagan's visionary proposal.
Regards,
Bruce Batista
CWRU Law '94
As far as I know, the x-band radar that is supposed to make it effective is not complete yet, and the laser that is supposed to shoot them down is too big to fit into any planes we have. So I doubt much has changed.
Note that even a fully operational system would only be 90-95% effective; barring an energy shield, we are never going to be 100% safe.
Anyway, the Aegis can intercept missiles in the terminal phase using the SM-3 interceptor, as can the PAC-3 system. We have 10 THAAD interceptors installed (8 at Ft. Greely, Alaska and 2 at Vanderberg, California) which are capable of hitting missiles in the midcourse phase.
Source: http://www.mda.mil US Missile Defense Agency
I think the legal scholars would do well to discuss the implications of the US announcement of an operational system as it relates to the ABM treaty, rather than arguing whether or not the US can hit a missile developed by NK. If any system is unproven, it is the Taepodong.
I would love nothing more than to see how well this system works under real-time conditions.
I think you would like to see it work under real-time conditions. I am not sure you would like to see how well it works under real-time conditions, unless you are not so fond of Seattle.
If the NKs launch, perhaps we will all find out.
Just think if every aircraft had a ballon from the dollar store they would never be shot down.
If we suceed yes we will gain the knowledge that it is possible, but one success does not make a functioning system. The managers of this system know there is still a lot of work to be done. I am afraid with a success such as this more money will be put into missile defense something I do not believe is advisable even if we could get a system that is 95% effective. It will still cost a lot of money and that money is better spent on things that are more probable then a missile attack such as preventing terrorism or making the situation in Iraq better.
North Korea is not going to attack the US with a missile, they are just using it as a bargaining chip. Yes if we can deploy an effective missile defense this bargaining chip is gone, but there are many others that North korea could pursue as well including developing systems that may more useful to terrorist groups they could sell the tech to. Plus missiles are expensive, I am all for North Korea wasting as much money as they can on things as that is more likely to lead to its eventual collapse. (Though I do realize that this collapse has been predicted ever since Kim il-Sung died. Someday it will happen. In my belief engagement is the proper way to bring it about)
Back to the scenarios. So lets say the US attempts to shoot it down and fails. Well then the risk of increased hostility towards the US for attacking north Korea's "space vehicle" still will result. Plus the ambiguity of missile defenses capability is lost. In the unlikely result the situation deteriorates all the way to war, this could be a problem.
The point is moot anyway as any North Korean launch will be South over Japan into the middle of the Pacific as previous ones have would likely be out of the range of any interceptors based Alaska or California.
Sure, it's reasonable. Who deploys countermeasures against a system that they "know" doesn't work?
www.fas.org/rlg/030605nmdp1.pdf
Of course, the skeptics might point out that the author is not a rocket scientist. He is, however, a respected scientist who has spent much of his life in defense work. His bio is at fas.org/rlg/. Among his honors is the National Medal of Science.
He is quite skeptical of the effectiveness of a system, such as the one in Alaska and California, that is based on mid-course interception.
Chuck Jackson
He was against it. Publicly and actively. Arms race, all that stuff. I asked him what he would do if the USSR came up with one. Same results, arms race, money, instability, right?
He wouldn't do anything, he said. He was tired of it.
So, not all references to deficient effectiveness, even if not obviously bogus, are motivated by the possibility of deficient effectiveness.
Even if it don't work, it's good to know the government is telling us it works. It means we're standing tall against the evil of the world.
Even if it does work, the only way to be sure is to nuke North Korea before any launch. Two benefits: one less evil empire and all the other will be shaking in their boots. And since we already paid for all these bombs, wouldn't it be a real waste not to use a few.
Even if it could never work, it better to positive. I mean a toy gun might even get me a few dollars from the local 7-11 if I brandish it with gusto.
On a more serious note, there is no proper response to the query of the professor: At no point has the "missile defense" shield been shown to be effective against anything like real world conditions. And would any knowledge of the effectiveness be super secret information. Are we being asked to commit treason here? Yes this is a rant, but the idea that rational beings will dispute the "effectiveness" of evolution as the best explanation of facts and then turn around and think that the same scientific method has achieved an engineering feat that is akin to the proverbial camel's head through a needle's eye astounds me.
So here's a positive thought:
I am positive that the change is status of our missile defense system is purely semantic.
Sort coining the phrase "war against terrorism".
I'm not sure how that would work - ICBMs go above the atmosphere, so you either have to hit them over NK right after they launch or while they are in space. I doubt an AEGIS would be used for that, I think what you mean is that the radar we are currently using is located on the AEGIS cruisers; however, that will be replaced by new x-band radar when it is operational.
"I disagree with many on this board I don;t think we should attempt to shoot down this missile even if we begin to have the capability. I don't think anything good can come of it. Lets say we do shoot it down. You can't shoot it down in the boost faze because at that point it is over North Korean territory. "
Why not?
First, we have a working anti-ICBM system that works off of aircraft carriers for defense of same. It can be used to defend other targets.
Second, a near miss works just fine if your "near miss" is a nuclear armed phoenix missile that is doing the "missing." Not something you finalize during a test.
Anyway, that is how you make an anti-ICBM system operational. You deploy aircraft carriers with phoenix armed F-14s.
Any city could do something similar with F-16s (cheaper) or Tigersharks (cheaper still) and the same missiles (which they would have more trouble getting).
The Aegis system is just part of layered defense in depth for the system, not the whole of it.
Anyway, back to lurking.
Actually, it was, later assessment showed the Patriot system to be almost completely ineffective.
Just think if every aircraft had a ballon from the dollar store they would never be shot down.
An aircraft moves a lot slower (say on the order of 10,000 mph slower) than a missile and is also a lot bigger.
Even with a "good" set of decoys and jammers, a sufficiently powerful radar can burn right through, or discern the differences due to physics of the packages.
Of course the radars can distinguish between decoys. Why our PAC III system--which had over ten years to fix all the flaws found in the Patriot--was able to distinguish between primitive Iraqi ballistic missiles, {which of course are much slower, travelling at barely supersonic speeds, than an ICBM does) and allied aircraft. What's that they couldn't? And they actually locked onto to three and destroyed two, killing two british airman and an American. And the third was only saved because the American pilot had the presence of mind to destroy the PAC III's tracking radar with missiles when it locked onto him. You've got to be kidding.
First, we have a working anti-ICBM system that works off of aircraft carriers for defense of same. It can be used to defend other targets.
We do not have a working anti-ICBM system. The Aegis system is an anti-tactical missile system, not even an anti-ballistic missile system. You really need to bone up on your definitions.
Well, yes the Aegis radar is part of the detection system. That is a far cry from saying it is capable of destroying ICBMs in their ballistic phase. The "defensive" part of the Aegis system is the integrated ship and aircraft based system to destroy anti-ship missiles and aircraft that pose a threat to the fleet. There is some talk about using the Aegis system as part of an effort to develop boost phase ABM capability, but that is a long, long way off.
Do you have any sources to back up your claims? I'm doubtful of any credible source that touts "Patriot system to be almost completely ineffective." At best, the only claims I've seen show the percent kill in 1991 to be 50/50. I wouldn't call that "completely ineffective", but then maybe with your sources, you could provide definitions.
BTW, an aircraft does move slower, but it can also easily change course. Objects traveling over 10,000 mph don't change direction to easily. Aircraft also carry countermeasures.
Speaking of countermeasures; you keep bringing up countermeasures, as if you know for a fact that North Korea's Taepodong-2 can carry such payload and has that much sophistication in the system. The rocket hasn't made it off the launch pad. You can keep poo-pooing the US technology, but why do you give such credibility to the North Koreans, who have a system that has never been proven at all?
Once again, you say that the Aegis system is not anti-ballistic. You said before it can only shoot down missiles in the boost phase. The first statement is somewhat true. The SM-3 is not operational as an ABM, but the Aegis radar is. The SM-3 does have the capability to knock down missiles in the terminal stage, and that is specifically for the ABM role. The main thing one should consider is that if the Aegis tracks the missile during the boost phase, then the THAAD interceptors will have targeting telemetry. Indeed, this is how previous tests have been successfully carried out.
Of course you cite your 50/50 figure without any link either. But since you asked here you go. Note that my link draws on official reports to the House Committee investigating the effectiveness of the system, not some whacked out left-wingers. But for those of you not bothering to link, this quote is my favorite. "The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than ten percent, possibly even zero."
BTW, an aircraft does move slower, but it can also easily change course. Objects traveling over 10,000 mph don't change direction to easily. Aircraft also carry countermeasures. Again this is true, but you still can't hit an ICBM with a phoenix. First it needs something to track an ICBM moving at 10,000 mph+ will not give someone much time to track. If you fire at something 250 miles in front of you it will be past you in about a minute and a half. Now I am by no means an expert on us missile systems but my understanding of the phoenix (I could be wrong) is that it tracks an object and heads straight for it adjusting its course as needed. A ICBM traveling at an excessive rate of speed will not allow this to be possible
ABM is Anti-ballistic missile. As such Aegis, which is not a missile system at all but an integrated radar and missile detection and guidance system is not a missile system at all but merely will be part of any theoretical ABM system's detection and guidance system. Some of the missiles in the system may have the ability to knock down missiles in the boost phase because they can knock down aircraft at quite a distance, but that doesn't make them ABMs. And just because we might be able to knock down a highly visible launch of a NK missile on a launch pad when we have weeks of notice doesn't prove a thing about our ability to destroy missiles fired from hardened, hidden bunkers during a sneak attack with no warning.
Just like we don't know how effective our missle defense is here, neither does NK. And that is what is important. Is is 10%? 90%? 99%? They don't know, and until the NYT discloses classified documents, they aren't likely to know. And that makes the FUD high enough that they are significantly less likely to launch against us than if the missle defense weren't active.
The thing is that NK has some leverage absent our missle defense system because they appear willing to take a 10x retaliation to hit at us, and we are unlikely to risk that, given that a lot of civilians would die on both sides. So, they can bluff with their ICBM(s?). But if there is a likelyhood that if they launch a nuclear ICBM at us, that we would shoot it down, but still take it as a nuclear attack on us, and respond accordingly, with, say a hundred highly targetted nuclear warheads, they won't take the chance. It is a far different chance than if they have a clean shot at hitting CA (Alaska is really irrelevant, given its population density).
As to the United States now being under direct threat by North Korea, well big deal. North Korea has had the ability to destroy Seoul for decades. (Sea of fire etc) The destruction of Seoul would do tremendous economic damage to the United States.
Oh yeah, no one believe North Korea is anywhere close to being able to put a nuke on a missile.
The point is there is absolutely no scenario where it would make any sense for any country to attack us with a nuclear missile. Absolutely none. The only scenario is that Kim Jong Il goes absolutely batshit crazy and decides to launch a nuke against us. It makes no rational sense for him to do it even if there is a one hundred percent certainty it would get through and hit exactly where he aimed it, because he would be assured of complete and total retalitory annihalation. So it doesn't matter if we have a missile defense system or not, nothing is going to prevent that kind of illogical strike.
I'm sorry, but I've worked for newspapers for over 40 years, and that couldn't have happened.
The Patriot of GW1 had a marginal capacity to engage missiles of the SCUD type, but the software was deliberately designed to not be able to do that, keeping the ABM treaty in mind. Improved Patriots have done much better in testing.
The Israeli Arrow system seems to work.
What we have here is a frantic insistence that, because it isn't perfect now, we should stop doing it altogether.
Deterrence only works if the other side thinks you'll strike back, and if the other side's boss plans to be in the area when it hits, instead of, say, Monaco. It only deters the rational actors. And consider the impression our Bush haters give, which is that any enemy of the US is preferable to Bush. That using nukes is so horrible, we probably wouldn't. I don't know if we would, but the issue is not me, but, in this case, Kim Il Sung. What does he think?
Would you be interested in slaughtering millions of North Koreans in revenge? How does that help us? What if he thinks we're nicer than we are? Hardly matters if he's wrong. Be too late for a number of folks.
-- Aegis has been used operationally three times and failed three times (USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf and twice in Operation Eldorado Canyon).
-- Way back when Star Wars was first announced by Reagan, the Union of Concerned Scientists and other appeasers jumped on it. One objection was that the software of the target acquisition radar would require 500K lines of validated code, an unimaginable amount.
The next week, I got a press release from a company offering to sell me its accounting software -- which it bragged had FIVE MILLION LINES of code.
-- I believe the 'successful' antisatellite missile tested was launched from an F15 in near vertical flight, to match a timed pass of a satellite. So that technology is irrelevant to a missile launch at some unknown moment.
-- The big floating radar that was being towed into position near Alaska to track Korean missiles is up there now, though I don't know if it's hooked up.
The real problem is to put an interceptor right in front of an incoming warhead, going the opposite direction. instead of trying to hit a bullet with another bullet from a raondom place on a battlefield, you're really just trying to put a metal block in position to let the reentry vehicle hit it. With terminal guidance, it's insanely easier than most of the dream scenarios people keep coming up with to explain why they think it won't work.
The time scales are much different, too. You don't have a few seconds, you have several minutes to get your vehicle up and on the way, along with a relatively long time to figure out where the bad guy is coming from.
You also have more than one shot...
One last thing: The ABM Treaty. What ABM Treaty? The US took the agreed-upon "out" in the original treaty, and we are no longer bound by it. The Soviets were violating it left and right with their missile systems that were ABM-capable (besides the official system around Moscow, there were a lot of Soviet missile systems that were ABM-style launchers and systems).
I have no idea if the damn things works. It would be nice if NK launched over the Pacific and we did intercept. Even if we were just lucky, it would be a good thing, as it would really give an adversary pause before they attempted nuclear blackmail.
However, I read some comments here by people who have never ever engineered a damn thing, spouting off like they know something. Mostly they sound like they're channelling a NY Times editorial.
Engineering tests of complex systems often fail. That's why you do them -- to see what's broken. Several of the ABM tests failed for reasons having nothing to do with aiming, tracking or hitting targets. A clamp didn't release, a piece of radar software crashed, that kind of thing.
There is nothing that says shooting down a small number of missiles is impossible. It is hard. Very hard. And the odds of missing some go up dramatically the more you shoot at. But it's just engineering, there's no new physics, really.
Anyone who says that it works for sure is speaking out of their ass. But so is someone who says it certainly will miss.
Just for the record, the Phoenix (AIM-54) was slated for retirement at least as far back as 1993, when I graduated from the Naval Academy. (That news occasioned a fair amount of discussion among my group of friends, which is why I remember it.) It was officially retired in late 2004. I wouldn't be surprised if all the AIM-54s have been destroyed; they were very old when they were retired (causing significant maintenance problems more than a decade ago), and missiles don't have indefinite shelf lives.
By the way, as far as I know the F-14 was the only plane capable of carrying and successfully launching a Phoenix. (It certainly was the only plane with a fire control radar [the AWG-9] designed for that purpose, although I don't claim to know that it would be impossible to jury-rig some other FC radar to do the job, if necessary.) The F-14 is nearly out the door now, too.
Finally, the AIM-54 never had a nuclear payload.
The idea that we'd resurrect this ancient, now-retired weapon system, which no one has fired in years, and attempt to use it to shoot down a NK missile (a purpose for which it was never intended), when the Aegis platforms are far more capable and are currently in service in large numbers, is ludicrous.
Err, it actually did.
That was the one claim I wasn't 100% certain of, so I did some quick and dirty research before I posted it. (The U.S. got away from nuclear anti-air missiles a long time ago, but then the Phoenix is an old design. Anything's possible.) I didn't find any record of the Phoenix being nuclear-capable but, again, it was a quick and dirty search. What's your source? Do you know the designation for the warhead? Assuming I'm wrong on the issue of whether they ever existed, I'd like to know whether any of those warheads are still in the inventory. If not, then for present purposes the result is the same.
The destruction of Seoul, 1 million plus casualities in the first 24 hours of a war. The condemnation of the world. Most people considering interfering with the sovreignity of a country a rather large deal especially if it involves blowing something up. Perhaps if it was a nuke site the world might understand, but not likely a simple missile test that is not a direct threat to the United States.
Remember people, North Korea is a decaying country to be sure, but unlike Iraq, or Iran, or really any other country who would might be consider our enemy, they do have the ability to inflict significant damage.
Freder, part of the reason for the ABM system is in case there is a madman who launches one or 2 missiles. The scenario I alwas heard is the "accident". A missile accidentally gets launched from Russia. They call us before we even know it was launched to appologize.
What do we do? Freder, you seem to suggest annihilating the offender. Having at least a shot or two at shooting the missile down would be good.
Again you are comparing apples and ass monkeys (I am just hung up on the little fellas). Anti-satellite missiles are very simple really (although being able to launch one from an F-15 is indeed quite a trick, because of course it does have to reach the orbit of the satellite). Satellites move in defined orbits, usually have no or very limited abilitiy to change that orbit, and so are easily tracked, and because they are very expensive to launch have no defenses at all. To kill one all you need to do is get close, match your speed and detonate your kill vehicle. Oh, and that "kill vehicle" can be a coffee can full of buckshot, rusty nails, or a bunch of old nuts and bolts (of course it would have to be sealed with atmospheric air so the blackpowder would have an oxygen source).
That is another reason Star Wars would have been completely insane. It would have been ridiculously expensive and almost impossible to defend space based platforms against cheap, ground based anti-satellite missiles.
We have only so much money to spend. Over the last fifty-five years or so we have wasted probably hundreds of billions of dollars trying to devise an ABM system with practically nothing to show for it. Like, fusion power, we are promised that one great breakthrough that will make it all worth it. But it always seems just over the horizon. But unlike fusion power, the target (literally) with an ABM is constantly moving, and no matter how good we get, the other side will think up ways to overcome our defenses.
While your scenario of an accidental launch or Kim Jong Il launching one or two missiles in a last great act of defiance is scary, the possibility of such a thing happening is vanishingly remote. When you have limited funds, you prioritize risks. And a much more feasible mode of attack, even for North Korea, is simply to put a nuclear bomb in a shipping container, rig it with a Garmin GPS system you can buy at any sporting goods store to detonante when it reaches the latitude and longitude of Long Beach, route it through Shanghai, and wait a couple weeks for the fireworks. Yet our port security, along with chemical and nuclear power plant security is still a joke. The tens of billions of dollars we have spent on this worthless ABM system would have been much better spent on much more likely threats that could cause mass casulties.
...except for the huge issue that the space-based leg of Strategic Defense would have been fairly small, with most of the actual hardware being land or air based. Knocking out even a moderate portion of the space-based leg would have been impossible without some serious warnings (multiple launches of satelites or missiles on very specific, high-orbit trajectories).
The then-current view of nuclear weapons was called MAD (for a reason). It came close (more than once) to killing a good portion of the world's population, and you're calling a non-suicidal defensive option "insane?"
I've long been skeptical about the efficacy of BM defense though some of my technical objections have, in recent years, been addressed. I now am in favor of a system designed to block the limited ability of "rogue states" to hit targets with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. My current concern is that the system is still a few years away from having that capability. I discussed this issue as it relates to Iran in The counterargument: Don't preempt against Iran. The issues that I raised in that piece bear somewhat on the situation with North Korea, in particular this statement:
If the U.S. decides to shoot down the NK missile and fails, it severely compromises our ability to deter rogue states like North Korea and Iran. On the other hand, if we were successful in shooting the missile down, our opponents would be "drawing dead" and, even better, they'd know it. It would give us a huge negotiating advantage with both NK and Iran. So, there's a big upside, matched to a big downside - rather like playing Russian Roulette for a million bucks. Were I President, I'd pull the trigger. If you double- or triple-target the RV, there's a high probability you'd get a "kill", which is to say "win" - probably better than the 5-in-6 odds for winning Russian Roulette.
Would it be possible to conceal a failure to intercept, and thus maintain the adversary's strategic uncertainty? Unclear, but I doubt it. While the military can probably keep a secret, I doubt that an interceptor launch wouldn't be detectable by reporters and others in proximity to the ABM sites. So, I don't think there's any way to avoid the strategic implications of a failure. As I note in my article, more layers (mid-course and boost phase intercept) will be added to BM defense in the coming years. How soon they'll be available is another matter but, let's say we're talking about something like 5 years from now. If we were to have an embarrasing failure of the system now, it might compromise funding for the complete ABM/TBM system that would be able to protect the U.S. and its allies. So, add this to the downside noted above.
A caveat is that the trajectory of the RV is crucial to our ability to hit it, even with a 100% effective system. For example, if the track is not toward the U.S., then the RV will not come into range. In which case, the whole issue becomes moot.
When the defensive option was really no option at all (it would have been incapable of defending against a Soviet first strike--even if it had been able to take out some missiles, most would have still gotten through), then it is insane.
If we didn't shoot it down, but nevertheless said we had, how would anyone be able to prove otherwise?
Anon, the AIM-54 never carried a nuclear warhead. Perhaps you are thinking of the AIR-2 Genie or AIM-26 Falcon. The Falcon looks a lot like the Phoenix. Matt is accurate with his information. I'll only add to his comments that the F-111B was suppose to carry the AIM-54, but that capability was cancelled.
nrein, you need to reread my comments. First, I'm not forgetting anything, because I never suggested hitting the Taepodong during ascent phase. What you are forgetting is that North Korea's stated objective for testing the Taepodong is to prove it has the range to reach the US. The last test North Korea staged, they had no issues with proving they could reach Japan by firing the missile over Japan. Maybe you forgot that?
Second, I never suggested hitting the Taepodong with an AIM-54. I mentioned the SM-3 and the PAC-3 THAAD interceptor, but never the AIM-54.
I know nothing about rockets or less about the law, but I know Americans and I know dreamers... To think we can walk around on the moon with a golf club but can't come up with a way to knock a rocket out of the air seems silly.
My ass monkeys are primed for the challenge. I know they will get their stinky little paws around that Korean taepodong (which I learned last night on The Daily Show is Korean for "kind of penis") before our missile does.
What kind of missile system is it anyway? It can't be operational. It doesn't even have a manly, vaguely phallic official name.
And if I said my flying ass monkeys tore it apart in mid-flight, how would anyone be able to prove otherwise.
You know that's it, believe in the can-do American spirit and we'll get it done. If we wish hard enough it will come true. Unfortunately, that is what this faith-based administration is all about.
And the Iraq war will pay for itself with oil revenues.
And the kerry, gore, ff and dems overall who say, "it can't be done so let's not try" is the way to go? You are a defeatist and defeatists get the results they expect. But so do dreamers. You can think like Teddy, I will think like JFK. But fortunately, Bush is not only thinking like JFK, he's backing it with $. So your "If we wish hard enough it will come true" snark is a false argument. Nobody is 'just wishing'.
"If we wish hard enough it will come true" is how our former faith-based missile defense - Mutual Assured Destruction - operated.
These last several Freder comments are so deranged that I seriously wonder whether his account has been hijacked. Normally his remarks are of a much higher quality.
I saw PI missile batteries operating, up close and personal, around a half dozen times in GW I, to the extent that one battery took out an inbound SCUD close enough that debris bounced up against the building I was in. I don't know exactly how Congress came around to the 50% success rate. If memory serves, two PI missiles would be fired at each SCUD, from what I saw, one missile usually hit or explode very close to the incoming, and if I'm recalling correctly, the other would explode nearby. If the first one hits, does the second missile count as a miss, even though there isn't much target to take out? My perspective on the ground prevented me from seeing exactly where the two explosions occurred in relation to each other, it was impossible to gauge. Typically, the SCUD would get blown out of the air. Typically, the warheads weren't hit, but the SCUDs were hit in the middle, and the warheads were usually damaged badly enough that they didn't detonate on impact. I'm aware of at least three exceptions to this which had tragic results, and I understand the P II system - with the advances of 15 years of electronic tech - targets the warhead of the incoming. Your fantasies of massive government conspiracies and the impossibility of missile defense seem to have colored your view of the feasibility of any missile defense, or at least your ability to sift through the facts, and they certainly conflict with my experiences. I'm fairly confident I wouldn't be here typing away, were it not for the effectiveness of the PI system and expect that an ABM system is feasible, although it may not be easiy do-able and we may not have a fully functional system right now. The almost religious degree of certitude that no such systems are possible, baffles me.
I guess your preferred alternative is that we wait out the Norks and see what they do. Which cities are you willing to gamble away based on your assumptions that the Norks pose no threat? San Francisco? LA? Seattle? Hey, it's just millions of lives you would be gambling with... so ante up!
Personally, I'd prefer we at least make an attempt to keep the left coast safe from a country run by a madman, that claims to have nukes, and ICBM's, and the ability and desire to hit us. While attacking the U.S. with nuke missiles might be suicidal, I think you make a bad mistake to assume that people who run police states, who act crazy, are just acting.
Bush put a partially tested (and the testing to date had shown that the system was far from operational) system in the ground and magically called it an operational system. If that is not wishful thinking, I don't know what is. Now they are making noises like they are actually going to use this untested system to try and shoot down a North Korean missile. That's like saying that after John Glenn had his successful orbit, JFK had said, "Okay boys, next flight is to the moon, we're ready". It is sheer idiocy.
The PII system shot down two allied aircraft in the Iraq war, one British Tornado, one U.S. F16, killing all three crew. It also locked onto a second F16 but the pilot destroyed the tracking radar with one of his missiles before it could kill him. Sounds like there are still some serious bugs in that system.
Of course, given unlimited funds and computer power you could develop an ABM system. We have neither. An ABM system distracts and takes money away from defending against much more likely and credible threats (like a shipping container delivered nuclear bomb). That is my objection to spending tens of billions of dollars on a system that at best will be an uncertain defense against probably the least likely nuclear threat we face.
Let's say we blew it up even if we didn't.
Americans can do anything, so lets just build it.
Shoot at it and if we miss, don't tell anyone.
Are you guys serious?
Any pictures of people on the moon were administration productions meant to justify further expenditures in space travel. Witness the tragedy of our shuttles for more evidence of how every space mission has ended in disaster.
I'm going back to my cave now.
My father sent several other reports that I will go through later on. I can post them as well if anyone is interested.
I saw the brilliant expose by the show Family Guy on the moon landing. It clearly showed that Armstrong was not on the moon, but that the whole thing was manufactored on a Hollywood set. Armstrong even killed a guy who saw him leave the set!!!
(You'll only get this if you've seen the show - so this is for the other law students out there)
You will notice the second slide is labelled "Notional", so it doesn't represent the actual system as it is now, just the way we would like it to be.