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So, here's who WW3 will unfold, about 20 years from now. Once the USAF can mount laser weapons on a plane, not long after they'll be able to put them in missile

So, here's who WW3 will unfold, about 20 years from now. Once the USAF can mount laser weapons on a plane, not long after they'll be able to put them in missiles. And more precisely in those missiles that perform the anti-ballistic missile defense function. Currently the equation governing the ABM defense is that you need about 2 kinetic vehicles to destroy one warhead launched at you. If you replace this with one laser-equipped missile can zap 10 incoming targets, that's a complete different ballgame. The MAD concept can become very unstable. Instead of needing a many, many thousands of missiles to obtain impenetrable defense, two hundred missiles-mounted lasers could do the job (a single Ohio class submarine can carry up to 24 Trident-II SLBM's with up to 288 multiple independent re-entry vehicles; if you replace each such nuke with a laser, you are all set). When will the US have this capability? I would ball-park this at about 15 years for now. What options does Russia have. By my cont 3 options (hardware-based; I'm not counting cyber-warfare and psychological and subversive warfare). 1. Deterrence in numbers. Currently Russia deploys 1600 warheads, and has a total of 6500 (deployed+stockpiled+retired). If they go to 20-30k warheads, in an all out war a few dozens might still find their way to some large urban areas in the US, and so even a 99.9% ABM capability might still leave a few tens of millions of Americans dead. 2. Laser-equipped anti-anti-missiles. If you can zap a nuke out of the sky, you can zap the missile carrying the laser too. Provided you have the technology. I expect Russia to have a delay in implementing this technology, maybe 5 to 10 years 3. Alternate threats that are immune to this defense. This is exactly what Russia demonstrated one year ago: a hypersonic nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered missile that can travel in the lower atmosphere (where the effective range of a laser is reduced, due to light absorption) plus a mega-nuke delivered by an autonomous submarine that purportedly can create a 500-foot tsunami that would wipe NYC from the map. Where does that leave us? The US will enjoy the maximum military gap about 20 years from now and this will provide a huge incentive to perform a decapitation strike. Would this be palatable to the US population? Only if it can be demonstrated that the collateral damage would be insignificant. Is that possible? What do you need to do? You need to take out the missile silos, the strategic nuclear submarines, and the strategic bombers (the nuclear triad). The silos are traditionally the targets of some nukes; in the past these nukes had about one megaton yield, but with the increase in missile accuracy the current US yield is about 100kt; this is still 5 times larger than Nagasaki. Is it possible to use a smaller nuke with an increased accuracy? A rule of thumb is that a 10-fold increase in accuracy can reduce the necessary effective yield by 100. Starting this year (2019) the US Navy will have a 5-7 kt nuke in its arsenal (W76-2 [1]). This type of nuke could ensure essentially zero civilian casualties, while still being able to destroy most missile silos. Oh, and it would also be a good anti-strategic-submarine weapon too. So, about 20 years from now, the US will have a once-in-a-century opportunity to break the mutually-assured-destruction stalemate, and potentially rid the world of nuclear weapons. All with minimal loss of life (especially civilian life). But the window of opportunity will be very short, Russia will be able to close the MAD gap in a few years. Which will make this opportunity a very difficult one to pass on. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-weapons-first-low-yield-warheads-roll-off-the-production-line https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-wea...

kyboren 8y ago
This is crazy talk. > The US will enjoy the maximum military gap about 20 years from now and this will provide a huge incentive to perform a decapitation strike. Would this be palatable to the US population? Only if it can be demonstrated that the collateral damage would be insignificant. Is that possible? What do you need to do? A decapitation strike couldn't be debated. It would have to be done. The US population would only accept it--and only in part, as some segments would never accept it--as a fait accompli if there were zero US casualties, few foreign civilian casualties, no/minimal residual health risks, and limited reputational damage to the US. I highly doubt any, let alone all, could be accomplished with a nearly sufficient degree of confidence, even with groundbreaking missile defense systems. The risks of miscalculation are staggering, and the immorality of attempting or even seriously considering (as a policymaker) such a "decapitation strike" in the current or foreseeable future global context is indisputable.
- credit_guy 8y ago
  > This is crazy talk. Quite succinct and accurate. I have to admit, reading my own words, I do sound like a crank. So, let me give a more nuanced view. I think the probability of an all-out nuclear exchange is still quite reduced, but if the capability gap between Russia and the US extends considerably, this probability will increase from the current infinitesimal level to a non-negligible one. Other events that were once considered unthinkable (DJT, Brexit) have come to pass, so never say never. With that said, how can we get to such an extreme event as a nuclear exchange? I think that whenever there is a military crisis in the world (Iran threatening to resume uranium enrichment ?) the POTUS asks his advisors for options. The spectrum of options ranges from PR spin machine, to diplomatic pressure, to military operations. All options will have listed their pros and cons, their best, base and worst outcomes. They will be judged in isolation and weighed against each other. After this careful comparative cost-benefit analysis, the POTUS makes the decision. Now all things being equal, if the military gap between the US and the opponent is larger, the armed response options will comparatively have a better cost-benefit ratio. The more impenetrable the ABM defense becomes, the more the military option will look like the better deal. Now the vicious cycle is that, as the military option is chosen more often (how long did it take DJT to send an aircraft carrier towards Iran?), the more tensions will appear, and the more crisis situations will emerge. Some of them will be de-escalated, but some will escalate to various levels. Sometimes cool heads will prevail, but sometimes the grown-ups will have left the room already. One day Russia might do something that would trigger Nato's article 5 [1], and the US will have to respond. You could say that we've been in many situations like that in the 60's, 70's and 80's, but the military gap between the US and the Soviet Union was never close to what it's now, and what will become in the coming decades. Ok, ok, but nuclear, you say? Well, the US has dropped about 100 bombs in Nevada, just 60 miles from Las Vegas, and it was no big deal. A few (hundred) small-ish nukes going boom in the middle of Siberia will result in some condemnations from some pacifist organizations, but as long as there is some reasonable casus belli and minimal civilian collateral damage, people will move on quite soon. [1] https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-nato-articles-4-and-5/24626653.html https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-nato-articles-4-and-5/2462...

kyboren 8y ago

This is crazy talk. > The US will enjoy the maximum military gap about 20 years from now and this will provide a huge incentive to perform a decapitation strike. Would this be palatable to the US population? Only if it can be demonstrated that the collateral damage would be insignificant. Is that possible? What do you need to do? A decapitation strike couldn't be debated. It would have to be done. The US population would only accept it--and only in part, as some segments would never accept it--as a fait accompli if there were zero US casualties, few foreign civilian casualties, no/minimal residual health risks, and limited reputational damage to the US. I highly doubt any, let alone all, could be accomplished with a nearly sufficient degree of confidence, even with groundbreaking missile defense systems. The risks of miscalculation are staggering, and the immorality of attempting or even seriously considering (as a policymaker) such a "decapitation strike" in the current or foreseeable future global context is indisputable.

credit_guy 8y ago
> This is crazy talk. Quite succinct and accurate. I have to admit, reading my own words, I do sound like a crank. So, let me give a more nuanced view. I think the probability of an all-out nuclear exchange is still quite reduced, but if the capability gap between Russia and the US extends considerably, this probability will increase from the current infinitesimal level to a non-negligible one. Other events that were once considered unthinkable (DJT, Brexit) have come to pass, so never say never. With that said, how can we get to such an extreme event as a nuclear exchange? I think that whenever there is a military crisis in the world (Iran threatening to resume uranium enrichment ?) the POTUS asks his advisors for options. The spectrum of options ranges from PR spin machine, to diplomatic pressure, to military operations. All options will have listed their pros and cons, their best, base and worst outcomes. They will be judged in isolation and weighed against each other. After this careful comparative cost-benefit analysis, the POTUS makes the decision. Now all things being equal, if the military gap between the US and the opponent is larger, the armed response options will comparatively have a better cost-benefit ratio. The more impenetrable the ABM defense becomes, the more the military option will look like the better deal. Now the vicious cycle is that, as the military option is chosen more often (how long did it take DJT to send an aircraft carrier towards Iran?), the more tensions will appear, and the more crisis situations will emerge. Some of them will be de-escalated, but some will escalate to various levels. Sometimes cool heads will prevail, but sometimes the grown-ups will have left the room already. One day Russia might do something that would trigger Nato's article 5 [1], and the US will have to respond. You could say that we've been in many situations like that in the 60's, 70's and 80's, but the military gap between the US and the Soviet Union was never close to what it's now, and what will become in the coming decades. Ok, ok, but nuclear, you say? Well, the US has dropped about 100 bombs in Nevada, just 60 miles from Las Vegas, and it was no big deal. A few (hundred) small-ish nukes going boom in the middle of Siberia will result in some condemnations from some pacifist organizations, but as long as there is some reasonable casus belli and minimal civilian collateral damage, people will move on quite soon. [1] https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-nato-articles-4-and-5/24626653.html https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-nato-articles-4-and-5/2462...