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The progress of human civilization may rely on the U.S. nuclear triad being invulnerable to a sneak attack. The problem is that the triad has been left to rot.
by staunch 6y ago
The progress of human civilization may rely on the U.S. nuclear triad being invulnerable to a sneak attack.
The problem is that the triad has been left to rot. The ground-based ICBMs haven't been upgraded in decades and probably don't work well. The subs were supposed to be replaced but were not and there aren't that many of them at sea at any given time. And the bomber fleet is out-of-date as well and way overdue for an upgrade.
It's questionable whether or not it cannot be defeated with some kind of sneaky first strike. Which leaves room for an adversary to find (or think they found) an opening. This could end up being the biggest mistake in history.
A good option seems to be to pay SpaceX to create a fourth prong of floating platform ICBMs in the ocean, or whatever Musk & co can come up with. Of course the U.S. gov should have full command of it.
SpaceX could also work on a redundant anti-North Korea missile defense system. I don't think there's much reason to work on a missile defense system against the major powers, since a solid M.A.D. system makes an attack from them highly unlikely.
SpaceX should put the Assured back in Mutually Assured Destruction. And they can use the profits from these projects to make life multi-planetary, which would provide another level of insurance for humanity.
- ETHisso2017 6y ago> The progress of human civilization may rely on the U.S. nuclear triad being invulnerable to a sneak attack. Please don't use this as a forum for nationalistic flamebait
- laverya 6y agoHow about this, then - the progress of human civilization relies on MAD being solid for all involved. The US is one of the groups involved, and thus human civilization relies on the US nuclear triad being taken seriously.
- La1n 6y ago>relies on MAD being solid for all involved And MAD would not work if the US would be "invulnerable" to an attack.
- happytoexplain 6y agoThe quote appears pretty pragmatic to me - not at all like nationalistic flamebait.
- mc32 6y agoI don’t see them doing that. All they are saying is progress rests on the US being able to fend off rogue sneak attacks, else everyone else is too unprepared for a foe who is willing to begin MAD. It’s anti nationalistic in fact and looks to assure the world isn’t susceptible to a sneak attacker.
- redis_mlc 6y agoIt's realistic, not nationalistic. 1) Many European and Asian nations count on the US for a nuclear umbrella. 2) This ani-missile missile is very important to avoid N. Korea blackmailing the US or Japan. 3) Note that N. Korea is not a lone actor. I've seen discussion of China and N. Korea playing good cop/bad cop with the West to keep us distracted, while the CCP quietly ramps up their own military. It does get tiresome correcting the childish comments of HN readers.
- jandrese 6y ago> This could end up being the biggest mistake in history. You're talking about global scale nuclear war. This is a given.
- JoeDaDude 6y ago> A good option seems to be to pay SpaceX to create a fourth prong of floating platform ICBMs in the ocean... That's what nuclear subs are for. Being underwater provides some degree of cover making them harder to target than a floating platform.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoThos post if based off some serious misunderstandings, two main flaws: 1 - Subs are the ultimate trump card, the rest of the triad is almost irrelevant. US subs are modern, numerous, and, like all half-decent subs, are basically untrackable. 24/7/365 dozens of them carry hundreds to thousand of nukes, ready to strike even if continental US dissapears. Its the same for other nuclear powers. 2 - Spacex has absolutely no competency in this area, and this personality cult is unhealthy.
- patagurbon 6y agoIIRC there’s only actually 14 SSBNs in the current US fleet. So ~a dozen, although probably only half are on patrol at any one time. That’s still 120 Tridents that could be fired in any response.
- oceanplexian 6y agoIt's very plausible that we would place assets in orbit to intercept ICBMs, similar to the Strategic Defense Initiative. If DoD wanted to develop such a system, there's a good chance it's going up on a SpaceX rocket as a classified payload. Claiming they have no competency is silly since a good portion of their business is National Security Space Launch missions.
- johncolanduoni 6y agoHaving competency launching classified payloads that could possibly be part of a missile defense system requires about as much competency in building missile defense systems as a driver who transports vaccines has in developing vaccines.
- staunch 6y agoYour post would be better without the snark and cult comment...but: 1. The Ohio class subs are quite old and no one knows with any real certainty that they remain untrackable. It's entirely possible they are being tracked through some unknown mechanism like new classes of drones, sensors, info leaks, spies, etc. And your response proves my point: everyone is banking on the Ohio class subs as the trump card. But if they're wrong, we're in a very precarious situation. Hence the need to revamp and expand the other legs of the triad. 2. SpaceX had "no competency" in creating rockets and spaceships until they did. And now they're objectively better than most governments at it. Creating a reentry vehicle that launches on one of their existing platforms doesn't seem implausible, at all. This is probably easier than most of their previous work. Unlike the legacy U.S. defense companies, SpaceX delivers on a budget and time scale that makes choosing them the obvious option. But it probably makes sense to have another company also work on improving the nuclear response.