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Ramstein air base in Germany experiences potential incoming missile scare
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 6y agoAmerica under Trump is seen as weak by its adversaries, it should come as no surprise that the last days of the Trump administration will see a lot of saber rattling. Let's hope it stays at that level.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hourislate 6y agoUmmm...The USA has the most powerful military in the world and a budget that is larger than the next 10 largest spending countries put together. They have also participated in 20 years of war testing, training, and honing skills. I mean he wanted to nuke Iran but the establishment wouldn't let him. Is that what you consider weak?
- pengaru 6y ago> I mean he wanted to nuke Iran but the establishment wouldn't let him. Is that what you consider weak? They're talking about perception of weakness, and frankly what you're describing there would be evidence of his being weak if "the establishment" blocked him. Not that I'm agreeing with what any of what either of you are saying here.
- Spooky23 6y agoWhat’s the national interest? Weakness is the fact that a moron like Trump became POTUS by some accident of history, and that he may have wanted to attack a country with nuclear weapons because he heard some lunatic talk about it on TV. Military planners and diplomats are ultimately amoral. But the realpolitik of the devastation of Iran is a shift in the balance of power that doesn’t benefit the national interest, or creates bigger problems. Weakness is the 101 other cuts that impacted US standing. Everything from the insanity of Brexit and failure to exploit, to the betrayal of US allies in Iraq and Syria, to the rise of a dangerous regime in Turkey, to damaged relations with Canada and destruction of the power of the US passport to the epic, historic incompetence of the COVID pandemic and impending depression.
- adventured 6y ago> and a budget that is larger than the next 10 largest spending countries put together. Thanks to China that's not even remotely close to being true. The big gap between the US and China on military spending is in personnel costs, which can properly be adjusted accordingly (just because the US pays a soldier $60k per year doesn't mean that soldier is four times the soldier China pays $15k). China in all practical terms has now caught up to the US in military spending and will surpass the US easily this decade. When you adjust everything for purchasing power China may already be ahead overall (that matters because China can spend $10b and get the same result as when the US spends $20b or $30b, including when it comes to personnel, due to eg the variance in costs between the two nations). Bloomberg article, two years ago: "China Outspends the U.S. on Defense? Here’s the Math. Factoring in purchasing power and personnel costs leads to a surprising conclusion." https://archive.is/32N1F https://archive.is/32N1F Now, that's a two year old article. In that time, the US economy has been smacked by Covid and China has decided it wants to even more aggressively expand its military. China is going to become the dominant, global, military superpower within 20 years, with all that that very obviously entails for the world. It's a reasonable guess that in another ten years they'll be spending 1/3 more than the US on military in real terms.
- jacquesm 6y agoThank you. It's funny how reality seen through an American lens is so incredibly distorted. The myth that America is the worlds only remaining super power is so well entrenched that even presumably very smart and informed people will happily believe it. But that doesn't make it true.
- RobRivera 6y ago[Citation needed]
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y agoA madman that nobody can predict with the authority to launch nukes is hardly "weak" by any means. How the hell do you know he won't actually do it? Congress constantly had to attempt to reign him in.
- jessaustin 6y agoIf that was "reigning in", I'd hate to see saber-rattling.
- arethuza 6y agoNixon actually had a strategy of appearing irrational: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y agoI mean it's a little asinine to think most people including myself aren't privy to the fact that all trump said is BS. Only reddit leftists didn't. They all though everything he spouted was cannon policy of republicans.
- ulzeraj 6y agoI heard Russian missiles in Kaliningrad can reach any place in Poland and Lithuania. I wonder how did they managed to keep that piece of land surrounded by ex-soviet republics that are basically not very fond of Russia to say the least.
- baybal2 6y agoVery easy, Baltic republics were in no way capable of waging war right after the independence, let alone get out with any hope of territorial gains. And historically, USSR always been placing military members from ethnic minorities into weakest, and most "cannon-fodderry" military units, predominantly foot infantry, and motorised. Even ethnic Russians from more far away places were likely never to see any advanced military hardware.
- ulzeraj 6y agoThanks. That was an honest question. No idea why I got downvoted multiple times.
- azernik 6y agoDepends on the ethnic minority - the USSR had very fine-grained distinctions between "reliable" and "unreliable" ethnic groups. For example, Armenians (because of their hostility to NATO-member Turkey) were very much allowed into combat units, which gave them their enormous advantage against Azerbaijan in the early-90s wars. Ukrainians and Belarusians were also considered part of the "core" USSR ethnic groups. Whereas the Baltic states were only conquered in 1940, and were considered extremely unreliable.
- Cu3PO42 6y agoI live in Kaiserslautern, which is right next to Ramstein Air Base. I just want to say I find it somewhat strange—unsettling even—that I hear about this for the first time from an article I happened to find on HN, but not the German national alert app, local news or even social media.
- azalemeth 6y agoI wonder if that means, that, well, the system works. There wasn't an incoming missile strike: part of the early-alert system sounded and another part -- a much more human part -- interrogated the data further and decided to not declare a loud alarm that could have potentially severe consequences. And, well, no missile strike came.
- Trombone12 6y agoNo, the article recounts the base sending out a live warning to base personnel. If you've sent an alert to the soldiers on the base, you've decided the warning is genuine, so the conclusion must be that they don't inform the surrounding areas as soon as they've accepted a warning as accurate.
- KineticLensman 6y ago> No, the article recounts the base sending out a live warning to base personnel. More precisely, it said "After the strike never materialized, the sprawling installation's command post put out a notice stating that "the missile launch was then assessed to be part of a training exercise" and wasn't deemed a threat to the base" > If you've sent an alert to the soldiers on the base, you've decided the warning is genuine Or that you are checking. It may be a false alarm, in which case you will at least get a test of your readiness drills, which may find bugs in the process. Sometimes better to start getting ready while there is still time, and then stand down. Rather than wait until it is too late.
- Trombone12 6y ago
- hikerclimber 6y agonice!
- ExcavateGrandMa 6y agoJust before charlie hebdo attack (in françe) by terrorists... some ppl told that a rescue test had been performed just before attack... It smell the brown out... :D
- Trombone12 6y agoUS defence planners: "Attacking with all nukes as soon as we get a warning of an enemy launch is the only rational way to use these weapons" US missileers: "I'ma wait a bit to see if maybe it's just Joyce that forgot to update the spreadsheet today before destroying the world"
- littlestymaar 6y agoFortunately this sort of common sense was shared by Russian soldiers too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
- vbezhenar 6y agoThere are rumours about automatic Russian system Dead Hand which is supposed to launch hidden nuclear missiles automatically if everything is lost. It’s horrifying to think about bugs in that system.
- sterlind 6y agoFrom what we know, supposedly Dead Hand is usually switched off except in times of crisis, and it has humans in the loop that turn the launch keys, along with repeated attempts to contact the Kremlin. In my mind it makes things safer because there's less pressure to launch a counterattack before any missiles actually hit - revenge will be had.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoWhich also shows the danger of escalation: If the other side is on high alert because there's an ongoing crisis, the risk of civilization-ending mistakes are much higher.
- Trombone12 6y agoWhile in the US, there are people furiously arguing for having ICMBs in silos that you have to launch as soon as you have a warning because if the nukes are coming for the silos the nukes will be "wasted". But this fact that the silos will be targeted and destroyed is actually a feature because it means it's North Dakota that gets to become a wasteland and that's not really a bit of the US you care about, or so the reasoning goes. The nuclear sponge they call it (the ICBMs silos needing to be targeted by enemy nukes, not North Dakota proper).
- phelm 6y agoperhaps someone let off 99 red balloons
- Krasnol 6y agofloating in the winter sky
- mmaunder 6y agoFor a detailed video describing the Aegis Ashore missile defense system that protects Ramstein go here: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/aegis-combat-system/aegis-ashore.html https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/aegis-combat-s... And some deployment history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defense_System#Aegis_Ashore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defens...
- Dobby2020 6y agoThese are all Russians hackers who compromised a control panel on the base! Russians have an agreement with Trump to srart a local nuclear war in EU, to postpone Biden's inauguration in January.
- hazeii 6y agoFalse alarm due to Geminids?
- redis_mlc 6y agoFor those unaware, Russia had an explosion involving a missile containing a nuclear power pack that released radioactivity into the atmosphere and ocean recently, on August 8, 2019. It appears there was a chain reaction, so some kind of detonation, that was recorded as a seismic event. Some of the technicians died of radiation poisoning. There was a coverup by Russia, so air traffic was not notified of a test, and a nearby village was not evacuated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident
- toxicFork 6y agoPossible technical question: how do people detect missile launches? Do they scan the skies? Do they have sound/vibration pattern detection? Satellites? Update: In the article I see: "Still, we have no idea what early warning system triggered the alert. America's infrared early warning space-based sensing layer stares at the earth from many vantage points in orbit day and night. Historically, it provides the initial warning of a ballistic missile launch via detection of the missile's hot boost-phase plume. These satellites, especially the newer ones, can also detect a greater variety of infrared events, as well, including artillery fire, aircraft crashes, smaller missile shots, and even the launches of cruise missiles. "
- smdz 6y agoI was wondering the same. Still not sure how they detect whether that is incoming or just flying to a different destination?
- toxicFork 6y agoI guess once you detect a launch you start tracking systems and making guesses, if you see it heading towards a particular direction, alert anyone in that direction. Once you get a decent trajectory, alert more specifically.
- hotfire911 6y agoAccording to reddit (1), it was part of an exercise and there was a mistake with accidentally issuing a non-exercise alert. (1) https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/kblzkx/only_at_ramstein/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/kblzkx/only_at_ra...
- jamisteven 6y agoThis reminds me of when Hawaii had that "false alert" of an incoming nuclear missile and it was supposedly just a user error.