4 ms·

A millennial's view: ICBMs are ridiculous

2 points by georgecmu 5y ago

ThrowawayR2 5y ago
> "Nuclear-armed submarines are, by design, nearly impossible for other countries to track." Not a very persuasive essay. To play devil's advocate, the point of the triad is redundancy to ensure that at least one of the triad is going to work to keep the MAD scenario going. Single points of failure are bad. If a new technology is developed that allows submarines to be tracked or otherwise countered, which is hardly impossible given the breakneck pace of progress, then all of a sudden all nation-states are going to need to spend money to reinforce one of the other two legs of the triad anyway until countermeasures catch up and crash projects are always more costly than projects executed at leisure.
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago
  There are also errors the conclusion is based on, suggesting the writing was not researched sufficiently. e.g. whichever country shoots ICBMs first, destroys most of the others' ICBMs, if the target country want to make sure the attack is real. This presumes the only way to know if the attack is real is to wait for impact. Not so. ICBMs between US & Russia take about 20 to 30 minutes from launch to impact. Launch detection is near instantaneous with satellite and other measures. The "three main reasons" are never developed. The referenced numbers are meaningless without context. Yes, the US spends $778b in 2020, and Russia $61.7b. But, $778b is 3.7% of US GDP, while $61.7b is 4.3% of Russia's. Further example with Saudi Arabia who "only" spent $57.5b, yet it is 8.4% of their GDP. Comparing it to the percentage of government spending is even more glaring omission. US & Russia do not show up in the top 15 countries. ... and so on ... This was lazy authoring. (Do I sound frustrated? Yes, yes, I am.) My data ref (and matches author's): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
raxxorrax 5y ago
> to question why my government is spending Defense contractors develop military tech. To continue research, they need government grants and contracts. They search for friends in administrations to secure long term financing. Withdrawing from a war will hit them, but there will always be expensive programs that ensure they can continue their business. Otherwise a country might loose technological advantages. It could probably be a lot cheaper if anyone were to consolidate contracts, but you probably would need to face severe resistance, even from your own military. I think subs might be a more precise and safe delivery mechanism for nukes, but if you can have both, most administrations would probably opt for that.
some_random 5y ago
"hello fellow 25-40 year old bracket members, I too think the government should spend less money on abstract defense concepts and more on highly popular initiatives like healthcare and college debts" I genuinely agree that ICBMs are anachronistic and need to be rethought as a part of the nuclear triad, but this essay is infuriating.

2 points by georgecmu 5y ago

> "Nuclear-armed submarines are, by design, nearly impossible for other countries to track." Not a very persuasive essay. To play devil's advocate, the point of the triad is redundancy to ensure that at least one of the triad is going to work to keep the MAD scenario going. Single points of failure are bad. If a new technology is developed that allows submarines to be tracked or otherwise countered, which is hardly impossible given the breakneck pace of progress, then all of a sudden all nation-states are going to need to spend money to reinforce one of the other two legs of the triad anyway until countermeasures catch up and crash projects are always more costly than projects executed at leisure.

WaitWaitWha 5y ago
There are also errors the conclusion is based on, suggesting the writing was not researched sufficiently. e.g. whichever country shoots ICBMs first, destroys most of the others' ICBMs, if the target country want to make sure the attack is real. This presumes the only way to know if the attack is real is to wait for impact. Not so. ICBMs between US & Russia take about 20 to 30 minutes from launch to impact. Launch detection is near instantaneous with satellite and other measures. The "three main reasons" are never developed. The referenced numbers are meaningless without context. Yes, the US spends $778b in 2020, and Russia $61.7b. But, $778b is 3.7% of US GDP, while $61.7b is 4.3% of Russia's. Further example with Saudi Arabia who "only" spent $57.5b, yet it is 8.4% of their GDP. Comparing it to the percentage of government spending is even more glaring omission. US & Russia do not show up in the top 15 countries. ... and so on ... This was lazy authoring. (Do I sound frustrated? Yes, yes, I am.) My data ref (and matches author's): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

raxxorrax 5y ago

> to question why my government is spending Defense contractors develop military tech. To continue research, they need government grants and contracts. They search for friends in administrations to secure long term financing. Withdrawing from a war will hit them, but there will always be expensive programs that ensure they can continue their business. Otherwise a country might loose technological advantages. It could probably be a lot cheaper if anyone were to consolidate contracts, but you probably would need to face severe resistance, even from your own military. I think subs might be a more precise and safe delivery mechanism for nukes, but if you can have both, most administrations would probably opt for that.

some_random 5y ago

"hello fellow 25-40 year old bracket members, I too think the government should spend less money on abstract defense concepts and more on highly popular initiatives like healthcare and college debts" I genuinely agree that ICBMs are anachronistic and need to be rethought as a part of the nuclear triad, but this essay is infuriating.