6 ms·

America is highly vulnerable to a missile attack

24 points by tomohawk 5y ago

beebmam 5y ago
Isn't everyone? Why haven't we abolished nuclear weapons like we have with Biological and Chemical? We were teetering right on the edge for years in the middle 20th century, and the new China/US cold war will put us right there again.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >Why haven't we abolished nuclear weapons like we have with Biological and Chemical If you believe that the US does not develop, test and have ready bio and chemical weapons then I got a bridge to sell you.
- RobRivera 5y ago
  there is a political theory called Mutually Assured Destruction that has been the bread and butter of nuclear arms diplomacy since the 50s.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Nbox9 5y ago
  We abolished biological and chemical weapons because they are considered obsolete tools of war after nuclear was invented. Who enforces the abolishment of bio/chem? States with nuclear arsenals. There’s little appetite in nuclear powered nations for nuclear disarmament. There is appetite for nuclear nonproliferation among nuclear powers, in large part because it maintains the power imbalance. If you want to push for nuclear disarmament you’ll have to find a different model than bio/chem disarmament.
  - Symmetry 5y ago
    It's worth noting that the USSR actually kept a lot of anthrax warheads on ICBMs in a counter-value (i.e. against cities) role. But yeah, they're basically only useful for threatening revenge and aren't for actually fighting for the same reason that chemical weapons aren't. https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
- PKop 5y ago
  Because it's unenforceable, and nuclear weapons are the only deterrent against foreign invasion, which is a why many nations have desired to acquire them.
throwaway1777 5y ago
We ended the war in Afghanistan so now we need new reasons to fund the military.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >We ended the war in Afghanistan so ....we are ready for the upcoming Iran war.
  - bdamm 5y ago
    Please no. This would be nothing but a miserable tragedy for all involved.
    - java-man 5y ago
      ... except those on top reaping the profits. As it always been the case.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    "USA, you can't have an Iran yet, you still have Syria on your plate."
- didericis 5y ago
  Devil’s advocate for keeping the military huge for legitimate reasons: America has been very sheltered from the realities of large scale violence. I think we assume everyone will opt for civil discourse, diplomacy, and trade to resolve disputes naturally now that the world is wealthier and allegedly more enlightened. We think that large scale violence is off the table due to greater knowledge and having more to lose. We don’t know how important the hegemonic overwhelming military superiority of the US is a major disincentive for anything different. That disincentive diminishing could be disastrous. It’s an old argument, but I think there’s truth to it. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be cheaper. Military seems very wasteful/not efficient. Also doesn’t mean that hegemony doesn’t have its own dangers.
  - 5y ago
qwertyuiop_ 5y ago
But our General Milley is apparently in good terms with Chinese military assuring them that he will give them advance warning of any impending US attack on China. Then why spend on middle defense if you are going to warn the enemy of an impending attack. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.” https://web.archive.org/web/20210914161617/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/14/peril-woodward-costa-trump-milley-china/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210914161617/https://www.washi...
- arcticfox 5y ago
  A surprise attack on a full superpower with extensive MAD capabilities is quite possibly the most idiotic move that could ever be made. Milley's call can be summed up as: "you know I'm not an idiot, remember?"
  - secondcoming 5y ago
    Wouldn't a surprise attack, if that was even possible, be the best way to ensure Assured Destruction rather than Mutually Assured Destruction?
    - HenryKissinger 5y ago
      All major nuclear powers have systems in place to guarantee the survival of at least some of their strategic nuclear forces in the event of a surprise attack, ballistic missile submarines being one of them.
    - Nbox9 5y ago
      It would be terrible against a full nuclear triad nation. It’s assumed that the US has nuclear weapons in silos, on airplanes, and in submarines at all times and under certain conditions each silo/plane/sub is capable of making the call to attack. A surprise attack would only prevent MAD if you were to simultaneously disable each individual silo/sub/plane which is practically impossible. Oh, and it’s entirely possible the US has classified space based retaliation capabilities as they have had a number of highly classified satellite launches.
singh_ 5y ago
seems like the alien hoax didn't work to get more funding.
arcticfox 5y ago
Hasn't this been known to be true for 50+ years now (MAD)? Why is this news?
- bell-cot 5y ago
  Anything that pushes emotional buttons and gets clicks is "news". Welcome to the modern internet, BTW. /s
- zwieback 5y ago
  Yes, for sure. Reminds me of the discussions during my childhood growing up in divided Germany.
perlgeek 5y ago
I don't think it's possible for a country of the size of the US to have decent missile defense. Israel has it for certain areas of high population density, not for the whole country. But that is also against relatively low-range missiles, not ICMBs, I believe.
- syshum 5y ago
  Yea it is unlikely Iron Dome would prevent a ICMB. It could get luckily but it designed for less advanced rockets.. Though I think the tech is promising and could be used for US if international treaties did not prevent us from that.
  - doodlebugging 5y ago
    Republicans are currently pushing for restoration of funds to purchase of Iron Dome for missile defense in the US. Evidently the Democrats who drew up part of the budget requests left that out. My representative sent a note to all on their list about what a bad idea it was to defund purchase of Iron Dome for the US. I realize we helped them develop parts of the system. I also understand that it may not be ideal for the types of risks we would face from missiles. Anyway. This article looks like partisan fluff pushing for more defense spending. I totally believe we need to modernize and upgrade things regularly so that we are prepared for future threats but, like others have pointed out, the idea that one of those nations will launch a few ICBMs at the US seems farfetched. Maybe in 10 years when their capabilities clearly surpass our own and our defenses are down because all the youngsters decided to smoke legal dope instead of serving their country building cool stuff.
    - syshum 5y ago
      The problem with this idea is that launching of ICBM's is not a rational move. People are attempting to use logic to make the claim that it would be illogical for any of these nations to launch them. This is true but I counter that Humans are not always logical and are more often than not use emotion over logic. While I think the current risk is low, even looking at it from an emotional stance, I do not think it is as "far fetched" as many believe it to be
data_acquired 5y ago
Worth pointing out the author of the piece, Stephen Bryen, is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council (Source : https://www.usnews.com/topics/author/stephen-bryen https://www.usnews.com/topics/author/stephen-bryen ). This organization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Foreign_Policy_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Foreign_Policy_Counci...) seems to have sided with some of the driving forces behind the US-led invasion/occupation of Iraq/Afghanistan. This doesn't invalidate the analysis necessarily, but it feels like this article is coming from someone in an organization that potentially falls in the particularly hawkish part of the policy spectrum.
- ladberg 5y ago
  Yep, a quick glance at his Twitter and blog make me discount pretty much anything he has to say.
- thanhhaimai 5y ago
  This author is just trying to lobby for buying/selling weapon. I don't see why we should give this article any eyeballs. Also, the best deterrent is not a good defense system that this guy is trying to sell. It's the threat of 100 nukes erasing 50 cities of the invading country. That threat is real, and that's the US best defense at the moment.
  - int0x2e 5y ago
    That sort of reasoning (MAD) works great against Russia during the cold war. It is less robust once you factor in rogue and non-rational adversaries. I'm no saying you're wrong, but the risk from these actors isn't truly mitigated even by having overwhelming conventional and non-conventional weapons, second-strike capabilities (or anything really_.
HenryKissinger 5y ago
The People's Republic of China is highly vulnerable to a missile attack. The Russian Federation is highly vulnerable to a missile attack. The Islamic Republic of Iran is highly vulnerable to a missile attack. For all the lack of coverage and cost of the American missile shield, these countries have no defense system against ballistic or cruise missiles. A nuclear war with Russia or China would probably spell the end of both sides and set back mankind technologically and economically, possibly irreparably. The only national leader who would seriously contemplate a missile attack against the United States, even a conventional one, is one who doesn't care about his own life.
themodelplumber 5y ago
> A good interim solution for the US would be to adopt Israel’s Arrow-3 for homeland security defense, buying time to develop a new and capable ballistic missile defense system. You don't say... I then looked up the author and learned quite a bit about his deep, controversial, hard-line connections to Israel and the promotion of its interests.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mmaunder 5y ago
First sentence captures the core issue: "Despite spending billions of dollars..." I'd describe the issue as military capture - as opposed to state capture. Stand on the hill above the pentagon and look down upon the number of old defense brands surrounding the building, feeding off the mothership. SpaceX has proven how ripe for disruption NASA and their old school contractors were. Our defense contractors have the same issue and no one is disrupting them. Every new capability is massively overpriced, under-delivered, and behind the innovation curve. It never used to be this way. Kelly Johnson delivered the U2 and SR71 on schedule and under budget. It is very hard to imagine that happening today. The US government is getting absolutely screwed by their contractors, and it is perpetuated by the continuous public to private migration of military personnel, all cashing in on their career in government.
- HenryKissinger 5y ago
  There are like 3 companies left in the entire country that can build fighter aircraft and bombers, after the mergers of the 1990s and 2000s. If you want to found a bomber startup, you must consider the fact that you will have only one customer: the United States government. And that you have to invest massive amounts of upfront capital to start rolling aircraft off an assembly line. I don't know what the solution is. At this point, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman are quasi government owned entities, officially operating as private sector corporations. The government would never let them fail. The potential loss of technology and institutional knowledge from any one of these companies going bankrupt would be a legitimate threat to US national security.
- thow-01187 5y ago
  > SpaceX has proven how ripe for disruption NASA The story there might be murky, too. NASA bankrolls a lot of SpaceX R&D. US military then approaches SpaceX for extremely generous launch contracts, despite the fact NASA already paid for the R&D. There are some allegations that this double-dipping is used by SpaceX to commit price dumping on commercial launches
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
wefarrell 5y ago
And who exactly is going to attack the US with a missile? North Korea and Iran aren't developing ballistic missile's so they can launch an unprovoked attack against the US, they developed them so they can respond to a US invasion and keep their regimes in place. Russia's military is in shambles. The idea that China would attack their largest trading partner (who is capable of responding with at least as much force) is absurd.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  Russia's military is OK. It's not 2001.
- fragmede 5y ago
  While you don't necessarily have to buy into "they hate our freedom" level of rhetoric, it would be insane to suggest that America has no enemies that are a threat and thus is impervious to attack. What the US did to Iraq in the wake of 9/11 is shameful, but that 9/11 happened negates the idea that the US doesn't have enemies that would like to have this capability.
  - wefarrell 5y ago
    That's a straw man argument - no one is suggesting the US has no enemies that are a threat.
- int0x2e 5y ago
  You're correct - no rational actor would attack the US. Now, if only I could trust that there would always only be rational actors I could sleep well at night.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Worrying won't stop a missile attack, might as well sleep.
  - gremlinsinc 5y ago
    China has like ... millions of prisoners, presumably being brain-washed and worse... wouldn't be hard to maybe coax them into becoming spies and immigrating here, and just causing turmoil. Starting forest fires ... or doing some sort of home-made drone attacks against infrastructure (power grids, gas-lines, trains, etc) ... all china needs is for us to decline, not full scale war. That's just what china might do... we've got plenty of enemies... but I still think the military is way bloated, and doesn't need half the $$ it has, because if it were guerilla tactics like this, it'd be a hard fought battle no matter how much money is thrown at it. There's way more vulnerabilities facing us with climate change, etc than missile strikes IMHO...
say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
The military industrial complex has gotten its PR onto the front of Hacker News
lvs 5y ago
When does it end?
de6u99er 5y ago
How about nobody bombing noone? I am sick of all the wars. If we would all get our $hit together and pull on the same strings we humanity could stand a chance in surviving itself. Otherwise I am highly pessimistic.
PedroBatista 5y ago
Facts aside, this "article" reads so much as a planted piece to influence Americans to pressure who is holding the wallet to spend it on new cool gear. Given the US track record and behavior since forever and specially in the last 2 decades, of course these countries are developing ways to at least make it impossible for those in charge in the US to bomb countries like they are ordering takeout food and their population just go about their business like nothing happens. Fair is not a word I would use in realpolitik, but it's understandable.
jjk166 5y ago
In the late 90s the US shifted its missile defense strategy to stopping small numbers of missiles, either fired from rogue nations like North Korea or accidental launches from more established powers like Russia. Defense against all out ICMB strikes from Russia or China was explicitly stated to not be a goal, as it could potentially jeopardize the status quo of mutually assured destruction and lead to increased resistance in nuclear disarmament talks. For the mission for which GBI was designed to do, it performs adequately. While critics often cite an average lifetime success rate of about 50%, they fail to mention that there were lots of failures early on in the project and that over time the success rate has steadily improved. Further, for the intended mission, launching multiple interceptors at a single target to ensure a kill is perfectly reasonable. Preventing our destruction by large numbers of missiles is the job of our massive nuclear deterrent. The Arrow 3 system was made in partnership with the very same people who made the GBI. While their specifications are slightly different as they are expected to deal with different threat vectors, they're using the same technology. The Arrow 3 isn't going to perform any better than the GBI will. Further, the Arrow 3 couldn't work as a drop in replacement - it would need new launch facilities built in new locations, new radar systems and control infrastructure, and of course a whole separate supply of spare parts and maintenance equipment. If we want the GMD program to defend against larger numbers of missiles, it makes far more sense to just build more GBI missiles, but again, there is no compelling reason to believe that we should want GMD to defend against more missiles than it currently does. The only legitimate concern is that GBI was not designed to deal with hypersonic missiles. Arrow 3 is also not capable of this. For the moment, only Russia and China might reasonably be expected to have such capabilities, and they are deterred by the threat of nuclear retaliation. The MDA is already working on anti-hypersonics, but the threats we face now and in the near future do not require it, and there is no pressing urgency to shift more resources to its development than are already allocated.
jacknews 5y ago
"A good interim solution for the US would be to adopt Israel’s Arrow-3 for homeland security defense" Which should be provided for free, given the billions in US military aid Israel has received.

24 points by tomohawk 5y ago

Isn't everyone? Why haven't we abolished nuclear weapons like we have with Biological and Chemical? We were teetering right on the edge for years in the middle 20th century, and the new China/US cold war will put us right there again.

Dah00n 5y ago
>Why haven't we abolished nuclear weapons like we have with Biological and Chemical If you believe that the US does not develop, test and have ready bio and chemical weapons then I got a bridge to sell you.
RobRivera 5y ago
there is a political theory called Mutually Assured Destruction that has been the bread and butter of nuclear arms diplomacy since the 50s.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Nbox9 5y ago
We abolished biological and chemical weapons because they are considered obsolete tools of war after nuclear was invented. Who enforces the abolishment of bio/chem? States with nuclear arsenals. There’s little appetite in nuclear powered nations for nuclear disarmament. There is appetite for nuclear nonproliferation among nuclear powers, in large part because it maintains the power imbalance. If you want to push for nuclear disarmament you’ll have to find a different model than bio/chem disarmament.
- Symmetry 5y ago
  It's worth noting that the USSR actually kept a lot of anthrax warheads on ICBMs in a counter-value (i.e. against cities) role. But yeah, they're basically only useful for threatening revenge and aren't for actually fighting for the same reason that chemical weapons aren't. https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
PKop 5y ago
Because it's unenforceable, and nuclear weapons are the only deterrent against foreign invasion, which is a why many nations have desired to acquire them.

throwaway1777 5y ago

We ended the war in Afghanistan so now we need new reasons to fund the military.

Dah00n 5y ago
>We ended the war in Afghanistan so ....we are ready for the upcoming Iran war.
- bdamm 5y ago
  Please no. This would be nothing but a miserable tragedy for all involved.
  - java-man 5y ago
    ... except those on top reaping the profits. As it always been the case.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  "USA, you can't have an Iran yet, you still have Syria on your plate."
didericis 5y ago
Devil’s advocate for keeping the military huge for legitimate reasons: America has been very sheltered from the realities of large scale violence. I think we assume everyone will opt for civil discourse, diplomacy, and trade to resolve disputes naturally now that the world is wealthier and allegedly more enlightened. We think that large scale violence is off the table due to greater knowledge and having more to lose. We don’t know how important the hegemonic overwhelming military superiority of the US is a major disincentive for anything different. That disincentive diminishing could be disastrous. It’s an old argument, but I think there’s truth to it. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be cheaper. Military seems very wasteful/not efficient. Also doesn’t mean that hegemony doesn’t have its own dangers.
- 5y ago

qwertyuiop_ 5y ago

But our General Milley is apparently in good terms with Chinese military assuring them that he will give them advance warning of any impending US attack on China. Then why spend on middle defense if you are going to warn the enemy of an impending attack. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.” https://web.archive.org/web/20210914161617/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/14/peril-woodward-costa-trump-milley-china/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210914161617/https://www.washi...

arcticfox 5y ago
A surprise attack on a full superpower with extensive MAD capabilities is quite possibly the most idiotic move that could ever be made. Milley's call can be summed up as: "you know I'm not an idiot, remember?"
- secondcoming 5y ago
  Wouldn't a surprise attack, if that was even possible, be the best way to ensure Assured Destruction rather than Mutually Assured Destruction?
  - HenryKissinger 5y ago
    All major nuclear powers have systems in place to guarantee the survival of at least some of their strategic nuclear forces in the event of a surprise attack, ballistic missile submarines being one of them.
  - Nbox9 5y ago
    It would be terrible against a full nuclear triad nation. It’s assumed that the US has nuclear weapons in silos, on airplanes, and in submarines at all times and under certain conditions each silo/plane/sub is capable of making the call to attack. A surprise attack would only prevent MAD if you were to simultaneously disable each individual silo/sub/plane which is practically impossible. Oh, and it’s entirely possible the US has classified space based retaliation capabilities as they have had a number of highly classified satellite launches.

singh_ 5y ago

seems like the alien hoax didn't work to get more funding.

arcticfox 5y ago

Hasn't this been known to be true for 50+ years now (MAD)? Why is this news?

bell-cot 5y ago
Anything that pushes emotional buttons and gets clicks is "news". Welcome to the modern internet, BTW. /s
zwieback 5y ago
Yes, for sure. Reminds me of the discussions during my childhood growing up in divided Germany.

perlgeek 5y ago

I don't think it's possible for a country of the size of the US to have decent missile defense. Israel has it for certain areas of high population density, not for the whole country. But that is also against relatively low-range missiles, not ICMBs, I believe.

syshum 5y ago
Yea it is unlikely Iron Dome would prevent a ICMB. It could get luckily but it designed for less advanced rockets.. Though I think the tech is promising and could be used for US if international treaties did not prevent us from that.
- doodlebugging 5y ago
  Republicans are currently pushing for restoration of funds to purchase of Iron Dome for missile defense in the US. Evidently the Democrats who drew up part of the budget requests left that out. My representative sent a note to all on their list about what a bad idea it was to defund purchase of Iron Dome for the US. I realize we helped them develop parts of the system. I also understand that it may not be ideal for the types of risks we would face from missiles. Anyway. This article looks like partisan fluff pushing for more defense spending. I totally believe we need to modernize and upgrade things regularly so that we are prepared for future threats but, like others have pointed out, the idea that one of those nations will launch a few ICBMs at the US seems farfetched. Maybe in 10 years when their capabilities clearly surpass our own and our defenses are down because all the youngsters decided to smoke legal dope instead of serving their country building cool stuff.
  - syshum 5y ago
    The problem with this idea is that launching of ICBM's is not a rational move. People are attempting to use logic to make the claim that it would be illogical for any of these nations to launch them. This is true but I counter that Humans are not always logical and are more often than not use emotion over logic. While I think the current risk is low, even looking at it from an emotional stance, I do not think it is as "far fetched" as many believe it to be

data_acquired 5y ago

Worth pointing out the author of the piece, Stephen Bryen, is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council (Source : https://www.usnews.com/topics/author/stephen-bryen https://www.usnews.com/topics/author/stephen-bryen ). This organization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Foreign_Policy_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Foreign_Policy_Counci...) seems to have sided with some of the driving forces behind the US-led invasion/occupation of Iraq/Afghanistan. This doesn't invalidate the analysis necessarily, but it feels like this article is coming from someone in an organization that potentially falls in the particularly hawkish part of the policy spectrum.

ladberg 5y ago
Yep, a quick glance at his Twitter and blog make me discount pretty much anything he has to say.
thanhhaimai 5y ago
This author is just trying to lobby for buying/selling weapon. I don't see why we should give this article any eyeballs. Also, the best deterrent is not a good defense system that this guy is trying to sell. It's the threat of 100 nukes erasing 50 cities of the invading country. That threat is real, and that's the US best defense at the moment.
- int0x2e 5y ago
  That sort of reasoning (MAD) works great against Russia during the cold war. It is less robust once you factor in rogue and non-rational adversaries. I'm no saying you're wrong, but the risk from these actors isn't truly mitigated even by having overwhelming conventional and non-conventional weapons, second-strike capabilities (or anything really_.

HenryKissinger 5y ago

The People's Republic of China is highly vulnerable to a missile attack. The Russian Federation is highly vulnerable to a missile attack. The Islamic Republic of Iran is highly vulnerable to a missile attack. For all the lack of coverage and cost of the American missile shield, these countries have no defense system against ballistic or cruise missiles. A nuclear war with Russia or China would probably spell the end of both sides and set back mankind technologically and economically, possibly irreparably. The only national leader who would seriously contemplate a missile attack against the United States, even a conventional one, is one who doesn't care about his own life.

themodelplumber 5y ago

> A good interim solution for the US would be to adopt Israel’s Arrow-3 for homeland security defense, buying time to develop a new and capable ballistic missile defense system. You don't say... I then looked up the author and learned quite a bit about his deep, controversial, hard-line connections to Israel and the promotion of its interests.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mmaunder 5y ago

First sentence captures the core issue: "Despite spending billions of dollars..." I'd describe the issue as military capture - as opposed to state capture. Stand on the hill above the pentagon and look down upon the number of old defense brands surrounding the building, feeding off the mothership. SpaceX has proven how ripe for disruption NASA and their old school contractors were. Our defense contractors have the same issue and no one is disrupting them. Every new capability is massively overpriced, under-delivered, and behind the innovation curve. It never used to be this way. Kelly Johnson delivered the U2 and SR71 on schedule and under budget. It is very hard to imagine that happening today. The US government is getting absolutely screwed by their contractors, and it is perpetuated by the continuous public to private migration of military personnel, all cashing in on their career in government.

HenryKissinger 5y ago
There are like 3 companies left in the entire country that can build fighter aircraft and bombers, after the mergers of the 1990s and 2000s. If you want to found a bomber startup, you must consider the fact that you will have only one customer: the United States government. And that you have to invest massive amounts of upfront capital to start rolling aircraft off an assembly line. I don't know what the solution is. At this point, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman are quasi government owned entities, officially operating as private sector corporations. The government would never let them fail. The potential loss of technology and institutional knowledge from any one of these companies going bankrupt would be a legitimate threat to US national security.
thow-01187 5y ago
> SpaceX has proven how ripe for disruption NASA The story there might be murky, too. NASA bankrolls a lot of SpaceX R&D. US military then approaches SpaceX for extremely generous launch contracts, despite the fact NASA already paid for the R&D. There are some allegations that this double-dipping is used by SpaceX to commit price dumping on commercial launches
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

wefarrell 5y ago

And who exactly is going to attack the US with a missile? North Korea and Iran aren't developing ballistic missile's so they can launch an unprovoked attack against the US, they developed them so they can respond to a US invasion and keep their regimes in place. Russia's military is in shambles. The idea that China would attack their largest trading partner (who is capable of responding with at least as much force) is absurd.

thriftwy 5y ago
Russia's military is OK. It's not 2001.
fragmede 5y ago
While you don't necessarily have to buy into "they hate our freedom" level of rhetoric, it would be insane to suggest that America has no enemies that are a threat and thus is impervious to attack. What the US did to Iraq in the wake of 9/11 is shameful, but that 9/11 happened negates the idea that the US doesn't have enemies that would like to have this capability.
- wefarrell 5y ago
  That's a straw man argument - no one is suggesting the US has no enemies that are a threat.
int0x2e 5y ago
You're correct - no rational actor would attack the US. Now, if only I could trust that there would always only be rational actors I could sleep well at night.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Worrying won't stop a missile attack, might as well sleep.
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  China has like ... millions of prisoners, presumably being brain-washed and worse... wouldn't be hard to maybe coax them into becoming spies and immigrating here, and just causing turmoil. Starting forest fires ... or doing some sort of home-made drone attacks against infrastructure (power grids, gas-lines, trains, etc) ... all china needs is for us to decline, not full scale war. That's just what china might do... we've got plenty of enemies... but I still think the military is way bloated, and doesn't need half the $$ it has, because if it were guerilla tactics like this, it'd be a hard fought battle no matter how much money is thrown at it. There's way more vulnerabilities facing us with climate change, etc than missile strikes IMHO...

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago

The military industrial complex has gotten its PR onto the front of Hacker News

lvs 5y ago

When does it end?

de6u99er 5y ago

How about nobody bombing noone? I am sick of all the wars. If we would all get our $hit together and pull on the same strings we humanity could stand a chance in surviving itself. Otherwise I am highly pessimistic.

PedroBatista 5y ago

Facts aside, this "article" reads so much as a planted piece to influence Americans to pressure who is holding the wallet to spend it on new cool gear. Given the US track record and behavior since forever and specially in the last 2 decades, of course these countries are developing ways to at least make it impossible for those in charge in the US to bomb countries like they are ordering takeout food and their population just go about their business like nothing happens. Fair is not a word I would use in realpolitik, but it's understandable.

jjk166 5y ago

In the late 90s the US shifted its missile defense strategy to stopping small numbers of missiles, either fired from rogue nations like North Korea or accidental launches from more established powers like Russia. Defense against all out ICMB strikes from Russia or China was explicitly stated to not be a goal, as it could potentially jeopardize the status quo of mutually assured destruction and lead to increased resistance in nuclear disarmament talks. For the mission for which GBI was designed to do, it performs adequately. While critics often cite an average lifetime success rate of about 50%, they fail to mention that there were lots of failures early on in the project and that over time the success rate has steadily improved. Further, for the intended mission, launching multiple interceptors at a single target to ensure a kill is perfectly reasonable. Preventing our destruction by large numbers of missiles is the job of our massive nuclear deterrent. The Arrow 3 system was made in partnership with the very same people who made the GBI. While their specifications are slightly different as they are expected to deal with different threat vectors, they're using the same technology. The Arrow 3 isn't going to perform any better than the GBI will. Further, the Arrow 3 couldn't work as a drop in replacement - it would need new launch facilities built in new locations, new radar systems and control infrastructure, and of course a whole separate supply of spare parts and maintenance equipment. If we want the GMD program to defend against larger numbers of missiles, it makes far more sense to just build more GBI missiles, but again, there is no compelling reason to believe that we should want GMD to defend against more missiles than it currently does. The only legitimate concern is that GBI was not designed to deal with hypersonic missiles. Arrow 3 is also not capable of this. For the moment, only Russia and China might reasonably be expected to have such capabilities, and they are deterred by the threat of nuclear retaliation. The MDA is already working on anti-hypersonics, but the threats we face now and in the near future do not require it, and there is no pressing urgency to shift more resources to its development than are already allocated.

jacknews 5y ago

"A good interim solution for the US would be to adopt Israel’s Arrow-3 for homeland security defense" Which should be provided for free, given the billions in US military aid Israel has received.