4 ms·

No, what happens is that everyone rushes to the moon to recreate MAD in terms of rocks instead of in terms of nuclear weapons. During the transition period fro

No, what happens is that everyone rushes to the moon to recreate MAD in terms of rocks instead of in terms of nuclear weapons. During the transition period from atomic MAD to kinetic MAD, deterrent politics will become very complicated and war planners may make miscalculations. See also: prompt global strike. First strike from kinetic bombardment can be far more devastating than first strike from ICBMs due to the surprise factor and simplicity of yield configuration. Moon-based mass drivers can be trivially protected from Earth-launched counter attacks, since the inbound trajectories can be calculated, the projectiles take days to arrive, and can be intercepted by point defense systems that have lower delta-v requirements. Basic OODA loop supremacy stuff.

nradov 5y ago
None of that is relevant to MAD. Boomers still provide a survivable second strike deterrent. Even if an adversary can defend their lunar weapons, it won't matter because their earthly cities will be smoking craters.
- politician 5y ago
  I agree with your point in the near term, but beyond that I disagree with you about the effectiveness of submarines for maintaining the second strike deterrent for two reasons. First, there is some threshold amount of off-Earth allied population that will undermine and make irrelevant the SLBM deterrent. In the extreme case, consider a Martian opponent. Second, there is a gamble that a first strike against military targets won’t provoke a return strike against the civilian population. In this case, a restrained first strike that takes out key submarine docks could degrade the advantage provided by Boomers. A limited attack on that kind of infrastructure is hard to pull off, but an asteroid strike might be one of the few ways that it could be done with sufficient plausible deniability. Gravity-based kinetic weapons will force a rethinking of nuclear MAD — the history of war consistently shows that expensive hardened fixed positions are eventually made into vulnerable death traps through cheap technology.

nradov 5y ago

None of that is relevant to MAD. Boomers still provide a survivable second strike deterrent. Even if an adversary can defend their lunar weapons, it won't matter because their earthly cities will be smoking craters.

politician 5y ago
I agree with your point in the near term, but beyond that I disagree with you about the effectiveness of submarines for maintaining the second strike deterrent for two reasons. First, there is some threshold amount of off-Earth allied population that will undermine and make irrelevant the SLBM deterrent. In the extreme case, consider a Martian opponent. Second, there is a gamble that a first strike against military targets won’t provoke a return strike against the civilian population. In this case, a restrained first strike that takes out key submarine docks could degrade the advantage provided by Boomers. A limited attack on that kind of infrastructure is hard to pull off, but an asteroid strike might be one of the few ways that it could be done with sufficient plausible deniability. Gravity-based kinetic weapons will force a rethinking of nuclear MAD — the history of war consistently shows that expensive hardened fixed positions are eventually made into vulnerable death traps through cheap technology.