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This is my personal belief, which I have no way to substantiate, and solely statistical, but it helps me sleep at night or so to speak. Nobody spends more on d

This is my personal belief, which I have no way to substantiate, and solely statistical, but it helps me sleep at night or so to speak. Nobody spends more on defense than US. Also, the new technology that you hear about today is essentially declassified tech from ~20 years ago. I remember reading in the past about Boeing doing experiments with a 747 carrying a giant laser that could lock on and fry ICBMs. There was also stuff like this 14 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMU6l6GsdM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMU6l6GsdM Extrapolating to today, I firmly believe that US (and probably NATO and other countries who share intel) are watching Russian launch sites closely, ready to drop kinetic warheads from orbit at the first sign of activation, not to mention multiple layers of defense with kinetic kill vehicles, lasers, EMPS, jammers, e.t.c. That is assuming, we don't have stuxnet like malware hiding in computer systems that would just magically cause the missiles to fail. After all, Russian military was shown to be wildly incompetent (which US probably already knew), so that translates to easy infiltration/intel and creation of a safeguard plan to counter anything they have.

poly_morphis 4y ago
Me too. While I have some doubts, I also think that the US is not unprepared for a scenario where nukes are flying. I think Russia is still a significant threat, but also that the US has, given their budget, developed/implemented technology the public doesn't even know about to counter this possibility. In fact, I would be beyond shocked if the US hasn't developed anything like that. I certainly would like to not be in a scenario where the public finds out about possible technology like this, because it would probably mean war has already broken out.
- badpun 4y ago
  What's the benefit of hiding such technology? Any viable deterring capabilities the US has should be loudly advertised.
kleer001 4y ago
> ready to drop kinetic warheads from orbit I don't think those are a thing. It's so much easier and cheaper and faster to launch things from the ground (or water).
- ActorNightly 4y ago
  Yes but putting a bunch of tungsten rods with basic guidance into orbit on a payload is cheaper then dealing with missile systems, and also allows you to have a first strike capability that will be not readily detected like a missile
  - kleer001 4y ago
    here's a pop-sci whole thing about the feasibility of orbital based defense/offense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_n1FZaKzF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_n1FZaKzF8 tl:dr they're crazy expensive, impossible to aim, and you'd need lots of them to be the coverage of a ground based setup
juve1996 4y ago
I too believe the US can eliminate a huge portion of the threat. But even just a couple getting through can have devastating consequences. Hope those buttons never get pushed.
ianburrell 4y ago
The US is working on missile defense and there are technologies that might change things in decade or two. But there is no way that they have been deployed in secret. The scale would be too large to hide and the government likes to brag. Deploying a full system requires SpaceX Starship and the number of launches would be large. Even then, it may not be possible to have system that works against major attack. The 747 laser was retired 9 years ago. They are working on laser firing drones but don't have any prototypes after years. Also, these are boost phase lasers which are fine with North Korea since can get close but don't work with Russia. There is talk about kinetic kill vehicles in space but I haven't found any concrete programs. This sometimes gets mixed with the Space Development Agency satellite constellationm but that is more about communication and detection. Kinetic warheads are not a thing. There haven't been enough satellite launches to put anything in orbit. They need to be big, both to have enough mass and for the rocket to get down. One big problem is that it takes 15-30 minutes for them to descend; shorter time requires a bigger rocket. The reaction time is one reason they are a bad idea since target can't tell if they are nukes or first strike. EMP and jammers don't work against nuclear missiles. They are self-guided. The electronics, like a lot of military electronics, are hardened and tested.
- ActorNightly 4y ago
  Government definitely has secrets. There is definitely compartmentalized projects with weapon systems that we don't know of. X-37B for example spent some time in orbit, nobody knows why. >The 747 laser was retired 9 years ago. That you know of. The 747 laser may not be a thing, but a military warplane with the next gen version of that laser may very well be > Kinetic warheads are not a thing. That you know of. Putting a rack of tungsten rods with basic guidance's system on a payload isn't really that complicated. They don't really need to be that big for localized destruction either. A 20x1 foot one has destructive power of an ICBM. A smaller one could take out a silo easily as it would penetrate quite far. >EMP and jammers don't work against nuclear missiles. They are self-guided. If they use gps for guidance, they can definitely be jammed/misdirected with a strong enough fake gps signal. And setting off an emp that creates magnetic fields strong enough to cause high current in circuitry is not that farfetched - the guidance computer may be fairly shielded, but you still have servos and other parts exposed that would be affected.
randomopining 4y ago
US Defense is known to be heavily bloated. They spend millions or even billions on projects that just end up in the dumpster. Spending shouldn't be taken at face value. If the Chinese develop 1 perfect rocket for attacking Taiwan and then produce 1000s at low cost, they can just saturate the whole island and destroy any resistance by sheer force.
badpun 4y ago
> I firmly believe that US (and probably NATO and other countries who share intel) are watching Russian launch sites closely You can't watch the submarines though, as there's no technology to locate them? Until it emerges on the US coast and fires off a nuclear missile that is, but that might be too late.

poly_morphis 4y ago

Me too. While I have some doubts, I also think that the US is not unprepared for a scenario where nukes are flying. I think Russia is still a significant threat, but also that the US has, given their budget, developed/implemented technology the public doesn't even know about to counter this possibility. In fact, I would be beyond shocked if the US hasn't developed anything like that. I certainly would like to not be in a scenario where the public finds out about possible technology like this, because it would probably mean war has already broken out.

badpun 4y ago
What's the benefit of hiding such technology? Any viable deterring capabilities the US has should be loudly advertised.

kleer001 4y ago

> ready to drop kinetic warheads from orbit I don't think those are a thing. It's so much easier and cheaper and faster to launch things from the ground (or water).

ActorNightly 4y ago
Yes but putting a bunch of tungsten rods with basic guidance into orbit on a payload is cheaper then dealing with missile systems, and also allows you to have a first strike capability that will be not readily detected like a missile
- kleer001 4y ago
  here's a pop-sci whole thing about the feasibility of orbital based defense/offense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_n1FZaKzF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_n1FZaKzF8 tl:dr they're crazy expensive, impossible to aim, and you'd need lots of them to be the coverage of a ground based setup

juve1996 4y ago

I too believe the US can eliminate a huge portion of the threat. But even just a couple getting through can have devastating consequences. Hope those buttons never get pushed.

ianburrell 4y ago

The US is working on missile defense and there are technologies that might change things in decade or two. But there is no way that they have been deployed in secret. The scale would be too large to hide and the government likes to brag. Deploying a full system requires SpaceX Starship and the number of launches would be large. Even then, it may not be possible to have system that works against major attack. The 747 laser was retired 9 years ago. They are working on laser firing drones but don't have any prototypes after years. Also, these are boost phase lasers which are fine with North Korea since can get close but don't work with Russia. There is talk about kinetic kill vehicles in space but I haven't found any concrete programs. This sometimes gets mixed with the Space Development Agency satellite constellationm but that is more about communication and detection. Kinetic warheads are not a thing. There haven't been enough satellite launches to put anything in orbit. They need to be big, both to have enough mass and for the rocket to get down. One big problem is that it takes 15-30 minutes for them to descend; shorter time requires a bigger rocket. The reaction time is one reason they are a bad idea since target can't tell if they are nukes or first strike. EMP and jammers don't work against nuclear missiles. They are self-guided. The electronics, like a lot of military electronics, are hardened and tested.

ActorNightly 4y ago
Government definitely has secrets. There is definitely compartmentalized projects with weapon systems that we don't know of. X-37B for example spent some time in orbit, nobody knows why. >The 747 laser was retired 9 years ago. That you know of. The 747 laser may not be a thing, but a military warplane with the next gen version of that laser may very well be > Kinetic warheads are not a thing. That you know of. Putting a rack of tungsten rods with basic guidance's system on a payload isn't really that complicated. They don't really need to be that big for localized destruction either. A 20x1 foot one has destructive power of an ICBM. A smaller one could take out a silo easily as it would penetrate quite far. >EMP and jammers don't work against nuclear missiles. They are self-guided. If they use gps for guidance, they can definitely be jammed/misdirected with a strong enough fake gps signal. And setting off an emp that creates magnetic fields strong enough to cause high current in circuitry is not that farfetched - the guidance computer may be fairly shielded, but you still have servos and other parts exposed that would be affected.

randomopining 4y ago

US Defense is known to be heavily bloated. They spend millions or even billions on projects that just end up in the dumpster. Spending shouldn't be taken at face value. If the Chinese develop 1 perfect rocket for attacking Taiwan and then produce 1000s at low cost, they can just saturate the whole island and destroy any resistance by sheer force.

badpun 4y ago

> I firmly believe that US (and probably NATO and other countries who share intel) are watching Russian launch sites closely You can't watch the submarines though, as there's no technology to locate them? Until it emerges on the US coast and fires off a nuclear missile that is, but that might be too late.