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The whole paradigm of deterrence is avoiding war by convincing your opponents that attacking you will be futile, or at least excessively costly. What good would

by jjk166 3y ago

The whole paradigm of deterrence is avoiding war by convincing your opponents that attacking you will be futile, or at least excessively costly. What good would a deterrent be if people didn't know you had it? Obviously you're not going to give away enough technical detail to help a would be adversary to defeat the system, but announcing the general existence of such a system is routine.

colechristensen 3y ago
If your adversary knows your capabilities, even vague details, they can usually extrapolate the specifics close enough to defeat them, physics is like that. Also if you know your adversary has a capability you’re very likely to try to replicate it. Like this announcement is probably a response to the public discourse by the US of Russian antisatellite space nukes which they are developing and denying. It could be a negotiation tactic (we’ll not develop this if you don’t develop that), a threat (we’ll develop this faster if you don’t stop), or internal politics (we’re doing stuff that will be potent against Russia too) or many other things. The adversary not knowing at all what you have and having to imagine your capabilities can be a bigger deterrent. But it’s a big game with many players and you have to weigh the many advantages and disadvantages of each action.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  The thing is though, a hypersonic can't really hide the massive hest signature it generates. To defeat that you'd just end up with an entirely different kind of missile (either having the missile go up into space, at which point it's an ICBM, or having it go slower, which turns it back into a regular cruise missile). So either way, the system specifically stated as tracking hypersonics, has technically not been defeated at its job.
- jjk166 3y ago
  > If your adversary knows your capabilities, even vague details, they can usually extrapolate the specifics close enough to defeat them, physics is like that. This is not generally true. Further, the existence of satellites can't be readily hidden, anyone with a telescope can see that they are up there. > Also if you know your adversary has a capability you’re very likely to try to replicate it. It's not a problem if other nations replicate this capability. Indeed it would likely be good for the US if they did - the more confident a country is in their defenses the less they need to rely on pre-emptive offense. It's also worth noting that the US generally lags behind in hypersonic weapons as they're not really useful to US strategy, so adversaries pursuing anti-hypersonic capabilities would really just be wasting resources. > Like this announcement is probably a response to the public discourse by the US of Russian antisatellite space nukes which they are developing and denying. Definitely not. For starters this program has been in the works for years, and the launch was scheduled months ago. Further, it seems a little silly to advertise that you're pouring resources into satellites right after disclosing that your adversary is working on a weapon to destroy satellites. > The adversary not knowing at all what you have and having to imagine your capabilities can be a bigger deterrent. If you are confident they will overestimate your capabilities. > It could be a negotiation tactic (we’ll not develop this if you don’t develop that), a threat (we’ll develop this faster if you don’t stop), or internal politics (we’re doing stuff that will be potent against Russia too) or many other things. Or it could be a routine announcement as is typical for missile defense systems. Sure there could be some ulterior motive, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that to be the case.

by jjk166 3y ago

colechristensen 3y ago

If your adversary knows your capabilities, even vague details, they can usually extrapolate the specifics close enough to defeat them, physics is like that. Also if you know your adversary has a capability you’re very likely to try to replicate it. Like this announcement is probably a response to the public discourse by the US of Russian antisatellite space nukes which they are developing and denying. It could be a negotiation tactic (we’ll not develop this if you don’t develop that), a threat (we’ll develop this faster if you don’t stop), or internal politics (we’re doing stuff that will be potent against Russia too) or many other things. The adversary not knowing at all what you have and having to imagine your capabilities can be a bigger deterrent. But it’s a big game with many players and you have to weigh the many advantages and disadvantages of each action.

dotnet00 3y ago
The thing is though, a hypersonic can't really hide the massive hest signature it generates. To defeat that you'd just end up with an entirely different kind of missile (either having the missile go up into space, at which point it's an ICBM, or having it go slower, which turns it back into a regular cruise missile). So either way, the system specifically stated as tracking hypersonics, has technically not been defeated at its job.
jjk166 3y ago
> If your adversary knows your capabilities, even vague details, they can usually extrapolate the specifics close enough to defeat them, physics is like that. This is not generally true. Further, the existence of satellites can't be readily hidden, anyone with a telescope can see that they are up there. > Also if you know your adversary has a capability you’re very likely to try to replicate it. It's not a problem if other nations replicate this capability. Indeed it would likely be good for the US if they did - the more confident a country is in their defenses the less they need to rely on pre-emptive offense. It's also worth noting that the US generally lags behind in hypersonic weapons as they're not really useful to US strategy, so adversaries pursuing anti-hypersonic capabilities would really just be wasting resources. > Like this announcement is probably a response to the public discourse by the US of Russian antisatellite space nukes which they are developing and denying. Definitely not. For starters this program has been in the works for years, and the launch was scheduled months ago. Further, it seems a little silly to advertise that you're pouring resources into satellites right after disclosing that your adversary is working on a weapon to destroy satellites. > The adversary not knowing at all what you have and having to imagine your capabilities can be a bigger deterrent. If you are confident they will overestimate your capabilities. > It could be a negotiation tactic (we’ll not develop this if you don’t develop that), a threat (we’ll develop this faster if you don’t stop), or internal politics (we’re doing stuff that will be potent against Russia too) or many other things. Or it could be a routine announcement as is typical for missile defense systems. Sure there could be some ulterior motive, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that to be the case.