4 ms·

Add multiple decoys and the missile math tends to become an argument for the importance of preemption. Han shot first for a good reason.

busterarm 7mo ago
Careful. Preemption takes many forms, some of them many would find unpalatable.
- gos9 7mo ago
  Unpalatable preemption is generally better than reentry vehicles coming down your chimney.
  - phkahler 7mo ago
    The problem there is you can't prove anything would have come down the chimney if the preemption is successful, so people will still be unhappy.
    - busterarm 7mo ago
      I agree, but some of them are more obvious. Like not giving 100 billion dollars to someone who actively wants to kill you.
  - wat10000 7mo ago
    A thought experiment: would the world be a better place if the US had preemptively attacked the USSR in the 50s or early 60s when it was possible to do without more than “get[ting] our hair mussed” as General Turgidson put it?
- XorNot 7mo ago
  But it's also the basic l basis of deterrence and the destabilizing nature of ICBM defense: relying on interceptors presumes the war happens.
- blitzar 7mo ago
  Those schoolgirls were obviously going to be a problem for the US in the next 20 years.
heyitsmedotjayb 7mo ago
Preemption is a propaganda lie.
- hedora 7mo ago
  If you haven't, watch House of Dynamite. Sadly, the Trump Administration concluded we should build exactly the defense capabilities described in the film. They even cited it by name as a good roadmap for the Golden Dome, so I know they read the title. I guess their reading comprehension levels are extremely low.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
marginalia_nu 7mo ago
The game theory of it is the prisoner's dilemma. Preemtive betrayal is a terrible strategy if there are more than two parties in the game, and they are allowed to cooperate. You have to be one heck of a smooth conversationalist to convince them to take a number and patiently wait in line to be the ones to be attacked next. If you're the guy that the others in the room know shoots first, you're also the guy the others in the room will shoot when he's reaching for something in his jacket pocket.
- delichon 7mo ago
  The prisoner's dilemma leads to mutual defection as the dominant equilibrium strategy in the one-shot version. Cooperation emerges as the equilibrium on repetition. The Han Solo gunfight is literally the one-shot version. When countries go to war that calculation is more complicated.
jmyeet 7mo ago
If you haven't, I'm going to recommend you to listen to an episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, specifically The Destroyer of Worlds [1]. Why? Because it goes into the change in strategic thinking brought on by the atomic age (and, soon thereafter, the thermonuclear age). And there was an element of US strategic thinking that argued for a preemptive strike against the USSR. The episode also goes into the arguments for and against the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon that could never really be used and arguably not even necessary when we already had the atomic bomb. The outcome of those debates shaped American foreign policy from 1945 to the present day. [1]:https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-of-worlds/ https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-...
- delichon 7mo ago
  With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when. If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock? -- John von Neumann, ~1950 On the one hand he was one of the smartest people in history. On the other, his home country had recently been conquered by the Red Army so he may have been a little biased.
- 15155 7mo ago
  > hydrogen bomb, a weapon that could never really be used and arguably not even necessary when we already had the atomic bomb. Two-stage designs are far more cost-effective and compact.
jandrewrogers 7mo ago
Decoys are greatly over-rated in ballistic missile systems. Sensors are so good at discriminating decoys from warheads that decoys are largely ineffective and have been for decades. This has borne out in Ukraine. A decoy sufficiently sophisticated to look real to good sensors will have weight and characteristics that approach that of a real warhead, at which point you might as well add another warhead. Decoys only make sense if the marginal cost of adding them is low.
- srean 7mo ago
  I would like to understand this more. How are decoys discriminated? The acceleration due to gravity is the same for all. Radar reflectance could be manipulated. Drag and lift perhaps, but can't those be matched with the real thing ? What is it that gives up a decoy as a decoy ? Yes I can distinguish a falling feather from a falling lead-shot. The more interesting questions is can one not make a featherweight that falls like lead-shot, reflects like lead-shot and be cheaper than lead-shot. For a warhead decoy ten times lighter it needs to present an area ten times smaller to maintain drag induced deceleration parity. For radio parity the decoy needs to reflect more the actual warhead reflect less. Metal coated kevlar ribbons on the decoy might do it. What I find interesting is that the curse of rocket equation makes decoys pretty expensive to propel. So if I am forced to incur that cost anyway, might as well put a real warhead on that.
  - jandrewrogers 7mo ago
    The terminal guidance systems use broad-spectrum imagers to identify warheads and select their point of impact. Radar is only used to point them in the general direction. Against this type of terminal guidance, a decoy must have the same shape, size, orientation, and spectral signature of a warhead, and maintain these properties while being ablated. As a matter of engineering, a decoy with these properties will necessarily have mass and volume costs that approach that of a warhead, with none of the benefits of a warhead. From a weapon design perspective, effective decoys significantly reduce the range of the missiles they are attached to. That is not a tradeoff any weapon designers are willing to make because range is one of the most critical attributes of an effective weapon.

busterarm 7mo ago

Careful. Preemption takes many forms, some of them many would find unpalatable.

gos9 7mo ago
Unpalatable preemption is generally better than reentry vehicles coming down your chimney.
- phkahler 7mo ago
  The problem there is you can't prove anything would have come down the chimney if the preemption is successful, so people will still be unhappy.
  - busterarm 7mo ago
    I agree, but some of them are more obvious. Like not giving 100 billion dollars to someone who actively wants to kill you.
- wat10000 7mo ago
  A thought experiment: would the world be a better place if the US had preemptively attacked the USSR in the 50s or early 60s when it was possible to do without more than “get[ting] our hair mussed” as General Turgidson put it?
XorNot 7mo ago
But it's also the basic l basis of deterrence and the destabilizing nature of ICBM defense: relying on interceptors presumes the war happens.
blitzar 7mo ago
Those schoolgirls were obviously going to be a problem for the US in the next 20 years.

heyitsmedotjayb 7mo ago

Preemption is a propaganda lie.

hedora 7mo ago
If you haven't, watch House of Dynamite. Sadly, the Trump Administration concluded we should build exactly the defense capabilities described in the film. They even cited it by name as a good roadmap for the Golden Dome, so I know they read the title. I guess their reading comprehension levels are extremely low.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

marginalia_nu 7mo ago

The game theory of it is the prisoner's dilemma. Preemtive betrayal is a terrible strategy if there are more than two parties in the game, and they are allowed to cooperate. You have to be one heck of a smooth conversationalist to convince them to take a number and patiently wait in line to be the ones to be attacked next. If you're the guy that the others in the room know shoots first, you're also the guy the others in the room will shoot when he's reaching for something in his jacket pocket.

delichon 7mo ago
The prisoner's dilemma leads to mutual defection as the dominant equilibrium strategy in the one-shot version. Cooperation emerges as the equilibrium on repetition. The Han Solo gunfight is literally the one-shot version. When countries go to war that calculation is more complicated.

jmyeet 7mo ago

If you haven't, I'm going to recommend you to listen to an episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, specifically The Destroyer of Worlds [1]. Why? Because it goes into the change in strategic thinking brought on by the atomic age (and, soon thereafter, the thermonuclear age). And there was an element of US strategic thinking that argued for a preemptive strike against the USSR. The episode also goes into the arguments for and against the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon that could never really be used and arguably not even necessary when we already had the atomic bomb. The outcome of those debates shaped American foreign policy from 1945 to the present day. [1]:https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-of-worlds/ https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-59-the-destroyer-...

delichon 7mo ago
With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when. If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock? -- John von Neumann, ~1950 On the one hand he was one of the smartest people in history. On the other, his home country had recently been conquered by the Red Army so he may have been a little biased.
15155 7mo ago
> hydrogen bomb, a weapon that could never really be used and arguably not even necessary when we already had the atomic bomb. Two-stage designs are far more cost-effective and compact.

jandrewrogers 7mo ago

Decoys are greatly over-rated in ballistic missile systems. Sensors are so good at discriminating decoys from warheads that decoys are largely ineffective and have been for decades. This has borne out in Ukraine. A decoy sufficiently sophisticated to look real to good sensors will have weight and characteristics that approach that of a real warhead, at which point you might as well add another warhead. Decoys only make sense if the marginal cost of adding them is low.

srean 7mo ago
I would like to understand this more. How are decoys discriminated? The acceleration due to gravity is the same for all. Radar reflectance could be manipulated. Drag and lift perhaps, but can't those be matched with the real thing ? What is it that gives up a decoy as a decoy ? Yes I can distinguish a falling feather from a falling lead-shot. The more interesting questions is can one not make a featherweight that falls like lead-shot, reflects like lead-shot and be cheaper than lead-shot. For a warhead decoy ten times lighter it needs to present an area ten times smaller to maintain drag induced deceleration parity. For radio parity the decoy needs to reflect more the actual warhead reflect less. Metal coated kevlar ribbons on the decoy might do it. What I find interesting is that the curse of rocket equation makes decoys pretty expensive to propel. So if I am forced to incur that cost anyway, might as well put a real warhead on that.
- jandrewrogers 7mo ago
  The terminal guidance systems use broad-spectrum imagers to identify warheads and select their point of impact. Radar is only used to point them in the general direction. Against this type of terminal guidance, a decoy must have the same shape, size, orientation, and spectral signature of a warhead, and maintain these properties while being ablated. As a matter of engineering, a decoy with these properties will necessarily have mass and volume costs that approach that of a warhead, with none of the benefits of a warhead. From a weapon design perspective, effective decoys significantly reduce the range of the missiles they are attached to. That is not a tradeoff any weapon designers are willing to make because range is one of the most critical attributes of an effective weapon.