Vanity: Bush Vs. Gore (and anyone else): There IS a difference; let's keep track of the PROOF!

March 14, 2002

[Poohbah]

Not that the SSBNs would be any more reliable than ICBMs--if anything, they'd be LESS reliable.

The triad concept grew out of interservice politics and makes a virtue out of budgetary necessity.

I'd say we could use four SSGNs more than we'll ever need four SSBNs armed with only the Trident I missile.

[hchutch]

Too bad we can't upgrade the first four Ohio-class SSBNs for the Trident II. We still have six hull numbers available (744 through 749). Why not make those the TLAM-equipped SSGNs?

[Poohbah]

Too bad we can't upgrade the first four Ohio-class SSBNs for the Trident II. We still have six hull numbers available (744 through 749). Why not make those the TLAM-equipped SSGNs?

Wow. It must be nice to live in your universe and never have to stay within a budget, and never have to please anyone but yourself.

First off: who would lose their deliverable warheads under your plan? We'd have to get rid of a couple ICBM wings to stay within the START II limits. The USAF is excellent at playing porkbarrel politics on the Hill, so you can't just magically wish those wings away unless you're also magically wishing the Constitution away as well.

Second: you're saying to build six Trident hulls. Guess what? Many of the component manufacturers for Trident are no longer in the submarine business, or they've been bought out by other contractors and any new contracts would have to be vetted through the latest round of defense procurement regulations.

[MissAmericanPie]

Exactly, not to mention our new policy of absorbing the first strike, not to mention how many more of the enemies missles this frees up to use on cities rather than hardened missile silo's, that the spin use to be, would take five strikes each to damage.

[Poohbah]

Wrong-o. MX was originally proposed (remember the Battle of the Great Basin?) because it would supposedly take only two Russian warheads to kill each Minuteman silo.

Then we based MX in the Minuteman silos.

That is what first convinced me that nuclear warfighting concepts were really a particularly strange form of intellectual onanism intended to justify some very expensive aerospace acquisition programs.

When you factor in LIKELY launch success rates for a strategic exchange (40% for the Russians, and 45% for us), it becomes clear that any "disarming first strike" by either side is completely infeasible. Not only would not enough warheads make it to target, but the failures could not be determined in advance; that means that the effect of one's strike could not be calculated in advance. At only a couple of standard deviations away from the likely mean, you would have expended large amounts of your own arsenal, thoroughly enraged your enemy, and failed to inflict significant damage against him.

[gratefulwharffratt]

i guess all of us "naysayers" are kind of suspending judgement unless and until you explain to us how importing 65 million democrat voters into this country benefits our sons and daughters.

still waiting.

still waiting.

is that silence i hear?

Not hardly. It is incredulous disbelief that you haven't died an early death from stooooooooopidly playing in traffic.

Do they let you use silverware there at the 'home?'

[MissAmericanPie]

I think with 10 warheads each, even if we only have 50 of them would make an appreciable mess. I don't think given 500 chances that a miss would be missed that much. And making the enemy use more of his to disable our silo's means I don't have to put on as much sunscreen.

[Poohbah]

Having read your argument in Post #67, the only response I can make is "go take a statistics class." The 60% failure rate I offered is probably well below what a real-world failure rate would be--neither the US nor the USSR has been successful in firing an ICBM under anything even approaching wartime conditions.

But let's stick with the 60% failure rate. The question then comes up: which 60% will fail? You can't know this in advance. That's important, because you are suggesting that Russia will shoot off their entire strategic nuclear arsenal with no way to predict what the effect of it will be on the US. Can you please offer me any sort of plausible scenario where they would do that?

Failure is not an option in any strategic nuclear exchange scenario--it is standard equipment.

[MissAmericanPie]

Ok, I'll offer you a plausable scenario. That 40% success rate is called a deterance, you can't know what % will be a success, but if your the one it is aimed at, you are not going to bet the farm on your odds.

[Poohbah]

Ok, I'll offer you a plausable scenario. That 40% success rate is called a deterance, you can't know what % will be a success, but if your the one it is aimed at, you are not going to bet the farm on your odds.

Great. You just recapitulated current US strategic doctrine for a SECOND strike scenario.

Now, please explain to me a plausible first strike scenario involving a 40% success rate with the striking force.

Please note that the Russians are NOT Muslim fanatics, and are not keen on achieving martyrdom, and that similar pressures that you describe working against the US leadership would also work against the Russian leadership (which tends to be even more risk-averse than the US leadership).

Please explain how the Russians would NOT be deterred by the US nuclear force, but how the US would be deterred by the Russian nuclear force. In short, please explain how the Russians manage the prospect of getting incinerated with such amazing equanimity, despite their usual aversion to extreme risk.

[MissAmericanPie]

I can, but I'm a little afraid to, given we don't know who reads FR. The hunger for power has check mated man's fear from the begining of time, yes? You know that Alexander the Great was smart enough to look at the odds of his success, the odds of failure had to cross his mind, but his ego over rode his fear.

Even taking ego and hunger for power out of the scenario, resources and the lack of them overrides fear. We are the most powerful nation on earth, and the words sheriff. No one can be top dog with us around, ever. Our total elimination would not be the top priority of Russia unless tomorrow happens and Russia finds itself in an alliance that it really doesn't want to be in, but is helpless to be able to decline.

This is all supposition of course, suppose the axis of evil decides it is time to go for it. Ben Laden is not entirely wrong in his accessment of us as corrupt, lax and decadent. Look at our borders, immigration, lack of intelligence about the enemy. Stealth would be the way to take us out, we don't even check but 3% of the shipping containers arriving on our shore, much less have the ability to check the containers arriving in N. Korea, Iran or Iraq, and Russia does have that expansive complex under a mountain that we ask no questions about, so does Lybia. A massive attack from several countries at one time is the way it could happen. We have already stupidly stated that we will absorb a first strike, and it will be a doozy. We won't be able to cover all the directions the strike might come from, with the worst and most devastating blow saved for last, the couda gra (sp?) delivered by Russia. Muslims would love the total destruction of the Great Satan, Russia might be forced to go along or be left out. This is one scenario, there are of course others as developments occur.

[x]

The disruptors, the fair-weather Republicans, the single-issue Buchananite nutbags, the capital-L Libertarians, the tinfoilers, the McCainiacs and the plain old Bush-haters; all of them have come out of the woodwork …

Not the best way to convince people, Mr. Frum ...