All you are asking for is an encyclopedia fight.
I am asking for supporting evidence. Standard operating procedure.
Forgive me if I don't accord your opinion the same respect as that of a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.
Q: Can you define what an literary tool means?
A: Obvious child.
Russia was merely an example to explain why predelegation is likely still around.
The Brookings Institute disagrees.
Realists work on capabilities. Likelihood has the problem of trying to judge intentions.
Dozens of think tanks disagree. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations.
A Nuclear Posture for Today
Foreign AffairsJanuary/February 2005
Vol 84, Number 1
The forces made up of nuclear-armed submarines, long-range bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles built by the Soviets during the Cold War are declining dramatically in both numbers and quality. Within a decade, experts predict, Russia will have a nuclear arsenal just one-tenth the size of the Soviet Union's at the peak of the superpower rivalry, because of arms control treaties, looming obsolescence and Russia's economic depression.
Obvious writes:
The immediate likelihood of the US using it against them is low, however the capabilities of it mean it could be used against them.
A missile shield is a defensive, not offensive, system. It is not used "against" anybody.
I see no reason why I have to when it is obviously clear I work from a realists point of view.
Ah. Not only do you refuse to provide evidence, you refuse to answer questions.
I see you are still unwilling to discuss hair trigger.
Nope.
From my last post: It's simple really. When a real threat is present, a real defense is necessary.
Do you actually have a response to why destruction of the shaped charges is an bad idea? ... If you do not wish to discuss the issue of how the removal of shaped charges in a virtual arsenal system can make life safer, not only in reducing the threat of terrorists stealing weapons but also in producing good accounting for weapons, as you yourself state is a good idea.
For a realist, you sure spend a lot of time living in a fantasy world where every nuclear state and every potential nuclear state is willing to completely disarm.
I've done a bit of looking, and no one, absolutely no one, is discussing this as even a remote possibility.
Nuclear Weapons in a Transformed World is a pro-VNA (virtual nuclear arsenal) and available on books.google. All the author suggests is decoupling the weapons from their delivery vehicles and dismantling the weapons.
A la Pakistan, as I mentioned earlier.
I enjoy discussions that revolve around discussing ideas.
I much prefer the informed opinion of -- oh, let's say a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute -- rather than that of a 25 year old who's read one too many Ian Fleming novels.
I never suggested that we do that. What I'm suggesting is big powers reduce down to knowledge and machinery.
I misunderstood #3:
3) Go further then that and go down to machines, blueprints and technical knowledge
I took "go down" to mean "the next level of destruction after weapons and machinery".
And since we'll retain all our knowledge and capacity to build, the threat of the MAD still exists. Not only is this safer, it's cheaper to maintain MAD.
Again, for a realist, you spend an
awful lot of time in la la land.
A single missile carrying mylar balloons can easily confuse the interceptors.
You have yet to show that mylar decoys are a problem for the systems I highlighted in Message 195.
Don't you get it, Obvious? Your bare assertions
mean nothing.
Your opinion is
worthless.
If the missile shield was so successful, we would have had a unplanned launch using a flight plan similar to one from our potential enemies.
Um, is a war "similar enough" for you? Are incoming enemy missiles "unplanned enough" for you?
From Message 195:
Combat effectiveness of newer systems against tactical ballistic missiles are very high, as the Patriot PAC-3 had a 100% success rate in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Obvious writes:
...thereby rendering the radar systems our interceptors require useless.
Nope.
http://commdocs.house.gov/...y/has280010.000/has280010_0.HTM
The detonation of a nuclear explosion outside the atmosphere, even if it were a small nuclear weapon, perhaps a few tens of kilotons, could produce sufficient direct and delayed radiation to degrade or destroy satellites in line of sight of the burst...
Only those within line of sight.
I speak as a weapons designer with specialized knowledge in electromagnetic pulse. Since 1996, I have been the provost for the Postgraduate Nuclear Weapon Design Institute within the laboratory chartered with training the next generation of nuclear weapon designers.
See? A guy who knows what he's talking about.
The issue to be addressed this morning is the impact of a high-altitude nuclear detonation over the United States to the civilian and military infrastructure ... A high-altitude nuclear detonation would produce an electromagnetic pulse ... In such an event, would military equipment deployed within the area of EMP exposure be seriously impaired?
Short answer, no. Military systems are hardened to HEMP/EMP.
Therefore, the rest of your scenario is
moot.
And I already addressed your specific systems.
No. You provided two links. Neither of which discussed the systems I mentioned in Message 195.
Most of them are rendered useless by airbursting. Secondly, the sheer number we'd need to cover a single metropolitan is amazingly large. Third, the range on all of them except the arrow system is pathetic, as are their tracking systems. A incoming missile is going to traveling at massive speeds, well more then a Scud or a short ground to ground missile.
Again. Your opinion is worthless.
If you could perhaps, actually address any of these points with reasoned arguments of your own, that would be appreciated.
Unlike you, I like to rely on experts and well documented sources.
ABE:
From
Message 99. Your response to Buz.
For all your islamaphobia, you could have at least researched it.
Oh no, Obvious. No no no. His uninformed, unresearched opinion is just as valid as your uninformed, unresearched opinion.
Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.
™ Version 4.2
