“This century, U.S. ICBM defense systems have been designed specifically around the threat of a small strike from a minor nuclear power, and the study notes that defense against attacks from nations such as China or Russia would likely be “much more challenging.””
“In the study’s estimation, North Korean countermeasures would presumably be sophisticated enough to render midcourse interception generally unreliable.”
So, in simple words, it’s only really meant to be any effective against a small strike by a small rogue state, and even then it’s not even that effective.
They predict it will stay the same for the next 15 years.
Is it true that some genius may suddenly come up with a breakthrough? Certainly. But that can happen in any country. Or, as anyone in this site is aware of, there will be military breakthroughs perhaps even sooner in AI, which will probably give a decisive strategic advantage (DSA) to a single power.
And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.
So Putin can’t change history by invading Ukraine. He probably knows this. He famously said in 2017 that “whoever invents advanced AI first gets to control the world”.
Even in the mere terms of anti-ballistic missiles and such, it doesn’t make much difference.
So either there are unstated motives for this invasion, like those proposed in Nanda Ale’s comment, which make a lot of sense to me considering the whole fiasco about the Chechnya invasion (“history always repeats itself”), or he / the regime are either insane, or straight evil, or blatantly wrong, or playing an all-in desperation move.
“One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies “good guy” status.”
It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible. There will always be that shady 3rd world leader selling nuclear secrets to rogue nations, or that shady genius nuclear engineer going back home to his 3rd world country and becoming radicalized. Etc etc.
Meta-discussion sidenote: I didn’t intend for this discussion to escalate and become adversarial. Please see the first part of this comment. No ill will garnered, and no offence taken :) If you think this is discussion is less than constructive, I’m perfectly willing to drop things here. That said:
“A quick google search can easily disprove that”
I only claimed that they are trying. And that this is a significant escalation since pulling out of the treaty. If they think they’ll succeed to some significant extent in 15 years, that sets a hard time limit on Putins plans.
“And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.”
Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.
“It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible”
For me, Good-guy status is a scale. Holding the world hostage lowers your place on the scale significantly. The fact that others are even worse does not change this. If I had seen a strong, deliberate and sincere effort for mutual nuclear disarmament after the fall of the USSR I would be less harsh, but I haven’t. I’m not saying this is a solvable problem, it might not be. I’m saying we aren’t really trying.
“Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.”
That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives: all-in desperation move. And it is an ulterior motive, since no Russian is saying “we’re taking drastic measures to assure that we don’t lose super power status in the world stage”. Quite the opposite, they’re saying “we’re ultra rational peace makers”.
On nuclear disarmament, that doesn’t hold up. If we believe that it is not a solvable problem, we shouldn’t actively work for a solution (there are plenty of think thanks theoretically working for a solution). If you begin actively working for a solution, much more tragic things could happen, like US and Russia both reach the number of nukes of 100 each, and then one of either has another 1000 in secret, or shady 3rd world leader build a nuclear arsenal of 500 and bombs the crap out of the US/Russia because being the shady 3rd world leader he is he thinks it’s worth it.
I also believe that a world without nukes would plunge right back into the perma-war craphole it was before their existence. This is not to say that nukes are good, it’s just that their absence might not be a lot better.
“That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives”
Then we are in agrement here.
“If we believe that it is not a solvable problem”
I didn’t say that it definitely isn’t solvable, I conceded that it might not be. It certainly won’t be if we aren’t even trying, and I’m claiming that we aren’t really trying. This would naturally include perpetually ongoing work on the world stage to prevent such developments as you describe. To be clear: I am not calling for unilateral disarmament. I understand that this would not be helpful. I am calling for gradual, universal disarmament, to the furthest extent possible. A de-escalation to mere nuclear deterrence without MAD, would be an unimaginable win for the probability of the survival of human civilization long term, sanity in general, and literally all known life. I understand that it won’t be easy, and that MAD is an attractor in policy-space etc, etc, etc, but I can not agree with your seemingly defeatist acceptance of MAD as the only solution. To be clear: I understand the logic behind it. I can see your point. It has merit. I don’t accept the conclusion.
A quick google search can easily disprove that, as I expected:
https://www.aip.org/fyi/2022/physicists-argue-us-icbm-defenses-are-unreliable (APS is an AIP Member Society.)
“This century, U.S. ICBM defense systems have been designed specifically around the threat of a small strike from a minor nuclear power, and the study notes that defense against attacks from nations such as China or Russia would likely be “much more challenging.””
“In the study’s estimation, North Korean countermeasures would presumably be sophisticated enough to render midcourse interception generally unreliable.”
So, in simple words, it’s only really meant to be any effective against a small strike by a small rogue state, and even then it’s not even that effective.
They predict it will stay the same for the next 15 years.
Is it true that some genius may suddenly come up with a breakthrough? Certainly. But that can happen in any country. Or, as anyone in this site is aware of, there will be military breakthroughs perhaps even sooner in AI, which will probably give a decisive strategic advantage (DSA) to a single power.
And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.
So Putin can’t change history by invading Ukraine. He probably knows this. He famously said in 2017 that “whoever invents advanced AI first gets to control the world”.
Even in the mere terms of anti-ballistic missiles and such, it doesn’t make much difference.
So either there are unstated motives for this invasion, like those proposed in Nanda Ale’s comment, which make a lot of sense to me considering the whole fiasco about the Chechnya invasion (“history always repeats itself”), or he / the regime are either insane, or straight evil, or blatantly wrong, or playing an all-in desperation move.
“One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies “good guy” status.”
It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible. There will always be that shady 3rd world leader selling nuclear secrets to rogue nations, or that shady genius nuclear engineer going back home to his 3rd world country and becoming radicalized. Etc etc.
Meta-discussion sidenote: I didn’t intend for this discussion to escalate and become adversarial. Please see the first part of this comment. No ill will garnered, and no offence taken :) If you think this is discussion is less than constructive, I’m perfectly willing to drop things here.
That said:
“A quick google search can easily disprove that”
I only claimed that they are trying. And that this is a significant escalation since pulling out of the treaty. If they think they’ll succeed to some significant extent in 15 years, that sets a hard time limit on Putins plans.
“And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.”
Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.
“It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible”
For me, Good-guy status is a scale. Holding the world hostage lowers your place on the scale significantly. The fact that others are even worse does not change this. If I had seen a strong, deliberate and sincere effort for mutual nuclear disarmament after the fall of the USSR I would be less harsh, but I haven’t. I’m not saying this is a solvable problem, it might not be. I’m saying we aren’t really trying.
“Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.”
That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives: all-in desperation move. And it is an ulterior motive, since no Russian is saying “we’re taking drastic measures to assure that we don’t lose super power status in the world stage”. Quite the opposite, they’re saying “we’re ultra rational peace makers”.
On nuclear disarmament, that doesn’t hold up. If we believe that it is not a solvable problem, we shouldn’t actively work for a solution (there are plenty of think thanks theoretically working for a solution). If you begin actively working for a solution, much more tragic things could happen, like US and Russia both reach the number of nukes of 100 each, and then one of either has another 1000 in secret, or shady 3rd world leader build a nuclear arsenal of 500 and bombs the crap out of the US/Russia because being the shady 3rd world leader he is he thinks it’s worth it.
I also believe that a world without nukes would plunge right back into the perma-war craphole it was before their existence. This is not to say that nukes are good, it’s just that their absence might not be a lot better.
“That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives”
Then we are in agrement here.
“If we believe that it is not a solvable problem”
I didn’t say that it definitely isn’t solvable, I conceded that it might not be. It certainly won’t be if we aren’t even trying, and I’m claiming that we aren’t really trying. This would naturally include perpetually ongoing work on the world stage to prevent such developments as you describe. To be clear: I am not calling for unilateral disarmament. I understand that this would not be helpful. I am calling for gradual, universal disarmament, to the furthest extent possible. A de-escalation to mere nuclear deterrence without MAD, would be an unimaginable win for the probability of the survival of human civilization long term, sanity in general, and literally all known life. I understand that it won’t be easy, and that MAD is an attractor in policy-space etc, etc, etc, but I can not agree with your seemingly defeatist acceptance of MAD as the only solution. To be clear: I understand the logic behind it. I can see your point. It has merit. I don’t accept the conclusion.