Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on March 01, 2007, 12:50:43 am
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Ok, so with the contraversy in certain European states, namely Britain, about deploying this in said countries, perhaps now is a good time to talk about this.
I am beginning to wonder if the "missile shield" is really about and not about offence. The US has stated that it wants total military domination of basically everything. One of the keys to this is developing the capacity to strike first with nuclear weapons and have a system (like said missile shield) that can effectively negate any sort of retialiation. The theory is to strike the countrie's nuclear arsenals to significantly lower their numbers, and then have the missile shield take out what few missiles are launched at the US in retaliation.
The consequences of this is that the US can basically do anything it wants, and every other country is merely a vassal state.
Thoughts?
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Ok, so with the contraversy in certain European states, namely Britain, about deploying this in said countries, perhaps now is a good time to talk about this.
I am beginning to wonder if the "missile shield" is really about and not about offence. The US has stated that it wants total military domination of basically everything. One of the keys to this is developing the capacity to strike first with nuclear weapons and have a system (like said missile shield) that can effectively negate any sort of retialiation. The theory is to strike the countrie's nuclear arsenals to significantly lower their numbers, and then have the missile shield take out what few missiles are launched at the US in retaliation.
The consequences of this is that the US can basically do anything it wants, and every other country is merely a vassal state.
Thoughts?
You just summed up what every country dreams of, whether it's "right" or not.
I was discussing this with, of all people, my father last night. They're doing it to get an edge. Just like anyone else would.
Of course, I think we're getting close to that time when someone will "push the button", so you can take my words for what they're worth.
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Of course, I think we're getting close to that time when someone will "push the button", so you can take my words for what they're worth.
And you're basing this on... what, exactly? Hell, we've only just shaken off the shackles of nuclear brinskmanship from the Cold War, so we're now a hell of a lot safer from nuclear destruction. Being a private citizen in the western world is now as safe as it's ever been, so i'll thank you not to scaremonger.
Regarding the "missile shield" technology; i'm yet to see any development that would make such a technology viable, let alone worry about the geopolitical ramafacations of such a system being built. Correct me if i'm wrong, but the last I heard about it was that the system was so inept that it had trouble intercepting missiles even when it knew the trajectory, payload and time of launch.
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The missile shield is not a real shield anyway. It can0t guaranteee to stop all enemy missiles...and even if only 2-3 would pass trough, the consequences would be catastrophic..
So I don't see any danger UNTILL tehy invent a missile shield that can stop them all.
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no matter how good they make the missile shield, it wont stop a large scale nuclear attack 100%. it might keep countries with a small number of nukes from attacking successfully. even then theres still the fallout thats associated with shooting down a nuke in transit. the system is essentially useless. countries with huge arsonals arent a threat anymore. a terrorist nuke attack, or an attack from a country with a small arsonal, would likely smuggle the warhead in rather than putting it on a missile. the real purpose of the system is to demonstrate the size of the metaphorical american penis. nothing really stops a nuclear attack aside from mutually assured destruction. though id be highly concerned if we were the ones to start launching nukes. mad doesnt work if we can attack with impunity.
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IIRC wouldn't the nuke not, well, go nuclear if it was shot down in-transit? After all, it needs a highly controlled explosion to be detonated, a random one I don't think would do it.
Anyway, The missile shield is pretty useless at the moment, although I would be for it if other countries were allowed to develop it without US bullying (which is not going to happen).
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I think he means the release of nuclear material in the upper atmosphere, disseminating radioactive debris over a large area. Anyone have any idea if there's any credence to that threat?
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An interceptor missile would bring down a nuclear one utilizing kinetic energy. The intercepting missile is essentially a rocket powered, guided bullet. It aims for the area just above the motor flare, which is the fuel tank. The impact of the missile destroys the rocket motor, causing the nuclear tipped missile to tumble out of control towards earth. The uncontrolled descent causes the missile to break apart shortly after the mid-air collision, making it impossible to detonate the warhead in the air.
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An interceptor missile would bring down a nuclear one utilizing kinetic energy. The intercepting missile is essentially a rocket powered, guided bullet. It aims for the area just above the motor flare, which is the fuel tank. The impact of the missile destroys the rocket motor, causing the nuclear tipped missile to tumble out of control towards earth. The uncontrolled descent causes the missile to break apart shortly after the mid-air collision, making it impossible to detonate the warhead in the air.
Are you sure? - I thought the interceptor missiles used an explosive detonation to scatter shrapnel rather then a 'bullet', myself.
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I'm fairly certain that the latest generation Russian missles can easily evade the US' non-working missle-defense shield, so stationing it in Poland and the Czech Republic is....well, I don't know exactly what it is. Trying to piss of the Russians? Trying to waste large amounts of taxpayer money? Those are the only possible explanations.
The consequences of this is that the US can basically do anything it wants, and every other country is merely a vassal state.
In theory, yeah. And I would be pissed too, if I thought it had any chance of working. But almost any country that is likely to have long-range missles in the first place is likely going to have missles which can fly circles around the missle-defense systems. Hell, I doubt it could achieve a good result even against older, less technologically advanced missles (think Iran), much less those by the likes of Russia, China etc.
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An interceptor missile would bring down a nuclear one utilizing kinetic energy. The intercepting missile is essentially a rocket powered, guided bullet. It aims for the area just above the motor flare, which is the fuel tank. The impact of the missile destroys the rocket motor, causing the nuclear tipped missile to tumble out of control towards earth. The uncontrolled descent causes the missile to break apart shortly after the mid-air collision, making it impossible to detonate the warhead in the air.
Are you sure? - I thought the interceptor missiles used an explosive detonation to scatter shrapnel rather then a 'bullet', myself.
well i saw a documentry on this theres actually 3 layers of intercept systems, for long medium and short range. the longest range system uses kinetic impact to destroy the motor. even so, if the warhead is altitude fused or impact fused it could still go off, depending on the trigger circutry. nukes are incredibly well built structurally, taking out the motor could still leave the device and trigger intact long enough to trigger detonation. could be the difference between hitting a rural military base and blowing up a densely populated city.
hitting the plutonium directly would turn it into a dirty bomb. so using explosives for intercept is risky at long range. at short range fallout from plutonium breakup is far more manageable, so explosives are used there. also at that range the intercept missile doesnt have time to build up suffietient velocity.
airborne laser attacks the fuel by burning into the propelant tank and causing it to blow up. i have a feeling nukes are designed to prevent fuel explosions from damaging the warheads. rokets have a tendency to blow up so you want to make sure you dont irradiate yourself durning a launch failure.
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Are you sure? - I thought the interceptor missiles used an explosive detonation to scatter shrapnel rather then a 'bullet', myself.
Some do, some don't. It depends on the generation and designers. I'm not sure which the currently in-service landbased version(s) do, but the SM-2 ER Block IV LEAP that the Navy designed uses an explosive.
I'm fairly certain that the latest generation Russian missles can easily evade the US' non-working missle-defense shield, so stationing it in Poland and the Czech Republic is....well, I don't know exactly what it is. Trying to piss of the Russians? Trying to waste large amounts of taxpayer money? Those are the only possible explanations.
Actually, your misappreciation is rather amusing. It works. Quite well. Well, some of it. The Air Force proved amusingly incompetent with their part of the project, but they seem to have a reasonable amount of their **** together by this point.
But anyways, placing the interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic actually makes them much more effective, because they can engage any missile launched from Russia (towards Europe anyways) while it is still in its boost phase of flight. They're much slower and more vunerable while taking off.
Actually it's rather decent of the US to move some of the shield there, because it really doesn't offer any protection to the United States. Any missiles launched from Russia at the US would go over the pole. The only people who benefit from having the shield in that part of the world are members of the EU or NATO.
In theory, yeah. And I would be pissed too, if I thought it had any chance of working. But almost any country that is likely to have long-range missles in the first place is likely going to have missles which can fly circles around the missle-defense systems.
ICBMs don't dodge, son. At most you have some dummy warheads on your MIRV. Much of the point of the interceptor program was to get it before it deploys the MIRV, so you're basically ****ed.
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But anyways, placing the interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic actually makes them much more effective, because they can engage any missile launched from Russia (towards Europe anyways) while it is still in its boost phase of flight. They're much slower and more vunerable while taking off.
For intercepting missiles while taking off, shouldn't the USA use the AL-1 (when if it will enter service)?
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I didn't mean literally dodge, I meant "generally prevent interceptor missle from striking."
Actually, your misappreciation is rather amusing. It works. Quite well. Well, some of it. The Air Force proved amusingly incompetent with their part of the project, but they seem to have a reasonable amount of their **** together by this point.
You must be looking at different tests than I am, because the last time I saw any info about it (which, I admit, was a while ago and only casually) the system had less than 50% positive hits under highly controlled circumstances, the likes of which couldn't be replicated in the real world anyway.
But I do admit that I'm not super-knowledgeable about the such things, so you may be right.
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Actually, your misappreciation is rather amusing. It works. Quite well. Well, some of it. The Air Force proved amusingly incompetent with their part of the project, but they seem to have a reasonable amount of their **** together by this point.
But anyways, placing the interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic actually makes them much more effective, because they can engage any missile launched from Russia (towards Europe anyways) while it is still in its boost phase of flight. They're much slower and more vunerable while taking off.
The current NMD missile system isn't, AFAIK, designed or tested to engage missiles during the boost phase; for warheads launched in - say - Russia or China it's impossible to get launchers close enough to hit them in time.
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regardless of weather or not the tests are showing it work now or not isn't that important, there are plenty of things that were dismal failures for a long time the someone figured out how the get working eventually, if we keep working on it and through enough money at it, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get a working system eventually.
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Which I think'd be a very bad thing. I mean, the last thing you want to do is remove the fear factor of nuclear weapons because, if the US does it, sooner or later Russia, China, etc will - and then it'll spread across the world and, on top, there'll be an arms race to develop un-interceptable nuclear weapons.
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and there is nothing preventing these countries from developing this stuff in secret. the majority of the technical challenge is in the theoretical, on how to cope with the insane speeds involved, a large portion of the problems could be solved in a warehouse. and even then I don't like the idea of the enemy only holding back because of there fear of what we will do to them, it's only a matter of time before someone insane or stupid or desperate enough gets the ability to strike us with a nuclear missile, especially with the whole attitude of "everyone has a right to a nuke" that seems all the rage these days. I would like SOME plan B.
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and there is nothing preventing these countries from developing this stuff in secret. the majority of the technical challenge is in the theoretical, on how to cope with the insane speeds involved, a large portion of the problems could be solved in a warehouse. and even then I don't like the idea of the enemy only holding back because of there fear of what we will do to them, it's only a matter of time before someone insane or stupid or desperate enough gets the ability to strike us with a nuclear missile, especially with the whole attitude of "everyone has a right to a nuke" that seems all the rage these days. I would like SOME plan B.
Hey, I don't want anyone to have it.......
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well I don't think thats posable in the long run, so I would rather everyone had it than no one.
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What Bush and cronies are saying is actually true this time. The shield is meant to be used against rogue states that can muster less than a dozen ICBM's or closer in-theater missiles. Against a real nuclear opponent like Russia or China this shield is an expensive waste of time because most of their ICBM's contain multiple warheads that deploy in a cluster like formation prior to being intercepted. So instead of trying to intercept a hundred missiles suddenly its 400 warheads or something like that. The Star Wars initiative was really cool because of all the sci-fi style weapons and the research may ultimately prove useful in 50 years or so...but son of Star Wars hasn't got much of a chance of being useful in a full out conflict. Maybe against N. Korea...
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The Missile Shield is far more a phsychological shield than a physical one. if it weren't for the paranoia of the current situation, people would be asking questions like 'Why are we spending billions on a hi-tech shield against hi-tech attack when the biggest threats come from low-tech solutions?'
A Nuke in a suitcase cannot be hit by a missile.
And that's not even beginning to touch the whole 'projected threat' against 'actual threat' scenario.
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The Missile Shield is far more a phsychological shield than a physical one. if it weren't for the paranoia of the current situation, people would be asking questions like 'Why are we spending billions on a hi-tech shield against hi-tech attack when the biggest threats come from low-tech solutions?'
Maybe they're worried about someone getting their hands on an EMP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_bomb) device?
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A Nuke in a suitcase cannot be hit by a missile.
it can, but that would be aqward and strange :D
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Huh? I don't really get what there is to discuss about this. But on the other hand I shouldn't even write about these things, they only lead to mud wrestling where everyone gets dirty.
Have you forgotten the fact that it was Russia who added the usage of tactical nukes in their doctrine some years ago? Not that the missile shield would actually help against those, but it actually means there is some Western military presence in those areas, which is good in my books. I agree that the money would have been better spent on more F-22s so that the tactical nuke arsenal could be neglected. I think that this missile shield has pretty much nothing to do with terrorists launching nukes and everything about containing Russia. It is an open question if this is a wise move given the current economic trends, however. It could lead to arms race where US is on the losing side given the price of its projects and already stressed economy.
And, if you look the history a certain trans Europian-Asian nation, you'll probably notice a trend which should worrify anyone relying on Russia. I thought it would have been understood after the gas line going through Ukraine was shut down. Or after the deal about refinery construction was re-negotiated after the refinery was constructed by Shell, of course. Or the media blackout of the War in Chechnya (sp). Or the election circumstances in Ukraine just to name a few incidents.
As a sidenote, I thought that either Russia or China was developing a ballistic missile that does some kind of wiggling movement during the terminal phase of the flight. However, I have not seen any reports on the results of that thing. As somebody mentioned, it's already difficult to physically hit something with the speeds involved. Even a small error in the course or the speed will cause the interceptor missile to fly past the missile never hitting anything. Keep in mind these are measured in real time and are subject to instrument errors - and data transmittance errors.
Mika
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A Nuke in a suitcase cannot be hit by a missile.
"Hahaha! Nobody can detect this suitcase nuke!" *SSSHHHHHHHH* *crunch*
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I like how a nuke in a suitcase is a low-tech threat :D
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I like how a nuke in a suitcase is a low-tech threat :D
Heh, yeah.
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It could lead to arms race where US is on the losing side given the price of its projects and already stressed economy.
Considering the US spent $420 billion on defence in 2005:
The US military spending was almost two-fifths of the total.
The US military spending was almost 7 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender.
The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion.
It was more than the combined spending of the next 14 nations.
The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three-quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea)
The six potential “enemies,” Russia, and China together spent $139 billion, 30% of the U.S. military budget
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp (http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp)
The US can wipe the floor when it comes to defence spending. When the US budget is $2.9 trillion, if it came to an arms race, im sure there were be money found somewhere to add to the half a trillion dollars the US spends annually on defence.
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Not a low tech threat, a low tech solution :p And while highly unlikely to happen, unless you plan to search every suitcase on every coach, plain, bus and car in the US, it is still more likely than an attempt to attack the US militarily from range ;)
More or less for the reasons DS9er posted.
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Regarding ICBMs and interception:
There are basically three phases of flight: boost, midflight, terminal.
In the boost phase, the missile is a large, slow target with a hot rocket plume behind it. Furthermore, it's over enemy territory. It is easy to shoot down at this point, although the window of vulnerability is only about 15 seconds and it's typically deep inside enemy territory. Nevertheless, if a ballistic missile attack was anticipated, a penetrating stealth aircraft could potentially engage and destroy the missile in this phase.
In the midflight phase, it's moving fast and it's very high up. Ground-based defences probably could not hit it easily. This would require bullet-on-bullet precision from distances of 1200km for ICBMs (in suborbital spaceflight). Doing that with a kinetic missile would be near impossible, technology regardless. Getting the interceptor up there is difficult enough.
A space-based defence system has half a chance of stopping missiles in midflight. Its countermeasures do not have to fight gravity to reach their target, letting them expend more fuel on manoeuvering to hit it.
Ground-based lasers would be attenuated greatly by the atmosphere. They would have to be extremely powerful to shoot upward through miles of atmosphere and still bring down an ICBM, especially if the enemy decides to give them a reflective, antilaser coating. Space-based lasers would fare much better and would require less energy input to impart the same level of energy to the target, possibly enough to overcome antilaser measures.
Probably the best solution would be to use some sort of EMP or nuclear device in the high atmosphere to destroy multiple ICBMs simultaneously.
In the terminal phase, the warhead (it may no longer be a whole missile if the launch vehicle has MIRVed) is moving very fast, it's making final adjustments to its course, and it's over friendly territory. The goal, should it get this far, is primarily to stop it hitting its intended target. Diverting it by a few miles will still likely result in many deaths, but fewer than if it had reached the planned impact point.
Remember that modern nukes are fused for airburst, sometimes at thousands of metres altitude. Once it enters terminal flight, there is an uncertain amount of time available to the defender to destroy or divert the warhead. Diverting it will result result in a nuclear yield. Destroying it will not, but still scatter radioactive debris.
At this point kinetic missiles are almost certainly out of the picture unless the launcher is within the expected target zone. The warhead is supersonic. An airborne laser may do the job, but can only protect the airspace in front of it out to a limited range. Also, the fire rate of such a defence is limited; not only does it have to cool and recharge the laser after each shot, the shots themselves may require a substantial period of time to pierce the shell of the warhead's fuel tank. Keeping a laser focused on a supersonic target is not an easy task.
Ground-based emplacements are not limited by the mass, bulk and power requirements of their laser. These sites could be substantially more powerful and fire pulses capable of destroying warheads almost instantly. The tracking problem would be no more difficult that it is for an airborne platform.
Finally, the easiest and lowest-tech way to bring down nukes in the terminal phase is a high-explosive shrapnel missile of some sort. The tracking system need only be good enough to get close to the target before detonating. A larger explosion means that less accuracy is required, plus it may hit multiple warheads.
A laser would likely destroy an inbound warhead. An interceptor missile would destroy it on impact (very unlikely) or divert it with a nearby explosion.
The USA's missile defences currently consist of THAAD, PAC-3 and the experimental ABL. THAAD stands for Theatre High Altitude Air Defence, the Army's part of the missile defence programme. It is designed to intercept warheads at altitudes of 120 to 150km using kinetic hit-to-kill missiles. Despite the difficulty of hitting a ballistic missile in the midflight phase, THAAD has demonstrated this capability, although I'm not sure how reliable it would be against a real nuclear attack.
PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability 3) missiles are capable of intercepting ballistic warheads at ranges of about 10km. These are absolute last-chance defences; they would probably have some degree of success mainly due to quantity (put enough explosive in the air and you're bound to hit something) but the PAC-1 and PAC-2 upgrades also provided facility for attacking specifically ballistic missiles.
That's the background and should answer any more questions people have about missile defence and the difficulties involved. If I've got anything wrong, please correct me. Some figures came from Wikipedia and may not be accurate.
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Probably the best solution would be to use some sort of EMP or nuclear device in the high atmosphere to destroy multiple ICBMs simultaneously.
I wouldn't use nukes in the high atmosphere: every nuke, when explodes, generate an EMP pulse, and the radius over which it expands is greater increasing altitude (at a certain altitude, the EMP pulse is so strong that it can even reach the ground). So, a nuke detonated in high atmosphere would have an high chance of shutting down every electronic system on the ground.
Imagine yourself playing "Berbaiting", after having completed all the objectives, and your PC shuts down while jumping out because a nuke exploded in the high atmosphere :shaking:
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A missile shield is irrelevant and a waste of money and time. Even if someone is so stupid to start flinging nukes, they're going to be smuggled in, not shot overhead. Why call attention to yourself when you could easily fly/ship/walk a nuke into any Western country, smuggle it to a high-profile site, and detonate... without calling attention to yourself. Money should be spent on human intelligence assets, not more technology. This is the problem that has gotten the US into so much trouble to begin with - piss poor underfunded intelligence.
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Considering the US spent $420 billion on defence in 2005:
The US military spending was almost two-fifths of the total.
The US military spending was almost 7 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender.
The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion.
It was more than the combined spending of the next 14 nations.
The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three-quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea)
The six potential “enemies,” Russia, and China together spent $139 billion, 30% of the U.S. military budget
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp
The US can wipe the floor when it comes to defence spending. When the US budget is $2.9 trillion, if it came to an arms race, im sure there were be money found somewhere to add to the half a trillion dollars the US spends annually on defence.
I wouldn't be so sure if you can compare it this way. Superpower nations spend the defence budget usually on projects that don't buy or use foreign equipment, which would imply that you have to consider the inland value of the currency. Using these terms, you'll find out that US is actually third in defence budget, China and Russia being ahead. A single rouble seems to have a value of roughly 1/26 USD, which would mean that the Russian budget should be multiplied by 26 to get it on the same line as US. Chinese Yuan has a value of approximately 7.73, which means that also Chinese get a boost to their budget.
Based on the numbers you provided, the corrected amount would be:
China: 420 US Billion / 7 * 7.73 ~ 463.8 US Billion
Russia: First the Russian budget in USD would be 139 US Billions - (420 US Billions / 7) ~ 79 US Billion
Corrected amount by the course of rouble would be 79 US Billions * 26 ~ 2054 US Billions
USA: 420 US Billion
It seems that you are quite behind.
I think these values are bit more realistic, but then again this doesn't take account the actual buying power of the currency inside the country (i.e. How much work you can get done by the same amount of money in each country). I think Russian budget would drop with that correction, but based on my experiences, the prices in China are ten times less than in Europe, but also people net 10 times less so it evens out. Does anyone have experience in the actual buying power of rouble inside Russia?
But the point was that I wouldn't bet my money on US having the largest defence budget. At the moment the most advanced defence technology is developed in US, but for how long with these numbers?
Mika
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Probably the best solution would be to use some sort of EMP or nuclear device in the high atmosphere to destroy multiple ICBMs simultaneously.
I wouldn't use nukes in the high atmosphere: every nuke, when explodes, generate an EMP pulse, and the radius over which it expands is greater increasing altitude (at a certain altitude, the EMP pulse is so strong that it can even reach the ground). So, a nuke detonated in high atmosphere would have an high chance of shutting down every electronic system on the ground.
Imagine yourself playing "Berbaiting", after having completed all the objectives, and your PC shuts down while jumping out because a nuke exploded in the high atmosphere :shaking:
NOOOOO! Curse you missile defense!
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To be honest detonating nuclear devices for EMP purposes would be more effective than outright destroying a target.
Hitting a city means there's something to rally behind. Knocking out power for the eastern seaboard creates temporary confusion and massive economic disruption. It creates the terror because you don't know when or how all modern life is going to be stopped again by that said group. Since there isn't a real deathtoll any reaction made is going to be inevitably viewed as an overreaction, thus scoring more points for the country/group/cause.
Let's face it, using nukes for disruption as opposed to levelling targets would be a smarter tactic for even the US to adopt...
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Let's face it, using nukes for disruption as opposed to levelling targets would be a smarter tactic for even the US to adopt...
During the Kosovo war, US fighters dropped some kind of bomb that disabled electric power plants without destroying them, the CBU-94 (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-114.htm).
It doesn't need a nuclear bomb to be effective, but its effectiveness depends on the dimension of the area serviced by the power plant.