China, Russia agree on more 'countermeasures' against U.S. anti-missile system

[Rasulis]

Russia has 112 SS-26 launchers alone. Romania has 24 SM-3s. DO THE MATH! Quit the fear mongering. All US ABM systems can do is intercept a small number of short-medium range missiles. Russia knows this, China knows this, NK knows this, Iran knows this.

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US ABM SYSTEMS CANNOT INTERCEPT STRATEGIC MISSILES!!!!! They do NOTHING to the balance of strategic deterrence.

Of course they all know this. For both China and Russia the complaints give them grounds for retaliatory actions. In China’s case could be an expansion of their Spratly Islands bases. More missiles across the Taiwan Strait. Maybe even missiles in Central and Latin America. Russia is already pretty unhappy about the deployment of US troops and tanks in Poland. They are holding back so far because they are hoping for a friendlier new administration.

[Ulmita]

Maybe when the new deathray is deployed..... IF it becomes possible to intercept sufficient numbers of ICBMs to defeat MAD, then come complaining. Until then, it is YOU that is the warmonger and wanting nuclear proliferation.

The death ray is called SM-3 IIA and its in the final stages of testing. IT WILL BE possible to intercept ICBM, the sufficient # is debatable.
Stop going around bombing countries and trying to provoke nuclear war.

[DeadmanWalking]

Don't worry, I sure comrade Trump will bend over backward to make everything okay for US president Putin once Twitler takes orifice.. I mean office.

[Independent voter]

Russia needs China's money cause Russia is broke. China will get Russia's military secrets in exchange.

[PACOX]

China and Russia know very well the limited capability of the system. It cannot deal with a saturation attack.

The only missiles capable of hitting the US are ICBMs or SLBMs, which just so happen to be the very types of missiles ABM systems cannot take out. Russia and China have systems capable of taking out US SRBMs (which, unlike theirs, are all conventional).

THAAD prevents the use of a small number of SRBMs to deliver nuclear warheads in a surprise attack, or a few conventional ones launched as a terror weapon, nothing more.

Actual the US can take out ICBMs just not with great accuracy. It doesn't matter that the US can't take out all of them, just being able to take out some pushes MAD toward the US's favor. That means the US have the upper hand when it comes to first and second strike capabilities. The US surrounds China and Russians with all types of BS. You ever play Civilization? You know that when your opponent starts lining stuff along the perimeter of your border the chances of you preventing an invasion goes down drastically. China and Russia are immediately handicapped when it comes any sort of conflict between the 3 countries because the US maintains the metaphorical high ground.

If I were China or Russia, I would speak up.

If I was the US then I would tell them to git gud.

[Kellhound]

Of course they all know this. For both China and Russia the complaints give them grounds for retaliatory actions. In China’s case could be an expansion of their Spratly Islands bases. More missiles across the Taiwan Strait. Maybe even missiles in Central and Latin America. Russia is already pretty unhappy about the deployment of US troops and tanks in Poland. They are holding back so far because they are hoping for a friendlier new administration.

China already has enough SRBMs facing Taiwan to flatten the entire island, and they will expand in the SCS no matter what. As for Poland, they are the ones that wanted protection from Russia.

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The death ray is called SM-3 IIA and its in the final stages of testing. IT WILL BE possible to intercept ICBM, the sufficient # is debatable.
Stop going around bombing countries and trying to provoke nuclear war.

The SM-3 IIA, while being superior to the IB, is still intended to engage IRBMs, not ICBMs. Then there is the simple numbers game. There is a limited number of ready missiles. Even at best, by 2030 the US is expected to have only ~500 IIAs, so even 100% success on hitting the incoming ICBM/SLBM warheads still prevents the US from rendering Russian MAD capability moot.

The only one provoking nuclear war is you. You are the one championing them, you are the one calling for Russia to violate the Test Ban Treaty.

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Actual the US can take out ICBMs just not with great accuracy. It doesn't matter that the US can't take out all of them, just being able to take out some pushes MAD toward the US's favor. That means the US have the upper hand when it comes to first and second strike capabilities. The US surrounds China and Russians with all types of BS. You ever play Civilization? You know that when your opponent starts lining stuff along the perimeter of your border the chances of you preventing an invasion goes down drastically. China and Russia are immediately handicapped when it comes any sort of conflict between the 3 countries because the US maintains the metaphorical high ground.

If I were China or Russia, I would speak up.

If I was the US then I would tell them to git gud.

MAD only requires 1000 warheads, though honestly the US has the advantage because Russia is far smaller than the USSR for which MAD was modeled for. The US is not even close to dropping Russian warheads to below 1500 if every SM-3 we have hit a warhead.

Russia and China have the prefered location in any conflict, because the US is, for all practical purposes, an island country.

[Ulmita]

The only one provoking nuclear war is you. You are the one championing them, you are the one calling for Russia to violate the Test Ban Treaty.

You are failing to see my point once again. US is atm going around bullying (bombing) 7 nations and its trying to provoke ww3 by telling China and Russia what they can and what they can't do. USA's military spending is unmatched and the only way to deter is (unfortunately) by nukes. This is not what we want, this is what you are pushing us (us as the whole world)

[Grimbold21]

oh god Tenn stick to bad trolling.

Fixed that for ya

[Girrag]

Maybe when the new deathray is deployed..... IF it becomes possible to intercept sufficient numbers of ICBMs to defeat MAD, then come complaining. Until then, it is YOU that is the warmonger and wanting nuclear proliferation.

It will be way too late to complain then.

[Deleted]

It will be way too late to complain then.

If ABM on a massive scale would be built, it will be pointles, becuse it will be counter by deployment of agents who have nuclear suitcase bombs, and nobady want that.

[Shalcker]

If ABM on a massive scale would be built, it will be pointles, becuse it will be counter by deployment of agents who have nuclear suitcase bombs, and nobady want that.

Or that Status-6 submarine drone.

[Shalcker]

Nobody cares about your miracle weapons dude.

It is already running trials, it'll be available way before American ABM will actually work for intercepting saturation strikes.

[Skroe]

China already has enough SRBMs facing Taiwan to flatten the entire island, and they will expand in the SCS no matter what. As for Poland, they are the ones that wanted protection from Russia.

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The SM-3 IIA, while being superior to the IB, is still intended to engage IRBMs, not ICBMs. Then there is the simple numbers game. There is a limited number of ready missiles. Even at best, by 2030 the US is expected to have only ~500 IIAs, so even 100% success on hitting the incoming ICBM/SLBM warheads still prevents the US from rendering Russian MAD capability moot.

The only one provoking nuclear war is you. You are the one championing them, you are the one calling for Russia to violate the Test Ban Treaty.

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MAD only requires 1000 warheads, though honestly the US has the advantage because Russia is far smaller than the USSR for which MAD was modeled for. The US is not even close to dropping Russian warheads to below 1500 if every SM-3 we have hit a warhead.

Russia and China have the prefered location in any conflict, because the US is, for all practical purposes, an island country.

It's worth noting, as I've brought up before, Multi Object Kill Vehicles (for the un-initiated, essentially MIRVing interceptors) will change this equation entirely over the next 5-10 years. And MKV is meant for GBMD, which is designed to protect against ICBMs, not on SM-3 variants.

Right now the doctrine is to launch at least two interceptors at every warhead, which means for Russia's nominal 1550 warheads the US would need a minimum of 3100 interceptors. However with MKV, the current design carries 12 Kill Vehicles

(again for the un-initiated)



This would allow the US to defend itself from the entirety of the Russian arsenal with just 259 interceptors that carry those 3100 kill vehicles. That's 200 fewer launch vehicles (interceptors) than there are Minuteman III ICBMs, and would act as an additional 259 aim points for Russian ballistic missiles to have to take out. While 3100 interecptors ready to launch is not a realistic scenario, 259 is very realistic. There are currently 40 Ground-Based Interceptors deployed to Alaska and 4 in California. Just like MIRV'd ICBMs, a larger interceptor could carry a larger MKV stack, and require even fewer launch vehicles.

Again, for the uninitiated, the US considers the biggest flaw in it's ICBM defense that the interceptor on the GBMD interceptors in the US are kinda crap and replacing them with a new design (the actual launch vehicle is fine). The MOKV is one of those designs and is being lavishly funded as the "following step". Basically the existing Interceptor was rushed to service (despite being a prototype design) in 2004 by the Bush Administration and hasn't really been touched. So the MDA is procuring an intermediate re-designed version now as a stop gap to the Multi-Object kill vehicle five years from now.

http://spacenews.com/new-u-s-kill-ve...arget-in-2019/


http://www.scout.com/military/warrio...ts-icbm-decoys

The new system, called Multi-Object Kill Vehicle, or MOKV, is designed to release from a Ground Based Interceptor and destroy approaching Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs -- and also take out decoys traveling alongside the incoming missile threat.
"The multi-object kill vehicle program will enable the warfighter to counter more numerous and complex threats to the homeland by establishing the capacity to engage multiple objects from a single ground-based interceptor. This approach has the potential to shift the cost curve of missile defense by reducing the number of interceptors required to defeat the enemy," Missile Defense Agency Spokeswoman Leah Garton told Scout Warrior.

Command and Control testing of the emerging technology is slated for next year and initial production is expected some time in the early 2020s. In 2015, the MDA awarded three contracts with industry to define concepts for deploying multiple kill vehicles from a single booster, she added. The contracts were awarded to Boeing, Lockheed and Raytheon.
"In fiscal 2016, industry delivered their MOKV concepts. The agency reviewed them and in June the agency released requests for proposals for industry to reduce the risk of these critical technologies," Garton explained.
Decoys or countermeasures are missile-like structures, objects or technologies designed to throw off or confuse the targeting and guidance systems of an approaching interceptor in order to increase the probability that the actual missile can travel through to its target.
If the seeker or guidance systems of a “kill vehicle” technology on a Ground Base Interceptor, or GBI, cannot discern an actual nuclear-armed ICBM from a decoy – the dangerous missile is more likely to pass through and avoid being destroyed. MOKV is being developed to address this threat scenario.

Steve Nicholls, Director of Advanced Air & Missile Defense Systems for Raytheon, told Scout Warrior the MOKV is being developed to provide the MDA with “a key capability for its Ballistic Missile Defense System - to discriminate lethal objects from countermeasures and debris. The kill vehicle, launched from the ground-based interceptor extends the ground-based discrimination capability with onboard sensors and processing to ensure the real threat is eliminated.”

MOKV could well be described as a new technological step in the ongoing maturation of what was originally conceived of in the Reagan era as “Star Wars” – the idea of using an interceptor missile to knock out or destroy an incoming enemy nuclear missile in space. This concept was originally greeted with skepticism and hesitation as something that was not technologically feasible.

Not only has this technology come to fruition in many respects, but the capability continues to evolve with systems like MOKV. MOKV, to begin formal product development by 2022, is being engineered with a host of innovations to include new sensors, signal processors, communications technologies and robotic manufacturing automation for high-rate tactical weapons systems, Nicholls explained.

The US should persue missile defense without ristriction and without apology. After all, we got the Russians exactly where we want them in this regard. They have a warhead cap. They can't afford many more than the number of launch vehicles they presently deployed. This puts a ceiling constraint on how many aim points the US has and gives the US, which is far richer, the option to greatly multiply the number of aim points Russia has through a combination of Land based ICBMs, Interceptor launch silos and eventually Conventional Prompt Global Strike launch sites. The goal should be to use Treaty and Financial constraints to keep the US aim point requirement about where it is now (believed to be in the mid-hundreds) while increasing Russia's aim point requirement from where it is now (the high hundreds) into the thousands.

Missile defense in general, but especially thins like Multi-object kill vehicles, do much to worsen that for them. Trump expressed interest in expanding Missile Defense. The big losers for that are Russia and China. Congress is funding it already in 2017 anticipating the next President (no matter who it was) was going to do that. Trump should push them to spend even more.

[Girrag]

If ABM on a massive scale would be built, it will be pointles, becuse it will be counter by deployment of agents who have nuclear suitcase bombs, and nobady want that.

Chances are that it would be preventive strike. Because otherwise other side might strke first without retaliation. Or you wouldn't have choice except kiss the ring. And nobody want to kiss a ring. US should understand that more than anybody else.

[Skroe]

It is already running trials, it'll be available way before American ABM will actually work for intercepting saturation strikes.

Please. Your latest miracle weapon of doom is just going to be the next thing American Taxpayers have to pay to dismantle the next time your bankrupt country needs foreign help to ward off looters of state sites.

I'd place the financial threat to my wallet at a higher level than Russian saturation strikes. America should spend on missile defense for the same reason people should buy insurance. But the chance of it being used is extremely slim. It's far more likely over the next 20 years Uncle Sam will be cleaning up the latest Russian catastrophe.


Loaded Russian Radio-Isotope Nuclear Thermoelectric Generators, rusting next to a river, un-protected, in the late 1990s.


RTGs rusting next to the Barrents Sea, 2012


Russian RTG in the woods somewhere.


MEANWHILE in Civilization


How the US disposes of its obsolete RTGs... 7 of them on a C-17 for disposal. Better than throwing them out with the trash, huh?

You must be saying "Skro, why are you going off on the tangent about RTGs?" This is why.


4.8 kilograms of Plutonium-238 dioxide. This this picture it is glowing its graphite container red hot. This picture is from the Multi-Mission RTG designed for the Curisoity Rover (NASA's new standard issue RTG). When the Soviet Union fell, to the present day, Russian authorities just left this stuff outside to rot and be looted by god knows who.

One of the smartest things the US did after the Cold War was lavishly spend on securing RUssian nuclear material stockpiles and secure Russian technical know-how for ballistic missiles / space launch vehicles. The International Space Station, the Atlas V, using Russian nuclear fuel in US Civilian Power Reactors, were all concieved as ways to keep Russian workers of useful skills on the job rather than on the free agent market, and potentially picked up by North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and China (this was the mid 1990s-mid 2000s for context). It largely worked to mitigate that threat. Some got away. Much didn't. But the ex-Soviet nuclear footprint was immense.

It's a joke that we'll have to do it again down the road. Russia needs to stop playing at superpower. They're too poor and too weak. They don't have the geography, the resources, the technical means, or the population. They're a regional spoiler at best and should stick to that.

[Realtalk]

All this is posturing. 1 Nuke in space and US goes bye bye. Same for any modern country. That's the real thing people should be concerned about. Conservative estimates are 300 million dead within 12-18 months of emp event over US. 100 million in first month 2.

[Girrag]

I'd place the financial threat to my wallet at a higher level than Russian saturation strikes. America should spend on missile defense for the same reason people should buy insurance.

It won't buy you insurance. It will be "we're going to nuke you" message to Russia with concrete date.

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Only one reason to create full missile defence is to prevent second strike. Only one reason to prevent second strike is to strike first. So other side has no choice but to strike first before you do. And if you're building full missle defence - you're planning to strike first, otherwise it's a totally pointless waste of money.

[Skroe]

It won't buy you insurance. It will be "we're going to nuke you" message to Russia with concrete date.

Nah they won't do shit. Not when, they know as well as we do, that that thanks to present existing US nuclear superiority (in terms of technical capability of launch vehicles/warheads, numbers, readiness/reliability, and early warning), that the US could probably strike first and neutralize the majority of the Russian arsenal before it even got off the ground. Russia's most accurate warhead is less accurate than the US's least accurate, and this matters when the vast majority of aim points by the other side is not massive cities, but silos and other launch sites related to the opponent's nuclear capability. Russia uses big warheads because it could miss a 20m target by 700+ meters, which would not destroy it. The US on the other hand, mostly relies on warheads with 90m accuracy (being refined to 5m with the addition of a new interial guidance and GPS system) that would.

And the other issue is stockpile reliability. There hasn't been a weapon created in the history of man that hasn't had duds in the stockpiles. The same is true of nuclear weapons. Of the 1550 weapons the US has and the 1550 weapons Russia has, if 1% of those are duds, that's 15 nuclear warheads that will fail if used, and typically the dud rate of other types of bombs is is in the realm of 5-20%. That is to say, there can be an expectation that dozens of nuclear weapons if used would fail to work. Why does this matter? Think about the ture purpose of nuclear weapons - to prevent the other side from getting their warheads off the ground. If enough fail mid flight or fail to detonate at their aimpoint, that means their target will get off the ground, meaning duds are utterly disasterous for an attacker.

This can be combined with the fact that the launch vehicles themselves would have an independent dud rate, and Russia's industrial complex just isn't what it once was. Its legacy rockets for space flight for example, are failing at a pretty spectacular rate. Bulava SLBM has been deeply troubled for half a decade with little signs of progress. Much of Russia's nuclear power relies on it's inheritance from the Soviet Union, but those expiration dates are quickly approaching.

To put it all together, Russia could never launch first because it doesn't have warheads accurate enough, nor reliable enough, to disarm the US. And if it couldn't do that job in full, the retaliation from the US would be comprehensive enough to come out to a net-loss for Russia.

This is why the US should seize the high ground so to speak, and multiply the number of aimpoints for Russia. The most effective means of disarmament of the Soviet threat turned out to be the economics of owning a large nuclear stockpile and paying for the standing industrial base to support it. The same can be said of Russia. Vladmir Putin was eager to sign NewSTART and agreed to some pretty ridiculous demands by the United States with regards to launchers, because he knows this better than anybody - Russia's legacy nuclear arsenal cripples its ability to modernize militarily and the more it is cut, the more money he has to do that. But he also does not want to disarm unilaterally.

We should not agree to anymore, and instead, do everything we can to keep that downward pressure on the Russian defense budget. More Interceptor sites and Conventional Prompt Global Strike will do that. They do not have that technology and would have to answer it with more nuclear weapons, which will only take away from their conventional military budget. Meanwhile, the vision of a Conventional Prompt Global Strike missile that could destroy a Russian silo every bit as effectively as a nuclear warhead can will multiply the threat against them and shore up our decades old defense-in-depth strategy.

[Deleted]

Except for the fact it can only deal with IRBMs or shorter, it cannot deal with ICBMs, thus the ability of either to launch against the US is maintained. Also, both China and Russia have more than enough SRBMs to overwhelm any ABM system.

thats when skroe comes in and tells you: yes, thats why we will launch first so they only have enough missiles left that the shield can deal with it.

[Skroe]

Only one reason to create full missile defence is to prevent second strike. Only one reason to prevent second strike is to strike first. So other side has no choice but to strike first before you do. And if you're building full missle defence - you're planning to strike first, otherwise it's a totally pointless waste of money.

US Nuclear posture is designed for first strike.

->The vast majorty of our nuclear arsenal is on our 14 Ohio Class SSBNs on Trident-II SLBMs.
-> The Trident II D5 is in the prime of its life and it's replacement is 20 or 30 years down the road. It's exceedingly modern.
-> The Trident II D5 LE plan, among other things, is replacing the 90m accuracy seeker on the warhead re-entry vehicles (already accurate enough for first strike) with a 5m GPS/Inertial Guidance seeker.
-> The US 3+2 nuclear modernization plan will replace all US ICBM and SLBM warheads with 3 new warhead designs, likely derived from the never mass produced W89 (the successor to the W88, the most modern US design used in the Trident-II). Currently US Minuteman III ICBMs use an older warhead than the Trident IIs, but the 3+2 plan would shift to change this to a unified, modern design.
-> The existing US AGM-86 nucelar cruise missile is stealthy in nature (though not as stealthy as it's retired successor, the AGM-129 ACM). The 3+2 plan is designing first a new stealthy cruise missile to replace the AGM-86. It may be hypersonic (this is unclear... let's just say at $20 billion, it's a very expensive system for something that will be powered by an existing turbofan engine when comparable conventional stealthy air launched cruise missile programs are typically ~$2-3 billion).



If you're wondering why the US is designing 3 warheads, the answer is reliability. What happens if the US builds only IW1 warheads, and then discovers a flaw that takes them all out of service for maintenance (as happens from time to time with other weapons and vehicles)? The US has no warheads. The US is designing 3 so that even if a design flaw or problem is discovered that requires the standing down of 2 warhead families for a period of time (we could be talking as short as a week) until the flaw is corrected, there is still one design that is providing deterrence.

The 3 refers to the new warheads being build. The 2 refers to the new air launched cruise missile and the new nuclear bomb that will replace the B-61/3/4/7/10 and the B83.

The new bomb, B61-12, is almost done and will soon enter production. The next program is the air launched cruise missile program. That will be followed, by two programs concurrently - the IW-1 program and the Minuteman III replacement (called Ground based Strategic derrent). Not included in the 3+2 plan, but at the very end of it, is the replacement of the Trident II in the 2040s. Also not included, but happening now is the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber program, the Columbia-class Ohio ballistic missile sub replacement program, and the nuclearization of the F-35 (mostly for the benefit of our allies).

Put together it's 30 years, $1 trillion, and will be the most enduring legacy of the out-going Nobel Peace Prize Winning President. When it's complete, the next time the US will have to rebuild it's nuclear weapons infrastructure is in the 2070s or 2080s.