Ukraine Offers Another Clip
by tdaxp ~ August 17th, 2008
I mentioned before that the agree to put Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) is essentially cocking a gun in front of Russia. Against a large nuclear power, ABM is an offensive weapon. A country like Russia can easily overwhelm any ABM system by simply throwing more missile against it. However, assuming you can knock out 90%-99% of a country’s nuclear missile capacity in a first strike, ABM is a sensible method of making sure that the remaining 1%-10% doesn’t get through.
Like cocking a gun in plain view of a person you’re having a heated argument with, the US-Polish missile deal is non-violent n itself and quite violent in its possibilities.
It’s a great countermeasure. This is, too:
Ukraine offers satellite defence co-operation with Europe and US – Telegraph
The proposal, made amid growing outrage among Russia’s neighbours over its military campaign in Georgia, could see Ukraine added to Moscow’s nuclear hitlist. A Russian general declared Poland a target for its arsenal after Warsaw signed a deal with Washington to host interceptor missiles for America’s anti-nuclear shield.The move came as the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a cease-fire deal that sets the stage for a Russian troop withdrawal after more than a week of warfare with its neighbour Georgia.
The deal calls for both Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted on August 8. As of last night, though, there was little apparent evidence of a Russian pull-out from the Georgian town of Gori, which Russian tanks and troops took last weekend. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insisted a broader withdrawal would be contingent on further security measures.
Just hours before Mr Medvedev put his signature to the ceasefire deal, Russian forces blew up a Georgian railway bridge on the main line west of the capital, Tbilisi, an act that critics interpreted as a malacious attempt to cripple the country’s infrastructure. Moscow at first issued a denial, but television footage shot by the Reuters news agency clearly showed the bridge’s twisted remains.
Ukraine said it was ready to give both Europe and America access to its missile warning systems after Russia earlier annulled a 1992 cooperation agreement involving two satellite tracking stations. Previously, the stations were part of Russia’s early-warning system for missiles coming from Europe.
“The fact that Ukraine is no longer a party to the 1992 agreement allows it to launch active cooperation with European countries to integrate its information,” a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.
The diplomatic measures being taken now are a down-payment for the price Russia will pay for its aggression. Interstate war must not be tolerated as a method of diplomacy. Vladimir Putin and those who might model him must learn this lesson as surely as Saddam Hussein did.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Your argument is sadly lacking.
Since the ABM components in Europe will not be effective against Russian nukes targeting the US or even Europe, it represents no significant threat to MAD. Furthermore, even the North American based system has inadequate capability to even affect a MAd-world first strike calculation – especially since the US and Russia have submarine based retaliatory capability.
What the ABM system really does is move the nuclear threshold to the countries in which it is deployed. Since the ABM system will presumably be considered a strategic asset, an attack against it will be considered a strategic attack on US nuclear assets, with corresponding consequences.
Hence it represents no threat to Russia, UNLESS Russia attacks the non-threatening ABM system. Thus the system extends the US nuclear umbrella to the area in which it is deployed, without adding any offensive capability.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Useful Fools
Before I read this article [1] I thought as you did. Here is a brief summation:
“It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States’ nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia’s arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China’s nuclear forces. Unless Washington’s policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of their forces, Russia and China — and the rest of the world — will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come.”
The ABM stuff in Europe and North America would only be needed to mop up the few loose nukes that we didn’t get on the first strike. Russia’s second strike capability has seriously eroded since the end of the Cold War and we could probably nail their few operational subs before the subs even sailed.
[1] http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85204/keir-a-lieber-daryl-g-press/the-rise-of-u-s-nuclear-primacy.html
August 21st, 2008 at 5:29 am
UF makes presents serious criticisms, and Brent seriously addresses them.
Threads like this are why I blog!
December 19th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
[...] has a post on missile defense, but it’s worth emphasizing that ballistic missile defense is an offensive weapon. It serves beyond just feeding the Military-Industrial-Complex and Poland: namely, stressing Russia [...]
December 20th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Just so we don’t have another pious round of “nobody could have ever thought of this threat”, Iranian ballistic missiles are not the only threat package that comes in the sort of reentry speeds that only an ABM system could handle.
You cannot safely have civilian suborbital space flight capabilities without creating and deploying a thin skin system to shoot one of them down if they either lose control and head for someplace important or if there’s a hostile takeover with the same result. Whatever the actual threat of Iran, we’re headed to a world where suborbital ballistic launches are going to be happening outside of the control of any trusted national military.
December 21st, 2008 at 6:15 am
TM,
Excellent point!
While I think the debate about AMB makes sense in the context of Russian aggression (such as Czechia’s missiles-for-treaties proposal [1,2]), you make a good point that the world does not stand still: new uses (and fears!) of ABM are emerging over time.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7792553.stm
[2] http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/12/happy_hour_links_16.asp