U.S. Has Been Watching Russia's Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missiles Crash and Burn
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
- Nuclear weapons development, specifically targeted at the US
- Trade Tariffs
- Improper security classification in the whitehouse
- Israel, Iran threatening war
- China becomes a dictatorship
Feels like we're going backward in time for some reason.
I don't see a good argument that globalism (as we knew it) was going to continue perpetually, that there would be no inflection occurance. It makes perfect sense that a trend like that would have an inflection and go the other direction eventually.
The technological leap that I'd expect, will begin to accelerate as the tension between large nations builds over the next decade. It's clear there will be a big competition between the powers in the form of an AI race for example (already underway), and it won't stop there. There's a very large gap between Cold War style conflicts coming back into commonality, or even moving a bit beyond that, and everybody deciding to commit nuclear suicide and kill each other.
This attitude assumes the linear progression of conventional warfare that existed among humans until the 20th century. A large scale nuclear exchange will be the end of us all.
Russia goes into Belarus or Ukraine, maybe Kazakhstan. If you're a dictator like Putin and you can't expand your economy organically, you eventually try to do it through invasion.
China will go after Taiwan sooner than later. In another ten years they'll be close enough to parity with the US to likely do it and have the odds strongly in their favor of safely getting away with it.
The mess in the middle east will continue. There's still a high risk the US ends up at war with Iran, whether drawn in by Israel or otherwise. Saudi Arabia wants to become a nuclear nation. Both Saudi and Iran are practically guaranteed to reach for nuclear weapons in the coming decade or two. Saudi will want to get themselves positioned technologically in case Iran goes for that.
Japan will probably begin/continue gradually re-arming.
The major nuclear powers will go on a nuclear weapon upgrade spree, in competition with each other. That has already begun. China's moves there will be very interesting, given their (supposedly) relatively small arsenal.
We'll very likely see the US, China and Russia deploy weapons to space. That'll add to the tensions.
In fact, one major reason for the post-WWII institutions such as the UN, EU (then called something else), and others was to prevent another war. One major reason for preventing war (there are lots of good ones!) cited by leaders was that the technology of destruction had improved to such a point that another war could devastate civilization - that was over 70 years ago.
Or perhaps just ready access to barely-populated Arctic regions where nobody's watching you drop nuclear reactors around.
These things are the most over-the-top method of beating missile defenses. A normal response would be to just deploy more missiles, which are cheaper and faster to build than defense, so it's easy to keep up. But no, apparently they went in this direction.
The simulation with warheads dropping on Florida reminded me of the old idea of dropping Tungsten rods from orbit onto your enemies, I'm surprised they didn't propose that one too.
Deploying more missiles would be visible and would clearly demonstrate aggressive intentions.
For example what sounds more aggressive, 10 cruise missiles or 1000 missiles?
America tested nuclear weapons in its own country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_%28nuclear_test%29
At the time of Trinity, there was a very poor understanding of the consequences.
Castle Bravo's yield was 15 megatons of TNT, 2.5 times the predicted 6.0 megatons, due to unforeseen additional reactions involving 7Li,[3] which led to the unexpected radioactive contamination of areas to the east of Bikini Atoll.
Sadly, Russian leaders seem to have that attitude. About 30% of the adult male population was killed in World War II.
Did you realize that China is still in a state of civil war with Taiwan?
The two had a civil war after WW2. The Taiwan side lost the mainland, and fled to Taiwan.
Normally, when you lose a civil war, you don't create a new government. Otherwise, when the United States had their own civil war, then the southern states would have created the Confederate States of America, and slavery would still be alive and legal today.
Do you agree with this premise?
Taiwan is very strategically important to China. But, the United States is now using Taiwan to contain China. And they are using all the excuses like democracy and all that, but it's easy to see through the propaganda. Otherwise, why isn't Saudi Arabia a democracy by now?
If you think through all the angles, then you might actually realize the insane rationality behind China's motives.
That said, the United States is not China's enemy. But with the way geopolitics plays out, the United States is now firmly committed to securing Taiwan. Thus, both nations are now going to head into conflict.
The thing is, any military conflict between the United States and China, will turn nuclear. Once those missiles start flying, then sell your stocks, because the world is going to burn down. This is a pretty grim analysis, so I hope it never happens.
Even if you don't want to strike first, there is still a great advantage to being able to do it better. Especially if your adversary knows about your capabilities but not your intentions. See for example north-Korea wanting nuclear weapons. Something similar might have played a role for Pakistan. Being a nuclear power gets you seats at certain tables. Being a more dangerous nuclear power gets you a better seat.
This strategy has the weak point of enticing preventative measures, but it is a strategy at least.
Even 50 is a serious threat to China. If the US and China suddenly spiral into major direct war, China is vulnerable to a US first strike. A first strike against their ICBMs (but not cities) that is 50% successful would leave China with a fairly small second strike capability. Leaving China with the choice of trying to nuke the biggest 30 cities in America, knowing the US might shoot down half, or holding them in reserve. And if the try to nuke US cities the US would probably retaliate with 2,000 weapons.
EDIT: or the missile installations, I don't remember exactly.
I don't have a link for you, but I remember Putin saying this in the Stone interviews.
Makes me wonder also, though probably a lot less likely of a link, about the other story run by thedrive recently of the released FAA and ATC conversation regarding the unknown, fast moving, large white airplane-like craft that wandered up the west coast late last year.
I'm not sure if an infinite range nuclear-reactor-containing "cruise missile"'s visible characteristics would necessarily be "missile-like", i.e. a cigar with small fins, or if it could reasonably at that point just be... an airplane. It would be ballsy as hell for a Russian experimental nuclear-missile-plane to fly deep deep into American airspace in a common corridor with civilian commercial airliners, like, that would seem to be way too far into an insane possibility that would demand a war-like response, and it's far likelier to have been a US craft from a base in the region, but... it would really be the ultimate test of the system's penetrative and evasive capabilities, if it were such a thing.
What do other folks think?
Running such a test in the airspace of a potential 1st tier opponent would be madness - it would absolutely be seen as a warlike act and repercussions would be immediate and widespread.
It's not like having a moving radiation source would be "stealthy" in any way - after 9/11 many US police departments bought portable Geiger counters so tracking one would just be a matter of correlating the readings.
The 80s for example were mostly cruise missile and stealth fighters. In my area of upstate NY, there were a lot of sightings of tomahawk missiles operating out of Plattsburgh and Rome AFB testing the tercom navigation system. In the 90s, there was some sort of hovering drone and hypersonic aircraft.
It’s a reasonable assumption that the military planted or ginned up the aliens narrative to bury the story in plain sight. My first assumption is that this is the same thing.
https://jalopnik.com/the-flying-crowbar-the-insane-doomsday-...
Meanwhile, nuclear reactors are hot, and this can be used to heat up air.
If the Ruskies have developed a reactionless rocket engine capable of crashing further down range than experimental error, I would keep silent as well /s
Check out Project Pluto on Wikipedia [1], and the Direct Air Cycle part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion page [2]. From the Pluto page,
"The principle behind the nuclear ramjet was relatively simple: motion of the vehicle pushed air in through the front of the vehicle (ram effect), a nuclear reactor heated the air, and then the hot air expanded at high speed out through a nozzle at the back, providing thrust."
1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto
2 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion#...
while we're at it, have a fun tangential short story by Charlie Stross about rockets, missiles, volatile oxidizers, and more, with only a touch of plausible-sounding scifi nonsense:
I think what changed is largely trade. China, usually the USA's enemy, has benefited enormously by trading with the USA and providing a cheap labor pool for manufacturing after Unions made it too expensive to continue manual manufacturing in the United States.
So if my theory is true, it's probably worth allowing vestment in our fellow nuclear superpowers. Seems backwards, but most things in economics and game theory are.
Donald seems to really want it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/9483555570...
Somewhat famously, this belief was widespread before WWI - who would want to fight a war when we're all profiting so much from trade. The two biggest wars in history were fought in the next 35 years. The current US government likes to disregard every rule of international relations (and fire or fire all the professional diplomats). Those rules exist because, while they are frustrating in the short term, they prevent wars and promote progress in the medium-to-long term. Politics and international relations are not under immediate control of political leaders - many didn't want war in Europe, but they had started the mechanism and couldn't stop it. The idea of those rules is to never get in that position again.
This is weird article.
Russia just rattled their sabre because they're desperate. They've recognized an inability to keep up economically with the US and China, and they will fall further and further behind because of that.
Russia's population hasn't expanded in nearly four decades. In that time the US has added 100 million people. China added 400 million people. That population expansion is an economic weapon.
Russia's economy hasn't expanded since 2006-2007. Putin entirely failed to transition the Russian economy off of dependency on energy prices. Without economic growth, they can't keep spending more on their military. Meanwhile the US and China perpetually expand their economies.
The gap between the US and Russia economically has gone from 11 to 1 in 1989, to 15 to 1. And it's worth noting that output gap in 1989 was already extreme, as Russia was effectively a bankrupt nation at that point. That the US has continued to put distance between it and Russia economically, is a massive failure by Putin. Or to put it in another perspective, Canada now has a larger economy than Russia.
And then the China story. Well, that's just a joke of a comparison. In 1989 China had an economy 1/3 smaller than Russia. Today it's 10 times larger. It leaves Russia wilting in contrast, they've become a second tier power.
Something has changed greatly. It is the fall of globalism and the rise of nationalism. Putins reminder he has the will to use MAD is sign of the new times.