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Comment by Tuna-Fish | Hacker News Reader

The actual reason why Russia (and others) are going for maneuverable hypersonic missiles is that everyone believes that Brilliant Pebbles would work, if it was ever deployed.

And the reason why Brilliant Pebbles suddenly became more relevant was that the reason it was considered unworkable in the 80's was high launch costs. SpaceX has already seriously cut those, and they openly talk about future plans that cut them by an order of magnitude or more. Starship will probably take a lot longer to bring to service than SpaceX says it will, but if it ever reaches the kind of capability Musk talks about, it will be possible for a person to go to sleep in a world where ICBMs work and wake up in a world where one power has a five-nines capable shield against them.

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> it will be possible for a person to go to sleep in a world where ICBMs work and wake up in a world where one power has a five-nines capable shield against them.

The only rational thing to do if you have a 99.999% capable ABM shield is to perform a decapitation strike, since you know this advantage cannot be permanent. And therefore a rational opponent will perceive such a shield as a mortal danger, and will need to perform a pre-emptive strike before the shield is in place. From their point of view, once the shield is up, they'll be hit anyway, better strike first.

SpaceX does not enter this picture, as they use liquid fuel rockets, not solid fuel. But from Russia's point of view, it's hard to truly believe the US is not secretly seeking such a shield, no matter what assurances they receive that the US missile defense is only limited in scope. The ABM defense is a matter of capability first, and quantity after. Once the capability is properly tuned up (and the US appears to be close to that point), the quantity could be built in a sprint of 12 months. This is not a likely scenario, but it's a plausible one, and Russia needs to plan for it.

> SpaceX does not enter this picture, as they use liquid fuel rockets, not solid fuel.

The point of Brilliant Pebbles is to put several thousand ABM satellites into permanent orbit. This can, and should, be done with liquid fuel rockets.

> The only rational thing to do if you have a 99.999% capable ABM shield is to perform a decapitation strike, since you know this advantage cannot be permanent. And therefore a rational opponent will perceive such a shield as a mortal danger, and will need to perform a pre-emptive strike before the shield is in place. From their point of view, once the shield is up, they'll be hit anyway, better strike first.

The saner alternative is to seek second-strike capability that cannot be intercepted by that shield. Such as hypersonic glide strike vehicles.

And the reason Starship is such a threat is that once there exists a proof-of-concept ABM satellite, a launch vehicle that can take up 150 tons per vehicle, several times a day, times multiple vehicles working at multiple launch sites, can deploy Brilliant Pebbles in a few hours.

How is whichever fuel SpaceX uses relevant to this? As i understand it this is about the massive launch capability with decreased cost. So the Space Force could deliver whatever it seems fit to the task be using whatever SpaceX offers as a launch provider. Maybe modularized, in some sort of container, which then deploys them in one go. Like the microsats of today, or Starlink, only on a larger scale. With a few launches, or to be sneaky and sure with a few in parallel at the same time?

Am i wrong?

> And therefore a rational opponent will perceive such a shield as a mortal danger

So let me explain how nuclear geopolitics actually works ...

Neither Moscow nor Washington believe in MAD, and never have. This became apparent during the talks between Reagan and Gorbachev (or whoever wasn't drunk at the time.) Both sides thought it was folly to not have an actual defensive capability besides game-theory wonks.

Thus Moscow has a shield - an ABM system in a ring around the city.

The US SDI "Star Wars" program was/is likely successful for space-based kinetic defense, but not the original laser stuff.

What Moscow doesn't like is changes to the status quo, like the early Shuttle doing sudden LEO maneuvers. Buran was developed basically to bomb Washington without notice, as retaliation for the Shuttle being able to do that to Moscow.

And Putin is a very different adversary than a bunch of old drunks distracted with an imploding empire.

How is Starship related to Brilliant Pebbles? It's Starlink that seems to prove that you can put a constellation of satellites in the tens of thousands affordably. That's the type of coverage that Brilliant Pebbles needs to succeed, right?

Starlink launched by F9 proves that it can be done in principle, but it would take long enough to deploy that a response can be formulated before it's actually online.

The reason Starship is the threat is that the kind of launch capability needed for a mars colonial fleet, and the turnaround times advertised by Musk, mean that such a missile shield could be manufactured in secret and then deployed in a few hours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles

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