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Comment by vl | Hacker News Reader

>The HTV-2 is part of an advanced weapons program called Conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is working to develop systems to reach an enemy target anywhere in the world within one hour.

Wait, but don't ICBMs have like 40 min strike time for any target in the world since, like, sixties? (Ok, in the sixties they couldn't aim this fast).

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Yes, but launching an ICBM has the rather unfortunately consequence of telegraphing the message that you are about to nuke someone. Hence the program is a non-ballistic one that seeks an alternative means of delivering a payload as quickly. As a bonus, I gather that the HTV program promises to be more accurate.

It's my impression that the rocket used to launch this thing would likely still set off early warning launch detection systems.

It seems like that sinks the entire idea. A weapon that is suitable for a nuclear first strike doesn't seem like a weapon that is suitable for much else, unless we're on unimaginably good terms with all the other nuclear powers. The fact that we must consider the possibility of military conflict with China makes it especially troubling to consider building a weapon like that and developing a defense strategy that depends on it. Can you imagine getting in a war with China and suddenly launching a dozen ICBMs with conventional weapons on them? Of course we would never do that. It would be insane to do anything that looked like a first strike during a conflict with China. Or Russia, for that matter. Hell, it would probably be insane to do it even if we weren't at war with Russia or China. The mere fact that this plane could deliver a nuclear weapon to Moscow or Beijing in under an hour means that it would be unwise to use it for anything else.

Well, I'm pretty sure that the fist thing they will do once it's operations is to install tactical nuke on it.

The whole point of a weapon system like this is to develop the capability to project sufficient force to anywhere it's needed. In geopolitical terms it's more of a scalpel than a hammer. This is for taking out an emerging threat at short notice based on intelligence developed in the field, not for going up against a prepared opponent with an established ability to respond in kind or worse.

This point is understood, this discussion is about dangers of using this weapon even against somebody without retaliatory capability since the ones with the retaliatory capability can launch counterstrike by mistake since early warning system is not going to be able to distinguish launch of this weapon from the nuclear missile launch.

That's what submarines are for, and it seems far easier to make a cruise missile that goes Mach 3 from a hundred milse off shore than a missile that goes Mach 20 from across the ocean.

Why "must" the US consider a conflict with their main overseas creditor?

The US already has interests all over the world, and China is barely emerging as a world power. They will consider it fair for their influence to grow, and we will see it growing at the expense of ours. China's interests in Africa, its win/win deals with African nations that need industrial know-how and have raw materials to feed Chinese growth, already made the news here in the U.S., if only for a little while. Chinese culture and American culture are different, and as we come into competition for international influence, clever xenophobes on each side will attempt to frame the competition as a showdown between good and evil. Add to that the machinations of people and corporations whose financial interests are at stake, and you have powerful forces pushing for war. It seems naive to think that we won't go to war with China, to hope that we are the first generation that can avoid war under these circumstances.

Then again, it is each generation's duty to hope to rise above the last. I hope that friendly attitudes and cosmopolitan cynicism can combine to keep conflict from flaring up, and to snuff out any little conflagrations that spring up instead of escalating them out of pride and fear. But inevitably we must plan for the opposite contingency. At the very least we must plan for mistrust and tension, and therefore, at the very least we cannot depend on a weapon that is indistinguishable from a first strike. The only reason to develop it is for research purposes.

P.S. Oh, man, isn't it a tempting idea to snuff out your main creditor? Nobody in the Congress has a more realistic plan for getting rid of the national debt.

You make an interesting point, but it seems that current way of thinking is that mutually assured destruction of the nuclear war will prevent the war between US and China.

The US developed plans to go to war with Canada. It is the perpetual imperative of a department of defense to be consider conflict with everyone, especially those nearest military parity.

I'm with burgerbrain on this one - how this launch is going to be distinguishable from Minuteman III launch?

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