What are you reading?

[number9]

Haven't read that book in forever but yep, very good stuff.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen. Available in the DOD MWR Library as e-book and audiobook.

Highly recommended.

 

[Damodred]

On the topic of nuclear conflict, the New York Times has published a number of articles this year. A selection (all of these should be accessible as gift articles even to non-subscribers):

The Secret Pentagon War Game That Offers a Stark Warning for Our Times

Opinion | Nuclear War: The Rising Risk, and How We Stop It

Opinion | America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion.

Opinion | The President’s Sole Authority Over Nuclear Weapons Is Dangerous

Opinion | What One Russian Satellite Tells Us About the Future of Nuclear Warfare

 

[ChuckMK23]

On the topic of nuclear conflict, the New York Times has published a number of articles this year. A selection (all of these should be accessible as gift articles even to non-subscribers):

The Secret Pentagon War Game That Offers a Stark Warning for Our Times

Opinion | Nuclear War: The Rising Risk, and How We Stop It

Opinion | America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion.

Opinion | The President’s Sole Authority Over Nuclear Weapons Is Dangerous

Opinion | What One Russian Satellite Tells Us About the Future of Nuclear Warfare

The subject needs a a broad conversation in the US political arena. It is disappointing that Americans understand little of our doctrine, the technical mechanisms at work, and the role of POTUS, SECDEF and other uniformed leaders. In many instances, the scenarios Ms. Jacobsen writes come across as Tom-Clancy-ish but its easy to make the connection as to how flaws in the US and Russian system can grow quickly to unchecked nuclear escalation and the needless destruction of humanity. The whole system seems designed around rational actors. in the case the author describes, an irrational North Korea - that the world has vastly underestimated (or mistaken for having a rational view of the world) is the root cause of our Mutually Assured Destruction. Launch On Warning seems just bad. Added to this there is no recall of a missle, and a missile past the boost phase is impossible to intercept. My guess is most Americans believe the US is protected from attack when in fact the capability to intercept an incoming missile or warhead is impossible.

To whit, I think most US Citizens would disagree with the concepts of:

The concept of Launch On Warning - an artificial time clock to respond that requires fallible humans to make decisions of enormous consequence before being informed of all available information
The concept of overwhelming response - in an effort to reestablish deterrence
POTUS having the sole launch/release authority
The role of The Secret Service in moving POTUS violently to a 'secure location' even if that means making POTUS unavailable to communicate with world leaders to tone down the situation.

I'm sure scenarios are played out again and again at the War College level. Are there scenarios where the just move is top absorb an attack and await analysis and dialog before responding? Also the EMP effects of an orbital burst weapon are equally unnerving just on its own.

Honestly it's an eye opening book.

 

[AIRMMCPORET]

Modern American Maritime Power.

Not done yet, unfortunately it’s painting a dim picture of how bad our maritime industry is.

 

[Flash]

To whit, I think most US Citizens would disagree with the concepts of:

The concept of Launch On Warning - an artificial time clock to respond that requires fallible humans to make decisions of enormous consequence before being informed of all available information
POTUS having the sole launch/release authority

There really aren't any good alternatives to 'Launch on Warning' and the President having sole launch authority in many cases. While they are far from ideal they are the 'least bad' option when faced with a possible large-scale nuclear conflict.

Added to this there is no recall of a missile, and a missile past the boost phase is impossible to intercept. My guess is most Americans believe the US is protected from attack when in fact the capability to intercept an incoming missile or warhead is impossible.

That is incorrect, almost all operational missile defense systems intercept missiles past the boost phase from Patriots to THAAD and Ground Based Interceptors. It is not impossible to intercept incoming missiles or warheads and it has been done many times, particularly in the last few years. It is not easy though and it is very expensive, with each individual interceptor usually costing $ millions. The quandary is that the longer the range of the threat usually increases the difficulty of intercept that translates into increased cost, and that is the reason we have only a limited number of GBI's that are capable of intercepting ICBM's.

This is a decent, simple and accurate overview of how the intercept of a longer-range missile, in this case an ICBM warhead intercepted by a GBI, would work. All parts of the Ground-based Missile Defense (GMD) system depicted are operational. As I mentioned though every piece of that intercept system very expensive though, with some parts costing $ billions.