Great piece, Noah. Two things can be true at once:
1) The procurement process is engineered for risk reduction, leading to long delays, low quantities and cost overruns.
2) The things that survive that procurement process are really damn good.
(Also, your point about the defense establishment not being part of the public conversation is 100% correct. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," etc.)
I could see it being part of the mix of strategic options for dealing with China’s glorified PT boats - our 10 amphibious assault ships can be spread out a lot easier than the main carrier fleet.
I don’t deny that it’s cool and has its uses, but it’s also the most expensive and complex variant and increased costs for the whole project. It wasn’t worth it.
Excellent again. Star Wars was more political in the 80s as technology wasn't ready. With an SB Physics geek and nerd schools early 70s, I've worked in the highest level of non classified optical systems..ie with the smart people (not me).
I also built my own gaming PC in 2002 with nVidia board. Ha. That destroyed mainframes and Sun and Apollo workstations at complex optical calculations.
So now lets think about missile interception. Again, I'm a non attorney no security clearance spokesman.
A. Upon signal enemy launch - counter launch
B. 1st moments need fast large angle analysis. Not precision yet. You get a target cross-section and head for it.
C. Mid range, reduce angle window, optimize TOF (Time of flight).
D. Closure, asymptotically tighten angle space, increase computational cycles.
E. As angle space closes, there are smaller and smaller delta iterations.
1. Ultra fast processors
2. Ultra efficient tight algorithms
3. Sensor plane array technology - cooled for IR, but now mutlispectral.
4. Optical lens design, ie off axis, optimize speed of lenses, ie below f1.2 and lower. Wide angle at the acquisition level.
5. Then tighter FOV (field of view) with precision.
That nice alumni really didn't understand the evolution of the key tech. It didn't exist in the 80s and 90s.
Two proofs we all can see
A. Gaming computers from 1984 to 2024
B. Film cameras of 84 cant compare to your cellphone camera and its sensor today. As an analogy
I think you've reached the wrong conclusions from the aerial battle between Iran and Israel. As an Israeli I'm very much pro the side which won this round, but I still think the engagement proved that air defence *doesn't* work.
Because:
1. The attack was telegraphed, and deployed against one of the best air defence forces in the world, backed up by an alliance that gave it access to as much air space, military intelligence and fire support it needed. Even so, seven missiles got through. Had this been a nuclear attack Israel would have been wiped off the map - and since nuclear strikes tend to be an all or nothing kind of deal, Iran would have committed more munitions in such a case.
2. Air defence is so much more expensive than air attacks that it can only ever possibly work as a means to buy some time against conventional strikes whole your own army strikes back and neutralizes the enemy to prevent further attacks.
3. In fact, Iran made a limited strike because it does not have faith in its own air defences being capable of stopping Israeli strikes. Israel is similarly unlikely to start an outright war because it does not think it can stop an Iranian attack for long.
So an air war is super scary for both sides, but if it happens, you have to make sure you're the aggressor - being on the defence is a losing game, and the strategic role of air defence is to buy (a little!) time to organize and offence. It's not impossible to hit a rocket with a rocket, it's just impossible to build a system that works at scale and over time.
"2. Air defence is so much more expensive than air attacks"
Is it? Yes, shooting down cheap drones with million dollar missiles isn't a good deal, but these ballistic missiles aren't cheap. E.g. the Iskander missile, patriot missile, and arrow missile all cost about the same amount (~$3 million give or take a million). Even if you have to shoot a couple air defense missiles per ballistic missile, a factor of two isn't "so much more expensive" --- especially since the ballistic missiles won't have a 100% success rate either. (Some reports say that half of the Iranian missiles crashed or didn't launch [1].)
But as the post noted, this was a widely telegraphed attack so that the allied forces could be prepared. And yes, missiles are expensive, but drones aren't and that is going to become dominant (see Ukraine)
I was a young officer in the Air Force during the Obama era. I did not fly, my career field (CE) was heavily stressed in deployment cycles. When I got back from a tour to the Middle East, I remember being frustrated when a colonel, in my performance review, said exasperated, "nobody CARES what you did there. How did you support our [Cold War] mission HERE?"
Sort of a jerk thing to say - but damn he was right. Still stings, definitely I consider my deployed time to be my "real" service and the home station time to be my "training." But I'm wrong. On a deep level, I misunderstood our posture and threats. And deep down, I still kind of do.
Which relates to a fair criticism of why we'd fight a war that we didn't commit to because it wasn't supported by the public and continued another war that wasn't taken seriously enough. But however you feel about how those wars were conducted, it's frustrating for me but also sort of comforting to know that the Big Blue Machine was rolling in the right direction, for the real threats.
Much weapon system criticism comes from people opposed on moral or emotional grounds to everything military in general and Western power in particular.
Ballistic missile defenses would allow the US to fight even well-armed smaller powers with immunity and therefore, in the eyes of some, increase the likeliness of military intervention and American power abuse.
Take any new weapon system, and you will find a think tank claiming that it is useless, but would be destabilising if developed (despite being allegedly useless).
The US also has a ship born anti-missile system called AEGIS (cruisers and currently destroyers) which uses the Standard Missile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Missile) to intercept a variety of threats. This system has been in continuous development since the 1980s.
The US DoD often pushes the technical limits when acquiring new weapons systems (e.g. F-35 and USS Ford class aircraft carriers). Sometimes the systems need to get bugs workedout. The military generally updates (fixes) these systems over the years of production. This is why you will see many systems listed as F-18A, F-18D and F-18E or So-and-so-system Block N (where N is a number). Basically the systems get better over time.
Last, I dislike attacking DoD systems for waste, but the DoD budgeting system IS messed up. Activities (think like NAVAIR or NAVSEA) get funded based on what they spent in the previous year, so there is motivation for them to spend every dollar they were budgeted to get the same budget or more the next year (called Use or Lose). At the end of each fiscal year they have a feeding frenzy, to get all budgeted funds spent. It has been this way for many decades and can result in less than optimal sizable expenditures.
USN wargaming of our carrier battle groups surviving contact with the Chinese navy, all anticipate saturation attacks with ship/sub/air-launched ballistic missiles. It's unclear how well the total anti-missile capabilities of a battle group's AEGIS and point defense systems will counter saturation barrages.
Chinese short range diesel-electric SS (or SSK) submarines are very numerous and a serious threat, but will mainly serve to force USN forces to keep their distance.
Chinese SS's in open waters would have to be neutralized the old-fashioned ASW (anti-submarine warfare) way: by torpedo. Locate them with ship/sub-based sonar, and air-dropped sonar buoys. Then kill them with wire-guided torpedoes launched from ships/subs/planes.
Chinese SS's that aren't running silent; i.e. on their batteries, can also be detected by radar or satellite when they use their diesel engines--either on the surface or submerged with a snorkel.
I love this piece. I don't think it is simply the result of articulate argumentation, either. I believe a good part of what I perceive in it, and the rest of your writing generally, is a mature, ethical mind doing its best to steer humanity towards the best possible outcome. I appreciate your work.
I do wonder if the expert consensus about ICBMs are still correct. No doubt they move extremely fast, but they also, by nature, travel far. That gives our computers more time to calculate their trajectories and destinations.
It is possible that all the nukes in the world will be launched at once, but I suspect that's unlikely. This past weekend hundreds of Iran's missiles and drones were shot down. I expect the US and Europe would face a similar number of nuclear warheads and dummies. I doubt there would be coordination between Russia and China so long as both are not attacked simultaneously. And I doubt either would be attacked by allied forces first, despite the US's utterly deplorable action in Iraq twenty years ago.
> I do wonder if the expert consensus about ICBMs are still correct.
Noah argues that what we're reading isn't an expert consensus. The LazerPig video argues the same thing, that it's a circular firing squad of people pointing at each other and saying "those experts over there say...", which may look like a consensus on the surface but when you dig in and do some checks it all falls apart.
This problem doesn't only affect military discourse. I used to work for a big tech firm that was often in the news, and much of the public discourse about it was unhinged. The problem was the same: journalists couldn't get the people with the actual expertise (i.e. doing the work) to talk because they were under confidentiality agreements and didn't much care what the press thought anyway, so would go to almost random people - often academics - who had no clue what they were talking about. Their bogus talking points would then get repeated ad infinitum in an echo chamber of stupid, until everyone believed things that were nonsense.
In theory there was a PR department whose job was to correct the record, but in practice left wing journalists tend to assume that anything said formally by a corporation is inherently a lie, and so they just wouldn't bother asking or they'd ask and then ignore the answers.
Sorry, I understood that in the article. I appreciate the additional example, but the “meat” of my comment wasn’t “expert consensus.” It was about ICBMs. And for whatever reason Noah seemed confident that our current systems couldn’t shoot those down.
“They’re too fast” seems an inadequate answer. If the success of the system on other rockets has been improvements in processing speed, we will have more time to process where ICBMs are headed, since most will be coming from far away and take longer to travel. Hasn’t the conventional wisdom been that once a nuclear war starts we’ll have 30-60 minutes to live? That’s a lot of time to do math and fire back.
“There will be dummy missiles” also seems inadequate. Ukraine is shooting sometimes dozens of rockets down every day. Israel — along with its allies — shot down about a hundred. The successes we have seen will only embolden the US defense department to produce a more robust missile shield. No longer will we have to rely solely on mutually assured destruction. We’ll have our own Iron Dome.
Now a swarm of a million flying drones will present another problem. And perhaps in tandem our defense system would have a hard time handling the noise. But it would also be more difficult to get a million drones flying over US air space.
Europe, however, may have a rough time with ICBMs and drones getting launched at it from next door. And the ultimate consequence of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is that Russia will end up with more nukes on its border, so Moscow will have a harder time enjoying security as well. For even if Russia succeeds in overrunning Kyiv, Ukrainians will conduct generations of counterinsurgency, blowing up Russian oil operations and military bases, as well as assassinating oligarchs. Eventually Russia will sue for peace and leave, as it did in Afghanistan (and as the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan).
But does it really matter if Russia controls Ukraine? Poland is next door, too. And Germany isn’t far beyond that. Putin is trying to protect Russia from a 19th century land war, when modern threats could hobble or extinguish it from the sky. Nobody but China conceivably wants Russian land. Indeed, there was some effort to build a bridge for Russia to join NATO decades ago. And NATO nations enjoy a lot of autonomy over their land. They haven’t even needed, traditionally, to meet their military obligations…
Good post man. DoD spending is done by professionals, and they know their "must have" and "nice to have if it works" projects. MDA, B21s, and Fords are must haves, so they spend whatevs and let Congress fight over the others. Zumwalts, littoral ships, and F22 were "nice to have". Must have projects sometime turn into revenue as long as we keep the good ones...like the F35, M1 Abrams, Patriot, and Aegis. Looks like Virginia might be there too now thanks to AUKUS. Note that we're not shopping out Ohios to anyone...
And youre right. Detection was always the key. That was on the "must have" menu, which is the one that doesnt list prices...
Noah, thank you for highlighting some of the things we're doing right. Particularly today, we need to remember that, as screwed up as we are in some ways politically and socially, some of our institutions actually still function pretty well.
My understanding is that 3 times as many interceptors are fired as there are incoming missiles or drones. Their price is in the millions each vs a much lower cost of what they are shooting down - hundreds of thousands perhaps. It works fantastically but could it be done, day after day, for any extended amount of time? How many could possibly be on each ship? I am looking for some context here. Could $1 billion been spent in one night? Please tell me what I do not get.
The cost asymmetry you point out is real and especially apparent as what is happening in RUS/UKR. The asset that the counter-missile is protecting though can be even more expensive and harder to replace than the missiles. When smaller faster drones get even less expensive/more numerable cost/supply will be more pronounced. No doubt adaptations are being implemented. Overall, I enjoyed Noah's post and the interesting comments.
Drone/missile warfare in UK/RU as reported seems to always include a mixture of drones and missiles of varying sizes. Until Ukraine began running out of Patriot missiles due to GOP perfidy (stupidity?), RU was launching ever larger salvoes, to saturate and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Presumably, as defender, identifying the high-value missiles from low value drones is not always easy or possible.
Arrow is about 3 million which is similar to the ~2 million of the Iranian ballistic missiles the engaged. We don't know what ordinance was used to engage the drones and cruse missiles but reports are they were predominantly jet launched but they are much cheaper, generally on the order of hundreds of thousands not millions. Iranian long range drones are sold for ~375000 to Russia but probably only cost tens of thousands to make. So the cost difference exists but it isn't as bad as Saudi Arabia using patriot to shoot down Houthi drones.
To note that this was a special case. Iran's goal was specifically to make a show of attacking Israel, but NOT hit anything important that would escalate the situation. I'm not sure how far they went - probably used the opportunity to clear a lot of old stocks instead of using the latest and best, and may have touched the scales in other ways as well. But either way, I'd be wary of updating too much from an incident which ended up exactly the way all the parties wanted it to end up.
That seems like a massive assumption. They fired a lot of metal and probably did not know the defenses would work so well. It looks like they wanted to blow a lot of stuff up.
Nah, they pre-announced the launch. And didn't send a ton of hardware. It was merely a face-saving gesture for Israel blowing up one of their embassies. Which was a serious violation of international law on Bibi's part, btw. Since when is bombing embassies ever ok? Bibi's just desperate to drag us into another wider Middle East war.
Because Iran's theocrats were assholes and seized our embassy does not mean it wasn't a violation of international law. And no, Bibi doesn't get a pass because the Mullahs are jerks. This is all about Bibi playing the United States, trying to draw us into another multi-trillion dollar war on their behalf. His timing--days before a House vote on a $14bn aid package says it all: he either gets his money; or he wins big and gets both his money and a wider US-backed war in the Gulf.
I'm of the opinion that outlaws are not afforded protection under the very laws they do not respect or follow. Unclean hands, and all of that. So, we just disagree on that point.
As for Bibi's strategy, well what about it? Isn't his job to do what's best on behalf of Israel? If you have a gripe with congress handing Israel or Hamas or Ukraine or [fill in the blank country] a bunch more money, your gripe should be with the US congress, not Bibi. I have my assorted gripes about Congress, as do most of us. Giving money to Israel is one of them, but it barely makes the top ten.
I'm an American, and want what's best for my country, not the other guy's. If spending a few trillion on credit right now on a war with Iran advanced our interests, I'd be for it. But it isn't. We actually had a winning opportunity to create regime change in Iran during the last year of the Bush-Cheney admin; but they got cold feet.
The biggest threat to the Pax Americana right now is the Sino-Soviet alliance. I truly believe that war with at least the Chinese part of that alliance is almost a certainty within the next decade. A war that will kill a lot of Americans and decide the future of our country. Giving military aid to Ukraine so that they continue to bleed the Russians dry is the most cost-effective way of degrading the Soviet part of that new Axis, and also boosts our domestic military manufacturing base. It is now an American national security imperative. GOP voters and their representatives currently support aiding Moscow and tanking Ukraine because they've been consuming pro-Putin propaganda on FOX for years now, and the leader of their party is an unapologetic Putin fanboy. The rest is just knee-jerk tribalism: if the Dems want to maintain the Pax Americana and NATO by degrading Russia militarily, then they gotta own them libs by supporting Putin.
Much of it is politics. Start out with the political overview (whether one should be for or against the person associated with the policy) and then one can almost always find a way to critique any policy. Would people have gone to so much time and effort to critique missile defense if it wasn’t Reagan pushing for it? I don’t think so. To be fair, START restrictions on MIRVs and launchers made missile defense more feasible (China under no such restrictions, unfortunately).
Weren’t many on the left as well as Biden and Harris skeptical of operation warp speed and the Trump vaccine push until Biden was elected and could benefit from it? And then the right became crazed anti-vaxxers (joining the usual crunchy leftists) while the left pushed ridiculous vaccine mandates? Funny how things work.
People like Matt shouldn’t apologize for political hackery- informed readers take it as given.
I don't think the vaccine analogy works. Historically the crunchy leftist anti-vaxxers were sort of naturalists, or at least often presented that way. They didn't have particularly deep or specific arguments. The modern "right" (it's by no means a partisan issue) has a number of very, very specific and deep arguments against the COVID vaccines, none of which are based on naturalism. They're mostly arguments about science or the risks of totalitarianism.
Not considering the quality or nature of the “arguments” at all. My point is that vaxxes became a political wedge issue and people then focus on arguments that give them the means to align with the politics.
How many “Star Wars” critics were Reagan fans? The few people who had passionate views on vaxxes or missile defense before these issues were embraced by pols were overwhelmed by those who formed opinions because of politics
I disagree that this is the direction of causality. I think you can argue that for the left who indeed flipped from anti to pro the moment the POTUS changed, but don't know anyone who decided to become a COVID vax skeptic because they felt their political tribe was going in that direction. Trump was and still is pro-COVID shots! It drove a wedge between him and his base. That was very much a grassroots organic thing.
Sure- just a coincidence my rabid anti-vaxxer friends happen not to vote Dem. Just like most of the passionate Star Wars critics coincidentally disliked Reagan.
You can almost always find “good reasons” to oppose anything - my point is about the underlying motivation to invest the time to go down those rabbit holes. It wasn’t passion for epidemiology nor ballistic missile re-entry velocities (with individual exceptions, of course). Basta.
A Dem friend of mine last night insisted that the nRNA vaccines were actually bioweapons. Another palmed off a Kennedy-link to an "analysis" of JAMA/Lancet Covid epidemiology purporting vaccines had killed more than the virus had; that was just cherry-picked garbage.
I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that I appreciate your intellectual integrity.
Yes. As a libertarian economist skeptic I don't have a whole lot in common with Noah politically, but subscribe for this kind of writing.
Great piece, Noah. Two things can be true at once:
1) The procurement process is engineered for risk reduction, leading to long delays, low quantities and cost overruns.
2) The things that survive that procurement process are really damn good.
(Also, your point about the defense establishment not being part of the public conversation is 100% correct. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," etc.)
Also, all that requirements creep that massively delayed the F-35… was kinda worth it.
Maybe? The short take-off and vertical landing variant (F-35B) still seems not worth it.
I could see it being part of the mix of strategic options for dealing with China’s glorified PT boats - our 10 amphibious assault ships can be spread out a lot easier than the main carrier fleet.
I prefer the Marine's current plan of, "Fuck it, we're putting anti-ship missiles on the back of a pickup truck."
https://breakingdefense.com/2021/09/what-is-nmesis-the-marine-corps-new-ship-killer/
FYI, the article says its range is 100 miles, vs. an F-35B's ~450 nm PLUS another 200-300 for an LRASM.
<porque_no_los_dos.gif>
$$$
I don’t deny that it’s cool and has its uses, but it’s also the most expensive and complex variant and increased costs for the whole project. It wasn’t worth it.
Excellent again. Star Wars was more political in the 80s as technology wasn't ready. With an SB Physics geek and nerd schools early 70s, I've worked in the highest level of non classified optical systems..ie with the smart people (not me).
I also built my own gaming PC in 2002 with nVidia board. Ha. That destroyed mainframes and Sun and Apollo workstations at complex optical calculations.
So now lets think about missile interception. Again, I'm a non attorney no security clearance spokesman.
A. Upon signal enemy launch - counter launch
B. 1st moments need fast large angle analysis. Not precision yet. You get a target cross-section and head for it.
C. Mid range, reduce angle window, optimize TOF (Time of flight).
D. Closure, asymptotically tighten angle space, increase computational cycles.
E. As angle space closes, there are smaller and smaller delta iterations.
1. Ultra fast processors
2. Ultra efficient tight algorithms
3. Sensor plane array technology - cooled for IR, but now mutlispectral.
4. Optical lens design, ie off axis, optimize speed of lenses, ie below f1.2 and lower. Wide angle at the acquisition level.
5. Then tighter FOV (field of view) with precision.
That nice alumni really didn't understand the evolution of the key tech. It didn't exist in the 80s and 90s.
Two proofs we all can see
A. Gaming computers from 1984 to 2024
B. Film cameras of 84 cant compare to your cellphone camera and its sensor today. As an analogy
Behold! It takes intelligence and self-respect to admit that your opinion has changed, and your previous opinion was naive. Well done.
I think you've reached the wrong conclusions from the aerial battle between Iran and Israel. As an Israeli I'm very much pro the side which won this round, but I still think the engagement proved that air defence *doesn't* work.
Because:
1. The attack was telegraphed, and deployed against one of the best air defence forces in the world, backed up by an alliance that gave it access to as much air space, military intelligence and fire support it needed. Even so, seven missiles got through. Had this been a nuclear attack Israel would have been wiped off the map - and since nuclear strikes tend to be an all or nothing kind of deal, Iran would have committed more munitions in such a case.
2. Air defence is so much more expensive than air attacks that it can only ever possibly work as a means to buy some time against conventional strikes whole your own army strikes back and neutralizes the enemy to prevent further attacks.
3. In fact, Iran made a limited strike because it does not have faith in its own air defences being capable of stopping Israeli strikes. Israel is similarly unlikely to start an outright war because it does not think it can stop an Iranian attack for long.
So an air war is super scary for both sides, but if it happens, you have to make sure you're the aggressor - being on the defence is a losing game, and the strategic role of air defence is to buy (a little!) time to organize and offence. It's not impossible to hit a rocket with a rocket, it's just impossible to build a system that works at scale and over time.
"2. Air defence is so much more expensive than air attacks"
Is it? Yes, shooting down cheap drones with million dollar missiles isn't a good deal, but these ballistic missiles aren't cheap. E.g. the Iskander missile, patriot missile, and arrow missile all cost about the same amount (~$3 million give or take a million). Even if you have to shoot a couple air defense missiles per ballistic missile, a factor of two isn't "so much more expensive" --- especially since the ballistic missiles won't have a 100% success rate either. (Some reports say that half of the Iranian missiles crashed or didn't launch [1].)
It looks like it's kind of a wash cost-wise.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-iran-strikes-live-coverage/card/many-iranian-missiles-failed-to-launch-or-crashed-before-striking-target-u-s-officials-say-TCd4YP2fiODhl1t9QDrL
But as the post noted, this was a widely telegraphed attack so that the allied forces could be prepared. And yes, missiles are expensive, but drones aren't and that is going to become dominant (see Ukraine)
I was a young officer in the Air Force during the Obama era. I did not fly, my career field (CE) was heavily stressed in deployment cycles. When I got back from a tour to the Middle East, I remember being frustrated when a colonel, in my performance review, said exasperated, "nobody CARES what you did there. How did you support our [Cold War] mission HERE?"
Sort of a jerk thing to say - but damn he was right. Still stings, definitely I consider my deployed time to be my "real" service and the home station time to be my "training." But I'm wrong. On a deep level, I misunderstood our posture and threats. And deep down, I still kind of do.
Which relates to a fair criticism of why we'd fight a war that we didn't commit to because it wasn't supported by the public and continued another war that wasn't taken seriously enough. But however you feel about how those wars were conducted, it's frustrating for me but also sort of comforting to know that the Big Blue Machine was rolling in the right direction, for the real threats.
Much weapon system criticism comes from people opposed on moral or emotional grounds to everything military in general and Western power in particular.
Ballistic missile defenses would allow the US to fight even well-armed smaller powers with immunity and therefore, in the eyes of some, increase the likeliness of military intervention and American power abuse.
Take any new weapon system, and you will find a think tank claiming that it is useless, but would be destabilising if developed (despite being allegedly useless).
Just a few comments.
The US also has a ship born anti-missile system called AEGIS (cruisers and currently destroyers) which uses the Standard Missile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Missile) to intercept a variety of threats. This system has been in continuous development since the 1980s.
The US DoD often pushes the technical limits when acquiring new weapons systems (e.g. F-35 and USS Ford class aircraft carriers). Sometimes the systems need to get bugs workedout. The military generally updates (fixes) these systems over the years of production. This is why you will see many systems listed as F-18A, F-18D and F-18E or So-and-so-system Block N (where N is a number). Basically the systems get better over time.
Last, I dislike attacking DoD systems for waste, but the DoD budgeting system IS messed up. Activities (think like NAVAIR or NAVSEA) get funded based on what they spent in the previous year, so there is motivation for them to spend every dollar they were budgeted to get the same budget or more the next year (called Use or Lose). At the end of each fiscal year they have a feeding frenzy, to get all budgeted funds spent. It has been this way for many decades and can result in less than optimal sizable expenditures.
USN wargaming of our carrier battle groups surviving contact with the Chinese navy, all anticipate saturation attacks with ship/sub/air-launched ballistic missiles. It's unclear how well the total anti-missile capabilities of a battle group's AEGIS and point defense systems will counter saturation barrages.
Chinese short range diesel-electric SS (or SSK) submarines are very numerous and a serious threat, but will mainly serve to force USN forces to keep their distance.
Does the US or China have anti-torpedo torpedoes to deal with the underwater threat?
No. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a41926547/why-torpedoes-are-tough-to-defend-against/
Chinese SS's in open waters would have to be neutralized the old-fashioned ASW (anti-submarine warfare) way: by torpedo. Locate them with ship/sub-based sonar, and air-dropped sonar buoys. Then kill them with wire-guided torpedoes launched from ships/subs/planes.
Chinese SS's that aren't running silent; i.e. on their batteries, can also be detected by radar or satellite when they use their diesel engines--either on the surface or submerged with a snorkel.
In coastal waters, anchored and unanchored naval mines are also extremely dangerous to subs and other ships. https://www.pacom.mil/Portals/55/Documents/Legal/J06%20TACAID%20-%20NAVAL%20MINE%20WARFARE%20-%20FINAL.pdf?ver=gLbgwiX0geT8vZdOEhZJLA%3D%3D#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Navy%20used%20naval,with%20several%20developmental%20programs%20active.
I love this piece. I don't think it is simply the result of articulate argumentation, either. I believe a good part of what I perceive in it, and the rest of your writing generally, is a mature, ethical mind doing its best to steer humanity towards the best possible outcome. I appreciate your work.
I do wonder if the expert consensus about ICBMs are still correct. No doubt they move extremely fast, but they also, by nature, travel far. That gives our computers more time to calculate their trajectories and destinations.
It is possible that all the nukes in the world will be launched at once, but I suspect that's unlikely. This past weekend hundreds of Iran's missiles and drones were shot down. I expect the US and Europe would face a similar number of nuclear warheads and dummies. I doubt there would be coordination between Russia and China so long as both are not attacked simultaneously. And I doubt either would be attacked by allied forces first, despite the US's utterly deplorable action in Iraq twenty years ago.
> I do wonder if the expert consensus about ICBMs are still correct.
Noah argues that what we're reading isn't an expert consensus. The LazerPig video argues the same thing, that it's a circular firing squad of people pointing at each other and saying "those experts over there say...", which may look like a consensus on the surface but when you dig in and do some checks it all falls apart.
This problem doesn't only affect military discourse. I used to work for a big tech firm that was often in the news, and much of the public discourse about it was unhinged. The problem was the same: journalists couldn't get the people with the actual expertise (i.e. doing the work) to talk because they were under confidentiality agreements and didn't much care what the press thought anyway, so would go to almost random people - often academics - who had no clue what they were talking about. Their bogus talking points would then get repeated ad infinitum in an echo chamber of stupid, until everyone believed things that were nonsense.
In theory there was a PR department whose job was to correct the record, but in practice left wing journalists tend to assume that anything said formally by a corporation is inherently a lie, and so they just wouldn't bother asking or they'd ask and then ignore the answers.
Sorry, I understood that in the article. I appreciate the additional example, but the “meat” of my comment wasn’t “expert consensus.” It was about ICBMs. And for whatever reason Noah seemed confident that our current systems couldn’t shoot those down.
“They’re too fast” seems an inadequate answer. If the success of the system on other rockets has been improvements in processing speed, we will have more time to process where ICBMs are headed, since most will be coming from far away and take longer to travel. Hasn’t the conventional wisdom been that once a nuclear war starts we’ll have 30-60 minutes to live? That’s a lot of time to do math and fire back.
“There will be dummy missiles” also seems inadequate. Ukraine is shooting sometimes dozens of rockets down every day. Israel — along with its allies — shot down about a hundred. The successes we have seen will only embolden the US defense department to produce a more robust missile shield. No longer will we have to rely solely on mutually assured destruction. We’ll have our own Iron Dome.
Now a swarm of a million flying drones will present another problem. And perhaps in tandem our defense system would have a hard time handling the noise. But it would also be more difficult to get a million drones flying over US air space.
Europe, however, may have a rough time with ICBMs and drones getting launched at it from next door. And the ultimate consequence of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is that Russia will end up with more nukes on its border, so Moscow will have a harder time enjoying security as well. For even if Russia succeeds in overrunning Kyiv, Ukrainians will conduct generations of counterinsurgency, blowing up Russian oil operations and military bases, as well as assassinating oligarchs. Eventually Russia will sue for peace and leave, as it did in Afghanistan (and as the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan).
But does it really matter if Russia controls Ukraine? Poland is next door, too. And Germany isn’t far beyond that. Putin is trying to protect Russia from a 19th century land war, when modern threats could hobble or extinguish it from the sky. Nobody but China conceivably wants Russian land. Indeed, there was some effort to build a bridge for Russia to join NATO decades ago. And NATO nations enjoy a lot of autonomy over their land. They haven’t even needed, traditionally, to meet their military obligations…
Good post man. DoD spending is done by professionals, and they know their "must have" and "nice to have if it works" projects. MDA, B21s, and Fords are must haves, so they spend whatevs and let Congress fight over the others. Zumwalts, littoral ships, and F22 were "nice to have". Must have projects sometime turn into revenue as long as we keep the good ones...like the F35, M1 Abrams, Patriot, and Aegis. Looks like Virginia might be there too now thanks to AUKUS. Note that we're not shopping out Ohios to anyone...
And youre right. Detection was always the key. That was on the "must have" menu, which is the one that doesnt list prices...
Keep up the good work bud.
This is superb. Now do renewables and nuclear power.
Noah, thank you for highlighting some of the things we're doing right. Particularly today, we need to remember that, as screwed up as we are in some ways politically and socially, some of our institutions actually still function pretty well.
This is the last place I expected to see a LazerPig video. +1
My understanding is that 3 times as many interceptors are fired as there are incoming missiles or drones. Their price is in the millions each vs a much lower cost of what they are shooting down - hundreds of thousands perhaps. It works fantastically but could it be done, day after day, for any extended amount of time? How many could possibly be on each ship? I am looking for some context here. Could $1 billion been spent in one night? Please tell me what I do not get.
It's probably not cost-effective to just sit there and defend, no.
Sounds like we need the missile interceptor equivalent of a JDAM kit.
If the missiles had landed the consequences (return fire, etc.) would've probably gotten a bit more expensive pretty quick.
True.
The cost asymmetry you point out is real and especially apparent as what is happening in RUS/UKR. The asset that the counter-missile is protecting though can be even more expensive and harder to replace than the missiles. When smaller faster drones get even less expensive/more numerable cost/supply will be more pronounced. No doubt adaptations are being implemented. Overall, I enjoyed Noah's post and the interesting comments.
Drone/missile warfare in UK/RU as reported seems to always include a mixture of drones and missiles of varying sizes. Until Ukraine began running out of Patriot missiles due to GOP perfidy (stupidity?), RU was launching ever larger salvoes, to saturate and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Presumably, as defender, identifying the high-value missiles from low value drones is not always easy or possible.
Arrow is about 3 million which is similar to the ~2 million of the Iranian ballistic missiles the engaged. We don't know what ordinance was used to engage the drones and cruse missiles but reports are they were predominantly jet launched but they are much cheaper, generally on the order of hundreds of thousands not millions. Iranian long range drones are sold for ~375000 to Russia but probably only cost tens of thousands to make. So the cost difference exists but it isn't as bad as Saudi Arabia using patriot to shoot down Houthi drones.
To note that this was a special case. Iran's goal was specifically to make a show of attacking Israel, but NOT hit anything important that would escalate the situation. I'm not sure how far they went - probably used the opportunity to clear a lot of old stocks instead of using the latest and best, and may have touched the scales in other ways as well. But either way, I'd be wary of updating too much from an incident which ended up exactly the way all the parties wanted it to end up.
That seems like a massive assumption. They fired a lot of metal and probably did not know the defenses would work so well. It looks like they wanted to blow a lot of stuff up.
Nah, they pre-announced the launch. And didn't send a ton of hardware. It was merely a face-saving gesture for Israel blowing up one of their embassies. Which was a serious violation of international law on Bibi's part, btw. Since when is bombing embassies ever ok? Bibi's just desperate to drag us into another wider Middle East war.
Ah, yes, The Islamic Republic of Iran. Respecting the embassies of other countries since 1979. Sorry to repost, but what she says:
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1779697432130928852
Because Iran's theocrats were assholes and seized our embassy does not mean it wasn't a violation of international law. And no, Bibi doesn't get a pass because the Mullahs are jerks. This is all about Bibi playing the United States, trying to draw us into another multi-trillion dollar war on their behalf. His timing--days before a House vote on a $14bn aid package says it all: he either gets his money; or he wins big and gets both his money and a wider US-backed war in the Gulf.
I'm of the opinion that outlaws are not afforded protection under the very laws they do not respect or follow. Unclean hands, and all of that. So, we just disagree on that point.
As for Bibi's strategy, well what about it? Isn't his job to do what's best on behalf of Israel? If you have a gripe with congress handing Israel or Hamas or Ukraine or [fill in the blank country] a bunch more money, your gripe should be with the US congress, not Bibi. I have my assorted gripes about Congress, as do most of us. Giving money to Israel is one of them, but it barely makes the top ten.
I'm an American, and want what's best for my country, not the other guy's. If spending a few trillion on credit right now on a war with Iran advanced our interests, I'd be for it. But it isn't. We actually had a winning opportunity to create regime change in Iran during the last year of the Bush-Cheney admin; but they got cold feet.
The biggest threat to the Pax Americana right now is the Sino-Soviet alliance. I truly believe that war with at least the Chinese part of that alliance is almost a certainty within the next decade. A war that will kill a lot of Americans and decide the future of our country. Giving military aid to Ukraine so that they continue to bleed the Russians dry is the most cost-effective way of degrading the Soviet part of that new Axis, and also boosts our domestic military manufacturing base. It is now an American national security imperative. GOP voters and their representatives currently support aiding Moscow and tanking Ukraine because they've been consuming pro-Putin propaganda on FOX for years now, and the leader of their party is an unapologetic Putin fanboy. The rest is just knee-jerk tribalism: if the Dems want to maintain the Pax Americana and NATO by degrading Russia militarily, then they gotta own them libs by supporting Putin.
Much of it is politics. Start out with the political overview (whether one should be for or against the person associated with the policy) and then one can almost always find a way to critique any policy. Would people have gone to so much time and effort to critique missile defense if it wasn’t Reagan pushing for it? I don’t think so. To be fair, START restrictions on MIRVs and launchers made missile defense more feasible (China under no such restrictions, unfortunately).
Weren’t many on the left as well as Biden and Harris skeptical of operation warp speed and the Trump vaccine push until Biden was elected and could benefit from it? And then the right became crazed anti-vaxxers (joining the usual crunchy leftists) while the left pushed ridiculous vaccine mandates? Funny how things work.
People like Matt shouldn’t apologize for political hackery- informed readers take it as given.
I don't think the vaccine analogy works. Historically the crunchy leftist anti-vaxxers were sort of naturalists, or at least often presented that way. They didn't have particularly deep or specific arguments. The modern "right" (it's by no means a partisan issue) has a number of very, very specific and deep arguments against the COVID vaccines, none of which are based on naturalism. They're mostly arguments about science or the risks of totalitarianism.
Not considering the quality or nature of the “arguments” at all. My point is that vaxxes became a political wedge issue and people then focus on arguments that give them the means to align with the politics.
How many “Star Wars” critics were Reagan fans? The few people who had passionate views on vaxxes or missile defense before these issues were embraced by pols were overwhelmed by those who formed opinions because of politics
I disagree that this is the direction of causality. I think you can argue that for the left who indeed flipped from anti to pro the moment the POTUS changed, but don't know anyone who decided to become a COVID vax skeptic because they felt their political tribe was going in that direction. Trump was and still is pro-COVID shots! It drove a wedge between him and his base. That was very much a grassroots organic thing.
Sure- just a coincidence my rabid anti-vaxxer friends happen not to vote Dem. Just like most of the passionate Star Wars critics coincidentally disliked Reagan.
You can almost always find “good reasons” to oppose anything - my point is about the underlying motivation to invest the time to go down those rabbit holes. It wasn’t passion for epidemiology nor ballistic missile re-entry velocities (with individual exceptions, of course). Basta.
A Dem friend of mine last night insisted that the nRNA vaccines were actually bioweapons. Another palmed off a Kennedy-link to an "analysis" of JAMA/Lancet Covid epidemiology purporting vaccines had killed more than the virus had; that was just cherry-picked garbage.