You seem to believe that radars and infrared cameras can somehow distinguish between the decoys and the warheads, but they can’t. In space, no radar and no IR camera can differentiate between a conical foil balloon with a small heater inside and a reentry vehicle with a nuke.
Another problem of ballistic missile defense is that once you are dealing with nukes and not conventional warheads, you can’t afford, say, a 97% average interception rate, it must be 99.999+%[1]. To put this in context, Israel, which currently has the best BMD system in the world, couldn’t even reliably achieve 90% against Iranian MRBMs (and those are pretty unsophisticated, e. g. they lack MIRVs and decoys).
Now calculate how many interceptors your plan requires for a plausible probability of an interception with a single drone, and you will see it’s entirely unworkable. Note that both arguments are based on simple physics and math so don’t depend on the progress in technology at all.
When this seemingly waterproof probability is raised to the power of the Russian warhead count it still results in ~4% (basically 1e-5 times ~4k) of at least one RV not intercepted, and in reality hundreds of warheads will be harder to intercept than the average one you accounted for when calculating your probability. E. g., drones work poorly in bad weather, and it’s almost always bad weather above at least some of American cities
Yeah seems reasonable. I don’t think the system will ever get to 99%+ accuracy until the defense has like ASI and nanobots; my claim is mostly that the economics could shift from MAD (where the attacker is heavily cost advantaged) to something like conventional war, where each side has the ability to inflict unacceptable losses on the other but must pay a similar cost to attack and also can’t “win” with a first strike.
It’s not obvious that decoys change the conclusion if the cost ratio is otherwise favorable enough for the defender. Suppose the interceptors cost only $30k each due to economies of scale. Decoys can be distinguished when reentry starts at about 2 minutes before impact, and if the interceptor’s speed is 300 km/h (already possible with drones) it can cover 10 km in that time, about equal to the typical spread of decoys and warheads. Supposing the defender spends 5 drones per warhead x 10 warheads / missile, this would cost them $1.5 million, while the attacker has spent something like $30 million, the cost of a Trident II. For countervalue this could be defeated by the layered attack RussellThor mentioned unless there is a higher altitude cheap interceptor, but for counterforce the attacker needs several warheads per silo destroyed so the goal is achieved.
I found both that article and this one on their more recent history a great read.
Why would anyone want to pay a fortune for a system that is expected to let ~40 warheads through (assuming ~99% overall interception rate which will require average rate of 99.99+%), about the same as the number of ICBMs the Soviet Union had in service during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Unacceptable damage is the cornerstone of the nuclear deterrence, MAD or not (there is no MAD between India and Pakistan, for example).
The RV separation distance is normally around ~100 km (even up to 300 km in some cases) not 10 km, and the decoy dispersal might be expected on the same order of magnitude. It will be easy to ramp it up BTW with a cheap modernization.
None of the US adversaries really practice counterforce targeting, so the silo protection is moot.
You seem to believe that radars and infrared cameras can somehow distinguish between the decoys and the warheads, but they can’t. In space, no radar and no IR camera can differentiate between a conical foil balloon with a small heater inside and a reentry vehicle with a nuke.
Another problem of ballistic missile defense is that once you are dealing with nukes and not conventional warheads, you can’t afford, say, a 97% average interception rate, it must be 99.999+%[1]. To put this in context, Israel, which currently has the best BMD system in the world, couldn’t even reliably achieve 90% against Iranian MRBMs (and those are pretty unsophisticated, e. g. they lack MIRVs and decoys).
Now calculate how many interceptors your plan requires for a plausible probability of an interception with a single drone, and you will see it’s entirely unworkable. Note that both arguments are based on simple physics and math so don’t depend on the progress in technology at all.
If you are interested in the topic, I strongly recommend reading on the Soviet response to SDI for more expensive anti-ABM options that were considered but ultimately not pursued: https://russianforces.org/podvig/2013/03/did_star_wars_help_end_the_col.html
When this seemingly waterproof probability is raised to the power of the Russian warhead count it still results in ~4% (basically 1e-5 times ~4k) of at least one RV not intercepted, and in reality hundreds of warheads will be harder to intercept than the average one you accounted for when calculating your probability. E. g., drones work poorly in bad weather, and it’s almost always bad weather above at least some of American cities
Yeah seems reasonable. I don’t think the system will ever get to 99%+ accuracy until the defense has like ASI and nanobots; my claim is mostly that the economics could shift from MAD (where the attacker is heavily cost advantaged) to something like conventional war, where each side has the ability to inflict unacceptable losses on the other but must pay a similar cost to attack and also can’t “win” with a first strike.
It’s not obvious that decoys change the conclusion if the cost ratio is otherwise favorable enough for the defender. Suppose the interceptors cost only $30k each due to economies of scale. Decoys can be distinguished when reentry starts at about 2 minutes before impact, and if the interceptor’s speed is 300 km/h (already possible with drones) it can cover 10 km in that time, about equal to the typical spread of decoys and warheads. Supposing the defender spends 5 drones per warhead x 10 warheads / missile, this would cost them $1.5 million, while the attacker has spent something like $30 million, the cost of a Trident II. For countervalue this could be defeated by the layered attack RussellThor mentioned unless there is a higher altitude cheap interceptor, but for counterforce the attacker needs several warheads per silo destroyed so the goal is achieved.
I found both that article and this one on their more recent history a great read.
Why would anyone want to pay a fortune for a system that is expected to let ~40 warheads through (assuming ~99% overall interception rate which will require average rate of 99.99+%), about the same as the number of ICBMs the Soviet Union had in service during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Unacceptable damage is the cornerstone of the nuclear deterrence, MAD or not (there is no MAD between India and Pakistan, for example).
The RV separation distance is normally around ~100 km (even up to 300 km in some cases) not 10 km, and the decoy dispersal might be expected on the same order of magnitude. It will be easy to ramp it up BTW with a cheap modernization.
None of the US adversaries really practice counterforce targeting, so the silo protection is moot.