[Vision2020] The Genie Is Out Of The Bottle

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Donovan et. al.

Donovan wrote:

"I am not really worried about the nuclear bombs that can be launched at the 
US. I am under the impression that we would be able to knock those out of 
the sky on the way over here unless launched from Cuba or Canada, or Mexico. 
Which I think is unlikely. Although Russia does have subs it could launch 
from off the coast, I am not worried about this either. We can not only fire 
anti-missile missiles and projectiles at  missiles flying to the US, but we 
can also fry the the transistors of the missiles as they pass over the ocean 
not allowing them to detonate."

If you are referring to the antimissile system or systems once called "Star 
Wars" during the Ronald Raygun era, or the continuation of this multibillion 
dollar boondoggle during the Shrub era, the best minds will tell you that we 
still do not have a workable antimissile system that can completely stop a 
massive nuclear attack from Russia, even from land based missiles inside Russia.  
And I assume you are referring to the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) that can knock 
out electronics when you write that we can "fry the transistors" of the 
incoming missiles?  Again, not so easy.  One way to generate an EMP strong enough 
is to detonate a nuclear weapon.  This has been suggested as a way that 
satellites could be disabled in orbit, but doing this to a missile already in flight 
at thousands of miles per hour presents significant problems, as you can 
imagine.

The fact is that at this moment if everyone involved in controlling Russia's 
nuclear arsenal went MAD ("mutually assured destruction" functions on the 
assumption that the enemy will never launch an attack because they know they will 
be annihilated, but in warfare many instances of fighting to the death under 
impossible odds demonstrate how irrational human beings can be), and launched 
an all out nuclear strike against the USA, there would be no way to prevent 
numerous nuclear strikes at major targets in the USA.

Happy dreams!

Ted Moffett
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