I am not a weapons expert, but some questions pop in my mind:
How do you hit a moving target from 2000 Km away? Using satellite images? UAVs serving as spotters? Well, worst-case scenario the U.S. carriers could release collosal amounts of smoke and create such a thick smoke-screen that no light or IR radiation would penetrate.
The Chinese could try to guide the missile remotely with a human operator being fed with "real-time" video, but good luck steering a missile at Mach 10 with a joystick, LOL.
Moreover, at Mach 10 the transmission delay could be a serious problem. After all, electromagnetic radiation takes some time to travel 2000 Km -- approx. 7 ms (to which one must add the processing delay) -- and controlling a missile with super-fast dynamics with a 10 ms delay is not trivial. A thought experiment: try driving your car on the highway at 200MPH, with your windshields covered and with no sensing other any "real-time" video of the road ahead which has a delay of 100 ms. Good luck!
If the enemy missiles use radar, they're giving away their position. Advanced high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARM) could perhaps try to intercept them. A desperate counter-measure could be to release immense ammounts of metal strips to fool the missiles' radars.
If I remember right, the U.S. Navy had plans to equip carriers with super-mean machine guns capable of shooting 1 million bullets per minute, thus creating such a thick cloud of lead that no enemy missile would be able to pass through. Sounds low-tech, but it could work, right?
I'm not a weapons expert, but I believe this is a solved problem since the Falklands conflict. Target tracking a carrier by a simple missile traveling very fast a few feet above the water is not hard. Shooting down one such missile at a time is also not hard.
Whats relatively new is the idea is that no carrier group could live through 100 or 500 or 1000 missiles as advanced as the Exocet from the 80s launched simultaneously from small boats and planes.
These new guidance systems make the problem much worse, because shooting down even one is hard.
The Exocet's range is what? Let us imagine that it's 200 Km. Any aircraft that gets that close to an aircraft carrier will be intercepted.
Now suppose that the Chinese come up with an Exocet-like missile with 10x the Exocet's range. You fire it at where you think a carrier group is located. How does the missile distinguish a carrier from a destroyer? Optical signature alone? Still, the missile would have to go through all the protecting ships of the carrier group.
Swarms of small boats and planes launching 100s of such missiles would be a big problem indeed. But the response could be to have swarms of UAVs equipped with anti-missile technology, covering an area within 500 Km of the carrier group.
A carrier group is moving at 20 knots. Taking 10 minutes to reach the target, the group has moved 3 or 4 nautical miles in any direction. And it's not like you can have a radar lock on the target from the instant you launch.
Launching has its own perils. Assuming your launch system survived a first strike, or you start a sneak attack, satellites, airplanes, and ground support personnel can watch a missile being launched. There exists an intercept for ballistic missiles in early boost phase from several platforms: laser and anti-missile-missile come to mind.
But let's say you reach apogee and you have radar lock -- after all, a carrier is nothing if it isn't a big hunk of flat metal in an otherwise noisy ocean. So you're 100 miles or so up at mach 10 and you're heading straight down at the carrier.
At this point the Aegis system kicks in with the RIM-161 system. It's another proven system designed to do what -- that's right, take out ballistic missiles.
Assuming you make it through that, then you've got the phalanx system, a system which uses radar to throw up a hailstorm of lead at a missile headed for the carrier.
Now I've said nothing of Electronic Counter-Measures. You can be assured, however, if you're using radar that radars can be jammed, fooled, and made to spit out confusing data. There are all sorts of other fun games you can play with ECM, but I'll leave that for another day.
I think there's a real danger, no doubt. But the end of carriers? All carriers are rotting scrap heaps? Please. That's a lot of yelling and attention-seeking blogging, not serious analysis. (Not that I know anything, but I do know a few things)
"I think there's a real danger, no doubt. But the end of carriers? All carriers are rotting scrap heaps? Please. That's a lot of yelling and attention-seeking blogging, not serious analysis."
I wholeheartedly agree. In my most humble opinion, an emerging fad is to announce the collapse of all things American. This meme has been gaining momentum for years. Now we hear stories like:
- the U.S. dollar will soon be worthless and the American economy will collapse.
- the U.S. will disintegrate into a bunch of smaller countries.
- all American technical jobs will move overseas, mainly to India and (guess what?) China!
- the U.S. Military is at its most vulnerable point in History.
I will believe in doomsday scenarios when I have the numbers to analyze. Like John McCarthy once said: "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense."
While I agree to a point, I would like to add that this meme has not sprung spontaeneously from a vacuum - in my opinion, it is a fairly well-deserved reaction to American hubris on a wide spectrum.
One only need turn on Fox News for a few minutes to hear the familiar "I believe America is the greatest nation on earth", "greatest country on earth", "greatest nation in history" - you may not personally be a fan of Fox News but the fact remains it is the most popular news network in the USA, so must be considered to have some representative credibility - or if you don't believe that, just listen to George W. Bush's similar words. As a native of another country, I can attest to the laughter, then annoyance, then sneering cynicism about all things American such oft-repeated nonsense provokes. And I am far from anti-American.
I don't personally believe that America is headed inevitably for ruin and poverty, but its post-WWII shine is definitely wearing off as it takes its more rightful place as just another country - a big, rich, successful country mind you, but not the God-appointed Country of Countries in the minds of the "Greatest, Free-est, best nation on earth" crowd. It's not hard to understand the schadenfreude this inspires as the hubristic boosterism drifts yet further from reality.
Everyone hates a braggart. Everyone rejoices, at some level, when the braggart is shown up to be the vain fool he always was. There's an element to this in the meme you describe, I think.
I entirely agree that the post-WWII shine is wearing off, but that is a sign of things converging to their right place. The U.S. emerged as the western world's only superpower after a war which left Europe in ruins and half the world behind an Iron Curtain. That was an anomaly.
There's a huge difference between ceasing to be the world's only superpower and collapsing. It seems to me that many people are blinded by schadenfreude indeed, while many others react way too negatively to this new reality.
Then we are in full agreement. The problem is that many Americans seem to have interpreted the post-WWII ascendancy of America as some kind of God-given mandate to reign forevermore at the top of Earth's and indeed the Universe's food chain, not for the temporary historical anomaly that it was. Those misguided people are in for a rude awakening, and none too soon.
But yes - America will not collapse, of course, no matter how much anyone wishes it. Talk about your "too big to fail".
And I for one am .. wary about the Chinese ever gaining as much relative power as the USA possessed at the height of its geopolitical dominance. Petty schadenfreude takes a pretty far back seat to that concern, let me tell you, so I for one am hoping the Yanks can pull out of their dive and go on to maintain a global counterweight to the Yellow Peril, soonest.
I agree that the "best country in history" is a bit obnoxious, but it is clearly a fact that the US is the only current super power. The obvious secondary one is China, but it is not there yet, and the EU as a whole has muscle but no individual country can match the US militarily or economically.
Ironically, the current recession will likely wind up strengthing the US comparitive to the rest of the world. While we have 2 bickering parties trying to figure it out, the EU has a bunch and they are reacting more slowly than the US (now at least). China will fall because the US imports are their primary economic driver and services will pick up in the US prior to goods.
That's true. When there was trouble in the Balkans, Europe was uncapable of dealing with it and had to call Uncle Sam. On the other hand, the EU is good at using its economic muscle. For instance, in 2004 the EU expanded its territory by over 20% without firing a single shot ;-)
Something was bugging me about this comment. I think this is it: Everyone hates a braggart
Why would I hate a braggart? I could care less about people bragging about their stuff -- cars, clothes, country, whatever.
The only reason I would hate a braggart is, unfortunately for this context, if I felt inferior to them. But otherwise, who cares? They're just a bore. Lots of people are bores, about all kinds of things. I don't wish them any ill or harm, and I would not rejoice to see them brought down. I just find better things to do than hang out with them. That is, once again, unless I felt that they had something I really needed or envied.
I guess that's the rub, huh.
EDIT: I'm very sorry if my comment seems rude. I'm sure there's a better way to say what I wanted. I just didn't want the idea that hating people who brag was somehow a normal or acceptable thing to do. It's not. I say -- let braggarts be braggarts. At least they seem happy about whatever they feel so superior about.
Braggart is perhaps the wrong word, but I couldn't think of a more suitable one - perhaps you can pick up the gist from the rest of the comment.
There's some truth in what you say, of course, and I agree envy would also be a factor, especially coming from citizens of, say, Iran, or whereever. Your textbook love/hate relationship there.
However, when said "braggart" is in possession of the largest military in the world, and is inclined towards its enthusiastic use, ignoring them is not really an option. I am talking about, of course, the Iraq war, whose justification really boils down to "because we're America, and we can do whatever we want, and we feel like doing this". Who cares? Everyone who does not like the idea of one country invading others at whim, that's who, anyone who respects life. It is hard to overstate the loss in prestige, in basic respect, the Iraq war has precipitated for America.
Anyway, not trying to endorse this view, just trying to explain it to the GP.
So aside from changing the rules for U.N. Security Council Chapter Seven binding resolutions, which call for member states to use force to uphold them ( and which Iraq was in violation of more than a dozen of them), I believe you're saying that because people didn't like the Iraq invasion, they'd like to see the Chinese or somebody else have the capability to sink U.S. (and other nations too) carriers at will. Sort of to even the score?
(That's all I'm going to say on Iraq, and that probably was too much)
No mention of the Chinese invading Tibet? Or the Soviets taking half of Europe? Just as long as somebody comes along to take down those yanks a notch or two?
Makes some sense to me -- I guess. I know as an American I'm tired of us being the only superpower. I sincerely wish other countries would take a hint from how we grew (less regulation, more creative chaotic growth, change of leadership on a regular basis) and catch up. That seems more productive than wishing ill or any person or country, but I guess wishing the other guy falls down is easier than picking up your own pace, eh?
Not my cup of tea.
Thanks for explaining it some more. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but then again, most public opinion things don't!
Who is saying they would "like" to see US carriers at risk? Whether they wish that or not is irrelevant. The carriers are vulnerable, or not, wishes irregardless. I think the article is bunk, anyway, for reasons stated in the parents to this comment.
What I meant is that Iraq is a very good example of why the "braggart" could not be ignored. That's all I meant. I didn't mean to get into a discussion of UN resolutions, etc. Let's not go there, OK, it's been done to death. Suffice to say that the US has not been too interested in enforcing, militarily, any other UN resolutions in approximately forever. That was just a pretext - we all know it. Anyway, it's done, and I don't think it will happen again.
China's record is terrible, as is Russia's. But America is a western liberal democracy and is held to a higher standard, as it should be.
I think we actually agree on many things. America needs a counterweight, it needs to play a game with an opponent. If it sits too long on the throne of absolute power, it grows corrupted by it, and its best attributes wither. The rise of China could be the best thing that has happened to America in half a century, and I truly hope that America's noble character comes again to the fore.
I like being an American. I think Americans have always liked being Americans -- long before the end of WWII. I'm perfectly happy with 19th century America: mostly agrarian, no income tax, weak federal government, little or no world power.
Back in those days Europe was the place to go for nationalism and jingoism. They had war after war. Intrigue was thick. Quite frankly Americans were sick of it and didn't want anything to do with it.
After WWII, America was deeply concerned that the Europeans not draw them into another world war. At any cost, they wanted a stable Europe. What ended up happening was that they got exactly what they wanted: Europe has basically no capability for force projection and is peaceful even in the face of terrible atrocities. They simply don't have the ability to do a lot. The Americans were left holding the bag that Europe had in the 1800s -- projecting force, ensuring trade, meddling in foreign conflicts.
In general, I'm not buying into a pretext argument unless a person can demonstrate some kind of ulterior or true motive. Otherwise it's just arm-waving and innuendo. A legitimate reason is not a pretext. This was not Germany invading Poland. Having said that, there is a great difficulty is trying to pick a single reason for a legislative body to vote the use of force. There are probably dozens.
So yes, I'm totally happy with America sharing the world stage. Wouldn't it be much better to share it with Australia or France though? Aren't there dozens of better choices than a country stuck with a political system that is bound to collapse at some point?
Ha. You're kind of outing yourself as a white male with statements like that. I daresay blacks or women would be none too eager to join you in your idyllic 1800s paradise. There is something to be said for the simple life on the land, though for me I'll keep my A380s, internet and penicillin, thanks.
I like your point about "be careful what you wish for". America was certainly left holding the bag all right, and perhaps it took a long time to sink in the reasons that the Europeans had been so eager to hand it over. Truth is, no one country should be holding that bag, which is why a proper UN (not necessarily the UN we have today) is so desirable and inevitable. Hopefully the USA, realising that playing the role of global policeman is not the fun career it envisaged in its youth, will come to realise that a supranational pseudo-government is actually a very good idea. I predict this "realisation" will occur right about the time China overtakes the USA as the world's pre-eminent nation, in perhaps 20 or 30 years' time.
Well, like I said, the Iraq question is a very, very dead horse by now. The American opinion might have something to do with WMDs and UN Resolutions and what not, but the rest of the world has pretty much decided Iraq was pretty much just a 9/11 scapegoat and would never have been attacked absent the WTC incident. Argue if you want but there's not much point - I was explaining a sentiment, not trying to defend it. Anyway my own country was right there beside you, so not like I can point fingers. Folly on your part was also folly on my part. Ah well. Lessons learnt, hopefully.
Well, regarding the world stage - I don't think France or Australia are the peers you're looking for. France is 1/5th the size of the USA and Australia, 1/15th the size! Not really on the same level.
America's natural peers are the EU, India, China, ASEAN, CAFTA, CIS, and other blocs. America, too, will subsume into a bloc (NAFTA or successor), in time. I really see this process as inevitable. Hopefully we'll arrive fairly soon at a point where we have 10 or so major blocs sitting around a table, almost like elected officials representing their electorate, and they can duke out this kind of stuff with real authority and the power to back up their words. Not there yet, but it's a hope.
One more thing - don't bank on China's political system collapsing anytime soon. It won't. It's not even that bad, really. Communism is practically gone and if anything the country as everyday people experience it is now even more capitalist than America. They have even been experimenting with local elections, though not called by that name. Give them a few more years and I wouldn't have any problem living in China. It's a toss-up even today, honestly.
> Truth is, no one country should be holding that bag, which is why a proper UN (not necessarily the UN we have today) is so desirable and inevitable.
Not so fast. Desirable? In what universe would you want the Chinese, Americans, Russians, or even French to share authority over you?
Yes, police to deal with "bad people" is good/desirable, but mission-creep and the definition of "bad people" is important because you really don't want police dealing with you or good people. Since large organizations can't resist....
> Hopefully the USA, realising that playing the role of global policeman is not the fun career it envisaged in its youth, will come to realise that a supranational pseudo-government is actually a very good idea.
What experience with supranationals supports that theory?
Isolationism is the least bad choice. Occasionally, it doesn't work, and it sucks for countries with neighbors who have bad habits, but intervention has only two outcomes, and they're both bad. (There's nothing that breeds hatred better than actually helping someone who didn't want to be helped. And, if they actually want to be helped, there's really very little to do for them.)
And no, it doesn't matter that the intervention is coming from folks who belong to a supranational.
This is without even considering what the fact that the greatest evils come from folks who "meant well" means for a supranational.
" In what universe would you want the Chinese, Americans, Russians, or even French to share authority over you?"
They already do, of course. Heard of the WTO?
Anyway, I'm not proposing we submit all authority to the UN. One country One vote doesn't work, IMO. But One Trade Bloc One Vote is far more palatable.
The arguments you make against global police are generalisable to local police, too. Yes, corruption is a danger. With good governance this is manageable.
"What experience with supranationals supports that theory?"
The WTO, which has, as far as I can see, been a smashing success.
I don't really understand the rest of your points. "Isolationism" has not been practised by the USA for a century.
I would be a lot more persuaded by your points about an evil supranational if we didn't see so much evil perpetrated by mere nations all around us. You might fear the USA's wings being clipped, but everyone elses' would be as well. And a global body with real power and moral mandate could do real good. For example, it could have stopped Darfur. And, being disinterested in China's exports, it could constrain their misadventures in Tibet and Africa too.
Think "WTO with morals". Does that really sound so bad?
The fact that something exists doesn't make it desirable.
> The arguments you make against global police are generalisable to local police, too.
Yup, but the scope of local police is limited, which limits the problems that bad ones can cause.
> Yes, corruption is a danger. With good governance this is manageable.
You don't get to assume unobtanium. Good governance decreases with organization size.
> The WTO, which has, as far as I can see, been a smashing success.
Tell that to the folks whose economies are crippled by agricultural subsidies by the EU and the US.
> "Isolationism" has not been practised by the USA for a century.
So? We don't have the supranationals that you favor, yet that's no obstacle to you proposing them, so how is the lack of isolationism today an obstacle?
> I would be a lot more persuaded by your points about an evil supranational if we didn't see so much evil perpetrated by mere nations all around us.
How does getting a bunch of evil together in the same room produce good?
The existence of a problem does not imply that there's a solution, let alone a solution of a given form.
> Think "WTO with morals". Does that really sound so bad?
Since I don't think that the WTO has especially good morals, it's unclear why I should think that it's good.
And, WTO pretty close to the best of the bunch. (The folks who allocate radio spectrum are arguably better.) The vast majority of supranationals are a disaster.
Yes, there's a chance that a new supranational would be good, but the odds are that it won't be.
"The fact that something exists doesn't make it desirable."
But you haven't pointed out any reason why it's not desirable. And in the case of, say, the WTO, there are measurable improvements in trade and international cooperation arguing in its favour.
"Yup, but the scope of local police is limited, which limits the problems that bad ones can cause."
I meant per-country local actually, so for the USA that would be the FBI. Are you against that? Plenty of examples of national/federal law enforcement, they seem to work OK. And needless to say there are international associations as well - Interpol, for one. Have you noticed any of them spinning headlong into tyrranny?
"You don't get to assume unobtanium. Good governance decreases with organization size."
Your argument here is expanding in scope, seemingly against all government. By the same principle you'd be against Federal government in the US - indeed, even State govt. Where do you stop? And why hold this view at all? Large governments have their flaws, but it's hard to see a viable alternative.
"Tell that to the folks whose economies are crippled by agricultural subsidies by the EU and the US."
Because there's no-one big enough to stand up to them? Greater international cooperation would hopefully act against this kind of thing. And I agree, it is an outrage.
Your arguments are confused. In one you're saying that supranational influence over countries is a bad thing. And then you come up with that point, in which it would obviously be a good thing if a supranational body had the power to force the US and the EU to abolish an unjust subsidy.
"So? We don't have the supranationals that you favor, yet that's no obstacle to you proposing them, so how is the lack of isolationism today an obstacle?"
I don't understand. It's not an obstacle. You were holding up isolationism as something good, and I was pointing out it has been on the decline for a century, with few bad effects and many good ones.
"How does getting a bunch of evil together in the same room produce good?"
Look, I don't know what you're thinking of. My suggestion was that you'd have the major trade blocs sitting around a table, and empowered to authorise, or not, wars. Trade blocs are not "evil", they have interests, and those interests would hopefully advise against starting wars unless they were really well justified.
It would produce "good" in the same way that getting a bunch of evil people together to make the laws they all have to live by would produce "good". Even a society of murderers doesn't want to make murder legal, since they all have to live in it!
"I don't think that the WTO has especially good morals"
Morals was probably the wrong word. I meant, with a mandate beyond trade. Specifically, to authorise wars, interventions, etc, and with the power to back it up, unlike the UN. I guess I kind of think that's a moral thing but the word doesn't seem to fit all that well - can't think of an alternative for now.
"The vast majority of supranationals are a disaster."
What are you talking about? No they're not. You can question the IMF's methods but they're hardly a "disaster". Nor the world bank, ICC, EU, Mercosur, etc etc. And there's a lot of international law - law of the sea, the WTO rules, hell the Geneva convention.
Where's this "vast majority" which is a "disaster"?
The UN hasn't exactly gone as well as it could have, but even so most of its own "disaster" has been in opportunities lost, not misguided actions taken.
"Yes, there's a chance that a new supranational would be good, but the odds are that it won't be."
And we're just powerless to toss that coin, are we? Obviously we would try to make it good.
Your assertion that the "odds" are in favour of bad is not backed up by anything you've said. There are plenty of good supranationals, and they all seem to be working OK, or at least not actively bad. I don't understand the kneejerk antipathy to the idea.
> I meant per-country local actually, so for the USA that would be the FBI. Are you against that?
No, I'm not especially impressed with the FBI. Their crime "lab" turns out to have been a sham and that's supposedly one of their best features.
> Plenty of examples of national/federal law enforcement, they seem to work OK.
Oh really? How about some actual evidence instead of quotes cribbed from their funding requests.
> Large governments have their flaws, but it's hard to see a viable alternative.
Small govts of limited scope are pretty easy to see.
> Greater international cooperation would hopefully act against this kind of thing.
Hope isn't a plan. Greater international cooperation doesn't have the properties you assume. We have agricultural subsidies because the contries involved want them. We'll stop having them when they don't. International cooperation won't change that.
> And then you come up with that point, in which it would obviously be a good thing if a supranational body had the power to force the US and the EU to abolish an unjust subsidy.
You misunderstand. You're claiming that the WTO is good. I'm pointing out that it isn't good because it hasn't done the good thing that is obviously within its scope. Claiming that it could doesn't change that fact.
> You were holding up isolationism as something good, and I was pointing out it has been on the decline for a century, with few bad effects and many good ones.
Actually, you didn't point to any effects - you merely pointed that it was in decline.
>>How does getting a bunch of evil together in the same room produce good?
> My suggestion was that you'd have the major trade blocs sitting around a table, and empowered to authorise, or not, wars.
Trading blocks are composed of nations and we've already heard about nations, namely "I would be a lot more persuaded by your points about an evil supranational if we didn't see so much evil perpetrated by mere nations all around us."
> It would produce "good" in the same way that getting a bunch of evil people together to make the laws they all have to live by would produce "good". Even a society of murderers doesn't want to make murder legal, since they all have to live in it!
Except that it doesn't work that way. The murderers don't want folks murdering them, but they don't extend that courtesy to others. You need mostly good to pull off good govt and that's not an option at the supranational level.
> You can question the IMF's methods but they're hardly a "disaster".
Actually, I can question pretty much everything about the IMF as it has been a disaster in both methods and results.
> There are plenty of good supranationals, and they all seem to be working OK, or at least not actively bad.
The good ones have extremely limited scope and are in areas where standards have huge benefits to all parties and almost no downside to anyone. (That's why I mentioned the radio folks.) The WTO is on the edge of that and starting to fail. The organizations that you propose are well beyond that threshold.
> I don't understand the kneejerk antipathy to the idea.
That's okay - I do understand the fanboy reading of the press releases.
It's unclear that the WTO hasn't passed its peak of "good". There hasn't been much progress since 2006 and the recent G-20 meeting abandoned the term "free markets" as a goal.
I'm perfectly willing to blame the US for that change (even though it's not the only one pushing that direction) - my point is that the smashing success is likely a thing of the past.
> Hopefully we'll arrive fairly soon at a point where we have 10 or so major blocs sitting around a table, almost like elected officials representing their electorate, and they can duke out this kind of stuff with real authority and the power to back up their words.
Good ghod, I hope not. Why would I want folks representing some foreign power to have any authority over me?
If they've got a good idea, I can implement it without doing as they insist. If they've got a bad idea, why would I want to implement it?
"Why would I want folks representing some foreign power to have any authority over me?"
That's the reality of living in a multilateral world. For an up to the minute example, check out where a lot of AIG's bailout money is going: repaying its promises to the europeans. That cannot but be the result of intragovernmental "pay that or else". Who knows what the "or else" was but obviously coughing up $100B (and counting, rapidly) was preferable.
The EU is the largest economy on the planet. The USA does what the EU says, for anything to do with trade anyway. Wouldn't you prefer the process to be formalised, public, debated, representative?
Anyway, we were talking about war, so here's an example of looking on the bright side of things. Imagine there was such a supranational body, with the balls to say no to, well, anyone. Imagine GWB went to them, cap in hand, asking to invade Iraq. They told him to go jump, as they obviously would. You'd be up, what, 4,000 soldiers and half a trillion dollars in treasure?
A 10-member "war council" is not a bad idea at all.
Decentralized systems are much more stable in the long run than top-heavy centrally-planned ones. Only the looter welfare state crowd is lying to themselves about that.
Oh yes, decentralised systems like Europe in the 20th century? We've just had 60 years of (relative) peace precisely because there was a top-heavy single-superpower (well, two superpowers for a lot of it, but still).
There are so many counterexamples to your argument it's not funny. Are societies with single governments less stable than those with several parties all pulling for control? Do trade agreements make regions more or less stable? These are all self-evident.
Not sure what you mean by "tinfoil", I assume it's meant to be insulting, but I really don't see the controversy.
I wasn't referring to all of the other issues with 19th century America, just its role in world politics.
There are a few problems with your scenario.
First, experience has shown us time and again that governments must be ratified by active, regular, popular participation. There must be a mechanism in place to switch parties or plans. There's simply too many countries which do not fit that role currently. And a gang of dictatorships is just that: a gang. It's not a functioning government. You have to have representation. Elected leaders.
Second, one of the roles of government is to be the sole entity that enjoys the legitimate use of force. I can't see any scenario where governments are going to forgo their monopoly on force. In other words, as a treaty organization, which the UN is, it's wonderful. Countries decide how much they want to help and how to interpret treaties. As a world government, it would suck.
I'm sure we need to move towards better treaties, no doubt. But world government is a long way away due to foundational problems with both the U.N. and existing member states. You have to remember, the U.N. was supposed to keep us out of WWIII, not become a world government. It's done its job so far, but I'm not optimistic for the future. As Korea shown, countries will do what they please UN or no. At the end of the day, deciding to flout the UN or not is a PR decision.
I hope that one day we'll have a world-wide representative government. But, alas, hope is not a strategy! (wink)
It's a cultural thing. Scandinavians and Australians in particular hate braggarts and even have phrases for this cultural tendency: janteloven and tall-poppy syndrome.
Other cultures have responses for the boastful which range from eye-rolling and groans (UK) to active encouragement (NBA, pro boxers, battle rappers).
At 2000km range, the aircraft carrier is not in a possition to deliver the first strike. Also, small ballistic missiles are typicaly launched from mobile platfrms (trucks).
If you were talking about nucler first strike, you should note that this article is about conventional warfare.
It's not a good day when the #2 story on HN is a War Nerd piece.
This "scrap metal" BS is typical of the kind of hyperbole nonsense Redditors get off on. Just because there exists a weapon that can destroy a certain target, doesn't make this target worthless - if that was true, everything is "scrap metal" since the first nuclear bomb.
I admit I stopped after the first page, but to use a chess metaphor, this article is about how the chess game is over before it starts because black's bishop is doomed because white has a queen. Even if every word is true, it's an analysis so myopic that the value of analysis is a flat zero.
Besides, I remember similar analyses before both Iraq wars. Today you can get away with describing that army with various denigrating terms, but I'm old enough to remember how the Iraq army was the world's third-best at the time of the invasion according to pundits everywhere. (To be honest, I have no idea if it was true, and it's doesn't really matter since I'm specifically talking about the punditry and commentary.) People who know what they are talking about sound sober and realistic, not hyperbolic and bombastic. (And of course merely "sounding sober and realistic" doesn't prove they do know what they are talking about.)
>> I remember similar analyses before both Iraq wars.
As do I. And don't forget the classic "brutal Afghan winter", endlessly discussed in the mainstream media, that was going to prevent the US from seizing Kabul et al. Except, you know, when the US and its Afghan allies took it in less than three weeks.
Oh, but don't forget: "Elite Republican guard" and "experienced from their wars with Iran". There was a whole series of talking points. Philwelch may be correct on the 3rd vs. 4th point, but I am pretty sure the talk was of them being the third/forth best. (Possibly the pundits think they could have beaten China in some hypothetical fight, since at the time neither could have really projected force at the other to speak of.)
I did say pundits, after all, and I'd add those making the analysis for political reasons. More sober analysts knew better, including the ones who actually planned operation, after all. The fact that they were grossly wrong because of their various motivations is sort of my point.
War Nerd certainly has a shtick that can be off putting. But in terms of providing no BS commentary on military and war issues, he is one of the best sources out there. The vulnerability of the American fleet is a very real issue.
I've read War Nerd's analysis on regions and conflicts I personally know all too well. The last thing I would say about him is that he's "no BS".
WN stitches together real facts, out-of-contexts facts and completely made up "facts" in about equal proportions, and comes out with "analysis" that has zero value - but since it does contain some truths and is written in an authoritative and original tone, manages to create the illusion of "no BS".
So what are your favorite sources of information about global affairs? War Nerd has been consistently more right than sources such as the NYTimes or CNN. But if there are sources much better than War Nerd, I'd love to know about them.
I try to follow John Robb's Global Guerilla blog (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/). He discusses a lot of interesting topics that influence modern military thought, like systems & network theory, emergence, open source warfare etc.
But to be honest I'm not a great fan of the subject. I think this whole theme of death-porn (because war is first and foremost about killing other humans) in our society is repulsive. I can respect people like Robb dealing with this because ultimately this is a subject that should be understood well, but I've seen families tear to pieces when one member died in a war so the idea of some "War Nerd" drooling over a new missile that can kill a 1000 people is sickening.
As for War Nerd being "consistently more right", I'm not sure what you mean. I don't believe anyone can truly predict anything (except the obvious) and I can't say I see War Nerd accomplishing this. Same goes for CNN and NYT, but at least they make a conscious effort to base their reporting on actual facts.
Ability to part 4 acres of sovereign territory 12 miles off your shore with 70 fighter aircraft on board? Priceless.
Air supremacy solves all sorts of problems, including striking the the anti-ballistic missiles in their silos/bunkers/trucks/staging areas.
Now, the real issue is people taking this bait and all of sudden thinking "maybe those Republicans know what they're talking about one defense." Um, no. Because the real answer is "who the hell cares?" Anyone really think we want to go to war with China? Anyone think China really wants to go to war with us?
Shooting down a satellite or a free-falling ballistic missile is relatively easy - the trajectory is predictable.
The article talks about maneuvering ballistic missiles - this task is a lot harder, similar to shooting a static vs. erratically moving target on the target range. According to the Navy report the problem is not currently solved.
It's not just Chinese who figured it out either, two decades ago Russians started re-arming their strategic nuclear arsenal with Topol-M which in its latest versions is also a maneuvering ballistic missile.
And then of course there is the very old trick of multiple warheads per missile (some decoy) - these are impossible to shoot down as there are far too may of them at once. Chinese have demonstrated to world their ability to do this when they launched multiple satellites with one rocket - the same technology. This particular missile may not be using it though.
Due to both maneuvering and multiple warheads the entire missile-defense thinking has moved from intercepting missiles at target to intercepting missiles at launch or in flight.
Obviously at 2000km away the AC is not in a position to intercept the launch of the missile.
It is not a solved problem you make it out to be. And the article's meta-point is that in the arms race of armor vs bullet, the bullet seems to be winning in the historical perspective.
The local active sensing capability required to out-maneuver one or more interceptors would negate any low-observable qualities of the kill vehicle.
The likelihood of the kill vehicle possessing a passive tracking capability sufficient to outmaneuver the active sensing and tracking system aboard an interceptor is clearly very low.
My point is that neither maneuverability nor low observability are guarantees of success due to compromising other aspects of the vehicle; which may ultimately make it more vulnerable to defensive measures than is apparent at first glance.
The idea is that you store anti-ship missiles on civilian craft, then swarm a carrier group and launch a sneak attack from tiny speed boats and fishing vessels. Air supremacy does not solve that, and there is currently no defense against such a swarm.
Everyone thought battleships were invincible until they turned out to be exactly USELESS with the advent of good carrier-based airplanes. Its quite possible that the anti-ship missile, in large deployments in a post-war declaration period, has done this to the carrier.
Even though the Japanese were smart enough to launch the attack on Pearl harbor, the US and Japanese navies were both certain their battleships would be important in the upcoming conflict, and the Japanese navy trained intensely for large scale night-battles among fleets of battleships. Everyone woke up overnight to the fact that battleships were exactly useless, and it was a rude awakening.
I read the article, but this one builds on his previous ones about the ballistic missile threat to carrier groups, and most of the confusion in these discussions would go away if people read the previous articles as well.
> Everyone thought battleships were invincible until they turned out to be exactly USELESS with the advent of good carrier-based airplanes.
Except that battleships didn't become useless with the advent of good carrier-based airplanes any more than bombers became useless with the advent of good fighters. Carrier-based planes just meant that battleships were vulnerable to a another threat. (They were already vulnerable to other battleships and submarines.)
Battleships are still incredibly useful for dropping lots of ordinance on a target that isn't too far from water. They can take damage that would sink other ships and still fight. They just can't launch planes to protect themselves, but they can be paired with ships that can.
History has shown that disruptive technologies have the potential to drastically alter warfare. The invention of the gatling gun, for example, single-handed turned the line-based warfare of the 19th century upside down.
The invention of the tank as a self-sufficient mobile force was also an incredible blow to known combat tactics at the time - the Nazis wielded this to incredible effect in Poland. The onslaught of fast-moving tanks made the cavalry-heavy Polish military look downright pathetic.
While I'm a bit skeptical of the article, I have to accept that it's entirely possible for a single technology, if disruptive and innovative enough, to complete obsolete the aircraft carrier in only a few short years.
I'm sorry -- Republicans? How did Republicans get into a discussion of the missile capabilities of China and/or defensive mechanisms carrier battle groups might or might not have?
Come on, guys. Take the politics somewhere else. People of both parties have lots of differing opinions as to various threats posed by various entities. Until it gets to funding, it's a professional judgment thing, not a partisan thing. And we're not discussing funding.
I don't think we're in danger right now of unlimited war with anybody, but then again nobody is paying me to worry about it. I think the point of strategic surprise is to maneuver your country into such a position that it could launch a surprise attack and get away with it -- your opponent has no time to build a counter-measure.
Of course, believing that a dominant weapon system from the 1940s is still viable today might be completely crazy. History tells us that things change dramatically in warfare. On the other hand, if it is not total war, then who cares what systems exist that are not going to be used?
There's a very interesting discussion about military theory and history here. Let's take the politics out of it if we can please.
The article is a bid to get more funding for advanced missile programs. I went to the Naval Academy, home of the Naval Institute, where Proceedings is published. I have had my ship on the cover of Proceedings. It is an opinion rag for admirals and power brokers, with the occasional essay contest to lend an air of authenticity, nothing more. The average blog cites more sources than these guys.
In so far as it is a bid to get more money for advanced missile programs, it is entirely about getting Republicans back in power. Having been in the military under Democratic and Republican regimes, it's pretty clear which causes money to run freely.
I wasn't really trying to make a political point. I was trying to offer an object lesson in taking the wool off one's eyes. Obviously I failed.
That missile is for Aegis class destroyers and cruisers. I have yet to hear of the defense system on an aircraft carrier. So you need to have a destroyer paired up with an AC.
Now while the Aegis system is truly kickass, it has yet to be used in wartime, excluding shooting down an Iranian civilian aircraft (oops!).
The air superiority that aircraft carriers provide is pretty cool too. But go back and read the War Nerd's posts and he goes through how a how defensless AC's really are from non-traditional adversaries.
I was under the impression that carriers don't sail alone also. They're usually riding along with a fleet of ships equipped with Aegis system that would take care of ballistic missiles.
I had coworkers that worked on standard missile. When I asked them why we don't have missile plumes to take care of lots of low-value targets (as mentioned in the article), I was told that the back fire from one missile might destroy the other, and they would also travel at undetermined speeds, as they might hit each other.
I thought the whole point of the latest CIWS and last-option missile batteries on carriers was to protect against missile attacks, ballistic or not? Granted, stealth and/or mach 10 is hard to defeat, but in general, the whole point of having a carrier is to keep the carrier in a "safe" spot, and use its vast array of aircraft to project power towards the arena of hostility...
That is true. But the idea is that anti-ship missiles are now so easy to produce that you can deploy 100 or 1000 of them on small vessels and launch them all at once in a surprise attack to totally overwhelm the carrier group's defenses.
This doesn't seem particularly newsworthy. The general thrust is that any nation willing to declare war on the United States could potentially sink its aircraft carriers. OK, we'll stipulate to that, but really does that reduce their value today?
I have to say that it does. Consider the carrier group nearest Iran. If the theory is true, all Iran needs is a fleet of civilian boats equipped with anti-ship missiles to defeat the US carrier group. That is exactly what happened in at least one war game that tested the scenario. In other words: Pearl Harbor 2.0 is coming soon, the next time we project power from a carrier group against anyone with an organized defense.
Thats newsworthy. I don't know if its true, but it parallels the fall of the battleship so much that it sounds plausible.
The idea is that anti-ship missile technology has become more widely distributed since the gulf war. Is it crazy to think that Iran can match Argentine technology from the 80s?
The comments to the article are excellent and very informative.
Whether or not the new Chinese missile exposes a single point of failure, I suspect that the Gary Brecher is still right, and that the U.S. Carriers are completely obsolete. Between submarines, swarms of cruise missiles, swarms of small boats, and ballistic missiles, it's hard to imagine carriers surviving very long in an all out war. Of course this doesn't really matter, because in such a war nukes are the main worry. But this does mean that the money spent on carriers is completely wasted.
I think that carriers are completely obsolete in an all-out war, but the article is moronic. They certainly aren't obsolete because of "ships have no defense against ballistic missiles."
A ballistic missile is basically a bomb with a different delivery mechanism. Instead of being dropped straight down from a plane (like dive bombers of WW2) or diagonally down (like laser-guided bombs of today), it's boosted to altitude with a rocket motor, and then gravity takes it back to earth. The flight path at the end is basically the same, though. That's what makes it "ballistic".
Carriers have never had a defense against bombs - they certainly didn't in WW2. But y'know what - they usually didn't need one, because the bombs would often miss on their own. Or if they hit, they wouldn't cause serious damage, instead being stopped by the carrier's armor plating. The Harpoon doesn't pop-up to avoid CIWS (it's usually easier to hit something coming down at you from above than something skimming just over the waves - there's less radar glare from the water, and the angle of attack changes less as the missile moves in closer.) It pops up so it can hit the more lightly-armored superstructure instead of the armored hull, potentially causing fires and knocking out critical electronic systems.
We moved to cruise missiles for a reason: they have a much higher chance of scoring a hit than ballistic weapons. If 80% of your weapons will miss on their own, you don't need to worry about getting through the enemy's defenses, you need to worry about increasing your accuracy. Cruise missiles aren't particularly easy to shoot down either.
As for nukes - yeah, they'll take everything out, as the U.S. found out at Bikini Atoll in 1946. The defense against nukes is the knowledge that if you nuke a U.S. carrier battle group, you will have a few hundred incoming SLBMs within a couple minutes, ready to blow up every single major Chinese city.
Personally, I think the real threat to carriers is the cruise-missile swarm, coming from dozens of small fishing vessels. Cruise missiles are cheap, they can be mounted on relatively small vessels, and if they come at you from all directions, they'll totally overload all your air defense systems. It's not hard to find a couple hundred private boats and put 1-2 cruise missiles on each of them.
Say that the intel services say that every small craft is having missiles loaded onto it. What do you do then? Shoot every boat on sight, civilian or military, on the theory that it might have a cruise missile on board?
Many of these boats don't even show up on radar. They're not a big enough target for you to hit with missiles. Even if you could, the missile costs more than the boat. So you'd need to dispatch a destroyer or a bunch of aircraft to strafe it with gunfire.
But then you leave your destroyers/aircraft open to counterattack from small boats. At $30k a boat and $500k a cruise missile, how many of them do you have to sink to equal a $100M aircraft or a $1B destroyer?
Incidentally, Japan had a similar plan for defense of the home islands in WW2. They produced nearly 6000 Shinyo, suicide motorboats with a crew of one and a massive explosive in the bow. As the American invasion fleet entered home waters, the plan was for these to swarm the fleet and blow up as many vessels as possible. I suspect this is a major reason why we dropped the A-bomb instead of going forward with an invasion of the Japanese home islands.
There was a proposal to build lots of fast, highly maneuverable catamaran vessels using stealth technology and armed with cruise missiles. If I was China, I'd be building a few squadrons of those things. (You could even have them leave the missile behind in the water, to pop up and launch itself towards the group at a predetermined time, making it much harder to find the launch platform.)
"It is an amazing thing that the English, who have the reputation of being
a practical nation, never saw the danger to which they were exposed. For
many years they had been spending nearly a hundred millions a year upon
their army and their fleet. Squadrons of Dreadnoughts costing two
millions each had been launched. They had spent enormous sums upon
cruisers, and both their torpedo and their submarine squadrons were
exceptionally strong. They were also by no means weak in their aerial
power, especially in the matter of seaplanes. Besides all this, their
army was very efficient, in spite of its limited numbers, and it was the
most expensive in Europe. Yet when the day of trial came, all this
imposing force was of no use whatever, and might as well have not
existed. Their ruin could not have been more complete or more rapid if
they had not possessed an ironclad or a regiment. And all this was
accomplished by me, Captain John Sirius, belonging to the navy of one of
the smallest Powers in Europe, and having under my command a flotilla of
eight vessels, the collective cost of which was eighteen hundred thousand
pounds. No one has a better right to tell the story than I."
Captain John Sirius is, of course, a submarine captain.
How do you hit a moving target from 2000 Km away? Using satellite images? UAVs serving as spotters? Well, worst-case scenario the U.S. carriers could release collosal amounts of smoke and create such a thick smoke-screen that no light or IR radiation would penetrate.
The Chinese could try to guide the missile remotely with a human operator being fed with "real-time" video, but good luck steering a missile at Mach 10 with a joystick, LOL.
Moreover, at Mach 10 the transmission delay could be a serious problem. After all, electromagnetic radiation takes some time to travel 2000 Km -- approx. 7 ms (to which one must add the processing delay) -- and controlling a missile with super-fast dynamics with a 10 ms delay is not trivial. A thought experiment: try driving your car on the highway at 200MPH, with your windshields covered and with no sensing other any "real-time" video of the road ahead which has a delay of 100 ms. Good luck!
If the enemy missiles use radar, they're giving away their position. Advanced high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARM) could perhaps try to intercept them. A desperate counter-measure could be to release immense ammounts of metal strips to fool the missiles' radars.
If I remember right, the U.S. Navy had plans to equip carriers with super-mean machine guns capable of shooting 1 million bullets per minute, thus creating such a thick cloud of lead that no enemy missile would be able to pass through. Sounds low-tech, but it could work, right?