Defence Secretary Robert Gates has made a startling revelation today. The US has long-range missiles armed with high-power-but-non-nuclear explosives ready for a global strike. The (big) problem: China and Russia won’t be able to distinguish between nuclear and non-nuclear ICBMs.
This is what Gates said, talking on NBC’s Meet the Press:
We have, in addition to the nuclear deterrent today, a couple of things we didn’t have in the Soviet days… And we have prompt global strike affording us some conventional alternatives on long-range missiles that we didn’t have before.
Defense Tech’s Greg Grant says that maybe Gates meant to say “we will soon have”, but he also points out that the Navy has been working on conventional explosive D-5 Trident II missiles for “at least a decade” now. This development was funded through the Trident program – the program’s production line is still open – without the direct approval of Congress. The concern about this kind of weapon is that China, Russia and other nuclear powers won’t be able to detect the nature of the ICBM with their early-warning systems. For them, on a computer screen, all inter-continental ballistic missiles look just like the same.
Even if the US President called each of the nuclear nations, I doubt that such a launch would be observed carelessly. An ICBM launched from California to North Korea or Iran would look very dangerous for both China and Russia, no matter what an US President is saying over the phone.
On top of that potential nuclear power ruckus, the fact is that a ballistic missile loaded with conventional explosives is not a very effective weapon. ICBMs are dumb weapons designed to reach a target area, spread nuclear heads, and wipe a large zone completely. By loading them with explosives – no matter how powerful they may get – your destruction power is very low, while keeping a very low accuracy.
So basically, a launch of this type may not reach its target and make people with actual nuclear ICBMs very pissed off. Sounds like a lose-lose situation to me. [Defense Tech]
Colin Richardson
Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:00 AMDumb, Give me a break all they have to do is fill the nose-cone with smart bombs filled with this new H.E. and voila, 10 klicks up the damn things wind up and surgically take out 20 targets at once. and a phone call to Russia and China doesn’t take much.
michael jose
Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:09 PMalso, i doubt that the russians and/or the chinese wouldnt be able to tell exactly where the ICBM is going to hit, this is just subterfuge, “we wont use it unless you are really naughty so dont be scared unless you have been really naughty” kind of stuff
Zac
Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:47 PMWhen will congress learn.. we need to invest in MECH WARRIORS!1!
Michael
Friday, April 16, 2010 at 1:53 PMIt would be for pretty dang certain are planning this weapon they have considered the accuracy issue and have a solution.
With everyone watching Iran’s nuclear program, they’ve also been building up their IRBM capability, improving accuracy and launch preparation. They are not likely to have a nuke on a missile anytime soon but they can launch a fairly devastating conventional attack against Israel’s population or Arab oil production and it would be certain such an attack would involve near simultaneous launches.
The US wants a conventional weapon that can destroy diverse Iranian launchers in the prepping stage sufficient to prevent air defenses being overwhelmed by surviving missiles.
The Russians and Chinese are more interested in trade than seeing Iran launch a full scale war across the Middle-East. Having a customer go rogue is not good for business. Should Russia detect any impending attack by Iran they would almost certainly alert the US despite their political leanings.
It is improbable that Russia or China would be unaware of or misinterpret a limited strike against Iran in response to an impending Iranian missile attack. It is also improbable the US would launch an ICBM attack against Iran without any imminent missile threat.
Rodney
Friday, April 16, 2010 at 5:01 PMSounds pretty inefficient to me… How many cruise missiles could you lob in for the same price as one ICBM launch? Or even one JDAM dropped from a carrier launched plane?
…and achieve the same outcome, probably quicker (given there’s a navy presence nearby, but i guess that’s the obvious downside)