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On January 13 2010 14:41 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 14:28 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 14:26 Slow Motion wrote:On January 13 2010 14:17 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 14:16 KwarK wrote:On January 13 2010 13:26 BlackJack wrote:On January 13 2010 13:10 Archerofaiur wrote:On January 13 2010 13:08 Conquest101 wrote:On January 13 2010 13:04 Archerofaiur wrote:On January 13 2010 13:03 B1nary wrote:
Is there a definite answer to this in terms of game theory or is this more of a philosophical topic about revenge vs. survival of mankind? The discussion seems steered towards to latter but I'm curious if there's a clear-cut "solution". Depends on what you want your solution to be. How would you define winning the game? I don't die. For most people though.... continued world peace? Humanity not ending? And if you were going to die which is more important, killing those who killed you or having humans left on the planet after? What if that enemy that just killed you will now rule over all the people who are left with nuclear dominance? Would you rather destroy all of humanity or leave them with a trigger-happy nuke-laucnhing tyrant country in charge? What's the point of laying down the arms to ensure humanity goes on when the people you're leaving them with is incinerating millions of people? Sure people live on, but only until some Nazi sticks them in an oven. Humanity would survive. Regimes cannot last forever. Empires crumble and ultimately human nature triumphs. Humanity is the gem in the crown of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Wiping it out in a fit of pique would be absurd. We must survive, we're too good to waste ourselves. Back to your bong poetry book, hippy. (edit: that's funny, i don't care what you say) If you want to be the one to make the sacrifice, go for it. But not me. I think that the scenario you need to imagine is a binary world divided between you and your adversary. Your adversary launches and destroys you and all your allies. You somehow still have the ability to make a second strike. Would you wipe out your adversary, given that you and your allies are already gone and your adversary is the last remnant of humanity left. There's no sacrifice involved here, except potentially sacrificing your lust for revenge. You are already destroyed. There is nothing left to protect. Will you still launch a second strike that destroys what's left of the world? Right, well that's different from the initial scenario. That said, it's an interesting question and one I don't have an answer for. Interesting variation on the question: you are a woman and are viciously raped and beaten, leaving you disfigured and traumatized. Through some new 100%-certain technology, the police determine that the rapist will never re-offend. Your case is also not public; nobody will hear about it. Do you press charges anyway? How is that the same question? The first one is for the future of mankind as a whole. The second one is for a single individual. In one situation revenge is unfortunate but unimportant. In the second revenge is suicide of the species.
Yeah that's why I called it a variation of the question, rather than a simple, accurate analogous rephrasing.
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On January 13 2010 14:43 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 14:41 thopol wrote:On January 13 2010 14:37 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 14:33 thopol wrote:
MIRV warheads can still be intercepted. The main thing here is that a MIRV warhead can inflict a nuclear attack on multiple targets. Second strike is irrelevant to the 1 nuke bloc, call it A. A destroys huge area with a single MIRV warhead. B retaliates and turns every square kilometer of A to ashes. Quite a bit of B is left over.
I didn't read the whole thread, so maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get it. There seems to be a substantial difference between having 1 nuke and 7000 nukes... They can't be intercepted with any success rate. OK, well that's the irrelevant part of my post, but while we're on it, the independent sub-warheads cannot be targeted? Is this because they are too small and countermeasures are designed with ICMBs in mind? I mean, MIRV technology has been around for a long time and I know strategic defense has been actively pursued in one form or another for a long time as well. I really don't know, just speculating, so I'd appreciate you replying to set me straight. I don't know the exact reasons on why successful interception has not been developed, I just know that it hasn't (unless I missed something...) The United States has had some "successful" tests, but only in highly restricted and unrealistic scenarios in which the interception vehicle is given a ton of unrealistic advantages. And even then it's a low success rate. I'm not talking about theory, just what has actually happened. Don't need to know how to service a car to say that the engine won't start when you turn the key.
It's kind of like the arms race of the 21st century. One side develops a missile defense system (sort of) and the other side finds a way to penetrate that system. From the little that I know, my impression is that technology that penetrates missile defense systems is currently a lot cheaper and easier to develop than actual effective missile defense technology.
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Side with 7000 real nukes has more power. This is because they can initiate or they can respond. They have both options. Side with the fakes on their side has only "responsive" power; they lack the initiative power.
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On January 13 2010 14:43 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 14:41 thopol wrote:On January 13 2010 14:37 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 14:33 thopol wrote:
MIRV warheads can still be intercepted. The main thing here is that a MIRV warhead can inflict a nuclear attack on multiple targets. Second strike is irrelevant to the 1 nuke bloc, call it A. A destroys huge area with a single MIRV warhead. B retaliates and turns every square kilometer of A to ashes. Quite a bit of B is left over.
I didn't read the whole thread, so maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get it. There seems to be a substantial difference between having 1 nuke and 7000 nukes... They can't be intercepted with any success rate. OK, well that's the irrelevant part of my post, but while we're on it, the independent sub-warheads cannot be targeted? Is this because they are too small and countermeasures are designed with ICMBs in mind? I mean, MIRV technology has been around for a long time and I know strategic defense has been actively pursued in one form or another for a long time as well. I really don't know, just speculating, so I'd appreciate you replying to set me straight. I don't know the exact reasons on why successful interception has not been developed, I just know that it hasn't (unless I missed something...) The United States has had some "successful" tests, but only in highly restricted and unrealistic scenarios in which the interception vehicle is given a ton of unrealistic advantages. And even then it's a low success rate. I'm not talking about theory, just what has actually happened. Don't need to know how to service a car to say that the engine won't start when you turn the key.
Right. Well I guess my source is just wiki, though I suppose I could dig around a bit (though I really have no conviction that I am right about this).
From wiki, describing the advantages of a MIRV warhead:
Reduces the effectiveness of an anti-ballistic missile system that relies on intercepting individual warheads. While a MIRVed attacking missile can have multiple (3–12 on United States missiles and 12-24 on Russians) warheads, interceptors can only have one warhead per missile. Thus, in both a military and economic sense, MIRVs render ABM systems less effective, as the costs of maintaining a workable defense against MIRVs would greatly increase, requiring multiple defensive missiles for each offensive one. Decoy reentry vehicles can be used alongside actual warheads to minimize the chances of the actual warheads being intercepted before they reach their targets. A system that destroys the missile earlier in its trajectory (before MIRV separation) is not affected by this but is more difficult, and thus more expensive to implement.
Now, I don't know the source of this as it's not cited on wiki, and I also know that even if it were cited wiki is not the most reliable source, but it's something.
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On January 13 2010 14:46 Slow Motion wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 14:43 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 14:41 thopol wrote:On January 13 2010 14:37 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 14:33 thopol wrote:
MIRV warheads can still be intercepted. The main thing here is that a MIRV warhead can inflict a nuclear attack on multiple targets. Second strike is irrelevant to the 1 nuke bloc, call it A. A destroys huge area with a single MIRV warhead. B retaliates and turns every square kilometer of A to ashes. Quite a bit of B is left over.
I didn't read the whole thread, so maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get it. There seems to be a substantial difference between having 1 nuke and 7000 nukes... They can't be intercepted with any success rate. OK, well that's the irrelevant part of my post, but while we're on it, the independent sub-warheads cannot be targeted? Is this because they are too small and countermeasures are designed with ICMBs in mind? I mean, MIRV technology has been around for a long time and I know strategic defense has been actively pursued in one form or another for a long time as well. I really don't know, just speculating, so I'd appreciate you replying to set me straight. I don't know the exact reasons on why successful interception has not been developed, I just know that it hasn't (unless I missed something...) The United States has had some "successful" tests, but only in highly restricted and unrealistic scenarios in which the interception vehicle is given a ton of unrealistic advantages. And even then it's a low success rate. I'm not talking about theory, just what has actually happened. Don't need to know how to service a car to say that the engine won't start when you turn the key. It's kind of like the arms race of the 21st century. One side develops a missile defense system (sort of) and the other side finds a way to penetrate that system. From the little that I know, my impression is that technology that penetrates missile defense systems is currently a lot cheaper and easier to develop than actual effective missile defense technology.
Yeah but what I'm saying is that the interception hasn't even been successfully developed.
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That wiki doesn't say that the ABM systems targetting MIRV warheads work.
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From the ABM wiki page:
"In general short-range tactical ABMs cannot intercept ICBMs, even if within range. The tactical ABM radar and performance characteristics do not allow it, as an incoming ICBM warhead moves much faster than a tactical missile warhead. However it is possible the better-performance Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile could be upgraded to intercept ICBMs."
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On January 13 2010 14:42 ktp wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
This is a absolutely great thread. TL needed something like this after all the garbage thats been in the general section. Thank you Archerofaiur.
I'm not sure if I'm approaching this problem the right way but, can't we just run through all the scenarios and assign probabilities? Perhaps that would help. I mean, theres clearly no winner in a nuclear war. The winner is the one who isn't participating. But in reality all of us are in the game even if we don't want to be.
Ok so..."A" has 7000 nukes, "B" has 1 nuke and 6999 Bluff
Events in which A fires the first nuke:
1. A fires all 7000 nukes, obliterating B completely.
2. A fires 1 nuke. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing the rest of its 6999 nukes, obliterating B.
3. A fires 1 nuke. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing a nuke back. B has no more nukes and stops firing.
Events in which B fires the first nuke:
1. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing all 7000 nukes, obliterating B completely.
2. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing 1 nuke. B has no more nukes.
I think those are all the possible scenarios. If I missed one then please correct me. Now let's do some analysis. This is assuming that we know all information from both sides. In reality though, we will have missing information.
- Only A has the capability to obliterate B. If B has a fail-destroy system, it does not consist of nukes, but the system is still capable of doing minor damage back to A.
- B gains nothing from firing its only nuke first. It can only play defense. Thus we can assume that initiation will be caused by A.
- If we assume that B will not fire first (probability of that happening is really low, because B gains nothing from firing), then A is in control of all possible scenarios. A has the choice if initiating first strike, and deciding whether or not to strike again after B retaliates with its only nuke.
- A's fail-destroy system has nukes, while B's does not. The irony is that A will never reach a point of being able to use its fail-destroy system.
In a scenario like this, you clearly want to be A. I know I haven't assigned probabilities to everything (like the chance of one side firing a nuke and other other side doing absolutely nothing about it, but that is very unlikely to happen), but its very clear that the most optimal strategy to have in this game is to have more nukes than your opponent.
In real life, you wouldn't know how many nukes your opponent has. But that doesn't change the optimal strategy at all. You just keep buildings nukes and more nukes while keeping other nations from building nukes themselves, hoping that if nuclear war does occur, you have the most nukes. Actually I think this the core of American foreign policy when it comes to nukes lol.
In conclusion, the most logical thing to do in this riddle is to keep building nukes nonstop.
I'm going to run through 7000 nukes vs 7000 nukes in my next post to see if theres a difference.
The thing is A thinks B has 7000 nukes. It's the difference between having maphack and not.
So from A's perspective they can launch 7000 nukes, and get hit back with 7000 nukes (of course everyone has fail-deadly systems or the person to nuke first has no reason not to).
Or they can launch 1 nuke, and get hit back with 7000, and then launch the rest. No matter how you do it, if A launches, it gets hit with 7000 nukes.
The alternative for A is to not launch any nukes. They don't get nuked in return.
So the choice for A is pretty clear - get nuked 7000 times or don't get nuked. In most cases it's not worth getting nuked, so they don't launch. So B's bluff works.
Of course, if A launches, B is screwed because they only have one nuke to fire back. That's how bluffs work - if your bluff gets called, you lose. You just have to (as B) make the perceived risk (getting nuked 7000 times) too great for A to take.
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On January 13 2010 11:40 Cloud wrote:
Eh? This has already happened. If they are all real, no one will attack. If they are all bluffs (and someone finds out) you will be landed upon and destroyed in the name of freedom.
this sounds right
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On January 13 2010 11:25 Faronel wrote:
that when one country fires due to some insane reason, the other one only has 1 nuke to fire back.
It's like saying what's the difference between a gun and a toy gun spray painted black. Nothing except when they are actually needed to be used.
Well not quite, a gun with one bullet is not equal to a toy gun. One nuke can still do a ton of damage and you can always say you got more where that came from, and if a country has one it's very believable they have more unless there is intelligence that the one nuke was stolen or something I guess.
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On January 13 2010 14:53 cz wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Defense_AgencyHas a bunch of links to the multiple phases where an ICBM can be intercepted and the contracts awarded in each possible phase. Doesn't seem to be anything that works on my brief overview.
Yeah, it seems like MIRV technology thwarts missile defense just by virtue of the high cost required to intercept individual projectiles (From reading the MIRV section of the ABM wiki article). There are also other technical concerns, which this interesting blog entry explores: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/politics_and_minorities/50076
That article also seems to indicate that the technology is there, but there are practical concerns in the case of a state launching multiple MIRV warheads, and technical concerns in any case centering around cost.
Another thing worth considering is other forms of missile defense, for example from the national missile defense wiki page (we're just tossing these wiki citations back and forth, lol):
'Several airborne systems are being examined, which would then be utilized by the US Air Force. One major object of study is a boost-phase defense, meaning a system to intercept missiles while they are in their boost phase. One potential system for this use might be an airborne laser, being tested on the Boeing YAL-1.'
That just sounds cool.
You can just edit your post instead of posting consecutively btw.
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On January 13 2010 15:09 thopol wrote:Yeah, it seems like MIRV technology thwarts missile defense just by virtue of the high cost required to intercept individual projectiles (From reading the MIRV section of the ABM wiki article). There are also other technical concerns, which this interesting blog entry explores: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/politics_and_minorities/50076That article also seems to indicate that the technology is there, but there are practical concerns in the case of a state launching multiple MIRV warheads, and technical concerns in any case centering around cost. Another thing worth considering is other forms of missile defense, for example from the national missile defense wiki page (we're just tossing these wiki citations back and forth, lol): 'Several airborne systems are being examined, which would then be utilized by the US Air Force. One major object of study is a boost-phase defense, meaning a system to intercept missiles while they are in their boost phase. One potential system for this use might be an airborne laser, being tested on the Boeing YAL-1.' That just sounds cool. You can just edit your post instead of posting consecutively btw.
Skimmed the article, didn't see anything about any repeated, real-world like successful tests. There's a lot of potential but so far, from what I understand, nothing has been developed to actually beat an ICBM and shown to do so repeatedly in real-world tests.
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On January 13 2010 15:12 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 15:09 thopol wrote:On January 13 2010 14:53 cz wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Defense_AgencyHas a bunch of links to the multiple phases where an ICBM can be intercepted and the contracts awarded in each possible phase. Doesn't seem to be anything that works on my brief overview. Yeah, it seems like MIRV technology thwarts missile defense just by virtue of the high cost required to intercept individual projectiles (From reading the MIRV section of the ABM wiki article). There are also other technical concerns, which this interesting blog entry explores: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/politics_and_minorities/50076That article also seems to indicate that the technology is there, but there are practical concerns in the case of a state launching multiple MIRV warheads, and technical concerns in any case centering around cost. Another thing worth considering is other forms of missile defense, for example from the national missile defense wiki page (we're just tossing these wiki citations back and forth, lol): 'Several airborne systems are being examined, which would then be utilized by the US Air Force. One major object of study is a boost-phase defense, meaning a system to intercept missiles while they are in their boost phase. One potential system for this use might be an airborne laser, being tested on the Boeing YAL-1.' That just sounds cool. You can just edit your post instead of posting consecutively btw. Skimmed the article, didn't see anything about any repeated, real-world like successful tests. There's a lot of potential but so far, from what I understand, nothing has been developed to actually beat an ICBM and shown to do so repeatedly in real-world tests.
Well ICBM, yes. MIRV, no. That's what I've gathered from this evening's research.
It's been fun though  .
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On January 13 2010 14:56 starfries wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 14:42 ktp wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
This is a absolutely great thread. TL needed something like this after all the garbage thats been in the general section. Thank you Archerofaiur.
I'm not sure if I'm approaching this problem the right way but, can't we just run through all the scenarios and assign probabilities? Perhaps that would help. I mean, theres clearly no winner in a nuclear war. The winner is the one who isn't participating. But in reality all of us are in the game even if we don't want to be.
Ok so..."A" has 7000 nukes, "B" has 1 nuke and 6999 Bluff
Events in which A fires the first nuke:
1. A fires all 7000 nukes, obliterating B completely.
2. A fires 1 nuke. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing the rest of its 6999 nukes, obliterating B.
3. A fires 1 nuke. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing a nuke back. B has no more nukes and stops firing.
Events in which B fires the first nuke:
1. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing all 7000 nukes, obliterating B completely.
2. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing 1 nuke. B has no more nukes.
I think those are all the possible scenarios. If I missed one then please correct me. Now let's do some analysis. This is assuming that we know all information from both sides. In reality though, we will have missing information.
- Only A has the capability to obliterate B. If B has a fail-destroy system, it does not consist of nukes, but the system is still capable of doing minor damage back to A.
- B gains nothing from firing its only nuke first. It can only play defense. Thus we can assume that initiation will be caused by A.
- If we assume that B will not fire first (probability of that happening is really low, because B gains nothing from firing), then A is in control of all possible scenarios. A has the choice if initiating first strike, and deciding whether or not to strike again after B retaliates with its only nuke.
- A's fail-destroy system has nukes, while B's does not. The irony is that A will never reach a point of being able to use its fail-destroy system.
In a scenario like this, you clearly want to be A. I know I haven't assigned probabilities to everything (like the chance of one side firing a nuke and other other side doing absolutely nothing about it, but that is very unlikely to happen), but its very clear that the most optimal strategy to have in this game is to have more nukes than your opponent.
In real life, you wouldn't know how many nukes your opponent has. But that doesn't change the optimal strategy at all. You just keep buildings nukes and more nukes while keeping other nations from building nukes themselves, hoping that if nuclear war does occur, you have the most nukes. Actually I think this the core of American foreign policy when it comes to nukes lol.
In conclusion, the most logical thing to do in this riddle is to keep building nukes nonstop.
I'm going to run through 7000 nukes vs 7000 nukes in my next post to see if theres a difference.
The thing is A thinks B has 7000 nukes. It's the difference between having maphack and not. So from A's perspective they can launch 7000 nukes, and get hit back with 7000 nukes (of course everyone has fail-deadly systems or the person to nuke first has no reason not to). Or they can launch 1 nuke, and get hit back with 7000, and then launch the rest. No matter how you do it, if A launches, it gets hit with 7000 nukes. The alternative for A is to not launch any nukes. They don't get nuked in return. So the choice for A is pretty clear - get nuked 7000 times or don't get nuked. In most cases it's not worth getting nuked, so they don't launch. So B's bluff works. Of course, if A launches, B is screwed because they only have one nuke to fire back. That's how bluffs work - if your bluff gets called, you lose. You just have to (as B) make the perceived risk (getting nuked 7000 times) too great for A to take.
Very good point, I had totally forgot how each nation perceives the other. With all the information in place its easy to make the most optimal choice. But in reality we don't know everything. What then, is the most optmial decision? If you don't have nukes and another country does, you will get bullied around. If you both have nukes, then nuclear war means you are both dead. Perhaps both having nukes, but agreeing to never fire? Maybe deterrence works after all? Its so damn complicated yo.
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On January 13 2010 15:14 thopol wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 15:12 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 15:09 thopol wrote:On January 13 2010 14:53 cz wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Defense_AgencyHas a bunch of links to the multiple phases where an ICBM can be intercepted and the contracts awarded in each possible phase. Doesn't seem to be anything that works on my brief overview. Yeah, it seems like MIRV technology thwarts missile defense just by virtue of the high cost required to intercept individual projectiles (From reading the MIRV section of the ABM wiki article). There are also other technical concerns, which this interesting blog entry explores: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/politics_and_minorities/50076That article also seems to indicate that the technology is there, but there are practical concerns in the case of a state launching multiple MIRV warheads, and technical concerns in any case centering around cost. Another thing worth considering is other forms of missile defense, for example from the national missile defense wiki page (we're just tossing these wiki citations back and forth, lol): 'Several airborne systems are being examined, which would then be utilized by the US Air Force. One major object of study is a boost-phase defense, meaning a system to intercept missiles while they are in their boost phase. One potential system for this use might be an airborne laser, being tested on the Boeing YAL-1.' That just sounds cool. You can just edit your post instead of posting consecutively btw. Skimmed the article, didn't see anything about any repeated, real-world like successful tests. There's a lot of potential but so far, from what I understand, nothing has been developed to actually beat an ICBM and shown to do so repeatedly in real-world tests. Well ICBM, yes. MIRV, no. That's what I've gathered from this evening's research. It's been fun though .
Do you have a link to something that shows repeated success at beating an MIRV in real-world conditions? To my knowledge that does not exist.
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It does not matter if the state has one or 7000 cause the entire world is in an alliance with one of he countries bombs the other the whole world will follow suit. So in conclusion the end of the world
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On January 13 2010 15:15 ktp wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 14:56 starfries wrote:On January 13 2010 14:42 ktp wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
This is a absolutely great thread. TL needed something like this after all the garbage thats been in the general section. Thank you Archerofaiur.
I'm not sure if I'm approaching this problem the right way but, can't we just run through all the scenarios and assign probabilities? Perhaps that would help. I mean, theres clearly no winner in a nuclear war. The winner is the one who isn't participating. But in reality all of us are in the game even if we don't want to be.
Ok so..."A" has 7000 nukes, "B" has 1 nuke and 6999 Bluff
Events in which A fires the first nuke:
1. A fires all 7000 nukes, obliterating B completely.
2. A fires 1 nuke. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing the rest of its 6999 nukes, obliterating B.
3. A fires 1 nuke. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing a nuke back. B has no more nukes and stops firing.
Events in which B fires the first nuke:
1. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing all 7000 nukes, obliterating B completely.
2. B fires its only nuke. A retaliates by firing 1 nuke. B has no more nukes.
I think those are all the possible scenarios. If I missed one then please correct me. Now let's do some analysis. This is assuming that we know all information from both sides. In reality though, we will have missing information.
- Only A has the capability to obliterate B. If B has a fail-destroy system, it does not consist of nukes, but the system is still capable of doing minor damage back to A.
- B gains nothing from firing its only nuke first. It can only play defense. Thus we can assume that initiation will be caused by A.
- If we assume that B will not fire first (probability of that happening is really low, because B gains nothing from firing), then A is in control of all possible scenarios. A has the choice if initiating first strike, and deciding whether or not to strike again after B retaliates with its only nuke.
- A's fail-destroy system has nukes, while B's does not. The irony is that A will never reach a point of being able to use its fail-destroy system.
In a scenario like this, you clearly want to be A. I know I haven't assigned probabilities to everything (like the chance of one side firing a nuke and other other side doing absolutely nothing about it, but that is very unlikely to happen), but its very clear that the most optimal strategy to have in this game is to have more nukes than your opponent.
In real life, you wouldn't know how many nukes your opponent has. But that doesn't change the optimal strategy at all. You just keep buildings nukes and more nukes while keeping other nations from building nukes themselves, hoping that if nuclear war does occur, you have the most nukes. Actually I think this the core of American foreign policy when it comes to nukes lol.
In conclusion, the most logical thing to do in this riddle is to keep building nukes nonstop.
I'm going to run through 7000 nukes vs 7000 nukes in my next post to see if theres a difference.
The thing is A thinks B has 7000 nukes. It's the difference between having maphack and not. So from A's perspective they can launch 7000 nukes, and get hit back with 7000 nukes (of course everyone has fail-deadly systems or the person to nuke first has no reason not to). Or they can launch 1 nuke, and get hit back with 7000, and then launch the rest. No matter how you do it, if A launches, it gets hit with 7000 nukes. The alternative for A is to not launch any nukes. They don't get nuked in return. So the choice for A is pretty clear - get nuked 7000 times or don't get nuked. In most cases it's not worth getting nuked, so they don't launch. So B's bluff works. Of course, if A launches, B is screwed because they only have one nuke to fire back. That's how bluffs work - if your bluff gets called, you lose. You just have to (as B) make the perceived risk (getting nuked 7000 times) too great for A to take. Very good point, I had totally forgot how each nation perceives the other. With all the information in place its easy to make the most optimal choice. But in reality we don't know everything. What then, is the most optmial decision? If you don't have nukes and another country does, you will get bullied around. If you both have nukes, then nuclear war means you are both dead. Perhaps both having nukes, but agreeing to never fire? Maybe deterrence works after all? Its so damn complicated yo.
I think from a defense point of view, the best thing for one country would be to build some nukes to toss around in tests and so on, and back up their statements. Then claim to have more nukes than the other guy. Whatever they say they have, triple it
edit: this also makes disarmament easy. free diplomacy brownie points!
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On January 13 2010 15:15 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 15:14 thopol wrote:On January 13 2010 15:12 cz wrote:On January 13 2010 15:09 thopol wrote:On January 13 2010 14:53 cz wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Defense_AgencyHas a bunch of links to the multiple phases where an ICBM can be intercepted and the contracts awarded in each possible phase. Doesn't seem to be anything that works on my brief overview. Yeah, it seems like MIRV technology thwarts missile defense just by virtue of the high cost required to intercept individual projectiles (From reading the MIRV section of the ABM wiki article). There are also other technical concerns, which this interesting blog entry explores: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/politics_and_minorities/50076That article also seems to indicate that the technology is there, but there are practical concerns in the case of a state launching multiple MIRV warheads, and technical concerns in any case centering around cost. Another thing worth considering is other forms of missile defense, for example from the national missile defense wiki page (we're just tossing these wiki citations back and forth, lol): 'Several airborne systems are being examined, which would then be utilized by the US Air Force. One major object of study is a boost-phase defense, meaning a system to intercept missiles while they are in their boost phase. One potential system for this use might be an airborne laser, being tested on the Boeing YAL-1.' That just sounds cool. You can just edit your post instead of posting consecutively btw. Skimmed the article, didn't see anything about any repeated, real-world like successful tests. There's a lot of potential but so far, from what I understand, nothing has been developed to actually beat an ICBM and shown to do so repeatedly in real-world tests. Well ICBM, yes. MIRV, no. That's what I've gathered from this evening's research. It's been fun though . Do you have a link to something that shows repeated success at beating an MIRV in real-world conditions? To my knowledge that does not exist.
Yeah, I'm saying you can intercept and ICBM with some level of success, and there have been real world tests of that. It is possible to intercept MIRVed warheads, but it has not been tested in the real world.
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On January 13 2010 13:50 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2010 13:44 Slow Motion wrote:On January 13 2010 13:42 Archerofaiur wrote:On January 13 2010 13:41 Slow Motion wrote:On January 13 2010 13:38 Archerofaiur wrote:On January 13 2010 13:37 HeartOfTofu wrote:
America has enough sheer firepower to destroy the world more than once over and so does Russia... It's really not a question. As for whether it's specifically 7000 nukes, who knows and more importantly, why does it matter?
The question is which is more important (and desired) the threat of 7000 nukes or actually having 7000 nukes? The threat is more important of course. But in the real world countries are able to obtain enough info on one another that the threat must in effect be roughly equivalent to actuality. Yes! Great point. Which means? Which means for the logic of MAD to work, a country can only assure its safety by actually having enough of a stockpile of nukes for second strike, or at least being very closely allied to a country with such capabilities. However, I think the logic of MAD is less important in the 21st century (at least until world war 3 is fought over energy resources). Second strike isn't necessary if your enemy doesn't have real first-strike capability. Unless you are defining your terms differently. And MAD is extremely important in the 21st century. Nuclear weapons are still the final arbiters in warfare. Joke countries like Iraq/Afghanistan get limited war treatment. There will be no 'energy wars' between nuclear-armed countries that don't involve a massive nuclear exchange; limited warfare between nuclear-armed states has always been impossible.
India and Pakistan have gone to war; both are nuclear-armed. Much of it is likely to depend on what the goal is in the war.
For a realistic modern situation, war between the United States and the PRC over Taiwan's status. I don't see that war going nuclear; the goal is clearly defined. China wants Taiwan to be reunited with the mainland, the US wants to preserve democracy in Taiwan. It isn't worth nuking each other to pieces over. Probably isn't worth fighting over in the first place with both countries relying on each other economically so much.
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EPT
