Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour...
You can't assess the effect of a defense against nuclear attack by predicting what fraction the population gets "saved" because:
1a) The probability of suffering nuclear attack is not independent of the existence of the defense: one country may decide to attack before another's shield is installed, i.e. "before it's too late".
1b) The probability of suffering nuclear attack is not independent of the existence of the defense: the side that first develops an effective defense may decide it can afford to attack and suffer a response (please don't assume that just because *you* don't believe a defense could ever be so effective, nobody else in the universe will ever believe that. You guys don't even agree with each other and you're practically twins!)
2) Nuclear weapons may be "expensive" but they aren't intrinsically more expensive than they were 50 years ago. We are already headed back in that direction, where the major powers stockpile a vast overkill of weapons. If your adversary thinks you can destroy half of incoming missiles, they can ensure that they have 5 or 10X the number needed to destroy you utterly.
3) "Saving" millions of people won't last very long unless you can save the farms that feed them, the distribution networks that move the food, the supply chains that support the farms, the supply chains that support the supply chains, etc etc etc. Of course there will be *some* survivors; then in 15 centuries future historians can write about America's "bright ages" that saw the flowering of a more advanced watermill technology than was ever known hitherto, etc. But saving half the population is a pipe dream.
The first targets of the ICBMs is the opposition's missiles. That means that the anti-missile defense is around the silos thus making possible the survival of enough missiles for a counter strike. I was told the MM silos would survive at the edge of the crater of a ground burst. The silo lids had to be opened with a load of debris and the missiles had to fly thru a sky full of rocks. I did another interesting analysis of RR's mobile shelter based MMs. I modeled the mobil launcher erector motions inside the shelter under the ground motions from a mega ton ground burst. The Good Old Days.
What still worries me is that our systems require launch on warning. The first strike then attacks empty holes.
Another worry is that atomic weapons are becoming easier to make.
May even Litchenstein could build them.
I left TRW when half the staff was laid off with the ending of the Apollo program. Escaped into the arms of NASA.
The US had a dress rehearsal of China Shock 1.0 with Japan. It was smaller than China, but still decimated some industries in the Great Lakes area. For example, the population of Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo MSA's peaked in the 70's. How did we respond (auto quota is an example), what did we learn that should have helped us with China 1.0?
China is bigger than Japan, and Xi bullies and threatens his trading partners. What are our options for China Shock 2.0 besides tariffs? What comes to mind are quotas, industrial stimulus, fees on capital inflow, reduction in fiscal deficits, maybe limit agency MBS to domestic investors through FHLB distribution. Anything else? Which is the most effective?
Brought to mind my life at TRW in the late 1960's doing dynamic analysis of MM2 and 3. Doing modeling of multiple war head configurations and the dummy warheads and chaff dispensers attached to a maneuvering buss. That tech must have made some huge advances.
The podcast made a passing reference to "brialliant pebbles" Generally being able to hit a missile at launch is the preferred solution rather than waiting for confirmation. But then the issue is knowing whether it is a weapon rather than launching a civilian satellite. Lastly, assuming missiles are the delivery method of choice may be very old thinking. A slow build up of bombs in open cities that are "sleepers" and activated on demand could be more effective, particularly as the attacker may not be identifiable.
I am not sure that missile defence against ICBMs does save 100*m Americans. It isn't just the nation that ends, but the reality for any "survivors" is a slow death from nuclear winter, lack of food, and radiation poisoning. This will also affect the rest of the planet, first teh Northern hemisphere, then teh southern. In many respects, MAD is still better as it is an attempt to prevent any exchange of nukes at all. Missile defence lowers the risk of starting a war, and therefore "encourages" an attack.
[I will defer to actual military strategists if this is wrong.]
Having read Noah's blog post on missile defense, it is clear he conflate missile defense against conventional warhead missiles with the very different effects of nuclear warheads. Gaza is pretty much obliterated by conventional explosives. But the area can be immediately rebuilt upon, the water is drinkable, the ground safe to live on, the skies are still clear, and it isn't dark and snow on the ground. Had Palestinians had an effective defense system they could have reduced their casualties. OTOH, had even 1 nuclear bomb been able to wreak its destruction, Gaza would look like Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and the ground unusable for decades. Therefore it is important to not use nukes at all. [And recall that delivery need not be by missiles at all but via more surreptitious methods. A nuke in that ship that ran into the bridge at Baltimore would have made a fine delivery mechanism for a thermonuclear bomb.]
An impenetrable shield would be a fine thing if it could prevent any nuclear weapons from being effective. But realistically, nothing is perfect. Advocating missile defense because it might save a 1/3 of Americans from immediate death is echoing General "Buck" Turgidson: "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks." in Dr. Strangelove. This is a simple scaling of explosives, not the effect of nuclear weapons. Both the USA and Russia have over 7000 nuclear missiles. If just 1% get through, that is 70 megaton blasts. The US would be largely unsafe to be inhabited, let alone the consequences for other nations. If bombing Gaza also made Israel uninhabitable as a result, Israel would use other means to fight Hamas.
It may be pollyanna-ish, but nuclear weapons reduction and non-proliferation is the best means of reducing the risk of nuclear attacks. It will not be perfect, but it would be a lot cheaper than the stockpiling of nukes for MAD and stockpiling defensive missiles to intercept ICBMs when the danger may be from rogue agencies using unconvential delivery approaches.
You can't assess the effect of a defense against nuclear attack by predicting what fraction the population gets "saved" because:
1a) The probability of suffering nuclear attack is not independent of the existence of the defense: one country may decide to attack before another's shield is installed, i.e. "before it's too late".
1b) The probability of suffering nuclear attack is not independent of the existence of the defense: the side that first develops an effective defense may decide it can afford to attack and suffer a response (please don't assume that just because *you* don't believe a defense could ever be so effective, nobody else in the universe will ever believe that. You guys don't even agree with each other and you're practically twins!)
2) Nuclear weapons may be "expensive" but they aren't intrinsically more expensive than they were 50 years ago. We are already headed back in that direction, where the major powers stockpile a vast overkill of weapons. If your adversary thinks you can destroy half of incoming missiles, they can ensure that they have 5 or 10X the number needed to destroy you utterly.
3) "Saving" millions of people won't last very long unless you can save the farms that feed them, the distribution networks that move the food, the supply chains that support the farms, the supply chains that support the supply chains, etc etc etc. Of course there will be *some* survivors; then in 15 centuries future historians can write about America's "bright ages" that saw the flowering of a more advanced watermill technology than was ever known hitherto, etc. But saving half the population is a pipe dream.
Re: More Missile Defence
The first targets of the ICBMs is the opposition's missiles. That means that the anti-missile defense is around the silos thus making possible the survival of enough missiles for a counter strike. I was told the MM silos would survive at the edge of the crater of a ground burst. The silo lids had to be opened with a load of debris and the missiles had to fly thru a sky full of rocks. I did another interesting analysis of RR's mobile shelter based MMs. I modeled the mobil launcher erector motions inside the shelter under the ground motions from a mega ton ground burst. The Good Old Days.
What still worries me is that our systems require launch on warning. The first strike then attacks empty holes.
Another worry is that atomic weapons are becoming easier to make.
May even Litchenstein could build them.
I left TRW when half the staff was laid off with the ending of the Apollo program. Escaped into the arms of NASA.
The US had a dress rehearsal of China Shock 1.0 with Japan. It was smaller than China, but still decimated some industries in the Great Lakes area. For example, the population of Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo MSA's peaked in the 70's. How did we respond (auto quota is an example), what did we learn that should have helped us with China 1.0?
China is bigger than Japan, and Xi bullies and threatens his trading partners. What are our options for China Shock 2.0 besides tariffs? What comes to mind are quotas, industrial stimulus, fees on capital inflow, reduction in fiscal deficits, maybe limit agency MBS to domestic investors through FHLB distribution. Anything else? Which is the most effective?
I look forward to episodes on the financialization of capitalism.
Re: Missile Defence
Brought to mind my life at TRW in the late 1960's doing dynamic analysis of MM2 and 3. Doing modeling of multiple war head configurations and the dummy warheads and chaff dispensers attached to a maneuvering buss. That tech must have made some huge advances.
MM = Minuteman?
The podcast made a passing reference to "brialliant pebbles" Generally being able to hit a missile at launch is the preferred solution rather than waiting for confirmation. But then the issue is knowing whether it is a weapon rather than launching a civilian satellite. Lastly, assuming missiles are the delivery method of choice may be very old thinking. A slow build up of bombs in open cities that are "sleepers" and activated on demand could be more effective, particularly as the attacker may not be identifiable.
I am not sure that missile defence against ICBMs does save 100*m Americans. It isn't just the nation that ends, but the reality for any "survivors" is a slow death from nuclear winter, lack of food, and radiation poisoning. This will also affect the rest of the planet, first teh Northern hemisphere, then teh southern. In many respects, MAD is still better as it is an attempt to prevent any exchange of nukes at all. Missile defence lowers the risk of starting a war, and therefore "encourages" an attack.
[I will defer to actual military strategists if this is wrong.]
Having read Noah's blog post on missile defense, it is clear he conflate missile defense against conventional warhead missiles with the very different effects of nuclear warheads. Gaza is pretty much obliterated by conventional explosives. But the area can be immediately rebuilt upon, the water is drinkable, the ground safe to live on, the skies are still clear, and it isn't dark and snow on the ground. Had Palestinians had an effective defense system they could have reduced their casualties. OTOH, had even 1 nuclear bomb been able to wreak its destruction, Gaza would look like Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and the ground unusable for decades. Therefore it is important to not use nukes at all. [And recall that delivery need not be by missiles at all but via more surreptitious methods. A nuke in that ship that ran into the bridge at Baltimore would have made a fine delivery mechanism for a thermonuclear bomb.]
An impenetrable shield would be a fine thing if it could prevent any nuclear weapons from being effective. But realistically, nothing is perfect. Advocating missile defense because it might save a 1/3 of Americans from immediate death is echoing General "Buck" Turgidson: "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks." in Dr. Strangelove. This is a simple scaling of explosives, not the effect of nuclear weapons. Both the USA and Russia have over 7000 nuclear missiles. If just 1% get through, that is 70 megaton blasts. The US would be largely unsafe to be inhabited, let alone the consequences for other nations. If bombing Gaza also made Israel uninhabitable as a result, Israel would use other means to fight Hamas.
It may be pollyanna-ish, but nuclear weapons reduction and non-proliferation is the best means of reducing the risk of nuclear attacks. It will not be perfect, but it would be a lot cheaper than the stockpiling of nukes for MAD and stockpiling defensive missiles to intercept ICBMs when the danger may be from rogue agencies using unconvential delivery approaches.