Talk:Anti-ballistic missile

Anti-Anti-Missile-Missile-Missile Question

I have dozens of sources for the Anti-Anti-Missile-Missile-Missile section (grammar issues) that was recently posted and recently deleted. If I cite them, which I was meaning to do when I had a moment, can the section stay. A google search for "anti anti missile missile missile" turns up over a thousand hits, WITH the entire phrase searched in quotes. I'd say that makes a pretty clear case for the cultural relevance of this arms race joke. It is the sort of gallows humor that one found in Dr. Strangelove during the coldwar, quite relevant, and a relevant highlight of the absurdity of such an arms race if you ask me.

POV Question

Often overlooked in the ABM debate in the United States is the resistance of many Pentagon leaders to the construction of a National Missile Defense. Admirals and generals of all services oppose spending huge sums (currently $8bn/yr in 2003) to research, develop, and procure NMD systems. They would prefer to have that money spent on new conventional weapons, training, equipment, or pay.

The above paragraph seems slightly irrelevant...

James Trainor 12:05, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I agree. And this bit too...

Bush has used the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks to justify the need for such a shield. This is despite the fact that a missile shield would not have protected the nation from that attack, which was not launched via missiles (and would not protect the U.S. from any future attacks which might choose to simply bypass the missile shield).

...seems to be more a non-NPOV anti-Bush statement than a genuine criticism of the short-comings of anti-ballistic missiles. It and the other paragraph belongs (if anywhere) in the criticism section of National Missile Defense --kudz75 07:26, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. This two paragraph are relavant, but admittedly need careful rewording to get them NPOV. The first mentions an indeed very unusual fact: While usually the military is the first to be in favor of spending lots of money on developping new equipment, and the politics hesistating due to budget concerns, it is the opposite here. This gives significant cedibility to the fact, that really the vast majority of experts, military and civilian, agree that NMD is a bad idea.

Ok, the fact I consider this relevant is partly because I am a scientist and hence highly concerned by the Bush administrations refusal to ignore expert advice. I'm sure the top military would support the shield if they saw a chance of it protecting the US. (Evidence for this: They did support it in the Reagan time -- because then, it was an open question whether SDI/NMD could were, and today the question seems to be settled to the negative.) So, anybody who feels less cynical about the whole matter than I do feels capable of rephrasing this in an NPOV fashion?

Simon A. 10:41, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree, this article seems POV. The notes of opposition of Generals and a couple shots aimed at the Bush administration jump out at me. Admirals and Generals didn't think much of the aircraft carrier prior to WWII either. Additionally, the Clinton administration NMD efforts seem to be ignored even though the Bush administration is basically accelerating a plan that was around in the '90s. Seems like some basic ideas are forgotten, such as every weapon has a countermeasure, swords, armored suits, cruise missiles, tanks, battleships, submarines etc. Eventually a defense for ballistic missiles will be found, it seems like we shouldn't give up just because the problem is difficult. Ballistic missile defense has been and will be an expensive problem to solve, but a nuclear detonation from a ballistic missile might be even more expensive. I'm not sure how to make it NPOV, I guess someone is going to have to add something that is pro-ABM to balance things out. As for "the vast majority of experts, military and civilian" who "agree that NMD is a bad idea", who are they going to blame if a ballistic missile, launched from a rogue state, kills thousands? --Dual Freq 06:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

POV

Can I ask someone else to re-read this article and especially re-read the section on Bush. I think this is terribly POV. I actually know little about this so I'm reluctant to start taking things out.--Will2k 02:46, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Defense of Moscow

Does this section need to have it's own heading? I'd like to merge it into another part of this article, or possibly create a new article. There seems to be more than enough info to spin the A-35 (or ABM-1) missile off into it's own little home. Any ideas?

--BGyss 05:21, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Additional section on the 1990s

I have added a section on the 1990s. I think it is fairly well sourced and NPOV. Most of the sources were FAS, and they are fairly anti-ABM. I don't think they pull too many punches so the information should be trustworthy. I commented out a couple sections that seemed POV to me and preceeded the sections with my comments. Neither paragraph had sources and they seemed POV to me. It would be nice to have more info in the article about efforts in other countries. India and Pakistan for example seem to be working on ABM systems and the EU seems to be interested in ABM in light of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and nuclear capability in the middle east. --Dual Freq 01:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Changes made to article

I made a number of changes to improve accuracy, completeness and readability. Discuss here if any issues with those. Joema 18:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The bit you removed about Arrow missile being used by the US came from the Arrow article. I didn't double check the source there either, but it seemed reasonable at the time I read it. I don't have any particular knowledge of ABM systems, but I think I grouped it in the post-gulf war section because that's where it seemed to best fit. --Dual Freq 03:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The statement was that Arrow was "designed and constructed after the failure of the anti-aircraft Patriot missile system to properly intercept and destroy the Scud missiles fired by Iraq". That's physically impossible, since Arrow was first test fired August 9, 1990, and obviously had to be in development long before that[1]. The Gulf War began on January 17, 1991. Joema 05:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This article originally acted like ABM systems were only something that got researched when certain political administrations were in office. I think it's important to note that ABM's have been studied since the first ballistic missile was launched. Research is global and didn't stop during the 1990s. --Dual Freq 03:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. There was too much focus on politics and too little on the stated topic. Thanks for trying to give the article a better balance.Joema 05:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Ground-Based Missile Defense article has some information, but I think it might be misnamed. Doesn't GMD mean Ground-Based Midcourse Defense? Isn't GMD the system in Alaska that is currently IOC, vs NMD? --Dual Freq 03:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Good point. You're right; the GMD article is misnamed. I'll fix that tomorrow. NMD was renamed in 2003 to GMD (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense). It's still a NMD system, they just changed the name. In that sense the NMD article title is still correct. The name change was a good idea, as there are other assets (sea-based, space-based, etc) that will be integrated with the GMD. Despite GMD being national in scope, it caused problems to refer to it as the NMD. E.g, if there's already a NMD, why are sea-based assets needed? Also it was confusing: did NMD refer to the ground-based component or to the entire system?

Regarding GMD, yes the middle initial stands for "Midcourse", not "Missile". However "Missile" works, too, but we should use the correct term. Thanks for catching that. I'll revise a few things to try and clarify this. Joema 05:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've changed the GMD article and all linked articles to reflect the correct name: Ground-Based Midcourse Defense. Joema 16:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I restructured the headings, as mostly everything was under a single "History" heading. Tried to make more logical and readable. Could use more work, but it looks much better than before. Joema 17:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

There's significant overlap between this article and the NMD article. That should be somehow reconciled, but it will take a lot of careful work to do it properly. It's better to do nothing than a hack job; redundancy is better than losing content or hurting readability, which often happens in hasty reorganizations. At least the two articles are in much better shape than previously. Joema 18:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Dual Freq, I think you had an inline comment in the 1980s section stating: "See new 1990s section. The arrow system doesn't require hit-to-kill and is non-nuclear which contradicts this section." You were correct and I fixed it. Joema 21:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I commented a bunch of stuff out a while back. Most of it was pretty POV and unsourced. It probably could be removed from the article. You can remove those comments if you fixed the problem. I also wondered about the British sea wolf being included in the intro. There isn't an ABM capability for that is there? I moved it in with the other sams listed. --Dual Freq 23:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

You're right I'm not sure it has ABM capability, so it should be moved as you did.

Russian system

Does the Russian system use nuclear warheads for the intercept? I was thinking it did, and it seems that it would be much more controversial than current US efforts. This article seems to have plenty of US criticism, but barely mentions international efforts critically or otherwise. I think it would be fair to mention nuclear capability of the Russian system, if that is the case. Possible source or maybe this? --Dual Freq 11:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The Russian system (often described as "Galosh") apparently uses (or used) nuclear warheads. It was similar to the U.S. nuclear-tipped Safeguard Program. I vaguely recollect it was more recently converted to a non-nuclear kinetic warhead, but not sure how reliable that is. Re controversy about the warhead type, whether nuclear or kinetic you're only firing an ABM system when a nuclear-tipped ICBM is incoming, so either way there will likely be nuclear detonations real soon. Joema 14:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the "if you're going to get nuked anyway logic", but I do think that things are a bit lopsided when the majority of criticism is leveled at the US vs other countries with ABM systems. I can only imagine that if an ABM system had been deployed around Washington DC instead of Nekoma, ND there would have been Washington Post and other stories for the next decade about people getting cancer from the search radars, and the deadly secret nuclear ABMs in your backyard. The above Missile threat articles seem to back the confusion over nuclear vs conventional for both the Gorgon and the Gazelle. Overall the system sounds similar to Safeguard, that is Safeguard with 30 years of experience and upgrades. I'd be interested to hear about the capabilities of the search/track radars involved, if they all face north or if there is defensive capabilities toward other threats like the middle east or China. --Dual Freq 23:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Galosh v Chevaline rationale.

The assertion that ... the defense would still require a rocket for every [incoming] warhead ... is not always true. British and American intel advised that a single well-placed Galosh warhead of 3 - 5 megatons could destroy all three MRVs of a Polaris A-3. This was not a big deal for the U.S. because their strategy was to drench the defences with RVs. For the small British force acting alone, without any U.S. involvement, and often with only one SSBN on station, the Moscow ABM defences were assessed as capable (with 64 launchers) of intercepting all 48 incoming RVs from one sub. From that intel assessment the Chevaline programme grew. One possible counter was to increase the tilt-out and RV spread, but to be effective against the ABM the warheads would then straddle a target rather than hit it. MIRVs are also vulnerable if closely grouped, although they can be separated by selecting several widely spread targets. The Chevaline concept that followed adopted tactics based on two RVs per missile, super-hardened against EMP effects, a swarm of approx 27 decoys in an inner and outer layer and matched to the radar signature of the RVs, with chaff and other devices. Whether it would work is anybody's guess. The U.S. tactics were based on overwhelming the ABMs by sheer weight of warhead numbers. Technology and weapons may change, but basic military tactics apparently do not. Brian.Burnell 12:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

A word about sources for the above. Lots of U.K. Ministry of Defence documents have been declassified recently under the 30-year rule and are lodged in the Public Record Office, London. The text above drew exclusively on these sources. Whether the intel was accurate is another matter, as recent events in the Gulf illustrate. Brian.Burnell 12:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Operational?

"The system is a dual purpose test and interception facility in Alaska, and as of 2006 is operational with a few interceptor missiles."

"Operational" is a bit of an absurd stretch given that there is no way the current system could possibly successfully intercept an unexpected North Korean missile. The missile defense pages read extremely POV. Who claimed that it is operational? What is the probability of a successful intercept?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Flying fish (talk • contribs) 23:06, October 29, 2006 (UTC)

Both Washington Times and Reuters news agency report the U.S. NMD system is operational: [2]. The most recent NMD test was fully successful: [3].

However -- whether the system is successful or not has no bearing on whether it's operational. Operational doesn't mean successful; it simply means the system is activated. The main goal of an encyclopedia is to describe the topic, not pass judgment on it. Thus the articles on Abortion, Evolution, etc, don't judge those topics, they describe them. Doing so is not POV and does not constitute a PRO position on those topics. Likewise describing missile defense or any other topic doesn't constitute a PRO position, nor does it require equal counter-balancing negative criticism. This is an encyclopedia, not the editorial page of a newspaper. Joema 12:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Aegis BMD vs THAAD information in this article

I noticed that Aegis BMD is listed in the short range/terminal section of this article and that THAAD is actually listed as a longer range weapon. This information is incorrect. THAAD is a terminal weapon and is used for endo and low altitude exo intercepts while Aegis is a Mid-course weapon and used for exo intercepts.

Lasre 14:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

European front and Steinmeiers Interview

Here is a link to an article citing the interview with Steinmeier: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,480100,00.html (in german). --Bernd-vdb 22:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it "Theater High Altitude" instead of Terminal High Altitude?

Doesn't THAADS stand for "Theater High Altitude..."?