Originally posted by StellarX
Originally posted by Sandman11
Yes the USSR had some ABM systems and civil defense programs the US didn't in the 1980s, however it wouldn't matter.
What does " some" ABM and civil defense programs mean? Is there any reason your not being more specific?
Those programs would have been persued by the US if they were truely effective and relevent within the framework of the ABM treaty and the
bipolar superpower dominated world at the time.
Oh so because the US could not, or for some reason chose not to, build a ABM system it could not and was not done in the SU? I am sorry but that is
circular reasoning . The SU have ben in breach of all weapon reduction and ABM treaties for decades as is well understood in the US intelligence
comunity.
In fact, the US did have all the air defenses, civil defense, and ABM system development and more
Yes there were programs to develope ABM and air defense systems but the civil defense programs were never very serious or aimed at saving the lives of
civlians in general.
, but cut them from the budget and shut them down effectively. If they were relevent and mattered in such a potential conflict,
Your assuming far too many things including the fact that politicians never got involved in military spending and research. The fact that these
programs were not inplemented just does not mean that they could and would not have been relevent if implemented.
then we should be asking why they were cut, but I doubt they really were relevent.
Well you should imo be asking that and not assuming based on assumptions.
No potential winner, otherwise the US would have matched, at least, the expendature of the USSR on these programs.
This is another instance of circular reasoning. Because the US chose to invest money in other programs ABM and Civil defense programs were not
relevent or possibly effective? Why not stick to what we know and stop assuming the Russians are always the idiots who would spend so much money and
resources on ineffective systems? Is'nt the odds rather large in favour of both countries making choices based on their unique strategic plans
instead of one or both just making plain stupid efficient decisions?
So I would say the more relevent questions would be why did the US cut those programs (ABM, Air defense, civil defense) and did the
USSR/Russians cheat on the ABM treaty? (as they did on the Bio-weapons treaty, and probably most others)??
Now your talking! My opinion is that the US chose to invest the money in operation and mobile forces that could police their "interest" (wich is a
topic in itself) all over the world while the USSR chose to invest in trying to disperse and protect their industrial complex ( including the
workers) in such a way that they might survive a nuclear exchange and then dictate world affairs after. America never suffered the consequences of a
war on own soil such as the USSR did in the second world war and did not have the experience of losing infrastructure and trained workers at the rate
the USSR had to learn to cope with. I think this influenced thinking to the extent that they would spend as much as they did to protect their
infrastructure even if a nuclear war should take place.
Stellar
Well we may have to agree to disagree on some points here... The US had 10,000 SAMS in sites around it's cities from 1950s to around 1974, Nike
Herculese which, like the SA-5, had a nuclear capability on most of them, and this specific missile had been tested successfully on ballistic
targets.
ed-thelen.org...
The follow on missile, Nike Zeus, was the ABM system the SU copied by many accounts, and put around moscow.
www.paineless.id.au...
The US in the 1960s, 1970s, and on were at cutting edge technology and every bit as good if not better at ABM engineering. The US just didn't see
the cost of keeping it's "Safeguard" base operational, or to cheat on the ABM treaty...
www.paineless.id.au...
There was also a significant Civil Defense program in the 1950s and 1960s, (I am old enough to remember the nuke drills in grade school) but like
the SAM system, it atrophied. The theory was that to try to defend against a massive nuclear attack would be significantly harder than to spend
valuable reasources on the ability to attack, and on a cost benefit analysis, it would be cheaper and easier to "deter" an attack than to try to
defend against one. For example it is cheaper and easier to just send a few more missiles against a defended target assuring it's destruction and
using that overkill to deter an attack than to attempt to actually defend against an attack, which is the course of action the SU stuck with. No
matter what kind of defensive missile system you think Russia had (and they did cheat on the ABM treaty), it would not be able to stop a coordinated
attack. During the peak of the cold war, the US had around 12,000 strategic warheads, to 10,000 for the SU, and about 400 were going to Moscow alone.
Do you actually think Moscow would survive not being hit many if not hundreds of times because of an unproven, and many accounts a not very
successful ABM system and "dual use" SAM system? I think not. Nuclear war the SU would not have survived, Russia will not survive, and it is nieve
and dangerous to adhere to the notion that it could. Most accounts give a "counter value" against Russia in the hundreds of millions, and only the
most extreme cases think otherwise.
www.nrdc.org...
One thing not really talked about are the countermeasures that can effectively be use agaist ABMs, just as the Russians are soo proud of their new
Topol missile, with a maneuvering capability, this is not much different than MARVs, which also maneuver, only not in the higher athmosphere using
hypersonic propulson, or other countermeasures like decoys and jamming, along with MIRVS which compound the ballistic defense to impossibility.
Directed energy weapons may change this some day, but not in what we are talking of here, and Directed energy weapons are something the US is quite
advanced in, although I am sure you are now going to tell me Russia is ahead in that as well...
[edit on 31-12-2005 by Sandman11]
NO NUKES!!
