Conventional Prompt Global Strike: Smiting Your Enemies From Afar

Take a nuclear-tipped ICBM, replace the nuke with a precision-guided conventional weapon, and you've essentially got the Prompt Global Strike (PGS) concept: The ability to smart-bomb a target anywhere on Earth in under an hour. (Or your next one's free.) What's not to like?

Like this, but not nuclear. (Trust us.) Image by Flickr user saul_t, used under Creative Commons license.

Turns out, more than a few things, as Amy F. Woolf, Nuclear Weapons Policy Specialist at the Congressional Research Service, lays out in the CRS Report, CRS-R41464: Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues (PDF, 46 pages).

"Prompt" Is Just Two Vowels From "Preempt"

It's kind of disturbing that the most important issues around PGS aren't even the ones about making Russia or China itchy because the US wants to build the capability and doctrine to lob formerly nuclear-capable ICBMs over the North Pole, on trajectories uncannily similar to, say, a nuclear first strike.¹ ("Don't worry, we're not shooting *at* you -- you're in the way and we're just shooting over your head.")

There are some proposed fixes for this sort of thing, like altering launch profiles and using dedicated facilities for non-nuclear, land-based PGS launchers ("If I throw a punch with my right hand, I'm stabbing past your head; if I throw a punch with my left hand, I'm only punching past your head."), and advanced warning for third-party nations about PGS strikes in progress (made problematic by the promptness inherent to prompt global strike).

For my money, though, the more important problem with developing a Prompt Global Strike capability is the inevitability of its use.

Are You Sure You Want to Smite Evildoer? (Yes/No)

Think drone strikes, writ large: Prompt Global Strike gives policymakers the ability to destroy threats to America with the best (or worst) of both worlds: For imperialists, painless external military intervention and force projection, enabled by a guaranteed U.S.-casualty-free, zero-forward based footprint for the isolationists.

Let's say that (you think) you've assuaged the concerns of any nuclear-armed world powers you might be shooting over the heads of. In theory, you can now send a smart bomb from a missile silo in the continental US (or patrolling missile submarine) to any target in the world in under an hour.

It basically gives the US president a "smite" button:

 

Tempting, no? As time passed without using it, why shouldn't the threshold for use go down? If you had the capability to zap evildoers from afar, why wouldn't you use it?

Urge to Kill... Rising

Call it technological determinism, but the lowering of the threshold for the use of PGS capability seems inevitable.

Take the history of the Taser as an example. Originally, they were pitched strictly as less-lethal alternatives to deadly force: i.e., if you didn't have Taser capability, your only recourse was to shoot.

Now, of course, we see more and more examples of Tasers (and other less-lethal measures) used in non-deadly force situations, to gain compliance, shorten the length of an encounter, and in some cases, mete out punishment.

Again, if you have the capability, with relatively tame or abstract repercussions, why not use it?

(If you say, "Cost," you probably haven't been paying attention to the past... 70 years or so.)

Let's recap: With any Prompt Global Strike capability worth its name, you get:

* The ability to crush, kill, destroy from a distance
* No need for forward basing
* No need for boots on the ground (well, except for that pesky "intel" thing)
* No possibility of American lives lost
* Plus, it might give disgruntled Air Force missileers something to do.

Would you press that button?

Download the CRS Report, CRS-R41464: Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues (PDF, 46 pages).

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¹Earlier proponents of prompt global strike capability argued that PGS would make the world safer, by reducing the need for and number of nuclear weapons. Which, when, you think about it, is actually not at all that comforting: You're saying you have a weapon that has the capability to take on some targets that were previously given only to nuclear weapons, combined with the fact that this is something that is actually meant to be used. 

You don't really hear this argument any more.

Mules, Porters and Bicycles: Low-Tech Solutions to Managing Soldiers' Loads

In the wake of a few articles about the proposed revival of the Army Animal Corps to help the troops in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan ("Army could ditch robots for mules"), I thought I would follow up on my earlier entry about logistics and reducing soldiers' loads. (See "Everything I Learned About Combat Resupply, I Learned From Video Games.")

Assuming that cargo-carrying pack robots might be more expensive and more trouble to maintain than they might be worth, what are other alternatives the military might use to help soldiers haul stuff around, that don't involve UAV's, exoskeletons, robot walkers or other high-tech solutions?

(For the purposes of this discussion, we will forego political correctness.)

• Porters: Yes, okay Gunga Din:
  
  
  
  
  Human porters, unarmed and probably unarmored, could carry around food, water, ammo, and other consumables. They might be locals, third-country nationals, or in a compromise measure on immigration, illegal immigrants seeking a path to citizenship.
  
  Downside: Porters bleed and die when they get shot or blown up.
  
  
• Bicycles: Not combat bicycles for riding, but more like two-wheeled cargo carts for pushing.
  
  
  
  
  It worked well enough for the Viet Cong on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Hell, if you want to get fancy, use the center post as a pintle mount for an M240 or M249.
  
  Downside: None that I can see, really.
  
  
• Rolling Rucksack: You know how rolling suitcases with built in wheels and handles revolutionized business travel. Why not something similar with a rolling rucksack? A rolling rucksack with wheels large enough to handle typical mountain terrain would roll most of the time, and be luggable enough to hoist over and around obstacles.
  
  You could even do a jogging stroller modified to be a rolling gun rack:
  
  
  

The point of all this is, do we really need cyborgs, robots, and cybernetics, when all we're looking for is a solution to lifting up heavy things and putting them down?

The Vanity Fair Feature on the 9/11 Air Defense Response

The Vanity Fair feature about the US air defense response on 9/11 is a great, great implementation of embedded audio in a Web page.

Kudos on the package (even though the fixed-width content well is too narrow and the body font is too small).

I teared up at a few points, thinking about the events of the day, and hearing the helplessness and frustration of the people trying to do their jobs.

Of course, the documented and audio-illustrated account will do nothing to dissuade the 9/11 conspiracy fucktards who think that because of the failure of the impenetrable magic air defense shield that they must envision surrounded the continental US (and probably Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories and protectorates), 9/11 must have been an inside job.

To say nothing of the Big Lie/Loose Change morons, and the WTC 1/2/7 controlled demolition imbeciles.

Reading the comment threads on the social link sharing site of your choice is an exercise in futility, just as it is with bible literalists and Cydonian Face on Mars advocates, since they'll throw specious arguments at you faster than you can swat them away (assuming you're not trying to pursue debunking as a full-time profession -- this is why proponents of evolution sometimes have a tough time in debates).

Maybe I'm a sheep buying into the big lie. Tell you what: When I see the consensus of actual structural engineers say that 9/11 looks hinky -- not physicists, not people who think that Photoshop is a forensic tool, not people who build and burn chicken wire mockups, but actual engineers -- then I will change my mind.

God, I hate them.

Tags: conspiracy fucktards