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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (130020)	12/21/2000 11:56:56 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570952

"Risk Severity = Probability of occurrence x Impact of occurrence" True, but the risk/reward from a particular antagonist mitigates against lobbing missiles. Basically it breaks down thusly. There is the launch accident, but it is a real stretch to come up with some scenario that results in a warhead, live or not, getting launched. Sure, there are tests and exercises, but with warheads? Next, there is the rogue nation. Now a certain amount of the "nuttiness" is a result of bluster and for public consumption, either here or in the host country. I doubt seriously if the Kims, Hussiens, etc. of the world are really going to risk their personal skin being incorporated into the glass of the likely US response to anything less than a crippling attack which even the USSR at their peak likely could not have delivered. Even the least costly and most effective attack on the US, i.e. 3 or 4 warheads set off outside the atmosphere for an EMP attack, would still leave the submarines intact, not to mention any hardened assets. And no one but Russia and possibly the Chinese could loft enough warheads to do anything but make the US very, very angry. Next, oh Russia decides to threaten glassing large portions of the world if it does not start coughing up protection money. For this scenario, some sort of large-scale ballistic missile defense might be effective. A really limited possibility though. Ok, what if the Chinese try to bluff, believing that the US would not trade LA for Taiwan. This is a good example of bluster for domestic consumption. Even the dumbest Chinese leader has got to realize that the price of such a swap is more likely to include Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and a whole handful of Chinese assets. They are better off trying to use their nukes to eliminate any US carrier groups that taking out US cities. Now that would provide a harder choice for any US president. Or if they are really dedicated to the cause, loading a warhead into the baggage of a government-owned airliner. Lastly we have the terrorist approach, but as noted smaller warheads (or chemical or biologicals) smuggled in would be a better choice. Harder to track back to a source, too.