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No one wins in pre-emptive nor follow up nuclear strikes.

The luminaries of the nuclear defense establishment disagree with you: I.e., the late Herman Kahn, Edward Teller,Laurence Beilenson, and President Reagan, plus our current Sec. Defense Donald Rumsfeld all believed that your thesis is dead wrong. Hence Rumsfeld was the principle architect of getting the MX deployed. He started the R&D. And Weinberger and Reagan finished the job. The MX and Tridents counterforce capability had the effect of denying the aggressor Communists from being able to assume they would have anything left to coerce a civilian population with after attacking our military assets. Thus, it was another layer of "deterrence" plugging a very serious and real gap since the Soviets manifestly believed and taught that they could win a nuclear war. (The big secret of the nuclear freeze movement).

You see, what you fail to realize is just how successful a pre-empt can be with modern GPS technology nowadays, the vulnerability of our current low-alert posture (read "sitting duck"), and strikes from the South of the U.S. (not just from SLBMs, but their cruise missiles launched from container "farms" and ships the PLA controls near our shores) where our radar coverage is thin....followed up with a devastating series of EMP explosions. GWB has retired half our Trident fleet, all of our MX missiles. Half our B-1Bs. Most of our B-52s. Kept everything on Xlinton's ordered stand-down.

Your notion of counter-strikes assumes anything survives. Almost all the Tridents will be in one port on the West Coast...sitting ducks. And with the new GPS commonly available, the Chinese could easily take out the few remaining Minutemen we have...which have very few MIRV warheads after GWB signed the Moscow Treaty.

The U.S. could be completely routed in relatively short order. Hence, we need to do a number of things right now to get ready.

First and foremost. Toughen up the domestic infrastructure against EMP. It can be done with federal subsidies and Civil Defense structures now for about $15 billion. The U.S. has to have stashes of vulnerable components stockpiled for emergency replacement. The generators need special emergency trips to prevent over-revving. And the transformers need to have massive fast breakers, and we need an indigenous manufacturing supplier of transformers again. Yes. They got outsourced and left the country entirely.

Second. Plug the leaks in radar coverage. High and low. Cruise missile sneak attacks are to be taken seriously as well. This means massive new deployments of U.S.-based hardware. And deployment of the new NMD-capable SM-3 toting Aegis cruisers stationed around each and every suspected PLA container-farm. All Chinese vessels must be required to obey a restricted approach to the U.S.-- only in convoys where they are "escorted" by such a vessel. Unescorted vessels inside the security zone get immediately sunk by whatever assets we have.

Third. Deploy PAC-3 missile defenses at all extended U.S. military and civilian sites, plus along the entire periphery of the continental ocean-front, particularly defending bases and population centers. No gaps for the Chinese to surprise.

Fouth. Deploy the sea-based NMD system in depth. Fully fund deployment of 25-50 or so DDX cruisers.

Fifth. Deploy Brilliant Pebbles type ICBM defense in orbit. Now. Secretly. Most people wrongly assume we have already done something along the lines of deployment for the money spent on SDI.

Sixth. Redeploy Safeguard, pulling it out of mothballs.

Seventh. Deploy Gatling-type projectile terminal defenses at all ICBM complexes.

Eighth. Reactivate the MX missiles and deploy in road-mobile format. Deploy several hundred dummies as well to complicate targetting.

Ninth.Reactivate all remaining B-1B bombers, and restore to nuclear readiness.

Tenth. Reactivate all Trident missle submarines.

Eleventh. Place all nuclear assets on routine "Cold-War" alert status, reactivating all their decommissioned or soon-to-be decommissioned interior USAF bases with air crews ready for immediate scramble. Submarines in-port time is to be immediately reduced to barest minimums, and constantly redeployed.