Nearly off-the-shelf
But quite dated technology.
Posted on 08/19/2019 2:21:45 PM PDT by BeauBo
The U.S. military has conducted a flight test of a type of missile banned for more than 30 years by a treaty that both the United States and Russia abandoned this month, the Pentagon said...
The Pentagon said it tested a modified ground-launched version of a Navy Tomahawk cruise missile, which was launched from San Nicolas Island and accurately struck its target after flying more than 500 kilometers (310 miles). The missile was armed with a conventional, not nuclear, warhead.
Defense officials had said last March that this missile likely would have a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and that it might be ready for deployment within 18 months.
The missile would have violated the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987, which banned all types of missiles with ranges between 500 kilometers (310 miles) and 5,500 kilometers (3,410 miles). The U.S. and Russia withdrew from the treaty on Aug. 2...
In addition to the land-variant of the Tomahawk cruise missile, the Pentagon has said it also intends to begin testing, probably before the end of this year, an INF-range ballistic missile with a range of roughly 3,000 kilometers (1864 miles) to 4,000 kilometers (2485 miles). Both missiles are to be non-nuclear.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this month that he hopes the Pentagon can develop and deploy INF-range missiles "sooner rather than later".
(Excerpt) Read more at dayton247now.com ...
Watch out China!
We got out of the treaty, and then built this previously banned new missile in about 3 weeks?
Now the sophistry makes more sense.
I’m glad our people are thinking ahead, and realizing the need for a missile to deal with China. But it would be refreshing to see our government be honest for just once, just to see how it works out. Instead of concocting their cover story on why they were getting out of the treaty, they should have just said a treaty designed for the Cold War era in Europe doesn’t make sounds for our needs with China, so we’re getting out of it. Simple, easy peasy, no need to pretend someone else is violating it for us to pursue a new National interest from the one of the late 80s.
“built this previously banned new missile in about 3 weeks?”
It is not a new missile, it is the widely fielded Tomahawk cruise missile. They are just mounting it on a ground vehicle as a launcher, to be able to drive them around, so they are harder to find. Also, they can be deployed/proliferated quickly - no base to build, just drive them off a plane or ship.
We will likely hear about the ballistic missile in another month or two. They could just put the Pershing 2 back into production.
Both the Tomahawk and Pershing can carry a conventional or nuclear warhead - and look the same n the outside.
“no need to pretend someone else is violating it”
The Russians were violating it big time.
The fact that we ever banned ourselves from making any weapon we want is ludicrous. Talk about peak virtue signaling, and it happened decades ago. Sheesh.
Even more stupefying is the Left will now call the “Tomahawk” missile “RACIST”.
I’d call it “ Tommy the Destroyer” after our beloved “Conan the Destroyer”. More descriptive of its power.
Sounds like a handy weapon to deploy in the islands and nations around the South China Sea. You should be able to cover quite a bit of ocean with the right placement.
Contrary to the alarmists, I am convinced that the “cold war” history, and the India-Pakistan military confrontation history shows that THE IDEA OF “MAD” (mutual assured destruction) works in convincing nations to avoid a confrontation that would actually render nuclear MAD likely. What looks to the “arms control” crowd as MAD, actually works, in my mind, to prevent MAD.
Without the mutual response to a build up on one side (the Russians have been updating their nuclear missiles for years) MAD becomes more likely - by one side thinking the disadvantages are no longer mutual. But a mutual build up makes MAD less likely. Trump is telling Russia that Russia will have no advantages with its improved missiles. His actions will help restore a respect for U.S. forces that Russia has been losing. That will be a deterrent to MAD, not a cause for it to happen.
If you don’t want MAD to happen, make MAD the likely result of anyone starting a nuclear confrontation. Appease yourself as a great power out of any nuclear deterrent and the likelihood of a tyrant with nukes using them to oppose you increases.
Fun fact: it’s 1250 km from Warsaw to Moscow. Now, about that Russian naval base in Venezuela...
China also hoped to prevail simply by having non-nuclear “area denial” weapons, that would keep our forces out of range. Other nations would then have to capitulate to China, without American protection.
These types of weapons could deny the same areas to the Chinese. The USA could provide the capability to the nations in the region.
The South China Sea could quickly become a shooting gallery for China’s one or two carriers, and its man-made islands, sitting ducks.
When you start looking at the range fans of these kinds of weapons, and their mobile nature (on trucks, ships, subs and aircraft), no place is safe.
“They could just put the Pershing 2 back into production.”
Having worked for companies tasked with putting something back in production, I can tell you, it’s really hard to do. Parts suppliers have gone out of business. Critical components are now obsolete. In every case redesign was needed. The longer the item was out of production, the more components that will need redesign and modernization. If the device has been out of production for several years, you are better off starting from scratch.
I got Texas Instrument's Semi-Automated Test Stations for the Harpoon's Final Tracking Radar (they built the Radar and the Test Stations) operational for them.
That was in 1976 at their plant in Garland, Texas.
Nearly off-the-shelf
But quite dated technology.
Under the treaty you could engineer and build it but not test it. The Russians built and tested. Thus Trump wisely pulled out of the treaty.
Actually it was a very good treaty that Russia violated and destroyed by their actions and not ours.
No argument.
It’s just that I have marveled at all the “arms control” advocates over the years, in the west from the 50s on, and then observed the actual history of events during the cold war, and also the India-Pakistan dispute. I have marveled because the “arms control” advocates have advocated for western appeasement as necessary to prevent MAD, when the history shows that it was a strong mutual deterrent that has always prevented things coming to the point of MAD.
What is known about ALL the largest advocates in the west against the U.S. nuclear deterrent, and all the “protest” groups they spawned, was the origins came directly from the Soviets who introduced the approach to the Leftist groups in the west, who then picked up that line of march as their own, and have kept with it to this day. The Soviets may be gone, but western Leftists continue the Soviets geopolitical lines still today.
The excuse, used a an argument, is/was the bad actors in the world would not be the bad actors they are if the U.S. was not as strong and dominant as it is. The further error of that argument is the bad actors would melt away if the U.S. quit its status as the super power. History shows the opposite. The U.S. vacating its super power status would only mean that some bad actor or group of bad actors WOULD fill the power vacuum. So, in sum the western Leftists propagated a Soviet lie, because if U.S. policy makers bought that lie, it would serve the Soviets own power ambitions, and not “disarmament”.
Bring back the Neutron Bomb.
Hang in there.
The reason we got out is because China and Russia were developing them. Thank heaven we didn’t wait until now to develop them.
Can you imagine them having them, and us still on the starting blocks?
I’m on our side. We can’t simply blindly follow old treaties nobody else is following.
Trump made that very clear at the time he withdrew from the treaty.
Good for him.
If we had Obama in there now, Russia and China would have these weapons and we wouldn’t for years down the road.
The other issues aside, that has to be one of the biggest "Duh!" sentences in a news article in the last 10 years...!
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