🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ewright.726191472@convex.convex.com>, ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <1993Jan04.205508.23361@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes:
>
>>Not to mention the EMP problems you'd cause for commercial sats and (possibly)
>>electronics on the ground.... It would be bad. 

>Not necessarily.  At least, not if you plan for it.
>
>Consider this scenario.

[Cold War scenario of two fleets closing together to do battle on the high seas] 

>Shortly before the satellite gets within detection range of
>your fleet, you launch an SLBM, taking out your enemy's nice,
>new, expensive satellite.

>  Both fleets get hit by EMP, but you
>are prepared because you know it's coming.  Your enemy isn't
>expecting it.  Worse, he has all his planes sitting out, exposed,
>on the flight deck, waiting to launch when the satellite gives
>him targeting information.  If you're lucky, you've taken out
>all his AEW.  This puts you in a very good position....

While it's nice to think of nuclear weapons as just a bigger bomb, it ain't so.

Launch of a SLBM would automatically cause panic buttons to be hit all over the
place and would result in a MUCH higher alert status of strategic nuclear
forces. Which thereby puts the Other Side into a higher alert status and
pretty soon everyone is sweating more profusely than either first imagined...

Secondly, U.S. forces are EMP hardened, so all you've done is:

	A) Raised the level of tension
	B) Invited attack on any space assets you've got
	C) Tossed public opinion and the world community off your side;
	   NOT a good thing. 

Tomorrow's battlegrounds are as much as hearts and minds as they are of men and
machines. 

Thirdly, you don't need a nuke for EMP kills; there are various dark projects
which perform tricks with conventional explosives and electronics which will
fit inside of a Tomahawk or their Russian counterpart.


                    I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --