Was SDI really such a terrible idea? I can't see a genuine

It was a brilliant idea because it spurred the Soviets into a huge spending spike right as the price of oil collapsed, thus ending them as a nation.

>>30343793
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a bit of a backfire because it gave missile designs to Iran and North Korea, nuclear designs to Pakistan (they had HEU weapons before but gained knowledge on plutonium production from the Soviets) and almost put over a ton of HEU and god knows how much plutonium onto the black market.

>>30343837
better than it flying through the sky at us. also fuck commies.

>>30343837
Yeah but now we have casus belli in a can to nuke half the Muslim world if they start shit with us. I still call that a win since neither Iran nor Pakistan has ICBMs.

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>>30343852
>better than it flying through the sky at us

>>30343784
>Was SDI really such a terrible idea? I can't see a genuine downside to effectively castrating ICBMs.

Yes, because it would push the Soviets into a "use it or lose it" situation.

>>30343784

ABM systems sound great, but they have one tiny little flaw:

> build ABM system to counter enemy rockets
> enemy builds more rockets
> build more ABM
> enemy builds more rockets
> build more ABM
> enemy builds more rockets

And thus on and so forth ad infinitum.

>>30343871
>neither Iran nor Pakistan has ICBMs

The Pakistani navy may currently be Argentina-grade but they are working on a cruise missile launching nuclear submarine. The one hope is that they hate India more than anyone else.

>>30343904
>>30343911
Fair enough.

>>30343793
Can't say its a waste, there was a huge spin-off of technology that was developed during that period, while it never saw a lot of use as 'SDI' it ended up in all sorts of stuff.

Lot of the beam forming targeting systems turned up in the late 90s and early 00's which ended up being sold that where fucking massively ahead of anything else on the market. I one ran a small network back in 2001 that was basically and early wireless broadband which would lock onto the device with multiple antennas with a degree of accuracy of up to 50cm at about 10km. Which would be kind of neat if it was a static device, but in our testing the network could lock onto a moving target at 110km/h on a freeway while still maintaining full capacity, no loss of signal... slightly unofficially I gave my car a boot and chickened out at 210km/h and it was still working but the OH&S monkeys didn't need to know about that :)

That was just civilian spec, the real deal is much more accurate and at vastly higher speeds

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>>30343887

>>30343784
No. It was actually very innovative. Despite being ridiculed by the press, every portion of it was very feasible for 1980s technology. Brilliant Pebbles in particular was something that could have been put into place in the 70s.

The most cost effective methods of SDI are in use today, notably the OTH radar stations and satellite monitoring systems.

>>30343911
As always, the point of ABM isn't to shoot down everything, it's to introduce uncertainty to the equation, thus requiring more and more expensive counters to said system. A single missile that has the chance of intercepting a single MIRV bus ends up having a disproportionate effect on nuclear targeting as now more warheads are needed across the board in order to ensure a targets destruction, or the number of targets needs to be paired down in order to ensure destruction of key assets.

ABM has far reaching consequences to strategic postures with even a handful of missiles.

>>30343784

>I can't see a genuine downside to effectively castrating ICBMs.

Well nuclear war would seem to be a massive downside.

Believe it or not anti-missile tech is more likely to provoke a nuclear exchange than prevent it. Removing the mutual part of mutually assured destruction forces the state behind on anti-ICBM tech to launch early or risk being bombed with impunity.