This @tshugart3 X-Tweet is an example of "Delusions are Easier" in the US National Security space⬇️
**ASBM = Anti-ship ballistic missile
US National Security elite cognitive dissonance 🧵
1/
ASBM's are an updated 21st century version of the late Cold War Pershing II maneuverable reentry vehicle (MARV) w/Radar Area Correlator (RADAC) guidance.
In a sentence, the Pershing II was a late 1980's nuclear smart weapon for digging out Russian national command bunkers.
2/
There are two delusions at work in the US Nat-Sec elites mental space.
1. "Eeeck, a Nuke!"
2. "China is backward."
Thinking about smart nuclear armed MARV's technology in any context result in irrational behavior because of the "Eeeck, a Nuke!" override that resulted in the
3/
...nuclear freeze movement and the "Nuclear Winter" con in the Reagan era.
Two thousand smart MARV's with nukes 1/3 the size of Hiroshima (10 megatons total yield) could do a counter-force 1st strike w/o the flawed nuclear winter theory being a physical possibility.
4/
Add in the Reagan era "Star Wars" missile defense with Pershing-II style MARV's on Trident II SLBM's plus Minuteman II and Peacekeeper ICBM's. Mutually assured destruction (MAD) becomes obsolete.
The institutional reaction to the "Eeeck, a Nuke!" override being made...
5/
...technologically obsolete is the real political roots where "Escalation Management" ideology dominating the US nat-sec space was born.
That & the whole "Gotta save my phony baloney job" reaction by professional arms controllers to Chinese mass deployment of MARV tech.
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Allied with the idea of ASBM is that many in the national security space are flat delusional about China as a "Technological Challenger" in the same way the USA was with Imperial Japan before meeting the A6M Zero fighter that out performed & ranged every US fighter in 1942
7/
The issue for "Technological Challenger" thought is that it lives in a huge cognitive bias blind spot with Western so-called "Defense Analysts," because they can't accept the late 1970's Pershing 2 radar seeker architecture is over 40 years old.
What is near impossible
8/
...for the 1st generation of engineers, is hard for the second, is easy for the third.
Which means Pershing 2 radar seeker architecture is easily repeated by non-American, Non-West European, 21st century weaponeers in all sorts of applications.
9/
Point in fact, per a 2018 Serhiy Zgurets article in Defence Express, the HRIM-2/Grom-2 TBM system's suite of terminal seeker's had MMW RADAC and visual DSMAC capability.
The 5V28 SAM Ukraine used recently at Taganrog may have a MMW RADAC seeker & be GPS jamming proof.😮
10/
Which takes us to the Chinese CM-401, which is an ATACMS class 300 km range ASBM with RADAC seeker and thrust vectoring control (TVC) MARV.
This 2018 arms show was the first evidence of a Chinese RADAC seeker operating -probably- in Ku-Band.
11/
https://t.co/ERtY3aYCwbthedrive.com/the-war-zone/2…
Quoting an expert on the subject:
"Adding SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) into the seeker radar primarily requires a high bandwidth antenna & receiver, & an long coherency length master oscillator for the waveform generator.
The rest is code.
The incremental cost of...
12/
...21st Century hardware mods is not huge [compared to the 1980's].
SAR provides an equivalent capability to a DSMAC (digital scene mapping and correlation) or a RADAC - technically you would call this a RADAC using SAR.
13/
How accurate depends on the bandwidth and the oscillator coherence length, as with SAR modes on fighter radars. That sets your pixel resolution and thus potential CEP (circular error probability).
This has beaten to death in radar textbooks."
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The idea of really accurate "smart nukes" that RADAC MARVs represent is bad enough, in that they make tactical and strategic nuclear warfare with 1-to-5 kiloton class nukes a real world possibility for non-Westerners trained on this⬇️
15/
The only realistic counter to low nuclear yield MARV's would be mass deployment of strategic and tactical ballistic missile defenses.
Which takes us right back into the "Delusions are Easier" mental space which US National Security live it.
16/
The acknowledgement of Chinese ASBM cannot happen because it results in identity level cognitive dissonance by US national security elites, if addressed.
And the certain disposal of an elite class job description, namely nuclear arms control negotiators.
17/17 End
@threadreaderapp unroll please
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