Some relevant update
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/a...onic-glide-vehicle-avangard-completes-testing
The development of a highly manoeuvrable system capable of travelling at high speeds makes the Avangard effectively impossible to intercept by any air defence system likely to be developed for several decades to come - with no existing platform currently capable of intercepting even basic unmanoeuvring hypersonic munitions at relatively low speeds of Mach 5. The Avangard is estimated to have a speed of between Mach 20 and Mach 25.
Apparently Putin was not bluffing about that thing. Mach 28 is mind boggling. I guess MAD is more alive than ever now
How is that not a "first strike" weapon? Keeping in mind, of course, that a fucking
hammer can be a "first strike" weapon so long as you are the one that uses it first.
ETA: Odd you didn't focus on the most obvious point from the OP source:
The false alert of 1995 would not have occurred if Russia had a reliable and working global space-based satellite early warning system. Russian analysts would have been able to observe that there were no US ballistic missile launches from the North Atlantic. The availability of such a system would have caused the initial alert to be called off within minutes or even more quickly.
Detailed analyses, initially stimulated by questions about why the alert went on for so long, showed that a specialized space-based Russian early warning system called Prognoz was then under development. Analysis of the Prognoz satellite constellation and of available Russian infrared sensor technologies indicated that even if the satellite system had been working, it would not have been able to provide surveillance of the North Atlantic. Today, Russia has stopped launching satellites into this constellation and has instead focused enormous resources exclusively into building a highly robust and redundant network of ground-based radars. It is now very clear that Russia’s extreme de-emphasis on satellite early warning systems and its extreme focus on building numerous, technologically varied ground-based radar warning systems is due to the lack of critical technologies needed to implement a space-based ballistic missile warning system.
...
Under the veil of an otherwise-legitimate warhead life-extension program, the US military has quietly engaged in a vast expansion of the killing power of the most numerous warhead in the US nuclear arsenal: the W76, deployed on the Navy’s ballistic missile submarines. This improvement in kill power means that all US sea-based warheads now have the capability to destroy hardened targets such as Russian missile silos, a capability previously reserved for only the highest-yield warheads in the US arsenal.
So, not only would the smarter move be to develop (aka, steal) satellite-based early warning technology, but evidently the issue of our fuzing technology allowed us to take out
hardened silos, where Russia supposedly kept most nukes and thus a critical component to any first strike scenario. But the Avangard system you just referenced above (including the other components mentioned in the piece itself if not in your quote) is anything but a stationary, hardened silo-type weapon, thus
already rendering a "first strike" scenario against Russian silos obsolete.
Iow, we gained a heavier sledge hammer, while Putin was busy removing the need for a heavier sledge hammer.
And then, instead of pouring more resources into the most obvious defense against any first strike capability--i.e., satellite early warning--Putin has instead decided to double-down on far less efficient ground-based radar warning systems. Why, if, as you indicate, there is such a dire threat from our supposed "first strike" posturing?
Do Russian generals not have access to the internet the way you do?
