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Cost-exchange Ratio
In anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defence the cost-exchange ratio is the ratio of the incremental cost to the aggressor of getting one additional warhead through the defence screen, divided by the incremental cost to the defender of offsetting the additional missile. For instance, a single new ICBM might require a single new ABM to counter it, and if they both cost the same, the cost-exchange ratio would be 1:1. Throughout the Cold War, the cost-exchange ratio was almost always strongly in favor of the offense. Some of this has to do with the fact that an ICBM can be aimed at any target, which the defender cannot know in advance. To shoot that warhead down, the defender has to wait until it appears on radar, which typically happens only a few hundred miles from the target. This means a single defensive missile cannot be used to counter a single warhead; ABMs have to be deployed in a spread-out fashion so that one can respond no matter where the warhead appears. Even if a single ABM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-ballistic Missile
An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to counter ballistic missiles (missile defense). Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear weapon, nuclear, Chemical weapon, chemical, Bioagent, biological, or conventional weapon, conventional warheads in a ballistics, ballistic flight trajectory. The term "anti-ballistic missile" is a generic term conveying a system designed to intercept and destroy any type of ballistic threat; however, it is commonly used for systems specifically designed to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Current counter-ICBM systems There are a limited number of systems worldwide that can intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles: * The Russian A-135 anti-ballistic missile system (renamed in 2017 to A-235) is used for the defense of Moscow. It became operational in 1995 and was preceded by the A-35 anti-ballistic missile system. The system uses ABM-4 Gorgon, Gorgon and Gazelle (missile), Gazelle missiles pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ICBM
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons can also be delivered with varying effectiveness, but have never been deployed on ICBMs. Most modern designs support multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), allowing a single missile to carry several warheads, each of which can strike a different target. Russia, the United States, China, France, India, the United Kingdom, and North Korea are the only countries known to have operational ICBMs. Early ICBMs had limited precision, which made them suitable for use only against the largest targets, such as cities. They were seen as a "safe" basing option, one that would keep the deterrent force close to home where it would be difficult to attack. Attacks against military targets (especially hardened ones) still demanded th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. A radar system consists of a transmitter producing electromagnetic waves in the radio or microwaves domain, a transmitting antenna, a receiving antenna (often the same antenna is used for transmitting and receiving) and a receiver and processor to determine properties of the objects. Radio waves (pulsed or continuous) from the transmitter reflect off the objects and return to the receiver, giving information about the objects' locations and speeds. Radar was developed secretly for military use by several countries in the period before and during World War II. A key development was the cavity magnetron in the United Kingdom, which allowed the creation of relatively small systems with sub-meter resolution. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sprint (missile)
The Sprint was a two-stage, solid-fuel anti-ballistic missile (ABM), armed with a W66 enhanced-radiation thermonuclear warhead used by the United States Army from 1975-1976. It was designed to intercept incoming reentry vehicles (RV) after they had descended below an altitude of about , where the thickening air stripped away any decoys or radar reflectors and exposed the RV to observation by radar. As the RV would be traveling at about , Sprint had to have phenomenal performance to achieve an interception in the few seconds before the RV reached its target. Sprint accelerated at 100 ''g'', reaching a speed of in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to , requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat. The high temperature caused a plasma to form around the missile, requiring extremely powerful radio signals to reach it for guidance. The missile glowed bright white as it flew. Sprint was the centerpiece of the Nike-X sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle
A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying thermonuclear warheads, even if not strictly being limited to them. By contrast, a unitary warhead is a single warhead on a single missile. An intermediate case is the multiple reentry vehicle (MRV) missile which carries several warheads which are dispersed but not individually aimed. Only the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and India are currently confirmed to have deployed MIRV missile systems. Pakistan is developing MIRV missile systems. Israel is suspected to possess or be in the process of developing MIRVs. The first true MIRV design was the Minuteman III, first successfully tested in 1968 and introduced into actual use in 1970. The Minuteman III held three sma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ABM Treaty
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) (1972–2002) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. It was intended to reduce pressures to build more nuclear weapons to maintain deterrence. Under the terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of which was to be limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles. Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next 30 years. In 1997, five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, four former Soviet republics agreed with the United States to succeed the USSR's role in the treaty. In June 2002 the United States withdrew from the treaty, leading to its termination, citing risks of nuclear blackmail. Background Throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had been developing missile systems with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles). The concept was announced on March 23, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan,Federation of American ScientistsMissile Defense Milestones Accessed March 10, 2007. a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a " suicide pact". Reagan called upon American scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the US Department of Defense to oversee development. A wide array of advanced weapon concepts, including lasers, Duarte, F. J. (Ed.), ''Proceedings of the International Conference on Lasers '87'' (STS, McLean, Va, 1988). particle be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Excalibur
Project Excalibur was a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Cold Warera research program to develop an X-ray laser system as a ballistic missile defense (BMD) for the United States. The concept involved packing large numbers of expendable lasers around a nuclear device, which would orbit in space. During an attack, the device would be detonated, with the X-rays released focused by each laser to destroy multiple incoming target missiles. Because the system would be deployed above the Earth's atmosphere, the X-rays could reach missiles thousands of kilometers away, providing protection over a wide area. Anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems of the time only attacked the enemy nuclear warheads after they were released by ICBMs. As a single ICBM could carry as many as a dozen warheads, dozens of defense missiles were required per attacking missile. A single Excalibur device contained up to fifty lasers and could potentially destroy a corresponding number of missiles, with al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nitze Criteria
The Nitze criteria are three basic requirements that encompass the Reagan administration's definition of a successful Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) deployment. They are named for Paul Nitze, Reagan's chief arms control negotiator, who proposed them in a 1985 speech. Missile defense and arms reduction A key plank in the Reagan administration's thinking about BMD was that a successful system was not simply a defensive system to protect the United States; its ultimate goal was to be so effective as to render ICBMs essentially useless and lead to their abandonment. Nitze summarized this concept in a 20 February 1985 speech to the Philadelphia World Affairs Council: Success criteria Nitze stated that if a BMD system were to be successful in fulfilling this role, it needed to meet three criteria. The first two criteria are simple: the proposed system has to actually work, and it has to be able to survive attacks against it. While these may seem obvious, many earlier systems failed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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