Reihan Salam—the “thoughtful” bald conservative without the big, bushy beard—is off on a seriously non-thoughtful tear at the National Review, warning us of existential doom and existential boom in the form of the “Sarmat”, a hypersonic ICBM that Russian President Vladimir Putin is waving in our faces. According to Putin, who has never been known to lie, the Sarmat can strike either of the Earth’s poles with a nuclear warhead.
Well, I’m not sure why an attack on either pole would be the end of the world, but Reihan definitely wants us to be afraid, to be very, very afraid. “Hypersonic weapons travel at least five times faster than sound, and they fly lower in the atmosphere than ballistic missiles. These features make them much harder than other missiles to track and destroy with traditional defense systems.” Even worse, the Russians (as always) are waaay ahead of perennial stick in the mud Uncle Sam: “Meanwhile, the United States’ own experiments with hypersonic weapons have been slow-going. A test in 2014 ended in failure when the Army had to destroy a test missile mid-flight, for example. Even after a successful test late last year, the weapon is nowhere near ready to use.”
Okay, this isn’t just bad, it’s terrible, but it isn’t still the worst. This is the worst: “Even more worrying for the United States, although it has been focusing on hypersonic weapons that carry conventional warheads, the Russian versions are equipped for nuclear ones.”
Gross, n'est-ce pas? I mean, gross that a supposedly intelligent, perhaps even honest man might peddle just meretricious bullshit of his own free will. Does it never occur to Reihan that Putin, like a lot of dictators, might be, you know, lying about his military prowess? Last month, Richard Aboulafia, writing in Forbes about Putin’s phallic phantasies, concluded that “The Real Message From Putin’s Claim Of Powerful New Weapons: Weakness”. It never occurs to Reiham to wonder how Russia, which spent around $70 billion on defense in 2016, can be ahead of the U.S., which spent around $610 billion. And I guess he didn’t bother to read that excellent article in the, you know, National Review, by Marc C. Johnson, “Don’t Fear Moscow. Marginalize It”. Even though Mr. Johnson is, to my mind, far too taken with the fearsome “Sarmat” (Has any Westerner ever seen it in action? Of course not.), he snickers audibly at “the rest of Russia’s military, which remains more riddled with corruption and fraud than any other comparably sized force in the world.”
Furthermore, to leap once more into the saddle of one of my all-time favorite hobbyhorses, missile “defense”, let me say that there is no such thing as missile “defense”, hypersonic or otherwise. Contrary to Mr. Salam’s supposition (or “lie”) “traditional defense systems” are of no use against traditional missiles, let alone hypersonic ones, which I will go out on a limb and say do not exist. Last year, Wired ran an article by Brian Barrett on our “Ground-based Midcourse Defense” system, charitably titled “US Missile Defense Still Has a Long, Long Way to Go”. In recent testing, the GMD has hit the target about half the time—not exactly reassuring numbers—but, in fact, that ain’t the half of it.
For one thing, during a test, the defenders know when the missile is coming, unlike in war, when the enemy is often so unkind as to engage in a “surprise” attack. But that’s only the beginning. According to Wired, “The tests also don’t account for decoys and countermeasures that could throw off the missile defense system—tactics that include technology that confuses the launch-detecting radar systems or infrared sensors aboard the interceptor [rocket], or a simple balloon traveling alongside the incoming missile’s reentry vehicle.”
So it looks like we’re already doomed, Sarmat or no, because the Russkies can hit us any time they like right now, right? Well, no, because they have no reason to do so! Back in the day, Dwight Eisenhower, who, unlike Reihan Salam, had five stars on his shoulder, said “there won’t be a war. Khrushchev knows that, no matter what, I can always destroy Moscow. And there’s nothing he wants so much he’ll give up Moscow to get it.” But talk like that don’t scare voters, don’t get votes for Republicans, and don’t get ridiculously unnecessary defense appropriations for ridiculously unnecessary weapons projects. And so that’s why Reihan Salam tells big fat lies and is a big fat liar.
