I agree that current ABM systems are anything but foolproof, but you should not over-estimate the value of the Iranian missile either.  You need to keep in mind that it isn't an 80% chance it might be stopped, but 80% X2, plus whatever odds that missile will fail in flight or fail to actually hit the target. 

 

A missile has to be set up and launched before it is hit preemptively by Israel or the US.  It has to succeed in launching without blowing up on the pad or breaking up in flight.  It has to pass a cordon of AEGIS equipped ships in the gulf with an 80% chance of hitting the missile in flight.  It has to get past Israeli Arrow and Patriot missiles on descent, with a better than even chance of hitting the warhead.  It has to actually hit the target (Tel Aviv) and not drop in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan or Gaza.  And finally, it can't be a dud.  Would you bet your retirement fund with odds like that in Las Vegas?  I doubt it.  Would you be afraid of a nation with such long odds if they paraded a missile around that uses 1960s technology, if you had a 21st century interceptor ready and waiting for it?  Probably not. 

 

My point is the Iranians cannot use a missile as a threat because the odds are slim that it will work.  Whether or not one actually got through is not the point.  Without the fear, it has zero value as a threat or as a deterrent, so the Iranians don't have a saber to rattle, which is the point of having the missile in the first place.  Nukes are not meant to be used, but meant to hang over an enemy to make that enemy nervous and pliant.  And you say Russia is not concerned about ABMs?  Have you seen the news about plans to place ABM batteries in Poland and Eastern Europe?  Do they sound unconcerned?  Russia has been in freak-out mode ever since it was suggested, and they have gone to great lengths to threaten preemptive strikes against such defensive batteries.  And the Russians have missiles a full 40 to 50 years more advanced than what the Iranians have or will have for the next decade at least.  All but useless... I stand by that statement.

Scott:  While you have a valid point, but I have to point out that you are also over-estimating the threat.  An Iranian nuke will not be compact, efficient, undetectable or reliable.  If will require an expert to see the bomb to the target and that expert will die with it.  Iran will not have a lot of bombs to deploy, and will have no ability to defend their stockpile from a preemptive strike from Israel or the US.  A nuke is not the same as a Candygram.  Nobody is going to let a package from Iran near the border of Israel or the US, let alone past it without being inspected, and no nation will allow themselves to be involved with Iran in such an attack because they will not want to get caught up in the inevitable retaliation against them by Israel, the US and the rest of the civilized world if it succeeded in killing a lot of innocent people. 

 

As I said before, a nuke is not the same as a truck-bomb.  It requires at least one expert to oversee it and arm it, just as it required an expert to arm Fat Man and Little Boy in flight back in WWII.  It was a scientist, not a crewman who armed the bomb in flight, and the reason they did it was because there was a genuine fear that the bomb would go off prematurely before the plane got clear of Iwo Jima.  The same possibility exists for a nuke in a shipping container, so it can't be armed until it is delivered, and you cannot expect a moron from the Muslim street to do the job right.  Don't make the threat more than it is.

I agree that current ABM systems are anything but foolproof, but you should not over-estimate the value of the Iranian missile either.  You need to keep in mind that it isn't an 80% chance it might be stopped, but 80% X2, plus whatever odds that missile will fail in flight or fail to actually hit the target. 

I am not overestimating their capabilities, I'm saying that even for a MRBM there's numerous ways to make interception very tricky, multiple decoys and boost and midcourse evasion - given the narrow window (area and time) for intercept the advantage will always favour the aggressor. Also, all we know about the effectiveness of the various BMD systems is that they are successful in test conditions, as GW1 and 2 showed, battlefield conditions can be very different indeed. 

 

A missile has to be set up and launched before it is hit preemptively by Israel or the US.  It has to succeed in launching without blowing up on the pad or breaking up in flight.  It has to pass a cordon of AEGIS equipped ships in the gulf with an 80% chance of hitting the missile in flight.  It has to get past Israeli Arrow and Patriot missiles on descent, with a better than even chance of hitting the warhead.  It has to actually hit the target (Tel Aviv) and not drop in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan or Gaza.  And finally, it can't be a dud.  Would you bet your retirement fund with odds like that in Las Vegas?  I doubt it.  Would you be afraid of a nation with such long odds if they paraded a missile around that uses 1960s technology, if you had a 21st century interceptor ready and waiting for it?  Probably not. 

 

The "80 percent" thing again, completely made up figure with zero relevance to real-world threats. You are essentially confident in a system without really knowing how realistic the interception tests carried out actually are, how the system copes with decoys or evasive flight paths - perhaps the real "likelihood" of interception assuming a salvo launch and countermeasures care of their Russian friends is very different indeed. Again, no one is talking about "today's" threat, but rather the threat that might exist in 10, 20 or even 30 years - Iran is sitting on enormous oil wealth if it can but exploit it. 

 

My point is the Iranians cannot use a missile as a threat because the odds are slim that it will work.  Whether or not one actually got through is not the point.  Without the fear, it has zero value as a threat or as a deterrent, so the Iranians don't have a saber to rattle, which is the point of having the missile in the first place.  Nukes are not meant to be used, but meant to hang over an enemy to make that enemy nervous and pliant.  And you say Russia is not concerned about ABMs?  Have you seen the news about plans to place ABM batteries in Poland and Eastern Europe?  Do they sound unconcerned?  Russia has been in freak-out mode ever since it was suggested, and they have gone to great lengths to threaten preemptive strikes against such defensive batteries.  And the Russians have missiles a full 40 to 50 years more advanced than what the Iranians have or will have for the next decade at least.  All but useless... I stand by that statement.

 

When Russia is truly concerned it doesn't "talk" or sign ICBM reduction treaties, they're not concerned because they know that there is and always will be a fundamental advantage to them - they get to choose their flight path, they get to use decoys and overwhelm defensive systems with MIRV's. And you say, "next decade" I'm sure that's not how Israel is thinking about it, even if you could somehow give Tel Aviv your magical "80%" certainty they could always decide to cripple the global economy and hit Saudi Oil infrastructure, or simply donate some fissile material to the wrong guys, or just build an enormous salted bomb (easy and terribly effective) etcetera - the point being, your optimism is misplaced, which is presumably why everyone is taking the threat rather seriously. 

 

R 

Reactive:  Your comment about the effectiveness of ABM systems are all very true, even though we (the US) have tested our systems against missiles using all manner of decoy, maneuvering and jamming systems and still brought many of them down, but I am not talking about Russia or even China, but Iran and North Korea, who are both the same in that they have trouble just launching a missile that won't break up once it leaves the pad. 

 

The idea that Iran has a missile with MIRV (Decoy) capability, maneuvering capability and jamming capability is so far out of the realm of possibility that it's really not worth discussing.  That is what I meant about the value of the current ABM systems... they are ideal in eliminating the threat of rogue regimes who think that a missile and a nuke means the world by the tail.  If Israel can create a missile that can intercept a mortar round, I think we can handle a 1960s era ballistic missile from Iran, because that's all they got, and that's all they will have for at least another decade.  Once again, you are giving the mullahs much more credit than they deserve.  Iran has had to resort to using photoshop to make them look bigger, and much of their hardware is repackaged junk, like their latest fighter made out of an old F-5.  Until they actually test a missile with any of the bells and whistles common on Russian ICBM, then it is safe to assume they don't have it yet because even Russian isn't crazy enough to sell the technology to them. 

 

The bottom line is that the best Iran can do is make the missile go up and come down, hopefully somewhere near the target, and they haven't really proved they can do that with any regularity.  That's it, unless you have evidence to the contrary that is verifiable. Not too long ago, one of our destroyers in the Sea of Japan successfully intercepted a doomed satellite moving at 14,000 mph and not only hit it, but hit it in a specific place (The fuel tank) so that it would burn up more completely.  I would say that, based on that hitting a missile lifting out of Iran is a pretty good bet.  Is it 100% certain?  No, of course not; nobody is saying that... But a missile out of Iran still has to run several hurdles; from successfully lifting without blowing up to crossing two or more defensive lines of ABMs to actually hitting the target and the device actually working even if it does hit.  Would you bet your life on that?  I wouldn't, and I'll bet that the mullahs wouldn't either, because Iran has ZERO capability to intercept a return volley from Israel which can hit back with enough warheads to turn Tehran and the mullahs into glass and cinders. 

 

This notion that the mullahs are on a religious-fueled death ride is (IMO) overstated and overrated.  If they lived like monks instead of lottery winners I might buy it, but they are living the good life and I don't think they want to give it up and go see Allah just yet.  And if the odds are against a missile attack working, the political impact of a nuke missile is limited because Iran is not Russia.  Frankly, they're not that good.

 

Oh, and I didn't find your comments snarky at all.  I'm enjoying the debate and I hope you are too.  ;)