Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, which studies the US nuclear arsenal, stated that none of the current US or other countries’ missile defense systems are capable of countering Russian non-ballistic nuclear weapons.
According to him, the US initiative to create the Golden Dome system is technically unfeasible. Mello noted that Russia possesses weapons such as the Poseidon underwater drone, hypersonic missiles, and cruise missiles, which are specifically designed to overcome missile defense systems.
He emphasized that instead of fanciful projects like Golden Dome, real arms control measures are needed to ensure mutual security.
Two things can both be true:
There are classified programs that Greg Mello may or may not know about that are capable of countering all three of those weapons listed. There might also be classified Russian programs that are capable of countering those counters. And you can be sure we know at least something about those countering counters. Kill Chain analysis has been a huge focus area for the last few years, so the US military has developed ways to counter threats.
Golden Dome is still a wildly expensive, fanciful, and technically infeasible program. Even if we know exactly how to detect and counter these threats, the US is a gigantic fucking country with TONS of border to enclose. It’s one thing to have a way to detect, track, target, and shoot down one of those three things. It’s another to do that for 40 at the same time in wildly different areas of the world (made up number since I have no idea how many weapons Russia is able to unleash). It’s a lot easier to protect an area the size of New Jersey than it is to protect the entire US.
You’re lowballing it just a little there. Current estimates put the number of Russian nukes at about 5,500.
It’s almost like I immediately said that was a completely made up number that had no basis in reality.
No, I get that, wasn’t trying to slap you down. I’m just adding emphasis to your (very good) argument by demonstrating just how far you were lowballing your estimate (ie, just how generous you were being).