The government of Japan used to think that. It didn’t work out the way they expected.

Posted by a.sommer at August 2, 2010 07:36 AM

True, but the America of today isn’t the America of seventy years ago in either spiritual or industrial resources. FWIW, I’m sure our leaders would manage a pretty comprehensive indignation before deciding that further operations should be put on hold ‘pending a reassessment of the strategic situation’.

The government of Japan used to think that. It didn’t work out the way they expected.

No defense works every time, every place, under all circumstances. I for one am glad to have robust, overlapping defensive systems. Even without (unattainable) 100% effectiveness. Some defense is better than none.

The loss of a carrier group would provoke a devastating response and everyone knows it.

Posted by FatCaveman at August 1, 2010 07:31 PM

Maybe. A sufficiently devastating loss might give the US pause, though.

My feeling vis-a-vis China is that they already have us by the economic short-and-curlies and any US response to Chinese aggression in Asia is likely to be perfunctory.

And while I don’t doubt that lasers will eventually be able to vaporize targets quickly, I do wonder if they’ll ever be useful in every circumstance; if not, then problems ensue. A laser that worked fine except under some one condition (for instance, in a driving rainstorm) would have to be backed up with a ‘ballistic’ defense system so comprehensive that the laser system itself might be superfluous. Yes, photons are cheaper than bullets, but the attacking missiles are expensive enough that there won’t be all that many to shoot bullets at.

There is a potential here for U.S. rivals to use lasers to completely overturn U.S. tactics, fleet composition, or even the use of navies and air forces altogether.

In a sense the Chinese and Russians had already done this with their cheap supersonic and ballistic missiles. No-one has been prepared to put it to the test but even the most modern anti-missile systems can only track a fixed number of targets and anti-missile missiles need considerable time to reload their launchers/magazines. For the cost of a few hundred million a hostile force could practically guarantee taking out most of a US carrier fleet valued in the tens of billions.

That no-one has sunk a US carrier is really a matter of no-one with the potential and desire to do so having the nerve to escalate things with the US to this extent. The loss of a carrier group would provoke a devastating response and everyone knows it.

An effective missile defense system using lasers actually brings the playing field back to where it was before the field was tipped so heavily in favour of any attackers.

There was a commander of US submarine forces who said “There are two types of naval vessels; submarines and targets”. This development may have once again made carriers useful for something other than beating up third world countries that can’t fight back.

tomwright – ANY powerplant, on Earth or otherwise, is a nice fat target. A Space Based Power Satellite will be huge and will be designed to keep functioning after its been hit with debris. The best answer is to develop and deploy active space defense systems, but that gets out leftie friends knickers in a twist and we can’t have that.

Posted by Tim Carpenter (Libertarian Party) at August 1, 2010 12:55 PM”

Which is why I am amazed that so many people support power generating satellites in orbit, beaming energy down to the surface.

One ticked off ‘great leader’ with the ability to launch a scud with a warhead full of scrap metal at it, and your downstream users go dark.

The laser is only a small issue the US needs to worry about from China. They may knock out all the GPS satellites if anything big kicks off, rendering so many US systems impotent. I believe they are one of the few countries to have tested a surface to orbit missile.

Lasers will blind and burn, strike from seemingly nowhere, and probably radically change naval and air strategy. There is a potential here for U.S. rivals to use lasers to completely overturn U.S. tactics, fleet composition, or even the use of navies and air forces altogether.

Laser weapons could upset the balance of power around the world. Hard to say what may happen.