On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:40:20 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm,
Joseph Gwinn quickly quoth:

In article ,
"azotic" wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Aug 29, 8:42 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

The Trident missile has a 4000 nm range.

Why did our military buy a missile with a 4000 nanometer range ?

He surely meant to remind you and Ed that a nanometer is one billionth
of a meter. (To those of you in Rio Linda, the nm is _much_ smaller
than a yard.)


So they can hide in the vastness of the oceans, safe from a surprise
strike. It's one leg of the deterrence triad: land (the silos under the
Nebraska cornfields), sea (nuclear subs with missiles), and air
(Strategic Air Command).

Remember that with technological advances and satellite monitoring,
our (and other nations') subs are no longer invisible, although they
can hide for awhile on occasion.


The theory of it is that one must arrange things so that all but the
most rabid of *Soviet* right-wingers knows that a surprise attack cannot
work, and will surely result in their homeland glowing softly in the
dark, so nobody is tempted to even try.

The problem behind the MAD theory is that it only works with sane
people. Once Islamic (or other) tangoes go nuclear, that's out the
window the planet will become poisoned.

--
The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life,
acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can
do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.
-- Euripides