Solely addressing number 2, I think the factor here is time. The strike window for this weapon as I understand it is 1 hour anywhere in the world. Navy SEAL operations on the order of killing Bin Laden have lead times measured in months. Even Tomahawk missiles take time to position (warships) and fire. When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed or killed within a hour, Mach 20 is the only way to go.

Plus its non-ballistic flight path and high degree of maneuverability probably allows it to evade most anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile defenses.

Scary stuff.

Edit: Grammar and spelling.

"highly maneuverable" is an odd term here. What's the radius of an 8 g turn at mach 20? 555 km. The diameter is slightly smaller than the N-S length of California.

Sure, but by the same reasoning, you don't need to change your heading by more than a fraction of a degree before the interceptor has to massively change it's intercept trajectory. A scramjet powered missile randomly making slight adjustments around the desired trajectory would make it extremely difficult to intercept.

I wasn't aware that it was a law. I thought it was merely a prohibition put into place by an Executive Order signed by President Ford.

In either case, it seems moot in today's day and age. What's the difference between firing a missile at enemy headquarters with the intention of killing the general and senior staff, and an assassination?

It seems today that 'assassination' is simply pursuing the usual methods of war against a specific target.

In Robert Baer's book "See No Evil" he describes being questioned by the FBI while working for the CIA for allegedly trying to organize an assassination of Saddam Hussein.

There were no basis for the accusations but he understandably pretty unhappy as the penalties for being found guilty could be pretty severe.

They're against the law if they're caught. It implies nothing about the existence of successful stealth-assassinations.

I'm pretty sure speeding is against the law even when there are no cops around.

This means nobody does it?

Not at all. An unpunished illegal actions is still illegal; you are not _punished_ if you are not caught violating the law. Your phrasing is more pithy, of course.

I don't see anyone else around with a Mach 20 assassination missile. Call it circumstantial evidence if you like...

cruise missiles are often better for assassinations anyway. They are stealthy, cheap, and extremely accurate - a mach-20 super-hot re-entering slug of metal that had to be launched into space isn't really any of those.

I'll put my money on tiny UAV's as the future of assassinations. They're small now and I'd guess in 10 years they'll have really small ones, I mean fly in like a mosquito and blow up John Connor's head before he even sees it small. Short range but all that means if you need another vehicle to get them close, yeah prolly a cruise missile.

Congratulations, you just wrote "Terminator 2 and the Methods of Rationality".

Why can't we have nice things and the Methods of Rationality?

Dear god that's terrifying.

You hear the scream of a missile overhead. It passes. Sometime later you will die.

prefixed by "zzzzZZZZZZZZZ                  "

That's a horrible way to go.

I know an old lady who swallowed a fly.

I don't know why she swallowed a fly.

I guess she'll die...