Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed • Hacker News Board

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#141

Post by georgeecollins » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 11:31 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #114

knappe wrote: post #54

I recently finished Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety [0]. I can't recommend the book enough for how eye opening it really is into how blasé we have been with nuclear weapons. We've been reckless and by all accounts it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident (there have been a few, just not on our own soil). The number of close calls is just astounding. Fur…

> Further the book, at one point, talks about America's position on Russia and the attempts to keep them from getting "the bomb". It is exactly what has played out and will continue to play out with North Korea and Iran. History is repeating itself and we sure haven't learned from it. Is it actually similar, though? The US got the bomb in 1945. The Russians got theirs in 1949. Given the size of the Soviet Union, how…

China cares a lot if North Korea became reunified and the US still kept military bases in Korea. China doesn't want US forces on its border any more than the US wants Chinese forces on its border. They support NK because it is a buffer.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#142

Post by throwanem » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 11:33 PM UTC

cat199 wrote: post #118

tzs wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Further the book, at one point, talks about America's position on Russia and the attempts to keep them from getting "the bomb". It is exactly what has played out and will continue to play out with North Korea and Iran. History is repeating itself and we sure haven't learned from it. Is it actually similar, though? The US got the bomb in 1945. The Russians got theirs in 1949. Given the size of the Soviet Union, how…

> Given the size of the Soviet Union, how far it is from the United States, the available spying and reconnaissance technology (no satellites, no stealth aircraft), and that the US was only four years out of World War II, I don't think there is any way the US could have made a creditable threat to use military force to stop the Russians. That whole 'massive military presence in western europe and asia minor' thing no…

Less so than you might think. We brought our forces home after WWII, which put them on the wrong side of the Atlantic to mount a defense against a Soviet invasion of Europe. That's actually where a lot of the early urgency originated in nuclear weapons development - not just to stay ahead of the Russkies, but to as quickly as possible mount a credible deterrent to precisely that potential Soviet war plan.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#143

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 11:34 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #128

knappe wrote: post #54

I recently finished Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety [0]. I can't recommend the book enough for how eye opening it really is into how blasé we have been with nuclear weapons. We've been reckless and by all accounts it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident (there have been a few, just not on our own soil). The number of close calls is just astounding. Fur…

> We've been reckless I worked around nuclear weapon systems and TBH came away with the opposite impression. I grew up terrified of the military and panic mongering about of "THE BOMBS!" from family, media, etc. But after this, I ironically came away feeling much safer seeing how professional and serious people took their jobs.

Some nuclear plant worker told the same on reddit. We're all very concerned about nuclear plant since Fukushima and we all saw mistakes. But the guy basically said he wouldn't work in any other place considering how well it was done and operated.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#144

Post by markrages » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 11:41 PM UTC

zedpm wrote: post #120

If you happen to visit Badlands National Park, or western South Dakota in general, make time to visit the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site mentioned in the article. I toured Delta-01 last summer, and it was fascinating. The tour guide did a fantastic job of conveying the gravity of the mission and just how scary the Cold War was.

When I visited, the guide was retired veteran from that missile site. He spent a lot of time discussing the living situation, and the maintenance schedule, and the phone setup. The guy had internalized that bureaucracy over his entire career, and wanted to explain in in painstaking detail.

The underground control center was amazing though.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#145

Post by InclinedPlane » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 12:05 AM UTC

abandonliberty wrote: post #72

knappe wrote: post #54

I recently finished Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety [0]. I can't recommend the book enough for how eye opening it really is into how blasé we have been with nuclear weapons. We've been reckless and by all accounts it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident (there have been a few, just not on our own soil). The number of close calls is just astounding. Fur…

Hey it's not all bad, we managed to convince Ukraine to destroy their nuclear weapons and it worked out really well for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Not sure if you're joking...

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#146

Post by cocoablazing » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 12:26 AM UTC

PostOnce wrote: post #127

wildmusings wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we can. We have the capability to totally annihilate as much of North Korea as we need in order to prevent a counter attack. The question is if we are willing to do it, and kill millions of North Korean civilians. Trump is sure trying to convince the North Koreans that he is.

> We have the capability to annihilate as much of NK as we need to prevent a counterattack ...from North Korea If we start launching nukes in the direction of NK, how does China know it's going to stop in NK and not hit them? Do we call them up first? Then what do they say? Is it totally out of the question that China would panic (or reason?) and counterattack? NK doesn't exist in a vacuum, and in fact NK wouldn't ex…

You’re assuming that China’s nuclear force posture is like that of the US or RF. It is much more robust against false alarms. Given the massive alert arsenal the US possesses, along with the historical fact that both the USSR and US sat out strong technical alerts of incoming massive strikes, rather than launch — it’s a good prior that they would sit it out.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#147

Post by bborud » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 12:28 AM UTC

knappe wrote: post #54

I recently finished Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety [0]. I can't recommend the book enough for how eye opening it really is into how blasé we have been with nuclear weapons. We've been reckless and by all accounts it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident (there have been a few, just not on our own soil). The number of close calls is just astounding. Fur…

The problem is not that we are blasé about nuclear weapons. For the most part we are completely ignorant about them.

No, the problem is that we assume that we wouldn’t put clowns in charge of something this dangerous. So when we put clowns in charge of nuclear weapons and they inevitably fuck up (and not just a bit), we either refuse to believe it is even possible or we assume it is a rare accident.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#148

Post by dogma1138 » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 12:33 AM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #139

dogma1138 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assuming that NK has an early warning system which consists of more than a guy with binoculars and circa 1960s radar which they don’t. The US is more than capable of launching a preemptive strike against NK without Seoul being hit nearly as hard as one would think. The main reason they won’t isn’t the shelling of Seoul is that China won’t allow US troops on its border and neither the US, SK nor China wants to dea…

> You assuming that NK has an early warning system which consists of more than a guy with binoculars and circa 1960s radar which they don’t. You don't think China has such a system and won't give a friendly call to North Korea? You'd be willing to bet the lives of South Koreans on that? Also, as much as we like to think of North Korea as a joke nation, I'm sure there are some very smart people in the government. In f…

China doesn’t have sophisticated early warning systems either, nor does it have a central military command nor integrated command and control infrastructure they’ve started one in 2011 but as their military ranks are a political appointment the competency of their military leadership is lacking at best.

You seem to not understand exactly what the situation is even if NK would get an early warning say 10min it would not even get it past the guy who answers the first phone get alone to the military in the field.

The US and Russia have invested 70 years in building infrastructure which is designed for a single contingency which is to launch a retaliatory strike within 15-20 minutes this requires an enormous investment and North Korea barely has phone lines.

This doesn’t even take into account the fact that the soldiers manning the artilary installations can barely hit anything and that they don’t have enough shells to fire their 11,000 cannons zeroed on Seoul.

North Korea’s conventional military is a joke these days and unless China puts its own soldiers into the fray it won’t be even a two sided fight.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#149

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 12:48 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #61

lostlogin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define a major conflict? Iraq seemed pretty big, and so did Afghanistan.

Those didn't happen in nuclear states.

China has had several major border skirmishes with India, some with Russia and with Taiwan and I’m sure there are others too. Israel has had lots. Russia has had some ugly episodes too.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#150

Post by nasredin » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 12:59 AM UTC

hangonhn wrote: post #88

batter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked so 'well' that it lost part of it's territory. From Budapest Memorandum Wiki: 'The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.' Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow: http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotte…

"Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow" Is it really though? Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. I don't think nukes are the be-all-end-all weapons people think they a…

Ukraine couldn't have used the threat of nukes WRT Crimea. It happened too fast (IIRC Russians used old school messengers to avoid Western SIGINT), and at least the majority of the population supported or did not actively oppose them (e.g. Ukrainian generals defecting to the Russians)

It's another story WRT to Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine's military units had poor morale and were repeatedly destroyed by regular Russian soldiers AKA "volunteers". The time frame is not days as in Crimea. Perhaps the threat of nukes would have stopped Russian tanks and soldiers from "volunteering" in Ukraine.

It is now up to the armchair historians and alt-history writers to contemplate the what-ifs.