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Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

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Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#151

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

dragonwriter wrote: post #113
hangonhn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? Over a conventional invasion by a neighboring nation-state with massive conventional superiority with a paper-thin cover story? Probably. I mean, that’s why the USSR didn't pull that stunt against any of the NATO countries bordering its satellites, ever, even though they did similar things to other…

So what would Ukraine have done if they had nukes? Nuked the enemy troops in the Crimaea, with their own population in the way? Or bomb some Russian city and start a nuclear war ...against the second larges nuclear power?

Honestly, use of nuclear weapons just sounds like pure madness, no matter what the threat one is under. I mean, unless we're talking about an alien invasion (and I'm not impartial to keeping around a few nukes just in case that ever happens).

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#152

Post by kbenson »

dogma1138 wrote: post #148
kbenson wrote: post #139

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. 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 n…

> 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.

You seriously think high level Chinese diplomats don't have very quick communication access to Kim Jong-un? Why would you think that? I think it's very likely they have phone access to multiple aids of which one is guaranteed to be very close.

> 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.

That's because our system has checks and balances and a heirarchy. Kim Jong-un likely has direct phone access to the cammanders in the field, and through secured lines. That's the first thing you do, and that doesn't take a genius to figure out.

> 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.

They don't have to aim. Everything is likely already dialed in. There's only one target to retaliate towards no matter who attacks (since it's not going to be China). They could literally have a single qualified person go through and dial in the settings for every piece of artillery and every rocket launcher system, and just have trusted personnel to initiate the attack.

> 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.

It's not about being able to put up a fight, it's about making it too costly to start the fight.

In the end, even if the North Korean response comes after first strike (and a first strike likely wouldn't eliminate their offensive capability, according to retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales[1]), a lot of South Korean lives will be lost.

1: http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/04/19/north-koreas-sim...

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#154

Post by dboreham »

bborud wrote: post #147
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.

If you read the literature, there were plenty of people in the industry who were well aware of these problems and worked tirelessly to fix them (making them clown-proof), since around 1960. The military brass actively worked to thwart their efforts.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#155

Post by dboreham »

dogma1138 wrote: post #129
kbenson wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From missile launch to missile detonation is enough time for NK to shell large chunks of high population areas of SK. They have the guns already pointed and ready for exactly this reason.

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're assuming Trump won't tweet our launch orders..

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#156

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

greedy_buffer wrote: post #99
hangonhn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. Firstly "was" is not the right word, the war is ongoing: http://tass.com/world/965974 Secondly, imo the nature of the conflict is less important than whether a concentrated population of the adversary's citizens are within range of the weapon as far as determining the effectiveness of nuclear deterrent. > Even if Ukraine had n…

China, India and Pakistan, all three of them nuclear powers, have been fighting a low-level conflict over Kashmir for several decades. So far none of them has nuked the others.

Presumably, they realise the consequences of dropping a nuclear bomb in a region of the world with a couple billion people or three.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#157

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

nyolfen wrote: post #93
hangonhn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear weapons wouldn't have help Gaddafi anyways. He didn't have a working weapon nor a reliable way to delivering it. Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people? There's an illusion of the utility of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons might be OK if you want to destroy masses of conventional armies or destroy the ability of…

>Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people? prevent the US from intervening/preventing him from putting down internal rebellions. the risk of nuclear escalation gives you a much greater license to do things that fly in the face of international conventions.

I think the question is "how would he do all this"? Realistically speaking, if you can't hit your enemy because they're too far for your nuclear weapons and the only opportunity you have to hit them is if they invade your territory (in which case you're nuking yourself) then having nuclear weapons is not much more of a deterrent than threatening suicide: you're just hoping your opponent will take pity on you.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#158

Post by dogma1138 »

kbenson wrote: post #152
dogma1138 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

> 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. You seriously think high level Chinese diplomats don't have very quick communication access to Kim Jong-un? Why would you think that? I think it's very likely they have phone access to multiple aids of which…

Again you are missing the point NK has about “11,000” cannons pointed at Seoul these are fixed installations capable of being destroyed in a conventional preemptive strike before anyone gets the order to fire.

By the time it would take China to detect a US attack, figure out what to do, deliver a message to the NK leadership and that message can be relayed to the field there won’t be many canons left.

I think you don’t realize how long does it take for orders to go through, even a close air support request can easily take 30 min or more to push through a single chain of command.

An NK doesn’t even have direct communications with most of their fielded forces.

And as far the the zeroed cannons go it really ain’t that simple, 80% of their shells missed a bloody island that was also zeroed and were not talking about missing a target on the island we’re talking about missing an island several kilometers in size.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#159

Post by taurath »

lostlogin wrote: post #149
aidenn0 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd argue that the other side having nukes is what kept them to being skirmishes. Plenty of ugly episodes for sure but there is a cap on how much conflict can happen before the doomsday machines come out.
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