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

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#181

Post by jpatokal » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 2:53 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #151

dragonwriter wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The difference is deterrence: Russia would have thought twice before invading a nuclear-armed neighbour.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#182

Post by throwanem » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 2:55 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #174

throwanem wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We brought our forces home after WWII We brought some of them home. The US still had a quarter of a million troops in Germany in the late 1980s. In the 1950s, there were still 300,000 to 400,000 across all of Europe (eg 50,000 in the UK in the mid to late 1950s).

That's not but about a sixth of what the tank-heavy Red Army had at the time - a sixth which in a new war would have no hope of timely reinforcement, because of the aforementioned ocean. A nuclear deterrent was still seen as valuable, even necessary, and I think not wrongly so.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#183

Post by adventured » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 2:56 AM UTC

nasredin wrote: post #175

adventured wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kim has a substantial problem in that premise, regarding China. At this point we have to assume North Korea will soon have dozens of nuclear weapons (basically as many as they can manage to make), and in a few years that they'll have dozens capable of being placed on an ICBM that can hit most US cities. Their progress has accelerated dramatically, that will probably make such numbers very feasible. Now, following the…

And have a great weekend guys! Adventured

Indeed. It's the whole reason to never allow a nuclear conflict to erupt in the first place. And particularly to not get into a scenario where a weak third world type power can threaten the existence of a superpower (because it may topple the MAD premise in the after-consequences; MAD has a rarely discussed psychological requirement involving the people of a nation: acceptable parity exchange, aka great powers with a lot to lose choosing to not destroy each other; ie how does a superpower react to being destroyed by a country like NK? what's left of MAD afterward?).

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#184

Post by greedy_buffer » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 3:06 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #156

greedy_buffer wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Didn't know much about this conflict, thank you for educating me. One other difference between those combatants and a theoretically nuclear armed Ukraine is that that war is more widely seem as an existential threat to an independent Ukraine. Kashmir political disagreement seems to rest on somewhat more limited territorial claims versus the desire of one party to post its military inside the other as well as to exert widespread political influence.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#185

Post by FabHK » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 3:13 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…

> it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident

Or maybe it's evidence for the many-worlds-interpretation of quantum mechanics... we're in one of the few universes where we didn't blow ourselves up.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#186

Post by FabHK » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 3:17 AM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #122

scrumper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not quite an accurate read though, at least as far as NK. The US can’t really make a credible military threat because of the north’s proximity to the south, an important US ally and a country all but guaranteed to be mortally wounded in the event of north/USA hostilities.

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.

> and kill millions of North Korean civilians

And South Koreans: Seoul is just 60km (35 miles) from the border, about as far as Palo Alto from SF. Even if the nukes don't affect South Korea, the DPRK has the border lined with arms (conventional, but effective enough).

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#187

Post by adventured » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 3:21 AM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #182

adventured wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We brought our forces home after WWII We brought some of them home. The US still had a quarter of a million troops in Germany in the late 1980s. In the 1950s, there were still 300,000 to 400,000 across all of Europe (eg 50,000 in the UK in the mid to late 1950s).

That's not but about a sixth of what the tank-heavy Red Army had at the time - a sixth which in a new war would have no hope of timely reinforcement, because of the aforementioned ocean. A nuclear deterrent was still seen as valuable, even necessary, and I think not wrongly so.

The US forces obviously were not the only counter forces in Europe. It wasn't just ~300,000 US troops vs the entire Red Army.

It was: the US, the UK, France, Western Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Turkey. Russia also very likely would have lost several of its western post WW2 Soviet Union territories in the chaos.

The US could bomb Russia from all over Europe. Russia couldn't sustain a meaningful bombing campaign against the US mainland. Russia also had a mediocre navy compared to the US. Rapid attrition would have guaranteed a Russian loss.

Russia was very weak for 30 years after WW2 (really their entire existence except for the brief oil boom of 1974-84). While the US was in the exact opposite position. Timely US reinforcement probably would not have been necessary. That's a war that would have gone on either for years, or for a few weeks. Russia also would have had few allies in a European war. The US had the manpower, financial and manufacturing ability to stay in a long-term fight with Russia, whereas Russia could not have afforded to stay in it. They could have never replaced their war manufacturing after the US destroyed it with aerial bombing, and the war would have ended there (in the non-nuclear scenario). Russia would pull out the nuclear card, an equivalent of suing for peace, and that would have been that.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#188

Post by bbddg » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 3:23 AM UTC

goialoq wrote: post #176

knappe wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not a lot of controls that work really well. And a lot of the controls that do exist were fought for tooth and nail. That is the entire point of the book. :) For example, the locks in place at each Titan II facility all had exactly the same code (1111). And they were left unlocked. Regarding the accidents, here are a few examples: Thule Airbase crash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_c…

The other way to interpret these facts is that it takes a lot of work to actually detonate a nuclear weapon, so they are pretty safe by default and can handle abuse.

Yes, that is another way to interpret those facts. It's just terrifyingly arrogant and irresponsible.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#189

Post by foobarian » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 3:31 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #177

goialoq wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Why would US bomb its main trading partner because NK bombed the US?

That depends on the context. If the US loses one city, that'll be an extreme tragedy that the US can absorb, while obliterating NK in response. If the US loses its top dozen (or more) cities in a nuclear exchange with North Korea, there's no scenario under which the American public won't demand retribution against the enabling power/s that made that outcome possible. China would be guaranteed to get nuked as a conseq…

Xi Jinping does not like Kim at all. I suspect if NK continues the current course and gets close to launching China will invade NK and remove the leadership. They primarily want a stable region not under US control. A NK modernized in the Chinese communi-capitalist manner would benefit everyone.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#190

Post by sfifs » Sat, Nov 04, 2017, 3:37 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #156

greedy_buffer wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And no one has lost any territory to the other since they developed nuclear weapons. All conventional millitary conflicts date from before they became nuclear powers.