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Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#111

Post by l5870uoo9y »

krisoft wrote: post #101
t_mann wrote: post #93

Bit of a tangent, but the 'mutually assured destruction' meme is a cold-war-era concept relying on some strong assumptions - namely that any country would be able to credibly claim that they could take out US strike capabilities in the first place. Russia claims to have inherited that capability from the Soviet union, but that claim looks increasingly suspicious, with the war in Ukraine exposing not only systemic cor…

> namely that any country would be able to credibly claim that they could take out US strike capabilities in the first place. That has nothing to do with mutually assured destruction. MAD is about: “you strike at us? We will detect it and strike back at you destroying your cities. Our people might all die, but your people will too.” It does not assume that any party can take out the strike force of any other party.

And even if a significant percentage of the around 6000 Russian nuclear warheads aren't functional (due to various reasons), the sheer amount is a credible deterrence.

Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#113

Post by baybal2 »

t_mann wrote: post #93

Bit of a tangent, but the 'mutually assured destruction' meme is a cold-war-era concept relying on some strong assumptions - namely that any country would be able to credibly claim that they could take out US strike capabilities in the first place. Russia claims to have inherited that capability from the Soviet union, but that claim looks increasingly suspicious, with the war in Ukraine exposing not only systemic cor…

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Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#114

Post by andkenneth »

Retric wrote: post #10

At least for the US why not keep one or more nuclear missile subs in the Great Lakes? Lake Superior alone covers 31,700 square miles to an average depth of 483 feet. It’s far to large an area to target with a first strike and well protected from non US/Canadian forces. Edit: A US/Canadian treaty demilitarized the Great Lakes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush–Bagot_Treaty

Because submarine launched missiles do not have the range of ICBMs.

Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#116

Post by XorNot »

robocat wrote: post #105
XorNot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. Ballistic missile submarines are exclusively useful as second strike weapons: they don't carry enough warheads, nor are they accurate enough to first strike weapons (which have to reliably hit military targets and threaten an opponent's retaliation ability).

If doing a first strike, submarine launched missiles could easily be useful simultaneously with land based launches.

Again: no they aren't, except in a narrow and strategically irrelevant "well it's still a missile you can launch".

If you're executing a first strike, then your goal has to be to take out your opponents ability to retaliate...or you're trying to pull off a limited first strike.

In both cases, submarines add no strategic value if used: in the limited strike scenario you give away a submarines location, and in the first-strike scenario you are not going to have enough missiles, with up to date enough targeting data, in order to hit targets any quicker then land-launched ICBMs are.

The time you waste trying to maneuver your submarines close enough to your target to launch, the fact that it's entirely possible they get taken out before they launch their entire payload (US and Russian subs shadow each other as a matter of course to track their movements), and the inherent communications problems coordinating with submarines all make them irrelevant as first-strike weapons.

The point of a nuclear ballistic missile submarine is a guaranteed second-strike capability. Your opponent might surprise you take out your bombers. They might surprise you can take out your land-based ICBMs. But there's no way they can ever be sure they got every boomer sub, and boomer subs don't target military targets: they target cities, capitals and command bunkers. They exist to ensure no useful advantage is ever gained from first-strike.

Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#117

Post by sigmoid10 »

andkenneth wrote: post #114
Retric wrote: post #10

At least for the US why not keep one or more nuclear missile subs in the Great Lakes? Lake Superior alone covers 31,700 square miles to an average depth of 483 feet. It’s far to large an area to target with a first strike and well protected from non US/Canadian forces. Edit: A US/Canadian treaty demilitarized the Great Lakes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush–Bagot_Treaty

Because submarine launched missiles do not have the range of ICBMs.

The Trident II Submarine Ballistic Missile has a range of more than 7500 miles (12000km). The exact capability is still classified, but you could easily hit places like Moscow or Beijing from a submarine in the great lakes.

Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#118

Post by tomohawk »

> Given the strategic importance of submarine stealth, Gower asks, “Why would any country want to detect and track submarines? It’s only something you’d do if you want to make a nuclear-armed power nervous.”

The US had the capability to detect and track Soviet subs in large swaths of the oceans for decades using SOSUS and other sensor networks.

https://dosits.org/people-and-sound/history-of-underwater-ac...

During that time, the US did not exercise their ability to wipe out the Soviet Union. Would the Soviet Union or Putin have pursued the same course of action if they had such an advantage?

This is why it is important to keep a technological edge over authoritarian governments. Such governments are not morally equivalent to democracies. They have radically different goals, and radically different value systems.

SOSUS was eventually betrayed by the Walker spy ring, and the Soviets ended up making much quieter subs.

Putin now has a new submarine that can launch nuclear powered torpedos from hundreds of miles away. These torpedos have 100Mt warheads. I sure hope we can track this thing and neutralize it, because there is no balistic missile launch to detect and counter.

Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#119

Post by plasticchris »

BeefWellington wrote: post #48
unchocked wrote: post #8

Seems naive that, as the article claims, nations might agree to limit their detection technology to enhance survivability of their adversaries’ nuclear forces. If “ocean transparency” comes to pass, it seems much likelier that we’d have to deal with a realignment of the MAD calculus.

I would guess that on some level, some analyst many years ago laid out a plan for what should happen with that, and the first thing would be to have a few armed satellites to ensure the continued effectiveness of MAD as a concept. Yes, it would violate treaties against the weaponization of space but I would lay even money on the idea that some country has already done this.

Makes the trend to on orbit “servicing” of satellites seem much more sinister.

Re: Will AI steal submarines’ stealth?

#120

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

jonas21 wrote: post #35
dontlaugh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US uses submarines to threaten attacks on far away countries, not for defence.

The US uses ballistic missile submarines to provide counterstrike capability that can't be destroyed by a nuclear first strike. This deters adversaries from attacking us because they'll know that no matter what they do, we'll still be able to annihilate them in response. If, as this article claims, it will be impossible for submarines to hide in open waters in the future, hiding submarines in large, protected bodies…

For the military, anyway.

Shouldn't be an option for us.

How viable freshwater sources do we really have left to play with?

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