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United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

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Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#91

Post by pythonguython »

wahern wrote: post #78
pythonguython wrote: post #6

Hans has always been the guy keeping count. Just about anytime you hear someone cite the US stockpile count, it’s his number. Truly impressive how accurate he is able to be with no special accesses. Only 40 off.

The data had already been declassified up to 2020, so they only needed to estimate changes over the past 3-4 years: > Between 2010 and 2018, the US government publicly disclosed the size of the nuclear weapons stockpile; however, in 2019 and 2020, the Trump administration rejected requests from the Federation of American Scientists to declassify the latest stockpile numbers (Aftergood 2019; Kristensen 2019a, 2020b).…

I was unaware they published in the 2010s. Worth noting Hans was counting even before then

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#92

Post by justin66 »

transcriptase wrote: post #11

Every time I’ve seen nuclear stockpiles and the reduction thereof discussed, I’ve wondered: Assuming for some reason the United States needed to ramp back up to an absurd number of warheads (ignore the MAD/political practicalities), how quickly could they do so? What’s the lead time or rate limiting factors in production? Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of ti…

> Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of time, why does the standing arsenal really matter?

Possessing an overwhelming amount of retaliatory force and the combined ability and willingness to deliver it immediately in the face of an enemy's first strike serves a useful purpose for deterrence. "Mutually assured destruction" means that both sides are prevented from attacking, because the other side can respond in kind. It's irrational for either side to attack, since everybody would just die. (and yes, MAD comes with its own problems)

The ability to build a bunch of bombs in the future is entirely unrelated. I mean, who cares?

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#93

Post by hyeonwho4 »

cfraenkel wrote: post #62
llamaimperative wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear there's any such thing as "tactical nukes" given that they're strategically useless, and it's actually not even clear there's such a thing as nuclear exchange that isn't full scale war. At least as told by Ellsberg in the Doomsday Machine, there was literally no mechanism for the US to launch a partial nuclear attack.

All these other comments should just go read the book, it's worth it and a good, if horrifying read. What 'no mechanism' above means is that for many decades the SIOP consisted of 'launch everything'. The only way it was a 'plan' was to time the arrival times to avoid fratricide. This btw meant that even if there was a 'tactical' shooting event in Western Europe, all the targets in China would have been hit, even if…

From a MAD game theoretic perspective that makes a lot of sense. To avoid non-essential use of nukes, only give policymakers the option of launching everything. Then they will only launch in extreme circumstances. Hopefully only circumstances where there are already missiles inbound.

This avoids the possibility of gradual nuclear escalation, which can be more easily miscalibrated.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#94

Post by yodon »

BMc2020 wrote: post #68
amenhotep wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your contention is that GMD, THAAD, PAC-3 and Arrow are essentially expensive fireworks? Interesting. Russia and Iran will be delighted to hear that in fact their ballistic missiles were not intercepted.

BMc2020: "I would have to be a complete nut to say Hitler was a great man." amenhotep: "You said Hitler was a great man."

I suspect in other contexts you're aware of this, but personal attacks generally don't land well here. Consider continuing to focus on making important points well, as that tends to work better, as does assuming the best when someone disagrees with you, since sometimes that's a sign your comment can be legitimately interpreted or read in ways you didn't expect or intend.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#95

Post by justin66 »

slg wrote: post #18
skellington wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no form of full scale nuclear war where the production apparatus for anything becomes a factor.

That is assuming nuclear war breaks out with zero warning. There is usually a build up to wars that could involve ramping up production of a nuclear arsenal before any nuclear weapons are actually used.

During times of escalating tensions with a resourceful geopolitical adversary, you would try to cool things off with diplomacy but simultaneously... start building lots of new nuclear weapons?

Smart!

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#96

Post by hypeatei »

data-ottawa wrote: post #89
hypeatei wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no mechanism for the US to launch a partial nuclear attack Yep, the trajectory to North Korea (from US mainland) has to pass over Russia and the Russians have to trust that it's not coming for them. Not that Russia would be okay with us striking NK in the first place, but you get the point.

Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to Russia that the US is attacking NK and not just nuking Kamchatka? Can the trajectory of an ICBM be inferred by the height of it’s arc?

> Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to Russia that the US is attacking NK and not just nuking Kamchatka?

I guess that depends on current relations between the two countries and assumes there wouldn't be a breakdown of communications when launches are detected.

> Can the trajectory of an ICBM be inferred by the height of it’s arc?

From the book I mentioned in another comment, Russia has very flawed satellite systems for tracking nuclear launches. There is a lot of focus on the fact that you don't have much time in the event of an imminent nuclear strike so I don't think there is much calculations being done if the missile is (generally) coming towards your homeland.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#97

Post by justin66 »

llamaimperative wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's still massive overkill The bombs are there because “the only way to avoid being the victim of a nuclear first strike (that having the enemy hit you with their nukes) was being able to credibly deliver a second strike.” “Thus the absurd-sounding conclusion to fairly solid chain of logic: to avoid the use of nuclear weapons, you have to build so many nuclear weapons that it is impossible for a nuclear-armed oppo…

You don't need a huge number of nuclear weapons to achieve this, you need nuclear weapons in secret and ideally changing locations (i.e. submarines)

The fixed missile silos out in the middle of nowhere (sorry Montana!) serve a lot of useful purposes. If you do not intend to be the one who pushes the button and destroys the entire world, it is nice having weapons like that precisely because the adversary can see whether or not you've fired them. If the enemy can see that your ICBMs haven't launched and your bombers aren't in range to fire their cruise missiles, they know you haven't gone all the way. Additionally, silos like that are something the adversary must target if they have any hope to survive, which is one less warhead they can drop somewhere else (an air base, fleet, city, or whatever).

A submarine is inherently less predictable, yes, and in terms of ratcheting down tensions that is not always great.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#98

Post by SkyPuncher »

llamaimperative wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's still massive overkill The bombs are there because “the only way to avoid being the victim of a nuclear first strike (that having the enemy hit you with their nukes) was being able to credibly deliver a second strike.” “Thus the absurd-sounding conclusion to fairly solid chain of logic: to avoid the use of nuclear weapons, you have to build so many nuclear weapons that it is impossible for a nuclear-armed oppo…

You don't need a huge number of nuclear weapons to achieve this, you need nuclear weapons in secret and ideally changing locations (i.e. submarines)

This doesn't work since you can't really prove that your opponent doesn't know the secret or changing locations - either out of sabotage or technical advancement.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#99

Post by HaZeust »

justin66 wrote: post #92
transcriptase wrote: post #11

Every time I’ve seen nuclear stockpiles and the reduction thereof discussed, I’ve wondered: Assuming for some reason the United States needed to ramp back up to an absurd number of warheads (ignore the MAD/political practicalities), how quickly could they do so? What’s the lead time or rate limiting factors in production? Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of ti…

> Because if they could start churning out a dozen or a hundred a week within a short period of time, why does the standing arsenal really matter? Possessing an overwhelming amount of retaliatory force and the combined ability and willingness to deliver it immediately in the face of an enemy's first strike serves a useful purpose for deterrence. "Mutually assured destruction" means that both sides are prevented from…

I'd also like to add to this; that the ability to consecutively create additional warheads is not of any particular inherent value, especially when our reserve count is more than enough to wipe out any and all civilization - regardless of target diversity.

It's not like missiles or ammo, where the more we produce in times of conflict, the more of an upper-hand we have. We've already reached the ceiling for the finite amount of nuclear warheads required to do the most conceivable damage. Beyond is irrelevant.

Re: United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

#100

Post by buildsjets »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
PoignardAzur wrote: post #12

3000 nukes is better than Cold War highs, but it's still massive overkill. Even with a 90% interception rate, 300 nukes would be enough to kill tens of millions of citizens of any country from the blast alone. If an enemy leader isn't deterred by that, 2700 extra nukes aren't going to change their mind.

> it's still massive overkill The bombs are there because “the only way to avoid being the victim of a nuclear first strike (that having the enemy hit you with their nukes) was being able to credibly deliver a second strike.” “Thus the absurd-sounding conclusion to fairly solid chain of logic: to avoid the use of nuclear weapons, you have to build so many nuclear weapons that it is impossible for a nuclear-armed oppo…

Thus, the need for the Air Force to appropriate a multitrillion dollar black-box budget to develop a Sub-Supersonic Invisible and Noiseless Defensive Second-Strike Offensive Attack Bomber that flies faster than light so that you can bomb someone yesterday.
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