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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

#201

Post by chasd00 »

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…

full scale nuclear war where the full quantity of warheads is used would be over in maybe 1hr tops. Initial attack, detection, response. Then probably another attack and another response from remaining SLICBMs and then that would be it. I don't think any capacity to create more would survive or change the outcome and therefore is not much of a deterrent.

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

#202

Post by CleaveIt2Beaver »

Yeul wrote: post #167
justin66 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recall petroleum fires being a huge part of the dialog, back when nuclear winter was a big public topic, such that I'd bring it up first thing and to the exclusion of other concerns. It was part of it, for sure. There was at least one apocalyptic science fiction story about the Soviets testing a bomb underground and accidentally setting a massive oil field on fire. (it was called Anvil? Or written by Christop…

I saw 9/11 cloud on TV. That was one building. If Earth's megacities get nuked I refuse to believe that it would not have consequences for the climate.

When Canada was on fire last year, we had smoke all down the east coast. I don't know if it affected the temperature, but it sure affected the environment. it doesn't need to go full ashen-winter to fuck up plant growth cycles for farms and whatnot, I'm sure.

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

#203

Post by JakkTrent »

defrost wrote: post #137
hollerith wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who said anything about petroleum storage tanks? Repeating myself: before the 700 Kuwaiti oil fires, the most influential scientists warning about nuclear winter, like Carl Sagan, relied heavily on petroleum fires to make their argument.

As a completely serious question, what about the non-influencer scientists, the ones doing actual detailed physical modelling, what were they saying? As I recall from the time there were three camps on this: * pro MAD cold war political scientists who stressed that world ending Mutualy Assurred Destruction scenarios were essential to peace keeping, * antinuclear horrified scientists, Carl Sagan, Betrand Russell, et a…

I can't speak to the actual research but after reading various declassified documents from the Soviet Union and Maoist China, I can say truthfully that they did not believe the world would end with a nuclear exchange. Both countries had 1st strike scenarios - both believed some aspect of their government and country would survive.

Mao was particularly disconcerting, to paraphrase, "Nuclear war doesn't scare me, we've got more than enough people and cities, we can rebuild"

Upon further looking into it, I fear MAD may have been at the time an overexaggeration to prevent what would be the most devastating war. Could be true now tho - things have leveled up

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

#204

Post by hollerith »

Yeul wrote: post #167
justin66 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recall petroleum fires being a huge part of the dialog, back when nuclear winter was a big public topic, such that I'd bring it up first thing and to the exclusion of other concerns. It was part of it, for sure. There was at least one apocalyptic science fiction story about the Soviets testing a bomb underground and accidentally setting a massive oil field on fire. (it was called Anvil? Or written by Christop…

I saw 9/11 cloud on TV. That was one building. If Earth's megacities get nuked I refuse to believe that it would not have consequences for the climate.

I never claimed it wouldn't have consequences for the climate, but there is a big difference between that and the assertion I am replying to, namely, "our reserve count [our current inventory of nukes] is more than enough to wipe out any and all civilization".

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

#205

Post by chasd00 »

oceanplexian wrote: post #157
slg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we aren't at 0 warning at the moment, but if there is a spectrum from 0 warning to imminent, we are close enough to 0 that the distinction doesn't really matter. The US, UK, and China are not actively fighting in Ukraine and even if they were, this wouldn't be the first time these countries have directly fought each other in a proxy war in the nuclear age. So unless you think the Russian military personnel that…

“Civilization destruction” isn’t a realistic scenario and I think people need to get over that. It’s not the 1980s. It’s almost certain what would actually happen is one or two pop off in a conflict zone like Ukraine and then nukes start getting used tactically like conventional weapons. The larger issue is once the “nuclear taboo” is broken nation states will start using them. Nukes aren’t magic, they’re just really…

I think it's common knowledge that preventing a tactical nuclear war from escalating to a strategic nuclear war is basically impossible. Even a tactical nuke targeting a military base in its entirety is strategic enough to warrant a response targeting an industrial center (city). Then there you have it, the strategic nukes launch on population centers.

I think a Mad Max style post apocalypse type situation wouldn't come about until maybe 30 years after a full nuclear war. As disease and civilization continue to deteriorate over time eventually I can see much of the word getting to that state. Kind of like how a polluted lake doesn't kill all the fish immediately, it slowly dies over time.

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

#206

Post by lumost »

bbatha wrote: post #181
GemesAS wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pit production is likely the rate limiting factor. We disassembled a bunch of AFAPs so have a lot of weapons grade plutonium around. But Pu is nasty to work with & Rocky Flats--the previous pit production facility--closed down years ago. Pit production moved to Los Alamos but it is at a much reduced capability. Also, Pantex--where nuclear weapons are assembled--isn't exactly the model for speed & efficiency.

Plutonium is very corrosive and sensitive to phase changes so it needs to be refurbished and replaced regularly. The weapons grade plutonium lying around is probably not bomb ready.

I'd have to imagine that this material is stored in glass/argon. Corrosion should be controllable over long time horizons.

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

#207

Post by vasac »

JakkTrent wrote: post #198
TiredOfLife wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that NATO currently in the room with you?

This is purpose of NATO - to prevent the lines on the map from changing. Ukraine may not be a member of NATO officially but it doesn't need to be - the Soviet era reason for Ukraine is the same as the NATO, a buffer state. Russian aggression reinforced the need for a buffer state - before it wasn't obvious, now it is. NATO is intending to force Russia to leave Ukraine and they are willing to play a very long game bc…

Nope. NATO did change the lines on the map.

But thanks for playing.

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

#208

Post by lumost »

hyeonwho4 wrote: post #93
cfraenkel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This seems somewhat impractical, assuredly - plans would have been made in a dark drawer for the case that an earstwhile allied country became politically unstable.

On both sides of the wall - it would have been feasible for a country to attempt to establish it's own alignment separate from the superpowers through the use of nuclear weapons

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

#209

Post by chasd00 »

nradov wrote: post #107
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.

There are a limited set of scenarios where a major nuclear state might use a tactical weapon against a lower-tier state. For example, if the USA got into a conflict with Iran and we had actionable intelligence that they were assembling a nuclear weapon in an underground bunker then we might take it out with a small number of tactical nuclear ground strikes. I'm not recommending this but you can game out scenarios whe…

Things would have to get very very dire to go the tactical nuke route for the US. Not only is there a fear of tactical nuclear war escalating to strategic war there's the fear of demonstrating tactical nuclear war is feasible. If it works and Iran's nuclear capability is destroyed and nothing else happens then it will be all to easy for another power to use tactical nukes and then nuclear weapons become a common component on the battlefield. That makes escalation to the big strategic weapons easier.

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

#210

Post by itronitron »

GemesAS wrote: post #48
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…

Pit production is likely the rate limiting factor. We disassembled a bunch of AFAPs so have a lot of weapons grade plutonium around. But Pu is nasty to work with & Rocky Flats--the previous pit production facility--closed down years ago. Pit production moved to Los Alamos but it is at a much reduced capability. Also, Pantex--where nuclear weapons are assembled--isn't exactly the model for speed & efficiency.

Well, surely we could train an AI to do the assembly. /s
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