Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

United States discloses nuclear warhead numbers; restores nuclear transparency

fas.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 363 posts

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

#221

Post by gumby »

Looks like only about half of them have been deployed. The rest are mostly retired but not yet dismantled, or in inventory (https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-05/united-states-nuclea...)

Apart from the absolute number, is the collection of current weapons "more effective" (whatever that would mean -- some sort of fit for purpose) than the ~23K warheads at the end of the cold war? Or is it simply a subset of the devices in 1989, with some maintenance since then?

I believe the US is designing a new warhead, maybe the first since the end of the cold war (source, discussion at the nuclear testing museum in Las Vegas last month, perhaps not the most reliable source). What about delivery?

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

#222

Post by grecy »

switch007 wrote: post #90

What was going through their minds in the 60s when they amassed 5,000...10,000 but went on to amass over 30,000? Was there any point after a few thousand?

The military industrial complex is extremely good at funnelling money to meets its ever-growing needs.

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

#223

Post by ithkuil »

rurp wrote: post #217
oceanplexian wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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…

This line of thinking is both wrong and frightening. Military escalation is always messy and uncertain, and history is full of wars that escalated beyond either side's overall interest. Imperfect information, poor decisions, and tactically reasonable but strategically catastrophic decisions are all ways that can lead to things getting out of hand. On top of all that, the only practical way to have any hope of "winnin…

Interestingly the very reason why nuclear weapons and the logic of their deployment are so dangerous and unstable, so much that two geopolitical adversaries with lots at stake actually agreed on never using them, led us nowadays to underestimate the danger of nuclear arsenals because in so many years "nothing bad happened". Human psychology is just not very well adapted to stay in perpetual alertness. We tend to normalize situations unfold over long periods of time.

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

#224

Post by IAmGraydon »

danielodievich wrote: post #58
bamboozled wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wonder what the state of Russia's nuclear arsenal is like then? Better or worse? Maybe that still have a lot of the old Nuclear power stations running to better supply the materials to maintain their warheads ?

This is a frequent topic of discussion in various forums and I am sure by Very Serious People in Charge [TM]. Extrapolating from the general sad state of the weapon systems in use by Russians where they are at this point unpacking tanks made in 1950, the quality of maintenance on their vehicles, and is difficult to plausibly claim that all the ancient rusty USSR stuff across the strategic rocket barrier is in any sor…

>Now, if an order to launch is given, some rockets may launch, some of those may actually fly, some of those flying actually get somewhere, and perhaps some of THOSE may actually detonate should they reach the target, and maybe if you're lucky at the designed yield. The percentages in that funnel that aren't known.

I think you're likely wrong about that last part. I would be willing to bet that certain US 3-letter agencies know very well what the percentages in that funnel are. It's clearly enough that the west is careful about direct confrontation with Russia.

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

#225

Post by scott_w »

fatbird wrote: post #218
chasd00 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Force replenishment in the event of nuclear war is a moot question, but if someone can go from 100 to 1,000 warheads in a couple months, that has a lot of relevance in a growing crisis--what would Russia have done in 2022 if Ukraine had kept the ability to manufacture them and was able to build 100/year?

I know you asked a slightly different question but I watched a video about Ukraine’s nukes and the reality is they could never deploy them without Russia. The codes always stayed with Moscow and Russia would have forcibly maintained a presence on Ukrainian soil to protect their nukes.

Ukraine returning the nukes was a pragmatic move that, at the time, removed Russian military presence from Ukrainian territory. Think about it another way: the USA maintains nuclear weapons on other country’s territory. They sure as hell staff those sites with US troops!

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

#226

Post by chasd00 »

rurp wrote: post #217
oceanplexian wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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…

This line of thinking is both wrong and frightening. Military escalation is always messy and uncertain, and history is full of wars that escalated beyond either side's overall interest. Imperfect information, poor decisions, and tactically reasonable but strategically catastrophic decisions are all ways that can lead to things getting out of hand. On top of all that, the only practical way to have any hope of "winnin…

> On top of all that, the only practical way to have any hope of "winning" a nuclear exchange is to hit the other side so unexpectedly hard and fast that they can't mount a strong enough response to completely destroy you in return. There were multiple serious high level discussions about doing exactly that at various points during the Cold War by both sides.

to demonstrate this point you can find the end of the movie War Games on youtube. A rouge AI (heh) is determined to launch an ICBM and only when the computer is tasked to play itself in a game of nuclear war does it determine there is no possible way to win. The movie ends with the iconic robotic voiced line "strange game, the only winning move is not to play".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0N7TpqZI-E

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

#227

Post by ithkuil »

roenxi wrote: post #140
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…

> I would expect some type of escalation beyond the position we have been in for the better part of the last 80 years. We have escalated beyond the point we have been in for the last 80 years. Russia have lost more troops than in any war since WWII. That is a lot of dead Slavs. Their strategic nuclear defences have already been attacked [0] and NATO currently appears to be organising direct strikes on Russian territo…

> organizing direct strikes in Russian territory

Well. Ukraine just wants to shoot at the places where rockets and artillery are shooting at them. It happens that the Russians conveniently are doing so behind the border. They can shoot at you. But you can't shoot back.

I honestly don't understand how people can spin this up as that NATO wants to strike Russia with a straight face.

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

#228

Post by watersb »

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.

Scientifc American deep dive into plutonium pit production in operation at a new facility at Los Alamos:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/behind-the-scenes...

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

#229

Post by keybored »

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.

I can’t believe that people still believe in MAD. It’s such a galaxy brain theory that weapons of mass destruction will actually make us safer because that other guy over there have them as well.

And the theory will only be conclusively disproven if someone pushes the button.

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

#230

Post by pipodeclown »

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…

Standing stockpiles matter in a ever changing and destabilising world. We can't imagine it now but what if the US (or any other nuclear power) started to destabalise, maybe end up in a civil war, fracture up into smaller pieces, what ever. The less nuclear weapons you have lying around during and after that process the less opportunities for things to go terribly wrong.
Post reply on HN