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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

#241

Post by dekhn »

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…

Like many other things in the US that we don't do any more, if you found the right people (many of whom are retired) and gave them the right amount of money (copious) and eliminated all the "pesky" bottlenecks (environmental analyses, legal challenges, etc), it would take a year to start producing weapons.

On the other hand, that's how we ended up with Hanford Site.

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

#242

Post by racional »

rainworld wrote: post #236
racional wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, you do realize that Russia is currently winning in Ukraine They are not "currently winning". By any objective measure, the war on the ground is currently a stalement. Only problem is that in the long term -- stalemates never work out for the occupiers. In Russia's case: If the situation continues as it does, and moving at the glacial pace that it does, and draining 10 percent of its GDP every year -- they will…

[flagged]

Only one side has had meaningful advances.

That's not true, as Ukraine has scored significant non-territorial advances (like forcing most of the occupier's fleet to retreat from Crimea) in the same time frame.

Also you're setting an arbitrary time window of 1 year (when if we want to evaluate the conflict meaningfully, we need to look at how things are moving now compared to the start of the conflict. Which is definitely not the outcome Russia intended. And ignoring Russia's considerable losses in achieving the paltry gains that it has (which are very much part of the attrition equation), etc.

What never works out is a smaller country winning a war of attrition against a (much) bigger opponent.

You're missing the point -- the smaller country doesn't need to "win" the war of attrition (in terms of effecting a complete reversal) in order to win the conflict. It just needs to outlast the occupier. For which there are no end of precedents in history, recent and ancient. Including (ironically) the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan, which is apparently what gave Putin the gigantic (for him) hard-on that inspired him to sign his country for the same inevitable fate in the first place (but with much higher cost and KIA/WIA rates to his people along the way).

Did you catch Zelensky the other day? He knows where this is going.

I don't see any significance to that quote.

But it does seem pretty clear which side you're cheering for, in any case.

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

#243

Post by fragmede »

gumby wrote: post #221

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 d…

Do you need to do delivery? If nuclear winter is going to end humanity as we know it, then couldn't you blow up an uninhabited wasteland part of your own country and still hurt everyone?

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

#244

Post by philipkglass »

fragmede wrote: post #243
gumby wrote: post #221

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 d…

Do you need to do delivery? If nuclear winter is going to end humanity as we know it, then couldn't you blow up an uninhabited wasteland part of your own country and still hurt everyone?

"In Search of a Bigger Boom"

https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/09/12/in-search-of-a-bi...

The scientist Edward Teller, according to one account, kept a blackboard in his office at Los Alamos during World War II with a list of hypothetical nuclear weapons on it. The last item on his list was the largest one he could imagine. The method of “delivery” — weapon-designer jargon for how you get your bomb from here to there, the target — was listed as “Backyard.” As the scientist who related this anecdote explained, “since that particular design would probably kill everyone on Earth, there was no use carting it anywhere.”

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

#245

Post by northwest65 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #235
scott_w wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If USA maintains nukes in Turkey that does not mean they have enough troops in Turkey to protect the base against the entire Turkish military, should they decide to steamroll it. They rely on nuclear codes more than they rely on tanks to stop nukes falling into the wrong hands.

They don't actually have to. The 5th and 6th fleet coupled with the various large air bases in the vicinity would have little trouble it pancaking the entire site before the Turks managed to make off with anything if it really came down to it. It's tanks all the way down.

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

#246

Post by andrewflnr »

fragmede wrote: post #243
gumby wrote: post #221

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 d…

Do you need to do delivery? If nuclear winter is going to end humanity as we know it, then couldn't you blow up an uninhabited wasteland part of your own country and still hurt everyone?

"Hurt everyone" is not most people's ideal strategy. Maybe North Korea would go for that, but it's really preferred to hurt the enemy more than yourself.

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

#247

Post by mandevil »

gumby wrote: post #221

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 d…

The US plan for new warheads- the Reliable Replacement Warhead- was killed by Obama in 2009. (There are minor improvements like the Mod 12 version of the B61 is under production, which is really a remaking of the Mod 4 version, stuff like that.)

However, most of the delivery mechanisms are reaching block obsolescence and will need new replacements soon: the Columbia class ballistic missile submarine to replace the Ohios, the B-21 Raider to replace the B-2, the GBSD to replace the Minuteman III, and the LRSO to replace the ALCM from the same B-52s that flew in 1963 (literally the last year of production for a B-52). It's probably going to be something like a trillion dollars over 30 years, is what outside analysts figure. Because basically Stratcom has been saying "we'll just keep doing what we did in 1989, but smaller" since 1991, and the service lives of all the equipment has run out, and so everything needs to replaced at the same time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_weap... for the price tag.

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

#248

Post by jiggawatts »

psunavy03 wrote: post #200
roenxi wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> They've made it quite clear that they want the war to continue until something in Russia breaks. The war can end tomorrow. All that has to happen is for Russia to pack up and leave the territory of another sovereign country. It's really that simple. If Russia gives up, the war ends. If Ukraine gives up, there is a genocide.

I really don’t understand tankie logic. The nation that has been your geopolitical rival for a century is suddenly the beacon of western civilisation and ideals, despite stating they hate you and everything you stand for, and then attacking a country for merely thinking of allying with you!?

“I believe everything this former KGB operative says about my government! Finally, a neutral party without self-interests who can reveal the truth!”

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

#249

Post by distortedsignal »

keybored wrote: post #229
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.

It kept war out of central Europe from 1945 until 2022 (I'm not 100% sure we shouldn't count Georgia/Bosnia/Chechnia/Kosovo, so I'll say "central Europe").

I don't think two nuclear armed powers have ever declared war on each other - despite two nuclear armed powers currently being in active conflict (India and China) and another few being incredibly geopolitically unfriendly (India/Pakistan and Israel/Iran).

The whole idea behind MAD initially was that if Russia decided to get ideas in Europe, the Western powers would stop them with a nuclear curtain. That's why France has a "warning shot" nuclear doctrine, and the US hasn't ruled out Nuclear First Strike.

IMO, for what it was trying to stop, it worked. Ask people in China and India - it seems to be working for them as well.

EDIT: as an amendment to this: would Russia have been so bold as to invade Ukraine if the 1994 surrender of Ukraine's nuclear arsenal hadn't happened?

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

#250

Post by taberiand »

fragmede wrote: post #243
gumby wrote: post #221

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 d…

Do you need to do delivery? If nuclear winter is going to end humanity as we know it, then couldn't you blow up an uninhabited wasteland part of your own country and still hurt everyone?

Isn't this the plot of Dr. Strangelove? If they do decide on that strategy, let's hope they don't keep the news for a special occasion...
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