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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

#261

Post by lcvw »

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?

My understanding is that the theory behind nuclear winter is that all of the nuked cities will ignite, and the massive firestorms will eject ash into the upper atmosphere where it will persist for years. Aka you still need to blow up some cities to cause the winter.

Also nuclear winter is somewhat controversial, I don’t know what the latest model results are.

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

#262

Post by [deleted] »

racional wrote: post #242
rainworld wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 defini…

[deleted]

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

#263

Post by hollerith »

racional wrote: post #242
rainworld wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 defini…

>But it does seem pretty clear which side you're cheering for

Whether Russia has the upper hand is an important question for deciding on what policies the NATO countries should pursue, but we cannot have a fruitful public discussion on the question if anyone giving evidence for one side of the question is shouted down as a traitor.

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

#264

Post by roenxi »

slg wrote: post #187
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…

One or more nuclear powers has been at war for basically the entire nuclear era. They have all had wars in which they have "lost more troops than in any war since WWII". Even if this is the end of the Putin regime, this wouldn't even be the first time that the Soviet Union/Russia collapsed. I don't know what the path you think you see from where we are now to "full scale nuclear war", but it seems incredibly silly to…

> I don't know what the path you think you see from where we are now to "full scale nuclear war", but it seems incredibly silly to suggest "the situation is more tense than it ever has been before", especially after you have already name checked Able Archer and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Able Archer was one of a series of (annual) scheduled training exercises. The Cuban missile crisis was a fairly civil dispute over where people stationed military assets that was resolved diplomatically. The Ukraine War has involved the mobilisation of the Russian military with estimates in the 100s of thousands for Russian casualties and active strikes on Russian military infrastructure.

How are you construing the first two are more tense than the last? The last is a significant escalation of tensions from the first two. We're a long way up the escalation ladder.

And, putting it to you a second time, what warnings are you expecting to see months before a nuclear war starts? I don't think you can see any path from any scenario to nuclear war. I doubt you would have seen a path from Able Archer to nuclear war, or a path from the US deploying missiles in Turkey to nuclear war either.

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

#265

Post by mattmaroon »

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…

My guess would be fast enough if you’re talking about a Cold War, not fast enough if you’re talking about a hot one.

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

#266

Post by roenxi »

jiggawatts wrote: post #248
psunavy03 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

How often you you come across people saying any of that, though? That is a straw man position of the people pointing out that this conflict was quite a likely outcome of NATO's persistent expansion and that the strategic pressure on Russia has been extraordinarily damaging to US interests, European interests, Russian interests and the global security situation. The only people who ended up benefiting from NATO expansion so far have been India and to a lesser extent China.

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

#267

Post by bee_rider »

energy123 wrote: post #232
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.

Correct but it's still a deterrent to a conventional invasion even if it doesn't deter a nuclear first strike. Japan and South Korea are nuclear threshold states and that would factor into China's decision making. Nuclear proliferation is the main reason I am pessimistic about nuclear power as the main global solution to decarbonizing. I don't think a world with 200 threshold nuclear states is a good idea, nor would…

It could have been interesting if tying our grids to, and providing some amount of free energy to, non-nuclear states was a concession given for non-proliferation treaties.

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

#268

Post by roenxi »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #237
roenxi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What type of warning do you expect to see? We currently have a war in Ukraine involving between 2-4 of the major nuclear powers depending on how you want to count them (Russia, US, UK, China). Russia is bleeding heavily and it is hard to tell how close they are to some sort of internal crisis or collapse into groupthink by the military leaders. There have probably been Able Archer style near misses and we could have…

> biggest risk of a nuclear war breaking out that the species has ever faced I think this is absurd and I really don’t like this line of thinking. This is being blown away out of proportion. Russia wants ukraine and China wants Taiwan. These are localised issues, nobody is invading Texas, and core territories of nuclear powers are not in danger. Much bigger chunks of lands have changed hands over the last 60 years, t…

> Starting a nuclear exchange over these relatively small-ish issues would be peak idiocy

Starting nuclear war under any conditions would be peak idiocy. We still have relatively regular near misses. The current issues appear to be more significant than situations that have caused near misses in the past.

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

#269

Post by shmerl »

temporarely wrote: post #168
roenxi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What type of warning do you expect to see? We currently have a war in Ukraine involving between 2-4 of the major nuclear powers depending on how you want to count them (Russia, US, UK, China). Russia is bleeding heavily and it is hard to tell how close they are to some sort of internal crisis or collapse into groupthink by the military leaders. There have probably been Able Archer style near misses and we could have…

> (Russia, US, UK, China) +France

France being the only sensible one putting Putin back in his place by telling him "we also have nuclear warheads" instead of "we avoid escalation". That's how nuclear deterrent is supposed to work.

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

#270

Post by sillywalk »

credit_guy wrote: post #164

I think the point of this sudden urge for transparency is to send a message to Russia and to the US allies about the tactical nukes. There is currently a perception of a disparity of capabilities in tactical nukes. There is parity in strategic nukes because of the New Start treaty [1]. Here's a report to the US Senate about the tactical nukes [2] produced in April 2024, and here's a quote by Putin lifted from that re…

> I think the point of this sudden urge for transparency is to send a message to Russia and to the US allies about the tactical nukes.

Perhaps. I don't think it the disparity really matters that much. Either Nuclear deterrence works or it doesn't. Once the first nuke goes off, all bets are off.

> US allies are worried that maybe the US nuclear umbrella is not that strong after all.

I imagine that US allies do worry, I suppose that has been the case since NATO's inception. But I don't think it's about the strength of the umbrella. It is the willingness to, after having offered shelter under it, actually employ nuclear weapons.

Ukraine, is another question. If Russia employs tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, I don't think having a few hundred more B-61s (or a few thousand more tactical nukes to be deployed by hypothetical means) would be relevant. There are only so many aircraft that are equipped to fly them, crews trained to use them, and only so many "targets" to hit, before targets becomes another word for cities.

At least initially, I assume that any US/NATO nuclear response would be on Russian targets occupying Ukrainian soil, hoping to avoid retaliation.

All this is so depressing and scary.

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