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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

#311

Post by scott_w »

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.

Turkey allows those troops to be there. Ukraine did not want Russian troops on their soil. Forcibly ejecting those troops would have likely triggered a confrontation with a far more competent Russian military than the one we see today.

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

#312

Post by QuarterReptile »

refurb wrote: post #127
corry wrote: post #56

What an odd situation, where we can applaud "the transparency" (and I do, honestly) while the US is also simultaneously cheerfully delivering a public reminder that "we have more than enough to absolutely annihilate anyone and everyone... so don't fuck with us."

> so don't fuck with us. That's the entire point of nuclear weapons, isnit?

Not necessarily. That's the entire point of US American nuclear weapons.

Edit: Unexplained downvotes are hopefully for my unclear wording. MAD is the doctrine of the US, but other places have doctrines ranging from "don't disturb our geopolitical sacred cow" to "escalation in armed conflict." Obviously there's reason to wonder whether everyone, pushed hard enough, would resort to nuclear weapons (an important consideration before putting an enemy on 'death ground'), but having stated policy that the weapons are not on the table is better than a stated policy that use would be justified “… also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat”, as Putin signed in 2020.

https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/read-the-fine-print-russias-...

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

#314

Post by hollerith »

hollerith wrote: post #263
racional wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Note that I'm replying to myself.

"shouted down as a traitor" does not get at the crux of the problem I see. The problem is that anyone who thinks as follows cannot form an accurate opinion about the likely outcome of the war:

Anyone who argues that Russia is winning the war is probably a Russia sympathizer, and a Russia sympathizer shouldn't be trusted and consequently we don't have to consider his argument.

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

#315

Post by Retric »

scott_w wrote: post #310
Retric wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing the electronics is fairly trivial compared to building an atomic weapon from scratch. Arming codes gives a nation time to recover or destroy them, but it’s not a long term solution.

How do you do that when the Russian military won't let you near the weapons?

Ukraine had physical control of these weapons. They handed them over in 1994, 3 years after the fall of the USSR for assurances Russia would respect their borders.

More generally a handful of soldiers isn’t the full might of a countries military. Bribes, blockade until they run out of supplies, or just shoot them.

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

#316

Post by sophacles »

542354234235 wrote: post #302
sophacles wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military has a long history of making technically true statements about it's weapons, but which are still misleading. If a bomb can actually rip through 200 meters of cement and ground, then the 60 meter statement is also true. It also has a history of revealing the actual limits of weapons systems, but only after better capabilities exist (with the limits of those still classified or understated) - that is th…

This feels overly dismissive of the difficulty, but here is a more detailed article if you are interested. https://www.twz.com/iranian-underground-nuclear-facility-may...

I can see how it comes off as dismissive my bad - it was intended to be a "take such analyses with a grain of salt if you aren't privvy to classified, relevant information".

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

#317

Post by mrguyorama »

bee_rider wrote: post #267
energy123 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It literally was but the pariah states don't really have a need to a lot of nuclear reactors.

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

#318

Post by mrguyorama »

hollerith wrote: post #133
HaZeust wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about petroleum storage tanks? The conversation around nuclear winter in relation to nukes is because it's an understood consequence of 100-some Hiroshima-sized warheads being detonated between two major city centers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Climatic_effect...

>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.

Since when is Carl Sagan a climatologist?

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

#319

Post by mrguyorama »

dekhn wrote: post #241
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.

This has not shown to be the case as we have seen with American artillery shell production. The companies are not yet ramping up, because they don't want the ground cut out from under them if the war ends early next year and congress decides to cut any funding.

Turns out having fickle, lazy, stupid, feckless politicians have the ability to destroy projects with the stroke of a pen on a whim after every election means nobody is willing to put up their own investment, and having a business sector that is largely run by shithead middle management types who have never worked a day in their lives that wasn't just balancing a spreadsheet are unwilling to do something because it doesn't promise a HIGH ENOUGH return on investment.

God forbid you don't make ALL the profit.

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

#320

Post by somenameforme »

pjc50 wrote: post #308
somenameforme wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference between tactical and strategic comes down to intended use. Tactical nukes are intended for battlefield use, strategic nukes are intended to end other civilizations. They also come in different delivery methods. For instance there are tactical nuclear landmines, artillery, and so on, whereas most strategic weapons are just going to be missiles and ICBMs in particular. But I do agree that the labeli…

The question is "does the other side start launching their second strike against your cities once the first 'tactical' mushroom cloud is seen"?

Wargames have answered that quite clearly. Proud Prophet [1] is what you're looking for. All sorts of different approaches to nuclear engagement were trialed and they all ended up in the end of the world, or at least the end of North America, Europe, and most of the northern hemisphere, alongside just about everybody living there. The scenario you're describing would fall under the 'de-escalatory nuclear strike' category - same outcome. The outcome of these wargames is what drove the shift more towards seeking more of a de-escalatory approach with the USSR.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet

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