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

351–360 of 363 posts

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

#351

Post by s1artibartfast »

Retric wrote: post #349
scott_w wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the assumption was these weapons where sitting in a friendly territory You seem to be missing the key point that I've repeated twice already. UKRAINE DID NOT WANT RUSSIAN TROOPS IN THEIR TERRITORY. There was no path to Ukraine maintaining the nuclear weapons while also NOT having the Russian troops on Ukrainian land. The discussion of "oh, they can re-wire the weapons" would have trigged IMMEDIATE WAR with Russia.…

> no path Clearly war was one option to remove Russian troops. Saying there’s no options, is a vast oversimplification. Call up the troupes on the phone and say we’re unhappy about those ICBM’s in our territory where going to start artillery bombardment noon tomorrow and suggest you leave before then.

Apparently that path came with consequences that made it less attractive than giving it all up.

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

#352

Post by Retric »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #351
Retric wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no path Clearly war was one option to remove Russian troops. Saying there’s no options, is a vast oversimplification. Call up the troupes on the phone and say we’re unhappy about those ICBM’s in our territory where going to start artillery bombardment noon tomorrow and suggest you leave before then.

Apparently that path came with consequences that made it less attractive than giving it all up.

Many options were less attractive, but the government also had very close ties with Russia at the time so there was an impetus to find an excuse to hand them over.

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

#353

Post by scott_w »

Retric wrote: post #349
scott_w wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the assumption was these weapons where sitting in a friendly territory You seem to be missing the key point that I've repeated twice already. UKRAINE DID NOT WANT RUSSIAN TROOPS IN THEIR TERRITORY. There was no path to Ukraine maintaining the nuclear weapons while also NOT having the Russian troops on Ukrainian land. The discussion of "oh, they can re-wire the weapons" would have trigged IMMEDIATE WAR with Russia.…

> no path Clearly war was one option to remove Russian troops. Saying there’s no options, is a vast oversimplification. Call up the troupes on the phone and say we’re unhappy about those ICBM’s in our territory where going to start artillery bombardment noon tomorrow and suggest you leave before then.

Yes, the option in that case was “get nuked into fucking oblivion by the Russians” and know the USA would not have stepped in. I’m sure the Ukrainian top brass spent a long time wargaming that one

Please explain how instigating a war with Russia leads to less troops on Ukrainian land.

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

#354

Post by Retric »

scott_w wrote: post #353
Retric wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no path Clearly war was one option to remove Russian troops. Saying there’s no options, is a vast oversimplification. Call up the troupes on the phone and say we’re unhappy about those ICBM’s in our territory where going to start artillery bombardment noon tomorrow and suggest you leave before then.

Yes, the option in that case was “get nuked into fucking oblivion by the Russians” and know the USA would not have stepped in. I’m sure the Ukrainian top brass spent a long time wargaming that one Please explain how instigating a war with Russia leads to less troops on Ukrainian land.

Leave we are going to start shelling that location tomorrow isn’t a declaration of war, it’s a threat. What happens afterwards can vary quite a bit, rather than your simplistic understanding of how the world works. Starting a war when the country was in the middle of a total economic collapse was hardly a viable option for Russia at the time.

There’s been 2 recent wars between Russia and Ukraine without any nukes involved. Nuclear bombardment of a country on your border isn’t such a great idea of a whole host of reasons.

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

#355

Post by ElectronCharge »

rtkwe wrote: post #258
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rocky Flats manufactured triggers. What’s pit production?

The core of the big modern (relative term here given these designs are pretty old by now) bombs are implosion fission devices that then trigger a secondary fusion explosion. The core of that primary bomb is a plutonium ball called a pit that gets crushed to trigger the initial explosion. Then the xrays released by that get reflected and use in a secondary fusion device in the tiny amount of time the shell of the bomb…

A bit better explanation:

The pit (primary) is a hollow shape that gets crushed, producing a fission explosion. The X-rays released by that are absorbed by a (highly classified) foam encasing the secondary, which vaporizes (explodes), compressing the secondary causing fusion. The foam, and the secondary, are encased in a substantial tamper made of U-238.

The tamper’s mass impedes the expansion of the secondary, making it more efficient. The tamper is also largely converted to Pu-239 by the neutron flux from the secondary, and immediately fissions releasing a whole lot more energy. This approach is used in all modern thermonuclear weapons, with the majority of the total energy coming from fission.

The ‘Tsar Bomba’ weapon, the largest ever detonated, was designed to be a 100 megaton blast, but Khrushchev was concerned about fallout. So, he directed the U-238 tamper be replaced with lead, which reduced the explosive yield to ~60 MT.

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

#356

Post by racional »

mopsi wrote: post #346
roenxi wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we entertain multiple theories though, the "Putin is just crazy!" theory fits, but so does the "gee, it is pretty easy to see why they'd be scared of NATO, look at what NATO did to them at the first opportunity" theory. Especially since it has been a factor in conversation for decades. People have been pointing out that NATO expansion was raising tension with Russia since the fall of the USSR. It is just too easy…

> People have been pointing out that NATO expansion was raising tension with Russia since the fall of the USSR. NATO does not expand on its own like a dough left on a windowsill. My country is in NATO because we were scared stiff when we saw the methods Russia used in the First Chechen War in 1994. Nothing had changed since Russia invaded us during the WWII. As an insurance and deterrent against that happening to us…

For Russians of Putin's generation, the domination over Central and Eastern Europe was normalcy and they want it back.

Until Putin expires, or his lights grow sufficiently dim. At which point they'll be worrying simply about their political and physical survival.

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

#357

Post by ttymck »

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 they should possess them but not acknowledge them?

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

#358

Post by scott_w »

Retric wrote: post #354
scott_w wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the option in that case was “get nuked into fucking oblivion by the Russians” and know the USA would not have stepped in. I’m sure the Ukrainian top brass spent a long time wargaming that one Please explain how instigating a war with Russia leads to less troops on Ukrainian land.

Leave we are going to start shelling that location tomorrow isn’t a declaration of war, it’s a threat. What happens afterwards can vary quite a bit, rather than your simplistic understanding of how the world works. Starting a war when the country was in the middle of a total economic collapse was hardly a viable option for Russia at the time. There’s been 2 recent wars between Russia and Ukraine without any nukes inv…

What do you think Russia’s response to that would be?

“Leave us your nukes or we’ll take them by force.”

Talk me through the next steps.

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

#359

Post by Retric »

scott_w wrote: post #358
Retric wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave we are going to start shelling that location tomorrow isn’t a declaration of war, it’s a threat. What happens afterwards can vary quite a bit, rather than your simplistic understanding of how the world works. Starting a war when the country was in the middle of a total economic collapse was hardly a viable option for Russia at the time. There’s been 2 recent wars between Russia and Ukraine without any nukes inv…

What do you think Russia’s response to that would be? “Leave us your nukes or we’ll take them by force.” Talk me through the next steps.

Timing is a big deal here the day after USSR dissolved likely would have gotten them to leave. Our nukes is an arbitrary viewpoint, it’s not like the USSR limited nuke production to inside Russia.

As things stabilized inside Russia it quickly became too late, but actually shelling the location of using an EOD team to ‘destroy’ the nukes puts a different spin on things.

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

#360

Post by wkat4242 »

jjk166 wrote: post #191
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…

It works the same as industrial capacity for things like planes or artillery shells. Once you ramp up production you can produce lots very quickly, the US produced 70,000 between 1945 and 1990, averaging 30 per week with a peak rate around 54 per week; but building out the factories to ramp up takes a long time - for the first 10 years the US averaged 6 per week. Most of the US's nuclear production capacity was disma…

Hmm yes but the other things you mention are made of steel which is plentiful.

Things like uranium and plutonium require digging up a lot of earth to obtain a tiny bit and the enrichment process is very complex and laborious as well.

I wonder if this really ramps up so easily.

Post reply on HN