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Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

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Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#121

Post by fokinsean »

dboreham wrote: post #119
valuearb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we been reckless? We've never had a serious accident. So maybe it's not luck, maybe there are a lot of controls that actually work well.

In recent times, perhaps. But if you read the literature on the accidents and incidents that have occurred -- it is definitely due to luck.

This one was also extremely close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

3 of the 4 arming mechanisms activated. I would say it's a combination of good luck and good controls :)

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#122

Post by wildmusings »

scrumper wrote: post #117
tzs wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Further the book, at one point, talks about America's position on Russia and the attempts to keep them from getting "the bomb". It is exactly what has played out and will continue to play out with North Korea and Iran. History is repeating itself and we sure haven't learned from it. Is it actually similar, though? The US got the bomb in 1945. The Russians got theirs in 1949. Given the size of the Soviet Union, how…

That’s not quite an accurate read though, at least as far as NK. The US can’t really make a credible military threat because of the north’s proximity to the south, an important US ally and a country all but guaranteed to be mortally wounded in the event of north/USA hostilities.

Sure we can. We have the capability to totally annihilate as much of North Korea as we need in order to prevent a counter attack. The question is if we are willing to do it, and kill millions of North Korean civilians. Trump is sure trying to convince the North Koreans that he is.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#124

Post by kbenson »

wildmusings wrote: post #122
scrumper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not quite an accurate read though, at least as far as NK. The US can’t really make a credible military threat because of the north’s proximity to the south, an important US ally and a country all but guaranteed to be mortally wounded in the event of north/USA hostilities.

Sure we can. We have the capability to totally annihilate as much of North Korea as we need in order to prevent a counter attack. The question is if we are willing to do it, and kill millions of North Korean civilians. Trump is sure trying to convince the North Koreans that he is.

From missile launch to missile detonation is enough time for NK to shell large chunks of high population areas of SK. They have the guns already pointed and ready for exactly this reason.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#125

Post by pvg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #113
hangonhn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow" Is it really though? Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. I don't think nukes are the be-all-end-all weapons people think they a…

> Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? Over a conventional invasion by a neighboring nation-state with massive conventional superiority with a paper-thin cover story? Probably. I mean, that’s why the USSR didn't pull that stunt against any of the NATO countries bordering its satellites, ever, even though they did similar things to other…

"Nation-state" is not another way to say "country". The Russian federation, for instance, isn't a nation state.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#126

Post by hutzlibu »

kbenson wrote: post #124
wildmusings wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we can. We have the capability to totally annihilate as much of North Korea as we need in order to prevent a counter attack. The question is if we are willing to do it, and kill millions of North Korean civilians. Trump is sure trying to convince the North Koreans that he is.

From missile launch to missile detonation is enough time for NK to shell large chunks of high population areas of SK. They have the guns already pointed and ready for exactly this reason.

And Seoul is still very close to the border ... bad with artillery allready, worse with possible nuclear shelling.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#127

Post by PostOnce »

wildmusings wrote: post #122
scrumper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not quite an accurate read though, at least as far as NK. The US can’t really make a credible military threat because of the north’s proximity to the south, an important US ally and a country all but guaranteed to be mortally wounded in the event of north/USA hostilities.

Sure we can. We have the capability to totally annihilate as much of North Korea as we need in order to prevent a counter attack. The question is if we are willing to do it, and kill millions of North Korean civilians. Trump is sure trying to convince the North Koreans that he is.

> We have the capability to annihilate as much of NK as we need to prevent a counterattack

...from North Korea

If we start launching nukes in the direction of NK, how does China know it's going to stop in NK and not hit them? Do we call them up first? Then what do they say?

Is it totally out of the question that China would panic (or reason?) and counterattack? NK doesn't exist in a vacuum, and in fact NK wouldn't exist at all today had China not intervened in the last war.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#128

Post by gedy »

knappe wrote: post #54

I recently finished Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety [0]. I can't recommend the book enough for how eye opening it really is into how blasé we have been with nuclear weapons. We've been reckless and by all accounts it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident (there have been a few, just not on our own soil). The number of close calls is just astounding. Fur…

> We've been reckless

I worked around nuclear weapon systems and TBH came away with the opposite impression. I grew up terrified of the military and panic mongering about of "THE BOMBS!" from family, media, etc. But after this, I ironically came away feeling much safer seeing how professional and serious people took their jobs.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#129

Post by dogma1138 »

kbenson wrote: post #124
wildmusings wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we can. We have the capability to totally annihilate as much of North Korea as we need in order to prevent a counter attack. The question is if we are willing to do it, and kill millions of North Korean civilians. Trump is sure trying to convince the North Koreans that he is.

From missile launch to missile detonation is enough time for NK to shell large chunks of high population areas of SK. They have the guns already pointed and ready for exactly this reason.

You assuming that NK has an early warning system which consists of more than a guy with binoculars and circa 1960s radar which they don’t.

The US is more than capable of launching a preemptive strike against NK without Seoul being hit nearly as hard as one would think.

The main reason they won’t isn’t the shelling of Seoul is that China won’t allow US troops on its border and neither the US, SK nor China wants to deal with the fallout of having to care for millions of uneducated by modern standards starving people that believe in unicorns.

The flood of refugees into SK would do much more damage than any possible shelling from NK which is also why neither player has pushed for critically destabilizing measures or a regime change for the past 50 years.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#130

Post by gozur88 »

retSava wrote: post #35
gozur88 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incident in the article isn't a "close call". There was never any danger the warhead would go off.

There have been many accidents, of a kind where even one is one too many. Given the potential damage, I certainly don't feel comfortable with your assessment that there wasn't any danger it would go off. Likely these things happen more often than is publicly known, yet we've not (yet) seen a full-on swiss cheese kind of accident.

Nuclear bombs aren't like normal bombs. You can burn them or blow them up with conventional explosives and they won't go off.
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