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The H-Bombs in Turkey

newyorker.com

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Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#41

Post by michaelvoz »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey has the largest standing army in the region. 600K or so. Those 2000 troops wouldn't last long enough to get the weapons out.

I think you're vastly underestimating 1st world intelligence capabilities. By the time anyone is brainstorming how exactly they want to take the base the big players in NATO already have guys sitting in jets idling on the taxiway, an aircraft carrier is taking a hard turn into the wind and an aide is popping popcorn and cracking a beer so Mr. Putin can enjoy the spectacle. When nukes are involved things get taken ver…

I think you are giving people far too much credit, and wrapping it in too much nonsense. The amount of absolute intelligence failure (intentional or otherwise) in the last 15 or so years has been astounding.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#42

Post by mikeash »

sdenton4 wrote: post #31
mikeash wrote: post #26

I'm skeptical that the PALs are as easy to bypass as this article says. It's possible that the arming code includes critical information necessary to properly detonate the bomb, such as timing info for firing the various detonators. Even if it doesn't, the critical PAL hardware is deep inside the bomb, requiring the bomb to be disassembled to get to it, then reassembled afterwards, and that's not quite as easy as swa…

Command and Control lays out the internal fight over Pals; the military wanted easy access and reliable bombs, and the Pals added complexity, reduce ease of access in an emergency, and so on. So the parts of the military less concerned with safety were arguing for more promising designs. I believe the early Pals could be over ridden with a screwdriver. But yeah, I don't know about these particular ones.

Yes, I've read that book (highly recommended, by the way, for anyone else reading this who's interested in the history of nuclear weapon control and accidents), and if these were the older PALs I wouldn't have any problem with that statement. But "control" seems to have won that fight eventually (for the most part... Navy nukes still don't have PALs) and I'd imagine that modern PALs are far more robust than those early ones.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#43

Post by jacquesm »

elchief wrote: post #35
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey has the largest standing army in the region. 600K or so. Those 2000 troops wouldn't last long enough to get the weapons out.

If only they had some bombs to defend themselves with...

Three days ago they had the power to the base cut off and a 'no fly' zone was created over the base. It has exactly one runway that would only take a few well placed bombs to put it out of commission. Yesterday they were still on 'internal power' (aka diesel generators).

Now, I'm sure the US would do everything they could to avoid those weapons falling the wrong hands but I think you're being a bit over-confident about the situation there, which even now is far from stable and the US/Turkey relationships are right now at a historic low.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#44

Post by dsfyu404ed »

jacquesm wrote: post #38
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're vastly underestimating 1st world intelligence capabilities. By the time anyone is brainstorming how exactly they want to take the base the big players in NATO already have guys sitting in jets idling on the taxiway, an aircraft carrier is taking a hard turn into the wind and an aide is popping popcorn and cracking a beer so Mr. Putin can enjoy the spectacle. When nukes are involved things get taken ver…

Then how come they are still there? If what you write is true they should have had clear warning about that coup attempt. It might have succeeded.

I'd be surprised if they don't have the capability to disarm them and destroy the "interesting" components relatively quickly.

I would also be surprised if (besides initial instability) the expected outcome of a military coup is much worse than the status quo.

With the current situation there's probably not much good of saying "yeah, that place is pretty fked so we gtfo'd." Which exactly the message sent by loading up all your nukes and gtfoing at ~Mach 2.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#45

Post by mdrzn »

jacquesm wrote: post #38
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're vastly underestimating 1st world intelligence capabilities. By the time anyone is brainstorming how exactly they want to take the base the big players in NATO already have guys sitting in jets idling on the taxiway, an aircraft carrier is taking a hard turn into the wind and an aide is popping popcorn and cracking a beer so Mr. Putin can enjoy the spectacle. When nukes are involved things get taken ver…

Then how come they are still there? If what you write is true they should have had clear warning about that coup attempt. It might have succeeded.

Unless this is exactly what they planned.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#46

Post by beachstartup »

vonmoltke wrote: post #15
idlewords wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take was the author meant no aircraft with the range to drop them on Russian targets. The New Yorker is pretty obsessive about fact-checking, so I think calling a statement like this a lie is an uncharitable reading.

If that is what the author meant, that is what the author should have said. "Equipped to deliver" pretty clearly means no aircraft that can load the bomb. At any rate, southern Russia is easily within range of Incirlik.

i think whether or not a plane can actually get to the target is pretty fair use of 'equipped to deliver'.

new york times is not writing for a military audience, 'deliver' in lay person speak means getting it there, as in parcel delivery.

i.e. if your truck can only hold 1 gallon of fuel it's not equipped to deliver the package to a destination 1000 miles away. whether you can put the package on the truck does not imply any fitness for delivery.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#47

Post by jacquesm »

mdrzn wrote: post #45
jacquesm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how come they are still there? If what you write is true they should have had clear warning about that coup attempt. It might have succeeded.

Unless this is exactly what they planned.

That could be but there is absolutely zero evidence for that, it appears that they were caught flat-footed, the (Turkish) base commander was arrested.

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#48

Post by jsprogrammer »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
showerst wrote: post #4

While still concerning, they really buried a key detail: "About two thousand U.S. military personnel remain stationed there."

Turkey has the largest standing army in the region. 600K or so. Those 2000 troops wouldn't last long enough to get the weapons out.

Why would the weapons need to get out? Why wouldn't the weapons be equipped with a self-destruct, or self-disablement mechanism? Why wouldn't the US destroy the facility if there was a risk of the weapons being used?

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#49

Post by DominikR »

I understand that stationing nuclear weapons is a good way to ensure your allies of your support in case of an attack, but having them stationed anywhere in the Middle East in these chaotic times sounds completely nuts to me.

You can't know who will be in power in any of these countries in one year from now and what they'll do.

The Turkish military is probably strong enough to easily overpower the US soldiers stationed at that base. What if they decide to simply take the nuclear weapons by force?

Edit: The Germans have removed their NATO forces from Turkey some time ago (Turkey protested against that) and I believe that this is due to them viewing the situation in Turkey as extremely unstable.

They don't want to get caught in a situation where they might have to go to war to protect a government that acts unpredictable. (meaning: they might incite the war themselves)

First thing the Turks did when they shot down the Russian plane was to call for article 5 of the NATO treaty! (collective defence against an attacker)

Re: The H-Bombs in Turkey

#50

Post by eterm »

valarauca1 wrote: post #19
idlewords wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take was the author meant no aircraft with the range to drop them on Russian targets. The New Yorker is pretty obsessive about fact-checking, so I think calling a statement like this a lie is an uncharitable reading.

>My take was the author meant no aircraft with the range to drop them on Russian targets. This is likely true. It's about ~5Mm from Incirlik to Russia (across the Black). Edit 1: s/Baltic/Black/g

What's a Mm?

Edit: Apparently it's 5000km, Mm seems a bizarre choice of unit given mm exists as something else entirely and km is far more common.

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