US halts recent practice of disclosing nuclear weapon total
militarytimes.com
militarytimes.com
I wouldn't worry about it, anymore than they worry about darpa's latest experiments. Sure maybe one day we will have easily cooled rail guns... But nobody in Russia is worried on the off chance we we actually figure it out in 25 years time.
The worst offenders are definitely Iran who are known to outright fake photos of weapons tests that never happened (or happened poorly).
But supposing its claimed capabilities were accurate, 10,000 km at 100 km/h would take the torpedo over four days. The original claim of 185 km/h is much faster, but travel time would still be measured on the order of days. It's fast enough to be very noisy but slow enough to be seen coming days away; totally nonsensical for a first strike weapon. The conclusion is that if such a torpedo is in development, it's intended as a retaliation weapon.
Less significantly, the diagrams Russia "published" don't seem to have any room for ballast tanks, which means it would not have hydrostatic control over it's buoyancy (like a traditional submarine does.) Operating depth would therefore be controlled hydrodynamically (as a traditional torpedo does.) Unless it were doing laps, and thus easier to detect, it probably cannot loiter for very long.
Despite all of the above, there are some rumors of a sea bed variant, however I still suspect the system cannot simply settle itself down on the sea bed. Rather it, along with supporting infrastructure, would be placed there by a submarine or surface ship. The Belgorod in particular seems the likely candidate for this sort of operation, since it is additionally reported to be the host for a Paltus-class midget submarine.
> "This is a deadmans switch kind of weapon"
e.g. for retaliation, not first strikes. On that we agree. SSBNs have traditionally served this role, since assuring their destruction during a preemptive strike would be virtually impossible. Advances in ballistic missile defenses threaten to make the inability to assure destruction of all SSBNs irrelevant, and this new torpedo is obviously a response to that.
It's likely it would never be operated near it's maximum range, but would nevertheless be operated at few thousand kilometers. The reason for this is because its likely host, the Belgorod, would be safest operating under the polar ice cap where sonar is, relatively speaking, a clusterfuck.
On of the things the Russians did was to take a boat launched weapon capable of INF prohibited ranges, putting it on the ground but only testing it out to ranges allowed by the INF. )I think they put something heavier on it so it wouldn't go as far as the naval version.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...
I also don't believe that any sane military strategist in NATO high command believes that any conflict with Bloc can be won with nuclear advantage. Even at the height of cold war, the combined nuclear arsenal of NATO countries would've only been enough to destroy 1/3rd of USSR's military under ideal circumstances.
Unlike common misconception suggests, war and politics is not always the same. What may look as a sure win for a general, may look like a loss to a politician:
Russia's choreographed invasion of Georgia had no real military objective, and may be seen as a botched war, but it was a total victory on the political stage, scaring shit out of many politicians in the West.
Is there a reason nuclear weapons would be aimed at military targets, rather than political targets? I always assumed a nuclear war would just be a bunch of decapitation strikes where suddenly nobody has capitol cities.
If you have the choice between targeting an ICBM silo, a ballistic missile submarine, or a large number of civilians, which do you think is going to maximize what you have left after a nuclear exchange?
(keep in mind that the statement "enough to destroy 1/3rd of USSR's military under ideal circumstances" is total nonsense)
Yep, it's just an another examples where the definition of a military and political objective in war differs dramatically.
In case you fight a purely "political war," that might've worked, but imagine in a scenario a gigantic indoctrinated military "with mind of its own." You can kill a higher animal by decapitation, but not a hydra that does not need a head to function to begin with, or will possibly even get more aggressive and stronger without it.
Edit:
@justin66: Right, there is a difference between what a few ethicists determine and what policy is actually enacted. America was actually postured for a first strike, with Russian airfields,etc being the highest priority targets, urban-industrial targets being lower down the list. After that, population centers were considered targets. This was based on the supposition at that time that a Russian attack could be anticipated and preempted.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear...
This was never US policy and not how our weapons were targeted.
Once the cold war was in earnest, both sides were capable of a first strike, and were also capable of successfully launching a crippling retaliatory strike. Hence the phrase "mutually assured destruction" describing the tension used to prevent either side from attacking.
> Russian airfields,etc being the highest priority targets,
To put the ancient information you're linking to in perspective, it's apparently 63 years old, prior to when the United States successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
Later, the highest priority targets for nuclear weapons were... other nuclear weapons. Specifically, things like hardened missile silos were targeted once we had ICBMs capable of targeting them accurately enough to destroy them.
> urban-industrial targets being lower down the list. After that, population centers were considered targets.
No. I don't have time to pick through the fifties-era document you linked to, but cities were never really a target. It's easy enough to understand why.
The serious damage done to population centers in a nuclear war would have been largely incidental. That would have been terrible enough. You don't have to target population centers per se when you launch enough thermonuclear weapons to cause a nuclear winter, and when a lot of population centers happen to be located adjacent to (or simply downwind from) your military targets. Those people are fucked anyway
If you have a really good anti-ballistic missile defense system, the game changes and you can target whatever you want. We haven't seen what that is like yet.
Kavka, G. S. (1978). Some Paradoxes of Deterrence. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(6), 285. doi:10.2307/2025707
The people who designed, built and maintained their advanced technology are dying off and there is only a trickle to replace them, anyone with an advanced degree and experience tries to get the hell out of that country for a better life.
I be very worried about nuclear meltdowns in coming years as there are still Chernobyl class plants running and are crumbling.
Who can check that the numbers are correct? And could they credibly prove it? Would they be interested in (allowed to) do that?
There also isn't any real gain from keeping the total number secret above the advantage that keeping their location secret gives. Not disclosing totals probably doesn't even make napkin level invasion planning harder since at that level reasonable estimates will do.
On the other hand it does make you a more suspicious actor in the strategic game as hiding harmless information is a clear sign of paranoia.
Simple considerations on where things have to placed to be on hand for actual use are likely much more useful for locating storage sites; and if you hide a lot of nukes where they can't be accessed in times of need that's just inefficiencies that helps your opponent.
Because countries monitor their enemies. If Russia publishes that they have 50 nukes, and we know of 5 locations that each have what we estimate to be 10 nukes, we can be pretty confident that we know of all of their storage locations.
In any case, if you have that sort of access to count the nukes in program that small it is simply not plausible that you wouldn't know of all the bases anyway.
With the INF suspended, however, perhaps the UN is still performing on-site compliance checks?
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_For...
> "Great powers constantly try to gain nuclear advantage over their rivals and they do it because there is powerful incentives to do so"
> "The ideal strategy is to be the only power in the system that has nuclear weapons...however desirable this situation is, no state is going to achieve nuclear monopoly in our lifetime. (So) the best outcome a great power can hope for is to acquire the capability to launch a splendid first-strike against each of its adversary"
Being opaque on capabilities when it comes to nuclear weapons (especially when other great powers are being opaque) makes strategic sense.
>The report warns that that White House efforts to transfer sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia may be accelerating after meetings last week at the White House and ahead of a planned visit to Saudi Arabia by the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner
Between the originally posted link, the link in my comment, and Rick Perry bailing out of the Department of Energy, this is shaping up to be a very grim situation.
Do not downplay this appointment. It was not a joke. Attempting to dismantle government institutions is stated republican policy.
There are also "turnkey" countries like Canada or Germany that can build nukes any time they want.
I think America's biggest error in WWII was the disclosure of nuclear weapons existence. If America was able to keep that secret, it would have had the one and only card in its sleeve that could've stalled USSR's tank armies in Europe.
Remember guys, the nucler detente in Europe was not something given until eighties, and would've somebody more ambitious came to USSR's political arena instead of Brezhnev, even that would be under question.
WWIII in Europe was barely avoided twice with Stalin's unexpected death, and Khrushev's "retirement." That gave NATO 20+ years to prop up defences.
Firstly, this was unachievable; the concept of the bomb had been publicly discussed before the war, what remained was the engineering challenges of actually producing one. There were a number of independent and intelligence-assisted programs during and after the war to develop the bomb. The Russians would have been aware of the German programme that was sabotaged by the destruction of the Norway heavy water plant, for example.
Secondly, once the programme was started in the US, it would have been unthinkable to not use it during WW2; what kind of lunatic develops a super-weapon during a war and chooses not to use it?
Thirdly, the deterrent effect of the Bomb was (along with the conventional forces) entirely effective at preventing a Soviet invasion of Europe beyond the WW2 surrender lines.
Fourthly, the whole subject of secret superweapons is skewered most entertainingly by Dr Strangelove (1964) : "the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost....if you KEEP IT A SECRET!"
> Remember guys, the nucler detente in Europe was not something given until eighties
Eh? France had their independently developed nukes in the 60s.
This comment also boldly assumes that the Soviets had a stronger urge to march with tanks into Europe than the U.S. has to march into Russia, which is not a given.
But putting all that aside, assuming the U.S. were able to keep it secret, what makes you think that that's necessarily a good thing? Do you really naively assume that all the U.S. cares about are 'liberal values'? The U.S. does not enjoy the universal 'good guys' reputation in many places around the world, for solid reasons.
So to me, it seems far better that MAD exists, it keeps everyone from becoming too drunk with power.
Reagan's arms reduction - START - was indeed early 80s, and did succeed in rowing back some of the tension in Europe. Star Wars almost immediately threw a spanner in those works. Fall of the Berlin wall and the rest of the Soviet bloc disintegration - set in chain partly thanks to the cratered oil price - achieved far more.
Keeping nuclear secret was unlikely - the capability was progressing in the UK - albeit merged (more like taken over, but I digress) with the US part way, Germany, Russia and the US.
MAD is hugely overrated - there's been far too many politicians and generals believing they can win a nuclear exchange. MAD hopefully delays things long enough for someone to have second thoughts.
And remember, Soviets gave no shit about the nuke even after first hydrogen bomb test, thinking of it as an impractical weapon. Were not its use in war, Soviet nuclear project could've ended just being a stack of documents on the shelf without political backing, and them not fully realising how to deal with being attacked themselves.
Imagine yourself in such a situation:
You encounter robbers on the street, they demand money. You know for sure that you will either be robbed and killed after you give money, or be killed and then robbed if you don't give them money and try defending yourself.
Now, will you threaten them retaliation from the start, brandishing your weapon, or hide the weapon and play an easy victim until the very last moment, to try your chance in a surprise attack when they let their guard down?
Show and reputation are better weapons.
it was never a secret wrt the ussr. the manhattan project was riddled with communist spies.
>If America was able to keep that secret
There is no America, there is the United States government. Americans did not want to join in World War 2, the president did.
When the time came to drop the nuclear bomb, these decisions were made by few people, and the popular theory is that the Democrats(incumbent) would have lost elections if the war went on, Americans died, and people found out about the Nuclear Bomb later.
The best decisions for the world are not made, the best decision for individuals are made.
I wonder what will happen when Putins or Xis back are against the wall politically. What horrors will they do for self preservation?
EDIT: Don't downvote because the Democrats were in power at the time. The Republicans would have done this too.
Stanislav Petrov's insubordination is an intersting thought here.
And of course, millions of others.
If a group gets a benefit(survival), people will support the best thing for that group.