I also saw russias recent video of their new insane weaponry. I don't have the long term scope on this section of the news, is this just routine flexing on both parts or is something more serious going on?
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).
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.
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...
Kavka, G. S. (1978). Some Paradoxes of Deterrence. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(6), 285. doi:10.2307/2025707
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.)
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.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...
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.