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Comment by jakedata | Hacker News Reader

I have read a lot of chatter about the state of the Russian military being significantly degraded by material and financial diversions, skill shortages and even looting parts not only from spares but actual deployed equipment.

Maintaining a nuclear arsenal and the infrastructure to deploy it is eye-wateringly expensive. I am sure many people are questioning the degree of threat posed by whatever remains of Soviet nuclear armaments.

The primary fissile material remains a threat but what about the ability to deliver it and actually trigger the intended explosion once it arrives? I would prefer not to put it to the test, even if 20% still works we are screwed.

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Some good friends work in this community, so to speak. They have all expressed confidence in the current state of the Strategic Rocket Forces (as in we should expect everything to work).

The SRF is handled differently than, say, a random mechanized infantry unit. They get funding, better troops, better training and maintenance, etc. For example, you wouldn't see the tires failing on their missile transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) because they actually take them out for a spin now and then, unlike some of the vehicles in Ukraine.

The Russians have also gotten quite good at maintaining their deterrent at the lowest level of expenditure possible. Their submarines can "patrol" from the pier, as they are designed to be able to launch their rockets from port, only sortieing in times of tension. Their TELs can fire from within their storage barns.

Russian culture seems to treat everything as an excuse for skimming and corruption, so it's very unlikely that the entire arsenal would work as planned.

Apparently it's also mostly tactical warheads which don't have a long-range delivery system.

My best guess is that many of the bigger US and European cities would be wiped out, but neither continent would be turned into a sterilised desert - which is what would happen after a no-compromise exchange.

It used to be assumed an initial exchange would target first strike and retaliatory systems, and cities would only be targeted if there was anything left when that phase was over.

The Russian attacks on civilian targets suggests the opposite. Initial attacks would be on Western cities and populated areas, and the Russians wouldn't care about having their own cities wiped out in response.

No one cares about having second strike silos being wiped out in Nebraska or the Urals when big population centres are already on fire.

None of this is encouraging. Some cities and infrastructure might survive, but the aftermath would still be extremely unpleasant.

> Russian culture seems to treat everything as an excuse for skimming and corruption

You don't know actual Russians IRL, do you?

Considering the US still pays Russia to ferry its astronauts to and from space I suspect that they still have the skills and the parts to maintain enough functional missiles to send what's left of to society after a nuclear exchange with the US back to the stone age.

Yeah. I bet there are all sorts of shortcuts there...being expensive, you'd think that we'd have intelligence on how much they maintained the systems.

I don't. I expect "we" do - or at least we have a pretty good idea. If black-market tritium was worth enough to hungry people in Russia we could probably set back readiness even more.

> The primary fissile material remains a threat

That's difficult to ascertain. Russia (then the Soviet Union) stopped testing nuclear weapons in 1990. The US in 1992, the UK in 91 and France in 96[1]. Since then, their nuclear arsenals had to be maintained "by model". Is this difficult? Is it reliable? I don't know, and I suppose that 99.9% of the people who know are not allowed to talk.

But what we do know is that it's expensive. The latest US budget (2022) allocated $20 billion for "Nuclear Security" [2], $15 of which are for "weapons activities". I'm not an expert, but I think it roughly means the money needed to keep the nuclear weapons functional.

But maybe the US if very spendthrift. You know, the military-industrial complex, and all that. Well, it turns out France and the UK are not doing it on the cheap either. France spends a about $5.9 BN per year [3], and the UK about $6.2 BN/year on nuclear deterrence, and they have a much smaller arsenal compared to the US.

Well, Russia has a larger arsenal. And their total defense spending is less than $50 BN/year. I don't know if they spend $10 BN / year on their nuclear forces, but if they did, it would not surprise me if a lot were siphoned out. How would anyone know, if there is no actual nuclear test going on?

As a cute little tidbit of information. All current nuclear bombs are "boosted" [4]. Boosting requires Tritium (an unstable Hydrogen isotope). Tritium happens to be the most expensive substance on the planet, with a price of about $30k per gram. It has a half-life of 12 years, so there have been about 2 half-lives since the Soviet Union collapse. A nuclear bomb needs to have its Tritium replaced periodically if it is to remain effective. What is the probability that someone in Russia dipped a bit in the Tritium fund to buy a yacht or something?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_testing#/media...

[2] https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/doe-fy202...

[3] https://sldinfo.com/2020/10/an-update-on-the-french-nuclear-...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boosted_fission_weapon

Supposedly the nuclear weapons development and maintenance was well funded in Russia.

you seem to be conflating Russian military with Soviet military as if they enjoyed a significant divergence, but in reality one is just a progression of the other. the SU35 for example can still stalk down an SR71, just as its soviet SU25 could.

Dead Hand is not a former soviet technology, it is actively maintained, staffed, and funded. as the CCCP invented the ICBM, i have full confidence in Russias ability to deliver it.

Sarmat is the latest ICBM in development with planned service this year. much like their American counterparts (minuteman) missiles and technology are regularly advanced and upgraded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat

Man, you must have been living under a rock for past month. All these statements about Russian military were claimed for few decades on general level, and they seemed to match reality when small conflicts were happening.

Then Ukraine happened and basically none of the predicted capacities and skills 'actively maintained' of russian military were displayed when facing actual equipped and trained army.

You disregard completely utter corruption, thievery and incompetence on all levels including top of power pyramid. I have 0 doubts that Russians have working nukes of various loads and range. I am very positive that number of usable ones is somewhere in 1-5% range and its often not immediately clear which are which.

If there was any maintenance to be done, rest assured it was skimmed and funds stolen. If any replacement should have happened, it was stolen too. Few nukes got probably stolen themselves. That's how state works for a long time, that's how Volodya keeps all bloodthirsty underlings happy, and these are side effects.

> Then Ukraine happened and basically none of the predicted capacities and skills 'actively maintained' of russian military were displayed when facing actual equipped and trained army.

For instance, the thing with the tires: https://twitter.com/trenttelenko/status/1499164245250002944.

> Then Ukraine happened and basically none of the predicted capacities and skills 'actively maintained' of russian military were displayed when facing actual equipped and trained army.

What do you suppose should have happened? Especially in regards to strategic arms which are discussed in the thread?

> What do you suppose should have happened? Especially in regards to strategic arms which are discussed in the thread?

I think the implication is that some of the problems the Russian military has had in Ukraine could be indications of systemic issues (e.g. neglecting basic maintenance even before a planned war, like the tire thing I linked below). Maybe their nuclear forces don't have those issues, but maybe they do.

However, personally, I wouldn't bet on those issues continuing (even if they in fact do), because it's more risky to underestimate and become overconfident.

>I have 0 doubts that Russians have working nukes of various loads and range. I am very positive that number of usable ones is somewhere in 1-5% range and its often not immediately clear which are which.

I've been thinking about this possibility for a while:

* Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of Russian might.

* The weapon is a dud.

I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!

> can still stalk down an SR71, just as its soviet SU25 could

Did an SU-25 write this?

> the SU35 for example can still stalk down an SR71, just as its soviet SU25 could.

At best, you are confusing Sukhoi with Mikoyan-Gurevich at least once here; the Su-25 definitely couldn't stalk a SR-71. (A MiG-35 or Su-35 doing so is a bit of stretch, too, but less implausible.)

Isn't the SU-25 [1], a close air support plane roughly equivalent in role to the A-10 [2]?

The Su-37 had its first flight in early 2008 [3] about ten years after the SR-71 was retired [4]. If you mean the SU-27 that indeed flew in 1977 [5] but only has a service celling of 19km, much less than the SR-71's 26km.

Above top secret has an interesting thread on how you would actually go about such an interception [6]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-25

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunde...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-27

[6] https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread174271/pg1

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