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More Nukes! More Nukes!
Chant it with me, “MORE NUKES!” Or, so it would seem this is the plan for the president elect who tweeted yesterday that we must strengthen and expand our nuclear capability.
The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
Never one to back down, President-Elect Trump clarified the remarks by telling MSNBC’s Morning Joe team “Let it be an arms race … we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” Media speculation is that these statements were in response to Russia’s Putin saying “We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems.” The 80’s are back, H/T to Mitt Romney.
The left will, as if on cue, go berserk about how Trump is threatening world peace and will incite the next world war, the big big one where nukes fly and babies die. This is hardly the reality. What is really going on here is the next president showing decisively that the wobbly legged foreign policy of the current occupant of the White House is coming to an immediate end. Trump is not starting an arms race; rather, he is acknowledging the arms race already in progress that began when President Obama sold our nuclear deterrent capabilities for the pottage of a signed treaty.
As R. James Woolsey wrote before the New START Treaty was ratified:
The Russians are engaging in a comprehensive modernization of their nuclear forces, which senior Russian military officials say is their top priority. We cannot deal effectively with them or with the growing number of nuclear-weapon states around the world if we are strategically weaker, undefended and clueless about our adversaries’ capabilities.
The arms race is here whether the left likes it or not, and it is actually the direct result of Obama’s policy of “leading from behind” in foreign policy. What Trump’s statements show is an acceptance of this reality, and of the reality that we are on our heels in this race just as we were after Carter had decimated our military. The U.S. nuclear forces are aging and doing so at an accelerated rate when compared to other nuclear capable countries that are modernizing their forces. We must do what is necessary to secure our place at the top of the nuclear pecking order before the race for arms becomes a race for mere survival.
Published in General
Fred Cole joins a thread about nukes to take a swipe at Trump. I stand amazed.
I also think your stance on Nukes being monstrously immoral is not only wrong, but an immoral stance. There is nothing moral about being less well armed than the other guy. Come to think of it, it is immoral to be *as* well armed as the other guy.
More Nukes!
This gives you a general idea of what actually happens when a ballistic missile is launched. It’s nothing like a tomahawk or other missile that drives to the target.
I believe the technical term is DAT.
No. The Ruskies feared SDI in combination with our improving nuclear stockpile.
The problem is that the estimates of our capacity are based on false presumptions.
Even if all our weapons were used, it would hardly destroy the world one time over. It could kill a lot of people in one country though.
Our arsenal is a fraction of what it was without improvements in quality.
We have reduced our yields (no more megaton class H-bombs).
We have destroyed our modern land weapons (cruise missiles, Peacekeeper, Pershing II), leaving ancient Minutemen.
We de-MIRVed our remaining missiles, reducing warheads per missile.
We eliminated our best counterforce capability of nuclear penetrators. Numbers are also relevant to counterforce strikes. One could devastate the population of a large country with accurate hits from 10 medium yield nuclear weapons. Taking out its military capability would require much more.
Much of our arsenal is not usable at any given point or in any likely scenario (e.g., subs in port, weapons being serviced, stored gravity bombs in NATO countries).
Then we have the issues of taking a first strike.
In addition to attacking our nuclear forces, Russia or China would take out the GPS system in the first seconds of a war, leaving us with primitive guidance for a few surviving weapons of reduced yield.
Then there is the issue of holding back. If attacked by Russia, we would need to hold back enough of our surviving weapons to deter China, North Korea, and Iran.
Our current arsenal is not up to the task.
This.
Our forces were never designed or deployed to depopulate a country. They are military weapons with a military mission.
This is where a large part of our problem can be found. Not the subs so much, but the other legs of the triad.
Meh. Hiroshima was 10KTon. Even our little guys are significantly superior to that yield. GPS is not as much of a player as you might imagine.
This is the part that twists my knickers. This is a game that is underplayed if not overplayed. Just enough is about half of what you really need.
They’re too fast for people to track the. Down and shoot them real time. They really need the technology.
Video of an aegis missile test can be pretty interesting. They started as defense against anti ship missles, but have expanded into ballistics. A test usually uses dummy warheads, so you see each layer of defense after he previous one fails to blow up the missile. They have very little time after a missile is identified. An interceptor missile is launched. If the missle gets closer they start with shots from the big guns, then if it gets even closer the phalanx machine guns put as much lead into it as they can before it gets to the ship. It all happens very fast. So far I think the missile boats are only testing against the shorter range ballistic missiles. The ICBMs are flying much faster.
This thread is about Trumps statement on the matter, Bryan.
And don’t discount how immoral a first strike with nukes would be. It can be very easy to confuse having them for deterrence with using them for any other reason.
No one other than the Chinese knows what the Chinese have or their capabilities. Thanks to Obama and Hillary, everyone knows what we have , probably better than we do.
@markwilson could actually provide information on this aspect of the discussion. His understanding of ballistic flight and what is required to interrupt it is vastly superior to mine.
The time markers on that ballistic graphic tell all you need to know. Enough thrust to cross the ocean is delivered in three minutes. The rest of the flight won’t take very long. Also, we need the automation to shoot down the non-ballistic missles which aren’t nearly as fast.
I think the focus on ICBMs is to catch them in the boost phase. Park a missile boat near North Korea and shoot the missiles on the way up. Russia would be more difficult.
Boost phase is the slowest, but also a relatively short part of the flight. The ability to acquire, track, target, and intercept at that point is challenging. On the other end speed becomes the overwhelming problem.
Here’s an explanation of how nuclear war goes down by a man who teaches it at the Naval War College (post graduate school for squids) using gifs from the tv show Friends. Ironically, I once told my weps that people like those depicted in Friends were the reason I worked with nuclear weapons and would have no qualms about using them.
Go play in traffic.
We’ve already found this statement to be non-CoC compliant.
Excuse me. Let’s not rewrite history. Survivability is an ex post facto rationalization. The reason we have the triad is 1950s interservice competition For relevance and cash in the Nuclear Age.
I reject this. There are some weapons and tactics that the United States refuses to use because they do not conform to our values.
I just think nuclear weapons are so abhorrent that they should be in that list. The US can and should try to guide the rest of the world into doing away with nuclear weapons.
In this case it’s still pretty good advice.
The only appropriate comment I can write is Hahahahahahaha. Each leg of the triad has problems from being easily subject to a first strike to taking longer to engage the target. Having multiple platforms covers the gaps in spite of your libertarian fantasy here.
It’s a plausible argument, but it requires more than a comment to support.
A swipe at St. Donald? Not me. I would never!
I for one think we, as a nation, are best served when a guy who has no [expletive] clue what he is talking about is deciding nuclear policy.
I am sure he’s spent many hours in deep study and contemplation about this subject, and his public pronouncements on the subject are the result of much careful consideration.
And further, that his bull [expletive] nuclear bravado is an excellent policy that totally won’t spark arms race.
Fred,
Diversity of force in order to avoid problems like single point failure is axiomatically the key to many things, including general survivability.
The “triad” is a bit of marketing that is outdated. If you limit the triad to SLBMs, ICBMs., and gravity bombs, you are omitting relevant components of a diverse arsenal like ALCMs, GLCMs, SLCMs, IRBMs. However, in general, a broadly diverse arsenal is required.
What components of the triad would you eliminate and why?
As explained in the post, the arms race is already on. It was started when Obama signed the New START treaty. This is simply getting in a game already underway.
Say, TKP, didn’t you serve in the Navy?
Yes. That’s why I know some stuff about this area.
And, where did you serve in the Navy, if I might ask?
As a Missile Technician on board Trident submarines and at the weapons facility that handles their missiles.
OH! So you served on part of the Triad. I am going to take what you have to say on this subject pretty seriously. I, too, think the parts are all needed.
Fred, what is the basis of your expertise in this area?
I know asking a USN guy this question isn’t exactly fair, but since you know what you are talking about…
….is there a case to be made that the bomber aspect of the nuclear triad is going to be increasingly tenuous even with stealth technology? I’m just wondering if air defense (ground based stuff, interceptors, and, I guess eventually, space based stuff) eventually gets to the point where nuclear-bombers aren’t a reliable option and you have to double down on subs and ICBMs.
I suppose you could do low flying nuke bots via some Drone O’ Death.
One factor to take into account is that in many situations bombers are going to come into play only after your ballistic missiles have degraded enemy defenses.
Then you have the possibility of bombers deploying stand-off weapons. Depending on the particular weapon, the stand-off distance can be tens to more than a thousand miles. This can bypass some defenses.
Then there is a cost factor. Bomber-deployed ordnance is relatively inexpensive.