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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
In ways that only relate to a massive weapons program and without normal safeguards.
Nope. Not at all.
Radiation detectors are not that precise, therefore not revealing location. Besides, if we know where they all are, why do the bilateral treaties insist on in-person inspection?
Please take a look at the Great Underground Wall of China.
Link 1 – how I found out about it
Link 2
Link 3
We don’t know- and the Chinese practice strategic ambiguity and a decided unwillingness to negotiate regarding nukes.
Actually, it is a great form of argument when talking about technical things. If someone wants to argue about Sparta, what VDH has to say on it carries a lot more weight than a 25 year old barrista, for instance. Your knowledge on this subject means your thoughts are more informed.
It is like listening to anonymous on computers.
It is a great form of argument when the authority is participating. It is weak when someone is restating or adopting a third party argument.
I was going to write my post regarding President-elect Trump’s tweet, but KP’s is dead on. So instead here is a timelapse graphic of “every” nuclear detonation on the planet, at least until 1998. I think this sped up version is the best.
Note: Every an adversary pops one off, the US responds with a multiple test.
Awesome. Thanks Instugator.
So that was cool. That brings up a question….how do the Israelis know their stuff works? Can you have a reliable nuclear program without actually doing any testing? The Israelis are nuclear capable, but they don’t admit it so they don’t get to do any testing, right?
It really depends on what kind of weapon. A gun-type fission device like “Little Boy” is sufficiently simple that testing is not necessary to make one in a reasonably deliverable size (like what would allow an F-16 to carry just one). But they are of limited military use because they are of limited yield. Testing would be required for further miniaturization such as some of the Nuclear artillery shells we used to have.
The testing is really needed for implosion-type fission devices and fusion devices. These are the modern weapons used on missiles. Testing is key both to make your first device work, but moreso to make it of a deliverable size. Contrast the size of “Fat Man” with modern nuclear devices. And witness the NorK fizzled tests.
Likely, Israel has twenty or so gun-type devices for delivery by aircraft. They then probably have again as many experimental implosion-type missile warheads that may or may not work.
Well, I have some level of knowledge greater than the general public, but I don’t hold it out as being definitive, and certainly not to the level VDH has on any subject.
You sell yourself short.
And you are one of favorite posters.
The logical answer to do this is to have a secret agreement with another country to take credit for the testing of Israeli weapons. Noting the high numbers and locations for tests by France, I would first suspect France. Unlike other countries, Israel would likely want to test the absolute minimum. Other countries, including ourselves, include tests for additional reasons than proof of working. Measurements of effective kilotonnage of ongoing development affects strategy decisions and system cost estimates (edit: and weight as payload).
No. Tests fulfill two functions, proof that your efforts were successful and to demonstrate to the world the nation’s new status. For those nations who desire strategic ambiguity – the test is mainly aimed at the first function.
The five permanent members of the UN Security council are also the five recognized Nuclear Weapon States. There is speculation that this is the reason for the makeup of the five members of the UN Security Council – France wasn’t a victorious party in WW2, but a liberated one (they did however have nukes – go figure).
There are suspected tests that are not accounted for and which certain groups ascribe to suspected nuclear nation states.
Perhaps Israel made a mistake in not declaring their weapons and demanding UN Security Council permanent membership.
I have often thought that the universe David Weber co-opted for his novel The Excalibur Alternative perversely modeled the UN. The top tier species, members of the council actually, are only those nations which demonstrated FTL travel technology. All other species experience the universe as some form of satrap of the members of the council.
In Weber’s book though the human’s version of FTL travel is deemed “too primitive” and they are denied membership.
Probably would have happened to the Israelis exactly the same way.
Agreed. I’m all about Rico Prawn Content(tm)
Little Boy was not tested for this exact reason. The Trinity test was a Fat Man style device, in order to make sure it worked.
Unlikely.
And you could probably fit a Little Boy device under most modern multi-role aircraft. You would likely need to halve the diameter of a Fat Man to do so.
Then there is Mordechai Vanunu. Interesting story there.
Vanunu said nothing about testing. He only stated that Israel was developing an implosion-type plutonium device. If anything, the experimental nature of some of his well post-Vela photos confirm that Vela would not likely have been a test of such a device. It might have been a test of an earlier device, but then we would have expected something in the disclosed South African program to reflect that.
The slim possibility would be that Israel gave South Africa assistance on the gun-type device in exchange for help testing the implosion device in a way that left no evidence in the South African program.
As I stated, Israel likely has untested implosion devices backed up by less potent and less deliverable but more reliable gun-type devices.
…which was have done, repeatedly, for quite a while, starting decades ago. They had to detune the Sprint missile radar because it was supposed to detonate near the incoming warhead, not hit it. Close is good enough with enhanced radiation warheads.
The other thing is that it’s much, much easier to hit an incoming warhead, since you’re trying to hit a trash-can sized bullet coming straight at you, and it’s glowing bright in visible and infrared light. You have about ten seconds from the time it hits atmosphere to the time it detonates. The fun part is that, due to relative velocities and heat effects, if you directly hit one with anything bigger than 00 buckshot, it’s not going to survive.
That’s why one of the more interesting ABM suggestions was an array of GAU-8 Gatling guns, spread around our ICBM fields. Since counterforce attacks on the ICBM launchers pretty much need ground bursts, you had more time, and they had to detonate within a mile or so of the target. So you’d pop up a GAU-8 and fire a few thousand rounds up the incoming missile trajectory. If one went off close enough to cripple the GAU-8, you pop up another.
I’m tentatively supporting Trump on this. I can’t remember where I heard it, but a commentator in one of the podcasts made the point that nuclear weapons have saved countless millions of lives, in that they have deterred many wars, both nuclear and conventional, for the last seventy years. I’m nervous about Trump making some kind of stupid mistake given that he didn’t know what the nuclear triad is (I didn’t either, but I wasn’t running for president), but I think he’s on the right track here.
The five permanent members of the security council were established after WW2. They were the ‘official’ allies on the victorious side: USA, UK, France, USSR, Republic of China. Even after the communist takeover, the seat stayed with the ROC (now limited to Taiwan). It was a big deal when they replaced the ROC with the PRC in 1971. The nuclear capabilities of every state except USA came after the UN and the Security Council were established.
Or he was processing the question as to which Triad they were referring to, the old one or the 2002 one (which no one uses, btw.)
2053 verified nuclear explosions, I had no idea. I would have thought 100 or so, world wide.
Why is/was it necessary to explode so many isotope-producing weapons outside of war?
The reasons have been outlined in this thread:
Testing and Demonstrations of ability
One sees that. Bryan, but one is not convinced. Goodness, if we’ve fired off 600 nukes, how do we ward off the Ruskies any further by firing off the 601st? Such a crazy calculus.
About 183 of those were for either Project Plowshare or for “Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy,” the Soviet version.
They were both projects for the peaceful uses of nuclear explosives. Some planned programs were for a new canal to replace the Panama Canal (digging a big ditch across Nicaragua to let ships cross Central America), creating large new ports (by detonating three or more big nukes on a coast), and freeing up natural gas from rock strata (fracking on steroids). My favorite one was Project Carryall, a planned cut through some mountains near Needles, California.
Of course, these projects all had one huge drawback, and you can guess what that is…
You have to remember that a lot of the nukes we set off in the 50s and 60s were actual research projects, either making more powerful bombs, or making smaller ones with better yields per pound.
A lot of those tests were just to test theories about new kinds of weapons – and a certain number of them were failures in one way or another. Others were practical tests, to find out if new designs for detonators and other parts of the warheads were reliable enough for military use. Some weapons effects tests (Operation Crossroads was one of these).
There were apparently very few “saber rattling” tests, because they weren’t necessary. The Soviets pulled a couple of these, like the Tsar Bomba blast (largest nuke ever), but even they didn’t seem to see the need in general. Both side had nukes, and both sides knew what they could do with them.
Because these things took place over a period of 50 years – and each new crop of people to go through the Kennedy School of Government (or it’s Soviet equivalent) needed a little reminder that these things exist and not to neglect them in their thinking.
We have not done it for a while. You have to demonstrate capacity once in while to keep things honest. This is basic human psychology.