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US Revamping Its Nuclear Arsenal
FreedomFirstThenPeac writes: As a former Cold Warrior (both launch officer side and staff analytical mathematician side), I now appreciate the bitterness I saw in former WW2 warriors when they would see a Japanese car. According to the NY Times, a new assembly plant in Kansas is "part of a nationwide wave of atomic revitalization that includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers. This expansion comes under a president who campaigned for 'a nuclear-free world' and made disarmament a main goal of American defense policy." Mind you, Mutual Assured Destruction is a dangerous path, and one we managed to negotiate only because we were lucky (and we were) and because we were careful (and we were).
As a strategy, it only works with rational people (e.g., world powers with lots to lose) who might have irrational expectations that they will win in the long run. (The rapid fall of imperialist Russia was helpful — I have seen blackboard talks on this as a mathematical result in game theory. This speed minimized the time we spent in the high-risk regions while transiting from MAD to where we were in the 1990s). The Times article says, "The original idea was that modest rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear complex would speed arms refurbishment, raising confidence in the arsenal’s reliability and paving the way for new treaties that would significantly cut the number of warheads. Instead, because of political deals and geopolitical crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding while getting only modest arms reductions in return."
As a strategy, it only works with rational people (e.g., world powers with lots to lose) who might have irrational expectations that they will win in the long run. (The rapid fall of imperialist Russia was helpful — I have seen blackboard talks on this as a mathematical result in game theory. This speed minimized the time we spent in the high-risk regions while transiting from MAD to where we were in the 1990s). The Times article says, "The original idea was that modest rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear complex would speed arms refurbishment, raising confidence in the arsenal’s reliability and paving the way for new treaties that would significantly cut the number of warheads. Instead, because of political deals and geopolitical crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding while getting only modest arms reductions in return."
Mutually Assured Destruction, making sure the psychopaths that own the corporations who make the weapons, the corrupt politicians who buy the weapons and fire the weapons, die as well. That's all they care about, as for the rest of us, we are all cannon fodder and millennia of psychopathic war has shown the will use and kill us without limit or mercy, only our refusal to play their game, puts limits on it. A multi-lingual internet where people communicate from all over the world would likely make that refusal global.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Back during Cold War I, one of the big TV networks made a movie about nuclear war (and aftermath) called The Day After. Every sane and rational person should watch it every 5 or 10 years to remind themselves of the horrific nature of nuclear war. Ironically, the film is set between Kansas City and Lawrence, KS. The film hopefully cools the excitement about nukes. Probably best not to show the film to radical jihadists as it would likely have the opposite effect.
*Sigh* A former cold warrior you may be, but all you do is give proof to what I've long said - a worm's eye view doesn't make you an expert. Or even knowledgeable. (And yeah, the view of a launch control officer is pretty low level). Having been an SSBN weapons tech (and FTB to be precise), I'm quite aware of just how little can be seen from the operating level.
America's nuclear strategy isn't MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), and hasn't been for a couple of decades now. The strategy we're working towards now is Minimal Deterrence - the smallest number of weapons needed for deterrence.
"It seems to me the use of strategies like this assume that the people involved are relatively rational.
In our current world this doesn't seem to be that good an assumption."
Nor in the past world. Read "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman.
My first thought was "What were they thinking?" My next thought was "There was no thought involved." 17 million dead by the end, and not a nuke in sight. They didn't even discover the neutron until 1932.
Political cronyism, sure... Most American rockets weren't built in Alabama because that is where all of the rocket scientists were born, rather because of who chaired which committee, just like the Johnson space center isn't named after Goddard. If the government is going to spend money, politicians are going to represent their electorate
Since you already went there, what is on the other side of the aisle if Obama was to unilaterally allow our nuclear arsenal age out of usefulness while Russia enters into an aggressive posture, China continues with their Long March series of missile, India/Pakistan/Korea expand their arsenals, etc...
I'll tell you what, The GOP would be livid about American impotence in the face of threats, leading to a long slide into a second-rate has been... rant fume, etc...
And they would be right to some degree, with their red faces and spittle flecked chins, and even Obama seems rational enough to realize that you are not going to negotiate with Putin, etc, from a position of weakness
Russia recently stopped all shipments of processed Uranium from Russia to America for fuel processing, a move that indicates they have no intention of reducing their arsenal. Why would we reduce our arsenal in that situation?
Actually you can win a nuclear war in the modern age. Russia or China Can't nuke the USA but North Korea or ISIS(insert group here) can.
With Nukes you don't even have to be up close. a single rich man's yacht can literally motor right up the Chesapeake and detonate a bomb capable of wiping out DC without ever touching american soil and thus not subject to any nuclear scans or customs searches. Another yacht can pull up next to NY or under the golden gate bridge and detonate. How many of our major cities are found next to the ocean?
Think outside the box. Sure if someone were to launch a really big rocket the targeted country could respond. So don't launch a rocket. send something they won't expect. Nukes are Area effect weapons. Like horseshoes getting close counts.
The columbia island Marina can take up to 50' boats so very few people would question a 50-60' boat parking less than a half mile from the Pentagon. Go a little farther up the potomac and you can get the white house, the capital building and the pentagon in one shot no matter the yield nuke you have.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.