US Modernizes Nuclear Arsenal With Smaller, Precision-Guided Atomic Weapons (nytimes.com)

HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports that the Pentagon has been developing the B61 Model 12, the nation's first precision-guided atom bomb. Adapted from an older weapon, the Model 12 was designed with problems like North Korea in mind: Its computer brain and four maneuverable fins let it zero in on deeply buried targets like testing tunnels and weapon sites and its yield can be dialed up or down depending on the target, to minimize collateral damage. The B61 Model 12 flight-tested last year in Nevada and is the first of five new warhead types planned as part of an atomic revitalization estimated to cost up to $1 trillion over three decades. As a family, the weapons and their delivery systems move toward the small, the stealthy and the precise.

And some say that's the problem. The Federation of American Scientists argues that the high accuracy and low destructive settings means military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited. Increasing the accuracy also broadens the type of targets that the B61 can be used to attack. Some say that a new nuclear tipped cruise missile under development might sway a future president to contemplate "limited nuclear war." Worse yet, because the missile comes in nuclear and non-nuclear varieties, a foe under attack might assume the worst and overreact, initiating nuclear war. In a recent interview, General James Cartwright, a retired four-star general who last served as the eighth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the overall modernization plan might change how military commanders looked at the risks of using nuclear weapons. "What if I bring real precision to these weapons?" says Cartwright. "Does it make them more usable? It could be."

Comments

Good?

[LMariachi]

The Federation of American Scientists argues that the high accuracy and low destructive settings means military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited.

Aren't fallout and collateral damage the main problems people have with nuclear weapons? Without those factors The Bomb wouldn't have that enormous stigma attached to it, it would be just another bomb, albeit larger. Since the Cold War is over, and since everyone involved knows that smaller tactical nukes exist, there's no reason that the response to any and all non-testing nuclear explosion has to be full-on empty the silos.

Re:Good?

[Gilgaron]

Agreed... with minimal collateral damage, does the technique we use to blow people up carry any particular moral weight over that we blew them up to begin with?

Re:Good?

[JoshuaZ]

Not using nuclear weapons at all is an important taboo precisely because it can get out of hand so quickly. No nuclear launches is a clear bright line, in some sense a Schelling point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory) . Once small nukes are in use, the bright line no longer exists.

Re:Good?

[Rei]

The concern is and always has been stepping over the red "no nukes allowed" line. Once both sides of a conflict start playing with nukes, even if it starts out with small, tactical, targeted nukes, the other side will too, and whichever side is losing will be tempted to scale up, and ultimately you're opening up the risk of escalation into full blown strategic nuclear exchange. It's been the key reason why tactical nukes have been largely avoided for so long. The consequences of nuclear war ever breaking out between major powers are just so atrocious that one doesn't want to play lightly with anything that could make it easier to happen. Even when one side isn't a major power, we all know that these regional conflicts have a habit of escalating, and that different sides have a habit of misestimating how much of a line they're stepping over from the perspective of their rivals.

That said, the US may forced into this whether they want to or not, given that Russia's been developing - and has started deploying - tactical nuclear delivery systems. They've really been waving around their "nuclear card" a lot lately - my favorite was when they "accidentally" let a news camera capture a picture of design plans for a submarine-based cobalt bomb doomsday device among papers an officer was carrying.

Nuclear war gaming is a really morbid topic... the whole "if we do X, then they're going to do Y, then we'll have to do Z" thing, because the casualty numbers are so absurd... "If we do X here, then their attack will only kill between 6,3 and 7,5 million people, but our counter will kill between 23 and 26 million people, so that works out well to our favor..." The fact that even a "win" is really a devastating loss to the victor is what led to the concept of MAD.

Even on the battlefield it leads to weird situations. For example, part of the reason that neutron bombs were developed was the realization that should Soviet forces (which stressed a "deep battle" doctrine involving huge numbers of rapidly advancing tanks) flood into western Europe, the west could use nuclear weapons against their forces to try to stop them, but tanks tend to have a habit of surviving nuclear blasts unless they're near the epicenter. The radiation load might be fatal to the crew, but that could take days or more, and meanwhile the Soviet "zombie crews" could have taken control of a large chunk of Europe before they become too sick to continue. With neutron bombs, Soviets would have to respond by spreading their tanks out more, which greatly reduces their ability to be defended and supplied. It's possible to make tanks resistant to neutrons by incorporating neutron absorbers, such as boron, or moderators like hydrogen... but ironically the depleted uranium sometimes used in tank armour these days could actually enhance the yield of the radiation by undergoing fast fission.

Oh, and it's worth pointing out that dial-a-yield nuclear bombs are often effectively neutron bombs at their lower yield settings.

Re:Good?

[Applehu Akbar]

"Once both sides of a conflict start playing with nukes, even if it starts out with small, tactical, targeted nukes, the other side will too, and whichever side is losing will be tempted to scale up, "

Even if the conflict is with a non-nuclear country, or one with no long-distance delivery technology, there is a fear that a contained strike, say the US blasting an ISIS underground redoubt, would 'normalize' nuclear warfare in the future.

Re:Good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most weapons systems that will never be used, this is another example of the US taxpayer getting shafted by defense contractors. Fallout limited? That is pure nonsense. Face it folks, we keep getting fleeced by the government and their buddies in the "defense" industry. This is another in a long string of wasteful expenditures for hardware that will sit unused until we have to pay to dismantle them 50 years from now. Stop acting like weapons are cool. They aren't. That money could be spent on fixing our busted infrastructure if you push your representatives to stop wasting so much money on weapons and war.

Apparently, the word 'deterrent' doesn't exist in the "doctor" has on his desk.

Re: Good?

[Kythe]

The problem isn't the use of weapons with less collateral damage. The problem is the response from those who have nukes, but not the precision-guided, limited collateral damage variety.

It's a psychological issue--once nukes have been used, it's more feasible to respond by using nukes. And lest we think the psychology of the situation doesn't matter, remember that mutually assured destruction (MAD), which kept the world fron nuking itself back to the stone age for more than a half century, was and is based entirely on the psychology of nuclear weapon use.

Re:Good?

[theycallmeB]

The would still be collateral damage, fallout and stigma, just less of it. But I think the real loss of ever using a weapon like these is that when dealing with countries like North Korea fine distinctions don't work. If you use any sort of nuclear weapon in one limited situation they will maintain they can use all types they have whenever the Dear Leader is feeling pissy.

There really is a great deal of value in simple messages like "Never again."

Re:Good?

[ColdWetDog]

Oh, and it's worth pointing out that dial-a-yield nuclear bombs are often effectively neutron bombs at their lower yield settings.

Oh, thanks for that. As if I didn't need something else to make me feel more hopeful about our world.

Re:Good?

[blackanvil]

"Once both sides of a conflict start playing with nukes, even if it starts out with small, tactical, targeted nukes, the other side will too, and whichever side is losing will be tempted to scale up, "

Even if the conflict is with a non-nuclear country, or one with no long-distance delivery technology, there is a fear that a contained strike, say the US blasting an ISIS underground redoubt, would 'normalize' nuclear warfare in the future.

Not to mention that if the fallout is encountered by even one citizen of another nuclear state, let alone an embassy or crosses a border into a nuclear armed country, they may well consider that an attack and retaliate. Nuking Daesh should be safe-ish in that one regard, but even there you have Israel (still denying they have nukes), would they show restraint if, say, fallout from a Russian nuke contaminated their northern territories? How would Turkey, a member of NATO, respond if their country was irradiated? If a Chinese embassy was rendered uninhabitable by fallout, what would they do? Best to leave that can of radioactive worms unopened.

Re:Good?

[LWATCDR]

1. No US military commander except the president can authorize the use of nuclear weapons.
2. The US not building this will not prevent other nations from building them.
3. This is just a nuke with a JDAM kit on it.

Re:Good?

[tinkerton]

What do you mean tactical nukes have been avoided? Usage or deployment? Bush the elder once decommissioned whole categories of tactical nukes unilaterally(and in a stealth operation too) because he considered them too dangerous.

Anyway I agree the 'red line' argument is important. And currently we have a combination of increased tensions and reduced threshold for using nukes. Reduced because people have become too confident 'since we managed pretty well for such a long time' . I think that confidence has always been far too large, and if I see people like general Breedlove, whom I wouldn't trust with a box of matches, then I'm absolutely not confident we'll be alright.

Re:Good?

[davester666]

Or when only one side uses a small, tactical targeted nuke, the other side only has a large, not very precise nuke, you think they will go "nope, lets just stick to the small stuff".

Re:Good?

[luis_a_espinal]

Oh, and it's worth pointing out that dial-a-yield nuclear bombs are often effectively neutron bombs at their lower yield settings.

Oh, thanks for that. As if I didn't need something else to make me feel more hopeful about our world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Good?

[godel_56]

"Once both sides of a conflict start playing with nukes, even if it starts out with small, tactical, targeted nukes, the other side will too, and whichever side is losing will be tempted to scale up, "

Even if the conflict is with a non-nuclear country, or one with no long-distance delivery technology, there is a fear that a contained strike, say the US blasting an ISIS underground redoubt, would 'normalize' nuclear warfare in the future.

Not to mention that if the fallout is encountered by even one citizen of another nuclear state, let alone an embassy or crosses a border into a nuclear armed country, they may well consider that an attack and retaliate. Nuking Daesh should be safe-ish in that one regard, but even there you have Israel (still denying they have nukes), would they show restraint if, say, fallout from a Russian nuke contaminated their northern territories? How would Turkey, a member of NATO, respond if their country was irradiated? If a Chinese embassy was rendered uninhabitable by fallout, what would they do? Best to leave that can of radioactive worms unopened.

That's a load of crap. Do you really think Israel with its piddling few bombs and tiny population would go nuclear on Russia?

Most likely there's be a bucket load of bluster and a demand for an apology and compensation. Even China would not risk an expansion of a situation based on an accident. The MAD doctrine still applies.

Re:Good?

[david_thornley]

The reason they're never used is that we maintain them well, and can enforce mutually assured destruction. Nobody's going to attack us with anywhere near enough to suggest that we launch. If we didn't have them, we could be attacked by a nuclear power, and we'd be handicapped in our defense.

Re:Good?

[dsmatthews9379]

Is this a "The genie is already out of the bottle so we may as well teach him some manners." type argument? I guess it is a valid point if the end result is less potential harm to civilians. But aren't current generation weapons already accurate enough to a small fraction of their blast radius? Or are we talking about a new weapon that is so accurate and controllable that you can dial it down to 0.00001% and use it to cauterise a dictator's haemorrhoids while he sleeps?

Re: Good?

[tinkerton]

That's part of it. The other part is you're fueling an arms race, including a nuclear arms race.

Re:Good?

[The Real Dr John]

Please, don't be fawning about the US nuclear weapons and how we take care of them, and pretend that we would be attacked if we didn't have them. Pure nonsense.

The nuke guys were all caught cheating on tests.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

We have lost nukes and sent them accidentally across the country, and had all sorts of problems that show we don't "maintain them well"..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
http://www.businessinsider.com...

I am sure you know all this, but you are hoping that no one else knows or is paying attention. They will never be used because they are not needed, and can't be used. They are not stopping Russia or China from attacking us because Russia and China have no intention of attacking us. This kind of utter nonsense has to stop. I thought we were supposed to be smarter than that here at /. No country is about to attack the US, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we have nukes. Stop the idiocy.

Re:Good?

[The Real Dr John]

It is so funny you think that the US is about to be attacked, and that it is only because we have nuclear weapons that we haven't been, and won't be. It is hard to understand how people can be that silly. MAD was from a very different time that I lived through in the 50s and 60s, and as far as I can tell, Russia and China aren't about to nuke us now, and wouldn't nuke us if we retired all our nuclear weapons. But it's a free country so you can spew all the nonsense you like. I'm sure you think you sound tough, but you really just sound silly. I realize /. is full of conservatives, but this is ridiculous.

Re:Good?

[david_thornley]

I was eight during the Cuban missile crisis, when the Cold War very nearly became hot. I was not sure at the time, nor am I sure now, that the Soviet Union would not have attacked if they had nukes and we didn't. MAD was touchy in the early part of the Cold War, because nukes then relied on long-range bombers, which could easily be destroyed if attacked on the ground and were considered effectively invincible in the air. Missiles made it a lot more stable, particularly the submarine-launched missiles.

I'm not trying to sound tough here. I'm discussing a strategy under which nobody has nuked anyone else in seventy years, and I like that. We need weapons, and if we can leave them unused that's great.

Re:Good?

[The Real Dr John]

What makes you think that other countries want to nuke the US? Please explain. I have heard nothing about this from any source. What would they gain by nuking the US, destroying the world economy, and spreading radiation around the globe? Please, I would love to hear your explanation about how we need to modernize our nuclear arsenal to prevent this from happening. Obama is saying he wants to spend a trillion dollars to revamp our nukes, and you apparently agree. Silly. Just plain silly. No one is going to nuke us, even if we didn't have any nukes. Spending that kind of money that way is pure boondoggle, and you know it. It is a massive government handout to GE and their buddies in the nuke business.

Re:Good?

[lucien86]

Yes but why is the US upgrading its nukes? Simple a large imbalance of power is starting to build up with the Russians and Chinese both spending money on newer & more advanced weapons.. There is also the problem that the submarines may no longer be able to stay hidden making them basically obsolete..

Re:Good?

[david_thornley]

Do you remember the Cold War? It had some pretty intense moments, like the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was pretty obvious that, if the US and Soviet Union went to war, it would be nuclear. (This became less certain later on.) The Soviet Union would not have been that horribly hurt by toasting the US back then.

Back when I was a kid, nuclear war appeared to be a distinct possibility.

Nowadays, it is less likely, but the cost of being wrong in that case is very high.

Re:Good?

[whodunit]

That said, the US may forced into this whether they want to or not, given that Russia's been developing - and has started deploying - tactical nuclear delivery systems. They've really been waving around their "nuclear card" a lot lately - my favorite was when they "accidentally" let a news camera capture a picture of design plans for a submarine-based cobalt bomb doomsday device among papers an officer was carrying.

Indeed. Russia has been aggressively threatening to use tactical nukes in retaliation for any attacks its (very weak) conventional forces cannot repel, and have been for some time: http://www.wsj.com/articles/as... The development of a new generation of precision tactical nuclear weapons is a direct response to these threats.

Russia wanted a new Cold War - it shall have it.

This has obvious value

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

1) China and Russia are likely to do the same thing eventually. Russia in particular is pumping a lot of money into modernizing their nukes. Do we really want to end up having to catch up here?
2) This might make China and Russia less likely to start some crap if they fear that the US might nuke them in retaliation. There are a lot of countries that would be really happy if both China and Russia would calm down right now.

Re:This has obvious value

[TheReaperD]

I'm not sure that having nuclear weapons that do less damage will deter China or Russia. Right now, if they develop and then consider using precision nuclear weapons against us, the fact that we have old-fashioned, city leveling bombs only would give them more of a reason to decide not to use their future precision-guided weapons. That's the reasoning I see working.

Re:This has obvious value

[LordWabbit2]

There are a lot of countries that would be really happy if both China and Russia would calm down right now

Same could be said for the USA, stop starting more wars already.

Re:This has obvious value

[rickb928]

You want to deter China or Russia?

These aren't the weapons you're looking for. We have those already.

Re:This has obvious value

[TheReaperD]

Well, though we've butted our noses in a few wars, some we probably shouldn't have, we have not started a new once since Shrub (the lesser Bush) left office. So, at least, it's an improvement. The problem is the mess we left from the last two we did start has gotten so big, no one really knows how to deal with it.

Re:This has obvious value

[DarkOx]

Only if they think we will actually use those 20kt+ devices. If they think we might be to squeamish for that sorta thing and try to fight back with traditional chemical explosives and arms they suddenly have a huge advantage on the battle field. At least if their assessment of us proves accurate (I suspect it would).

Smaller more target-able devices would also be potentially very useful against naval power. A lot of US force projection depends on aircraft carriers. If you could reliably target and destroy a carrier using a payload delivered by rocket, with a small enough device that on shore impacts direct, tsunami, and fallout were minimal, you could potentially massively degrade the USA's ability to fight in many areas of the world.

You might also be able to do that without turning the entire rest of the world against you. Having only targeted and destroyed a Man-of-War, which is pretty universally considered a legitimate target.

Re:This has obvious value

[TheReaperD]

I hate replying to myself but, I had an extra item to add and we can't edit here.

The problem that the US has had in the middle east is that we have tried all three general policies: diplomacy only, limited engagement and full regime change. The end result has been similar in all three, all the countries involved and their neighbors hate us, people have vowed to get revenge on us for our actions (or inactions) and it has been a large to huge drain on the national treasury. Limited engagement seems to have had the fewest US lives lost and tend to be the cheapest, even above diplomacy. The problem with this option is that you have to support one the the existing factions and when it comes to the middle-east, factions that we find acceptable to our policy goals is next to impossible (see Libya and our current problems with [IS/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh]). It's literally a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario.

Re:This has obvious value

[some old guy]

You, dear AC, win the internets today.

Re:This has obvious value

[ColdWetDog]

Maybe it's not just us. The Middle East has a nearly 10,000 year history of localized warfare. WWI and WWII mearly made a messy place messier. We've been nibbling at the edges since then.

It's not always about you.

Re:This has obvious value

[phantomfive]

I think it wasn't the policies that were bad, but poor implementation of the policy. Bush was not the most competent guy around, but even he realized that Rumsfeld should be fired after his lousy execution of the Iraq war. The Afghanistan action was an embarrassment from the beginning (and Bush personally deserves credit for that).

Re:This has obvious value

[Gavagai80]

Syria and Libya may not have turned into true wars without US/Saudi involvement (they could have been simple government massacres).

Re:This has obvious value

[WheezyJoe]

It helps that we don't rely on Saudi oil as much as we used to. Fracking is kinda filthy, but for the first time in my lifetime we don't need to be muscled around by the Saudis to keep our nation moving. And they feel the hurt - to raise cash, they've announced they may offer shares of their state-owned oil company to the pubic. And that's not the worst... the whole region is literally heating up, to the point it may become uninhabitable in 80 or 90 years.

It may not hurt now to re-think who's side we have to be on in the weird cat-fight between the Saudis and Iran that serves to fuck up the entire region. The way it used to be, we'd bend-over backward for the Saudis, even in spite of their frequent violations of human rights (like this one)... all because we needed a friend in the region with oil. Now, maybe not so much. Hell, Iran is actually trying to make nice with us. Changing times, maybe.

Re:This has obvious value

[powerlord]

Considering China's push for control of waters in its area, and the ramp up of its own carrier fleet, this is one of the more interesting comments I've seen.

Re:This has obvious value

[WindBourne]

sure. what wars have we started that you want stopped?

Re:This has obvious value

[jedidiah]

> Stay out of it, stop meddling in other countries politics.

Since the Caliphate by definition wants to take over the rest of the world, this option really doesn't help for ISIS.

Your touchy feely cum-by-ah approach sounds nice and all but it pretty much ignores nearly ALL of the relevant history.

Someone else said it... "sometimes it's not about you".

Re:This has obvious value

[LordWabbit2]

Since the Caliphate by definition wants to take over the rest of the world, this option really doesn't help for ISIS.

So you invaded first to stop them? Just in case they decided to stop fighting amongst each other long enough to actually become a threat?
Or did you want the oil?
The only way there will be peace in the middle east is when it becomes a glass bowl, otherwise every war there is going to be a terrorist war, which suck. I've lived through one, it's not fun. Stop letting your corporations lead your country around by the nose and forget the oil, pour all the trillions you wasted dropping bombs and then food into the middle east into other forms of energy and you would not need the oil. BTW it would have been more effective to drop the food first, then one bomb.

Precision on a MAD deterrent

[IndustrialComplex]

I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with a precision modernization program for a nuclear arsenal. For better or worse, our MAD deterrent seems to have worked. No country has used nuclear weapons since WWII. They are doomsday weapons and any use of them would escalate a conflict well into a total-warfare situation regardless of their precision. A nuclear weapon applied even on the most restricted and limited of targets is the most destabilizing thing you can probably do. Worse yet, it encourages other countries to consider 'usable' nuclear weapons of their own. As much as I hate our current situation I would hope we would work towards disarmament rather than finding more palatable means to deploy nuclear weapons.

Re:Precision on a MAD deterrent

[rickb928]

"Worse yet, it encourages other countries to consider 'usable' nuclear weapons of their own."

That is already happening.North Korea may not be so ready to use theirs, but if you assign the same reluctance to Iran, you are not listening to them.

I've considered the theory that the primary deterrence to a first-strike nuclear attack by developed (and even some 'developing' countries) is their substantial industrial, social, cultural, and economic investments. They have much to lose, more than to gain from the exchange of nuclear weaponry. So they engage in brinksmanship, but ultimately have insufficient motivators to actually let loose. India and Pakistan I think prove this, and North Korea certainly does so far.

Does Iran have sufficient investments to restrain their potential use of nuclear weapons, if they do in fact acquire them? It's a conventional track for them to develop the technology, acquire the material, even develop delivery options, but the real question is, are they sufficiently restrained to not use them in plausible scenarios?

Good question. The answer, as we know in our hearts, is to not play that game. The NNPT has failed. We need to establish a new non-proliferation regime, or struggle with a new paradigm of too many players in a very small game, with very limited options.

Re:Precision on a MAD deterrent

[swb]

Does Iran have sufficient investments to restrain their potential use of nuclear weapons, if they do in fact acquire them?

It depends on whether or not you consider them rationally motivated or religiously motivated.

If its the former, I've always considered the Iranians stupid for wasting resources on developing nuclear weapons. Unless enough time passes that they are able to match the United States in delivery capabilities (the full triad, not just a couple of land-launched ICBMs), they really can't do very much of them. And I don't see the Iranians all that close to an ICBM, let alone a fleet of bombers capable of bypassing the most powerful air force in history or a fleet of nuclear powered submarines and sea-launch ICBMs.

A nuclear strike on the US (especially) or even a close ally would almost *certainly* result in an overwhelming nuclear counter-attack, the kind of attack that would call into question the future of Iran as a nation state or even a coherent civilization. You could make a lot of arguments about why we wouldn't or shouldn't, but I think the reality is that the public would DEMAND it in a way that just couldn't be resisted. After 9/11 the public backed two dubious ground wars, one of them on outright fabricated intelligence. I might even expect a hesitant President being given the advice that unless he counterstrikes, not even the Secret Service and military would be able to guarantee the personal safety of himself and his family, such would be the public rage.

Then there's the question of using them as a threat -- well, a threat is only useful if it's realistic, and an armed Iran with nuclear ICBMs with all the right signs they might be readying to use them? It's not hard to see a preemptive strike, and even then the rational actor Iranian has to ask what's going to come of it? The glassing over of Tehran after they use them?

All in all, the Iranians would have been MUCH better off sinking all their nuclear weapons investment into something a lot less of an existential threat to their own country. I think they'd have been far better off developing long-range drones and cruise missiles and building them by the thousand lot. An Iran capable of flying hundreds of kamikaze drones thousands of miles is much scarier to me because the potential damage is small and doesn't create an opportunity for total warfare retaliation.

Re:Precision on a MAD deterrent

[Gavagai80]

100,000 Iranians were attacked by chemical weapons, and they showed notable restraint in responding. The only reason they wanted nuclear weapons is that the country that sold those chemical weapons to be used against them has nukes of its own and continues to threaten them with regime change. They would be extremely unlikely to use nukes, except in response to being nuked.

Re:Precision on a MAD deterrent

[tnk1]

The problem is that the Cold War, for all the fear and all of the decades, is only the very first breaths of the baby that the Manhattan Project produced. MAD worked because there was fear of nuclear bombs far and above what they actually are. Eventually that mystique will fade.

I believe that use of nuclear weapons in the future isn't a threat, it's a certainty. It may well start off small, but eventually, enough could be used over time to effectively turn the world into the place we all feared as a long war eventually throws around smaller, but larger numbers of fusion weapons.

We could all go up in a big fireball, with a nuclear winter after that, but I don't think it will go that way. There will be some terrorist attacks here and there. Perhaps some small tactical uses. Eventually someone will get into a conventional war that they turn the tables on with some tactical weapons. There quite possibly wouldn't be a strategic exchange in the manner in which we feared, just a series of lesser atrocities that (combined with radiation) progressively shit up the planet.

My biggest hope is that escalation is not guaranteed. Of course, a real fear is that someone realizes this and decides that nuclear weapons are an acceptable threat.

The biggest concern is that such weapons get into the hands of people who don't care about the future of the planet or humanity. In that sense, the Soviet Communists were dangerous and paranoid, but were not actually looking to use those weapons. A group like ISIS would do their utmost to nuke a city whenever they could, knowing full well what the result would be.

Again, I think we need to understand our future in the context of the use of nuclear weapons and plan for that. In that sense, I don't mean duck and cover drills, I mean, cleanup, evacuation plans, disaster recovery programs, and ultimately the ability to get humans off this planet. Too many people think that a nuclear war is the end of the world. It isn't. Even if Doomsday happens on one day, a greater portion of humanity will survive the end of the world. It's what happens after that which will determine the fate of the species.

Re: Precision on a MAD deterrent

[rickb928]

Ignoring their anti-Semitic rants against Israel, of course.

Notable also that the Saudis seem to have an interest in nuclear weapons...

Re: Precision on a MAD deterrent

[rickb928]

I'm more concerned about Iran launching a nuclear strike against Israel.

Re: Precision on a MAD deterrent

[rickb928]

You're not just delusional, you're lying. the current Islamic state of Iran was born with the overthrow of the Shah, and one of their first acts was to take hostages.

Their relationship with Iraq was not always peaceful either.

And then you ignore their sponsorship of terrorism worldwide.

Of course...

[cirby]

The FAS also claimed that more-precise weapons back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s would cause nuclear war.

And that a missile defense system would cause nuclear war (except for the one the Soviets built and still use, of course).

Oddly enough, over the last half-century, none of the things the FAS said would increase the chances of a nuclear war actually caused a nuclear war. The things that nearly caused WWIII were things they never actually mentioned...

Re:Of course...

[Tailhook]

The US has precision nukes! Quick; nudge the the Doomsday Clock to 23:58 and call a press conference!

Meanwhile Putin has scheduled a fusillade of Topol-M test launches for 2016. Chirp, chirp, chirp.... nothing said.

It's no mystery to me why Trump is a thing.

from the article...

[drewsup]

" and its yield can be dialed up or down depending on the target, to minimize collateral damage."
But... does it go to 11?

Re:from the article...

[jgtg32a]

With dial a yield it is more about being able crank it all the way down to 11.

Re:from the article...

[blane.bramble]

That was the previous model, this one goes to 12...

Is this to make US feel safer?

[rmdingler]

Adapted from an older weapon, the Model 12 was designed with problems like North Korea in mind...

It seems unlikely the Supreme Leader will quit these saber-rattling stunts as long as he is getting this type of response.

It's kind of like rewarding a five year old's tantrum with the toy he wanted to begin with, isn't it?

Re:Is this to make US feel safer?

[Registered Coward v2]

Adapted from an older weapon, the Model 12 was designed with problems like North Korea in mind...

It seems unlikely the Supreme Leader will quit these saber-rattling stunts as long as he is getting this type of response.

It's kind of like rewarding a five year old's tantrum with the toy he wanted to begin with, isn't it?

Possibly. OTOH, at some point the North Korean military leadership may decide they are better off without him than with him; given their understanding of the military situation and their actual capabilities, vice his claims.

Re:Is this to make US feel safer?

[rickb928]

So long as the game is 'saber-rattling', we're fine.

Re:Is this to make US feel safer?

[tinkerton]

We're not. Because our side doesn't see saber rattling, it sees aggression that requires a response. North Korea's nuclear weapons are deterrence if we interpret it as such. If it's interpreted as aggression and madness. Our side is not seen as threatening in any way. The russian aggressive attitude in recent years is also seen as aggression, while it's very clear they feel threatened and think they need stronger deterrence. While we're going huh, there can't be anything threatening about NATO expansion?

Mutual deterrence works best if you take the other side seriously. If you know that that is the game you're playing. That's a problem. If you don't take the other size seriously it can still work, but things can get pretty much out of hand. Iran is such a case. A lot of the demonization campaign was about painting them as irrational and uncontainable, in other words, telling people to disregard rules of deterrence.

Dial-a-nukes

[Rei]

knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited.

Um, the more you dial it down, generally the dirtier the explosion. For a given bomb, higher yields equate to more complete fission of the fuel and higher neutron fluxes that are better at transmuting the heavy actinides into lighter, shorter-lived products. Likewise, the bigger the bomb, the smaller the fallout relative to its yield - they're more effective at dispersion and more of the power comes from fusion, less from fission. For example, the Tsar Bomba was a remarkably clean bomb despite its tremendous yield, while the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (low yield, low percentage burn, pure fission) were very dirty.

Re:Dial-a-nukes

[TheReaperD]

Yea, I learned a little bit about it when a few of us got together on a brain exercise about if we could build a nuke out of materials we could actually obtain. (And, if any law enforcement is listening; no, we did not acquire any materials, build anything and the plans were erased right after we were done.) The yield was going to be low and the fallout was disgusting but, it would have worked. Strangely enough, one of the friends that got a masters in nuclear physics for fun checked our math for us and calculated the fallout. When he gave us the calculation, he said basically the same thing, the more powerful the blast per amount of material, the less fallout you get. So, if you want a small, clean explosion, you use the least amount of material possible to produce the explosion. Any remaining material just floods the area with radiation that lingers for a very, very long time.

Re:Dial-a-nukes

[ComputerGeek01]

I somehow doubt that there is an actual "dial" on the device, be it digital or analog. I feel like that feature is referring to a field serviceable warhead that can be swapped out; as opposed to one that is fixed in place from the OEM. Although your idea is not without merit, the US has experimented using nuclear fallout as an area denial weapon in the past. That just doesn't sound like the kind of thing that they can sell to Obama.

Re:Dial-a-nukes

[Richard_at_work]

Quite a few of the warheads mounted on submarine delivery platforms have a selectable yield, usually managed by ensuring a particular stage in the warhead doesnt fission or fusion as required.

Re:Dial-a-nukes

[smellsofbikes]

I somehow doubt that there is an actual "dial" on the device, be it digital or analog. I feel like that feature is referring to a field serviceable warhead that can be swapped out; as opposed to one that is fixed in place from the OEM. Although your idea is not without merit, the US has experimented using nuclear fallout as an area denial weapon in the past. That just doesn't sound like the kind of thing that they can sell to Obama.

Note that I don't know what I'm talking about, but my understanding is that dial-a-yield refers to the use of cores that are injected with lithium deuteride, to fusion-boost a fission reaction, and the dial is how much lithium deuteride is injected (and how much is left in the supply, which is carried along with the bomb.) In that sense, it is pretty much a dial because it's the same warhead hardware regardless of yield, with a software or hardware change that determines the explosive yield.

Re:Dial-a-nukes

[towermac]

The Tsar Bomba was clean because they set off only 2 of the 3 stages. It had the fission primary and fusion secondary, but had a steel/lead casing rather than the U-238 casing it was designed with, bringing it down from possibly 150MT to the 50MT we saw.

2 reasons:
They didn't want to poison half their arctic forever just to impress us.
And the plane that dropped it barely got away as it was. Dropping the 150 version was probably going to be suicide.

The full bomb would have been very, very dirty. And the cobalt variant would have been dirtier still.

Re:Dial-a-nukes

[cciechad]

Newer ones might not but older selectable yield weapons most definitely had dials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Green weapons

[TheReaperD]

Trump, is that you?

This probably won't end well

[hyades1]

As a family, the weapons and their delivery systems move toward the small, the stealthy, the precise...the hackable.

Re:This probably won't end well

[Fire_Wraith]

Nonsense. Lockheed Northrop Dynamics has assured the Department of Defense that the new Strategic-Kinetic Yankee Network contains the most advanced anti-hacking defenses, including not just intrusion countermeasures, but also the latest in artificially intelligent active defense. This advanced system will control all of the nuclear delivery systems, and is absolutely certain to be the safest from any attempt at outside intrusion. Yes, under the umbrella of safety provided by SKY-Net, we have nothing to worry about at all...

Re:No such thing

[TheReaperD]

That's probably why the idea of the M.A.D. scenario, true or false, has been so effective: You only get to try once; and if you bet against it and are wrong, there goes the human race forever.

The point of nukes

[sjbe]

Aren't fallout and collateral damage the main problems people have with nuclear weapons?

No. The main problem is that they are weapons of mass destruction that can vaporize entire cities in an instant. They are weapons that are specifically designed to kill a large number of people over a large area very quickly. THAT is the main problem with them. Let's not lose sight of why nukes are scary. The fallout merely adds the problem.

The term collateral damage when applied to nukes is kind of meaningless. The entire point of a nuke is to destroy everything in a rather large radius. There really is no such thing as collateral damage when using explosions of that size because you are unavoidably and intentionally targeting non-combatants and infrastructure when you make the decision to use one. Yes this remains true for "tactical nukes" too.

Re:The point of nukes

[rickb928]

"you are unavoidably and intentionally targeting non-combatants and infrastructure when you make the decision to use one."

Hence both the MAD protocol and the palpable reluctance to use 'conventional' nuclear weapons.

"Yes this remains true for "tactical nukes" too."

Um, if the yield is small enough, the fallout/residual radioactivity are the only detriments, and if you're targeting underground facilities, these may actually be tolerable, relative to the threat of not using them.

Put simply, nukes that are small enough and precise enough are merely really powerful bombs, and only inspire a slightly irrational response such as "ZOMG NUKES!", so are probably a last-resort option for certain tactical targets. Now, properly define 'tactical' in this context, and you can find hypotheticals that fit the bill.

Re:The point of nukes

[DarkOx]

The term collateral damage when applied to nukes is kind of meaningless.

Not at all. In the context of "Total War" collateral damage would be harm done to to you or your allies. Destruction of an entire enemy city and nothing else would be zero collateral damage. You are attempting to destroy their will and ability to make war. You break the their means of production, you break their will to fight when they realize their homes and loved ones cannot be protected thru their military efforts. The destruction of non-combatants and infrastructure is valid and I would argue even moral warefare tactic if you yourself are in fact under mortal threat, maybe even if the threat you face falls well below that level.

There was for example little or no "collateral damage" when we bombed Japan, or for that matter Dresden.

Considering Syria today and the siege warfare taking place, I am not even so sure its all that great the UN and various groups are getting food aide in. If the public was starving so to would eventually the combatants (though probably only after mass non-com casualties because after all the solders will be the last not to eat they have guns after all). Short of starving I am not sure what it will take to get these various groups to give up the fight. By getting food in their we prolong the siege, and the bloodshed.

Re:The point of nukes

[quenda]

No. The main problem is that they are weapons of mass destruction that can vaporize entire cities in an instant.

Not even close. The bomb itself, and soft targets close underneath yes. If it's a very large nuke, it may level the CBD and destroy most unreinforced brick/wood buildings in a small city. Those photos of Hiroshima? That is from fires more than blast or flash. Tokyo was worse.

Re:The point of nukes

[Thanshin]

Put simply, nukes that are small enough and precise enough are merely really powerful bombs, and only inspire a slightly irrational response such as "ZOMG NUKES!",

Or another slightly irrational response such as "next suicide bomber will carry a nuke".

Never forget that bombs are never just powerful; they are powerful relative to their size and weight, thus the TNT equivalence scale.

A suicide bomber in a car can't carry a hundred thousand kg of dynamite.

Re:The point of nukes

[DarkOx]

Agreed, it does make sense to support people that under under siege by ISIS, ISIS is the enemy. We are also giving aide food aide to groups loyal to Asad who is still supposedly our enemy. That makes less sense.

Re:The point of nukes

[evilviper]

The main problem is that they are weapons of mass destruction that can vaporize entire cities in an instant.

Non-nuclear devices like the FOAB can do much the same.

Conventional napalm destroyed Japanese & German cities, and killed as many people as the first atomic bombs, yet it doesn't have the stigma.

The fallout merely adds the problem. The term collateral damage when applied to nukes is kind of meaningless.

Quite the opposite. Collateral damage is a huge issue with nukes. Haven't you ever heard of Nuclear Winter? Destroying the ability of the entire planet to sustain life, and for years to come, is about the biggest glaring example of collateral damage you could ever come-up with.

Re:The point of nukes

[mrchaotica]

As far as nuclear weapons go, the Hiroshima bomb was pretty darn small. (Not as small as "tactical nukes," but small.) Hydrogen bombs such as the B83, which is at 1.2 megatons the most powerful US nuclear bomb in active service (let alone discontinued or experimental weapons such as the 25-megaton B41 or the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba) are perfectly capable of completely destroying even large cities. For example, Wikipedia says the B41 could destroy reinforced structures in an 8-mile radius and houses in a 15-mile radius. For perspective, if such a weapon were targeted at Lower Manhattan, it would totally destroy everything from Newark to Queens (and houses all the way to Yonkers and Hempstead)... before considering things like fires. Admittedly, you might need more than one if you were targeting a really spread-out area like greater LA.

Re:The point of nukes

[stjobe]

There was for example little or no "collateral damage" when we bombed Japan, or for that matter Dresden.

There was huge amounts of what we today call collateral damage, but back then they didn't use the term "collateral damage".

It was more or less seen as inevitable that there would be civilian losses and damage to civilian infrastructure even if the intended target was military (as it almost invariably was, with some notable exceptions - the Blitz for example specifically targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure).

It wasn't until the 1991 Gulf War "collateral damage" started to get used as "unintended civilian losses".

Re:The point of nukes

[swb]

There was for example little or no "collateral damage" when we bombed Japan, or for that matter Dresden.

There was huge amounts of what we today call collateral damage, but back then they didn't use the term "collateral damage".

Now it's "collateral damage" because we're killing a bunch of civilians or destroying civil infrastructure we'd rather not.

Then it wasn't collateral damage because we MEANT to kill civilians and destroy civil infrastructure because we believed that breaking the enemy's ability and will to fight would aid our war effort and shorten the war.

That's why it's called total warfare (or scorched Earth warfare) -- you don't want the enemy to have ANYTHING that enables them to fight, and that includes a population able to function at any meaningful level of productivity, and they aren't very productive if they are starving, homeless and lacking any infrastructure that enables them to be productive.

This was the partial goal of the allied military and very much part of the post-war pacification of Germany, where deliberate allied policies forced the population into famine and stripped them of much of their industrial capacity. Make no mistake, there was no accidental, collateral damage to German civilians, it was a deliberate policy during and after the war to crush the German population into submission.

Re:The point of nukes

[blackanvil]

No. The main problem is that they are weapons of mass destruction that can vaporize entire cities in an instant. They are weapons that are specifically designed to kill a large number of people over a large area very quickly. THAT is the main problem with them. Let's not lose sight of why nukes are scary. The fallout merely adds the problem.

The term collateral damage when applied to nukes is kind of meaningless. The entire point of a nuke is to destroy everything in a rather large radius. There really is no such thing as collateral damage when using explosions of that size because you are unavoidably and intentionally targeting non-combatants and infrastructure when you make the decision to use one. Yes this remains true for "tactical nukes" too.

Exactly. We also, though we could, don't create firestorms in cities anymore, nor do we engage in unlimited civilian target bombing. We seem to, as a species, decided that these things are off the table, both due to adverse reactions to civilian deaths, as well as the possibility of nuclear response ("You burned my capital to the ground, we don't have the air superiority to do the same to you, but the NORKs sold us a little bomb we've sent over in a cargo container.") As most "tactical" nukes are more powerful than the original strategic WWII-era nukes, it is pretty clear that their use, no matter what they are called, would be as city burners, as that's where the modern battlefields are.

Re:The point of nukes

[sudon't]

There was huge amounts of what we today call collateral damage, but back then they didn't use the term "collateral damage".

Collateral damage is unintended destruction, (whether of people or infrastructure). The planners of the Dresden bombing, and all the other fire bombings done during WW II, fully intended the destruction of those cities, and the deaths of their inhabitants. The idea was to cause the complete demoralization of the enemy. There is no collateral damage in total warfare.

Re:The point of nukes

[quenda]

For example, Wikipedia says the B41 could destroy reinforced structures in an 8-mile radius and houses in a 15-mile radius.

It does? Where do you get that? I'm seeing 2.4km and 6km (5psi, 4 mile?) respectively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I'm Australian, so "large city" means fifty times that area. And "vaporize" does not mean blast-wave damage.

For perspective, if such a weapon were targeted at Lower Manhattan, it would totally destroy everything from Newark to Queens

Looking at map ... you are talking 20km away . Several kPa / 1psi. That's a bit of storm damage, not destruction (5psi). A huge difference - what is your source?

Re:The point of nukes

[david_thornley]

Gotta keep them alive until we launch the 'B' ark.

Re:The point of nukes

[david_thornley]

The RAF's Bomber Command was primarily trying to destroy people's residences, and although the civilians were not intended targets they didn't mind killing lots of them. The USAAF strategic bombers over Europe were capable of quite impressive precision if they could see the ground, which they often couldn't, and they bombed anyway. Most Eighth Air Force bombing raids were against specific named targets, but it wasn't long until "any German city" was an approved secondary objective, so they wound up being generally destructive.

The US military government was ordered to avoid a famine, but to come close, with the exception that if there really wasn't enough food Germans would be last in line.

Re:The point of nukes

[jedidiah]

Actually the "precision" of bombers in WWII was utterly atrocious. It's quite illuminating to actually read what has been written about the targeting tech of the times.

No one trained in any STEM discipline should be surprised by it.

Re:The point of nukes

[mrchaotica]

My source was the Wikipedia article for the specific B41 device I linked to before:

If detonated at optimal height, the B-41 would generate a fireball approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) in diameter, it would have been able to destroy reinforced concrete buildings 8 miles (13 km) from ground zero, and it would have been able to destroy most residential structures 15 miles (24 km) from ground zero, while producing third degree burns 32 miles (51 km) from ground zero.

Apparently, Wikipedia disagrees with itself. Which article is right? Who knows! (And I can't be bothered to follow the citations to check.)

Based on the figures from the article I quoted and a cursory glance at Google Maps, it looks like a B41 targeting Sydney could destroy everything between Sydney Olympic Park and the coast, a large portion of the metro area. It looks like the actual city limits of Sydney are only a tiny fraction of that, less than a mile in diameter.

Re:The point of nukes

[quenda]

Oops, I was quoting figures for the B83, which you said could destroy large cities, not the monster (long retired) B41, where the numbers are closer.

It looks like the actual city limits of Sydney are only a tiny fraction of that, less than a mile in diameter.

I think that's a postal suburb, part of the CBD. Even the municipality of Sydney is 25km2. "Greater Sydney" as you might call it, is 100km across. That's what we mean by a large city. We don't have "city limits".

Re:The point of nukes

[andot]

Actually 2300kg is 0.0023 kT.

Re:The point of nukes

[lucien86]

Yes because if people stopped being so scared they might stop panicking and then they would be able to use their rational minds. Humans on panic are no smarter than chickens - just the way the politicians and the media like them..

Maybe that's why you don't know what your talking about. The smallest nukes are 10,000 times smaller than the largest, and they can be targeted precisely, and explosive force can be tuned to minimise collateral damage. If the military ever wanted them then theoretically they could even build near zero radiation weapons - they stopped the development because they wanted weapons that killed with a flash of intense radiation and less physical destruction instead.. Those near zero radiation weapons also didn't need fissile material and that made them a slight proliferation risk..

The "dial" sounds like marketing

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

As a software developer, the "dial" sounds like something marketing would sell to cover asses later but wouldn't actually be developed. For example, "Oops, we didn't mean to fry [nearby city] when we blew up [target] with our Surgical Nuke (TM). We really did set the dial to 'just kill bad guys' but our engineers must have fucked it up somehow."

Re:The "dial" sounds like marketing

[Todd Knarr]

Yep. You probably wouldn't fry a nearby city, but even on the low end the yields are high enough that anything within a mile or so of ground zero's going to end up extra-crispy. That also makes "precision" a highly relative term. I'd rather reserve the nukes for when we intend to go all-in.

Not that we need nukes to do the job. Thermobaric and fuel-air bombs don't have the explosive yields of nukes, but they can do almost as good a job on surface structures and in populated areas. Even good old incendiaries will do the trick, see Dresden and Tokyo during WWII for examples.

Re:No such thing

[rickb928]

Today, 'limited war' is either you crushing your enemy(ies) quickly, 'limiting' the casualties, or low-grade conflicts that linger.

The first Iraq War was 'limited', in that it accomplished the stated goals and pretty much ended. The second one was 'limited' in that it was less than a full-on, decisive, maximum effort conflict. It could have been, but the collateral damage would have been even more terrible.

The Syrian conflict is not 'limited', save by the capabilities of the combatants. And that's not 'limited' in the way I define it.

I'm not impressed.

[Virtucon]

We've had Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority for decades! It even attaches to your garden hose!
It helped me reinforce my territorial imperative!

Re:I'm not impressed.

[TheReaperD]

Oh, you're a member of the Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority Program (EGBT, NNSP) too? Cool! We'll have to nuke it out some time. I'll have my drones do a fly by on your drones.

Please please please....

[Lumpy]

Mini Nukes and a Fat Boy launcher...... PLEASE!

Re:Please please please....

[JazzLad]

Sorry, Lumpy, accidentally selected overrated - posting to undo.

I'm holding out for the Fat Man Little Boy kit though.

Re:Green weapons

[Charcharodon]

Lol, no but my hair does get pretty crazy after I take off my motorcycle helmet.

Re:No such thing

[TheReaperD]

They knew the bomb wouldn't burn off the atmosphere or anything like that. Some of the scientists had the blast calculations correct but, weren't believed as nobody thought the explosion could possibly be that big.

Not sure what the issue is here

[nehumanuscrede]

We've had precision guided nuclear capable weapons systems for years.
Just to pick one ( since it was my particular specialty for years ): the Tomahawk Cruise Missile.

The Block III variant came in four fantastic standard flavors that could be ship, air and even sub-surface launched:

109A - Nuclear Tipped with a W-80 Warhead. Dial-a-yield of 5kt or 150kt. ( Google the W-80 for more info )
109B - Anti-ship flavor. Conventional warhead.
109C - Land-attack flavor. Conventional warhead.
109D - Land-attack flavor, sub-munitions dispensing warhead.

This is just the Tomahawk. I haven't kept up with the other cruise missile variants, gravity or guided smart-bombs, or even
the advances ( if any ) in the ballistic missile platforms.

So, I'm not entirely sure what all the fuss is about since we've had selective yield weapons since at least the late 70's.
Personally, since there is no putting the genie back in the bottle, I would prefer a much smaller yield high precision device
over the city-flattening strategic overkill ones that defined the Cold War era.

Folks may argue that the desire to use them would increase since they're not as terrible as their strategic brethren, but some
of these weapons are older than many of the folks reading this and have had this capability the entire time. Yet, we haven't been
tossing them around en-masse during our many, many conflicts around the world over the years. Unlikely we're going to start now.

Re:Not sure what the issue is here

[avandesande]

None of these weapons are really relevant now- both US and Soviet have thermobaric weapons that have similar uses without the nuclear stigma. The one place thermobaric is useless is underground, which is why they are developing these penetration weapons.

Re:Not sure what the issue is here

[Fire_Wraith]

Also, the Tomahawk was used in both conventional and nuclear capacities, so the "they won't know if it's a nuke or not!" argument is BS. Now, with ballistic missiles they might have a point, since ICBMs pretty much were only ever used to carry nukes, but cruise missiles and other such weapons are a different story.

Re:Great

[penguinoid]

It's so accurate you can shoot it right down a building's chimney, before it detonates and levels the city.

Oblig XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

http://xkcd.com/1626/

Re:Oblig XKCD

[OrangeTide]

The nukes would just fall back to Earth. I feel that this might be the plot for Idiocracy 2.

China and Russia calm down?

[fredrated]

Isn't it America that is fighting in the most conflicts all over the world?

Re:China and Russia calm down?

[micahraleigh]

Didn't Russia invade Europe / Georgia just in 2008? The same leader they have now?

If America is invading any place it's leading from behind.

Re:China and Russia calm down?

[WindBourne]

ok.
Other than Iraq, what wars have we started?

Re:$30B a year for war ("defense") is cool

[TheReaperD]

What are you a commie?

The reality is that half of our military spending, none of which currently goes to fund or support troops, would pay for universal healthcare, fund social security and a whole bunch of other programs. Hell, the failed F35 project the congress refuses to let die would pay for health care by itself!

Re:Great

[allcoolnameswheretak]

XD

Re:The old adage

[nmb3000]

Wouldn't this destroy the old adage: "Almost only counts with horse shoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons?"

Guess it will need to be "Almost only counts with horse shoes, hand grenades, and hydrogen bombs." Accurate and alliterative!

Re:Great

[Richard_at_work]

It means you can get it down the entrance tunnel or ventilation shaft of that deep bunker before detonating - destroy the bunker with a smaller warhead than a ground level nuke would need to penetrate.

Re:Great

[thegarbz]

For when you really want to be sure those people in front of the fireplace will be turned to glass, and not just die of burns and debris.

Re:No such thing

[mrchaotica]

if you bet against it and are wrong, there goes the human race forever.

Nah, there aren't any worthwhile targets in most of Africa, so the humans there would survive.

adorable

[Tablizer]

Oh the new little nukies are soooo cute!

Re:$30B a year for war ("defense") is cool

[avandesande]

You are delusional... have you even looked at spending levels? Currently medicaid spending is greater than military spending alone- Social Security and Medicaid make up half of the budget. https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

Plowshare.

[sims 2]

It was my understanding that the plowshare program was ended because they weren't able to make them detonate cleanly enough to use they were plenty precise enough for the applications they tried as I recall.

But then again they have been using depleted uranium rounds on the battlefield for years so It may just be considered acceptable now.

Re:Plowshare.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

But then again they have been using depleted uranium rounds on the battlefield for years so It may just be considered acceptable now.

Depleted uranium is the waste left after something like 95% of the U-235 is removed from Uranium ore. It's not a "nuclear weapon" - the bulk of the nuclear weapon fuel has been removed. It is only about 60% as radioactive as natural uranium, which makes it a poor candidate for a radiological weapon, and is actually used for radiation SHIELDING in medical and industrial devices. (Natural uranium is not very radioactive - which is why there's so much of it around "geological time" after the formation of the Earth.) It's also used for things like counterweights, boat ballast and keels, and other civilian uses where something heavy-but-small is needed.

Biological issues with depleted uranium contamination seem to be primarily heavy metal toxicity (though effects of its low level of radioactivity aren't ruled out). It's used as a denser, and thus more effective, replacement for lead in bullets. Lead contamination is well known to be very toxic, and lead sticks around in the body substantially longer than uranium.

Re:Plowshare.

[sims 2]

Good to know. I tried to find information about how radioactive they really were a few years ago but was never able to find anything useful.

Otherwise unless they can make nukes that are safe after use eg:safe enough people can live at ground zero within a year without worry of radiation. I just don't see a lot of practical use anywhere even in warfare. The goal is often to destroy the enemy not destroy the enemy and make a large track of land unlivable for the next several years.

Nukes are like coal power plants they only look cheaper because you can't see all the hidden costs.

But idk we have hundreds of them and people keep trying to figure out something we can do with them. No ones been able to do anything with them yet. Best I can come up with is cut them up and make garden planters and take the radioactive parts and make some nice mox fuel run a few homes.

How to win a nuclear war

[transami]

I also worry that they are using super computers (and I *know* they have the fastest computers in the world) to calculate how to win a limited nuclear war. Now, some will say that's a good thing. And maybe it has to be done. But one also has to worry that the computer will came back with a result like "99.5% Success!" And then certain powers might be all to inclined to go for it.

Re:How to win a nuclear war

[micahraleigh]

Computers are more capable of churning out stupidity than anything man could accomplish on his own.

Same thing with committees.

Re:$30B a year for war ("defense") is cool

[avandesande]

So take away medicare and replace with 'Universal Healthcare'. You really think the spending level will go down? I agree by the way the way healthcare is run in USA with government sponsored monopolies is ridiculous.

Aw, shit..

[kheldan]

Now all we need is (somehow) Trump getting elected, and he really would destroy the world. Using even ONE of these damn things would start World War 3. Is this just sabre-rattling by the U.S. in light of the DPRK baring their chihuahua-sized teeth and yapping furiously?

Re:Aw, shit..

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Using even ONE of these damn things would start World War 3.

So what are you going to do once ISIS buys a few half-Hiroshima sized bombs from their buddies in North Korea and sets them off in population centers?

Re:Aw, shit..

[kheldan]

The Sunni extremists that laughingly call themselves the 'islamic state' aren't a country at all, they're a bunch of homicial asshole animals running around the middle east cutting off peoples' heads and generally being gigantic assholes, and by the way NOBODY likes them that matters, I couldn't even beleive North Korea would tolerate them for a minute let alone let them have a nuke, China and Russia and the U.S. aren't going to start lobbing nukes at each other even if they did get a nuke and use it (nobody would believe a False Flag op by those asshole either), so that's not on my Worry List at all. Trump being POTUS and throwing his considerable bulk around and deciding someone needs a small nuke up their ass on the other hand would worry me quite a bit, and I'd hope no military commander would be stupid enough to follow any order involving using a nuke of any size unless it was legitimately a Last Resort. So please go sell your FUD somewhere else, I'm not buying it.

Re: Great

[Richard_at_work]

Considering even a small nuke would come in at a weight exceeding that of a 2000lb LGB, mass and penetration isnt an issue - and delayed fusing is a norm for most guided munitions these days...

The point about having a small nuke is that you can take out that deep bunker with much less collateral damage - the deeper and better protected the bunker, the bigger bang you need at the surface, which means more collateral damage. Put the nuke down the ventilation shaft or down the entrance tunnel and you suddenly need much less bang as you are penetrating much less overburden.

Its the same reason you needed a 20,000lb earthquake bomb in WW2 to take out targets we hit with a 250lb guided munition today.

And I have no idea what you are talking about regarding wifi.

Re: Great

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)

Re: Great

[Richard_at_work]

Now put it into a package which is comparable - guidance package, fins, fusing systems, penetration casings etc. A 2000lb bomb contains less than 1000lb of explosives, its the other stuff which makes it up.

Plus of course we cant manufacture something as small as a Davy Crockett these days, as the materials and systems demand more safety and redundancy - the Davy Crockett was a hail mary example of nuclear engineering in its day.

Re: Great

[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, except the 'dial-a-yield' system is based on how much tritium is injected into the fission core at time of detonation, and how many external neutron generators are in use when it detonates. There is no change to the amount of mass of the weapon at all. It's not like they are taking a chunk of plutonium out of it to reduce yield or something.

Trump is looking for this

[AndyKron]

This is exactly what Trump is looking for. More usable nuclear weapons.

Are we the baddies?

[OrangeTide]

No really, I have to ask, are are we the baddies?
Sometimes I'm not so sure we're the good guys anymore.

Indeed

[DarthVain]

I believe there was even a movie about stealing them from a ship staring Steven Siegal... Even the movie is very old now.

Opposite

[DarthVain]

I think the opposite is the desired effect. I recall reading that what eventually drove the final nail into the USSR and Communism, was that nuclear weapons (as the summary indicates) are fantastically expensive to develop, build, maintain, and all the infrastructure needed to support them, and that trying to keep up with the US essentially bankrupted the Soviet economy.

Further developments would only do the same I suppose. However the risk however is someone deciding to say screw it, if they are using small scale precise nuclear weapons, we'll just respond with our big burtha's rather than try to keep up our development cycle...

Instead of building newer and larger weapons ...

[snizzitch]

“Instead of building newer and larger weapons of mass destruction, I think mankind should try to get more use out of the ones we have.” Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

Duds

[DarthVain]

The concern I would have about "strategic" dial-a-yield weapons are the fact that any remotely delivered weapon has the chance of becoming a "dud" for whatever reason.

So perhaps you just set the yield to 5kt and fired it off and it embeds itself into some earth without detonation... Then someone can come along, and provided they know what they are doing, just captured enough material for a 150kt nuclear explosion against you. I'm sure there are countermeasures and everything but still.

Re: The old adage

[ShanghaiBill]

The US has had these nukes in the public eye for at least a year now.

Not only that, but the general trend of replacing big nukes with smaller more accurate nukes has been going on for decades. America's nuclear arsenal peaked in the 1960s, and has been declining ever since. The size of our modern arsenal is a tiny fraction of the peak.

Gotta keep the Beast alive

[WheezyJoe]

Ultimately, the point here is if we don't keep working (spending) on nukes, advancing them, new models and all, the people who know about nukes will retire and die off, and no young-uns will learn the trade... which would be all cool, except that Iran and NK and Pakistan and fuck knows who else has started making them, and their politician bosses are going to sabre-rattle to get what they want. Strong first-world deterrent is, unfortunately, the only way to make sure those sabres stay buried in their scabbards, unused. OTOH, if all the expertise in nuclear weapons is overseas, we will be, in the words of Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, in a world of shit.

There are two things to nukes: the warheads, and the delivery system. Turns out, the brass balls are in the latter. The nation with the biggest swinging dick is the one that can deliver nukes quickly, quietly, and precisely enough that the target cannot fire off a response. To maintain this, the U.S. is working on improving precision, and Vlad the Putin is working on stealth.

The Cold War is alive, people. Kim Jong-un may have already smuggled a nuke into a harbor near you, buried in one of a thousand shipping containers sitting around on the lot. The only difference between us and them? Ours are better, smaller, faster, and we got a shitload more of 'em. NK might be capable of taking out Long Beach, but with that he will have blown his wad, whereas our response can dig a crater big enough to permanently separate the South from the Korean peninsula. So, Kimmy keeps careful to keep all the nuke talk to just that.... talk.

Think Star Wars

[azcoyote]

It's perfect for Death Stars, since they always build them with access tunnels that go right to the core.

Also why "terrorists" target civilians

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Then it wasn't collateral damage because we MEANT to kill civilians and destroy civil infrastructure because we believed that breaking the enemy's ability and will to fight would aid our war effort and shorten the war.

Some modern "terrorists" feel free to target civilians for a similar reason: In a country with a popular-election-driven governmental form (such as a republic, democracy, or some mix or variant) the whole population are (allegedly) the decision-makers. From the viewpoint of those who believe they are being oppressed by such a country, anyone with a vote, or in a position to influence a vote, is a decision-maker, sharing in responsibility for the government's actions.

(Of course many others could care less who they hurt. But it's easier for the leaders to organize them if they can assuage the consciences of those who have one, switching them into "righteous-wrath" mode.)

Re: Great

[godel_56]

Considering even a small nuke would come in at a weight exceeding that of a 2000lb LGB, mass and penetration isnt an issue - and delayed fusing is a norm for most guided munitions these days...

According to Wikipedia the tactical version of the B61 weighs just 700 pounds (336kg) and the B61 mod 11 bunker-buster weighs 1200 pounds.

Re: Great

[david_thornley]

The WWII earthquake bombs were intended to destroy very well-protected shelters, such as U-boat pens with meters of reinforced concrete. We have better ways to do that nowadays, but I don't think a 250lb bomb is going to have the penetration..

Re:$30B a year for war ("defense") is cool

[david_thornley]

Last I looked, Germany was paying about two-thirds of our health costs per capita, and everyone else was significantly lower. Some healthy countries don't spend more per capita than we spend on Medicare and Medicaid.

I really don't like the new "American Exceptionalism" that believes we can't possibly implement things properly that every other developed nation has done.

Doomsday Clock

[tinkerton]

Maybe it's worth reminding people that the doomsday clock is currently set at 2 to 12. In 1991 it was much better. That margin has been thoroughly wasted since. I don't know if it's always so well informed but concerning risks of global nuclear war, yeah, things are not good.

WTF? Seriously?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

A "precision-guided" nuclear munition that leaves a 10-mile crater. THAT'S JUST FUCKING BRILLIANT.

Seriously, all this does is increase the likelihood that one or more of these will be used. It's fucking insane.

I'm generally a strong supporter of the military, but there's nothing good about nuclear weapons, nothing. Using one of these things will be the match that sets the entire world on fire.

Re:WTF? Seriously?

[whodunit]

Not necessarily.

The vast majority of casualties from nukes are caused by radioactive fallout. "Fallout" is irradiated materiel blown up from the initial blast - for the most part, dirt and dust - that then spreads in prevailing winds and poisons the land and anyone who comes into contact with it. Thus, an air-burst attack over 100 meters high releases almost no fallout. Unfortunately the most important targets (such as missile silos) are heavily hardened and require ground-level detonations to destroy. Many analysis which consider a strict counter-force attack (only attacking military targets and avoiding population centers, which was always US doctrine) results in heavy civilian casualties simply due to the massive fallout released by the ground-level detonations.

Precision nuclear weapons of smaller yield - especially when combined with conventional bunker-busting technology - allow for much reduced fallout in these scenarios (by setting off the explosion many meters underground,) sparing millions of civilian lives.

The idea that these weapons somehow make nuclear war more "attractive" to policymakers is absolute fucking rubbish. Show me a politician who thinks millions - or even hundreds of thousands - of casualties is "attractive" and I'll show you a damn strawman. As you observe, even a very accurate, limited-yield nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. Precision guidance doesn't change their role, or the strategic consequences of their use. They pose no greater threat as counter-force weapons than weapons in the Cold War did - we simply compensated for lower accuracy with bigger warheads. The military consequences were nearly identical; and so too their impact on the balance of nuclear power. These new weapons can ensure far fewer civilian casualties if that dreaded day ever does come - fewer civilian casualties for our *enemies,* not for us, and OUR civilian casualties will be the guiding line in whether or not to loose them. Fewer civilian casulties in the worst-case scenario is a good thing, and claims to the contrary are simply asinine.

Re:WTF? Seriously?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily. Show me a weapon that's been built but never used and I'll show you a weapon that some General or battlefield yo-yo is itching to use. It's like when police got outfitted with tasers...they had a new "tool" and they ended up using it way too often, in many cases just because they had it. Deploying these things will increase the likelihood that they'll be used, or worse, stolen and then used. As I said above, there's nothing good about nuclear weapons, nothing.

-

Thus, an air-burst attack over 100 meters high releases almost no fallout. Unfortunately the most important targets (such as missile silos) are heavily hardened and require ground-level detonations to destroy.

And thus, they won't fucking be used as air-burst weapons. And you'll just have to pardon me if I think that 100,000 tons of airborne radioactive dust isn't all that much better than 200,000 tons of airborne radioactive dust. Yeah, maybe quantitatively it's better but not qualitatively.

Any use of nukes is going to fuck shit up, and once we start using them then other nuclear powers will see that as an excuse to unlimber their nukes. "Well the US blew one up in Whatchamacallitstan, so why can't we set off one in Whoositville?"

-

Fewer civilian casulties in the worst-case scenario is a good thing, and claims to the contrary are simply asinine.

Except that politicians and Generals really don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties...in most cases they come under the heading of "collateral damage" and we all know that shit happens in war, right?

"So, like, we hadda blow the fuck out of that there city and whaddya know there was some 'non-combatants' living there, oopsie. But that's okay, boss, it'll demoralize 'em and degrade their human infrastructure, so when ya look at it dat way, it's really a win-win!"

Yeah, so you can stop telling me how much "better" these "precision" nukes are than the big clumsy ones are. It's the difference between having your head cut off with a big knife or a little knife.

Re:WTF? Seriously?

[whodunit]

Yes, necessarily. Show me a weapon that's been built but never used and I'll show you a weapon that some General or battlefield yo-yo is itching to use.

Ah, yes, the old "General Ripper" fallacy. Everyone in the military is just a knuckle-dragging ape who thinks with the wrong head and is looking to shove other nations into the lockers during passing time every chance they get. I'm tired of hearing such juvenile reductions of career military officers and fail to see why anyone should take them as serious arguments.

And thus, they won't fucking be used as air-burst weapons.

You are aware that modern-day nuclear testing is carried out underground for a reason, right?

Any use of nukes is going to fuck shit up, and once we start using them then other nuclear powers will see that as an excuse to unlimber their nukes. "Well the US blew one up in Whatchamacallitstan, so why can't we set off one in Whoositville?"

This is my point. The addition of precision guidance to existing nuclear weapons is simply to increase their effectiveness in their existing role - not to give them new ones. Nukes are expensive to maintain, cause serious and lasting problems for the employing forces once they move to occupy the struck area and are generally just a bitch to use. It's hard to call anything "tactical" when at the very least it can wipe a few companies off the map in a single hit. Once you freely employ tactical nukes to degrade an enemies conventional defenses, all they have left is, well, their own tactical nukes (which then erode your own conventional forces) and then you're both left with just your strategic nuclear weapons, which exist purely to ensure the survival of your state in the event of a complete destruction of your conventional forces. This is precisely why tactical nukes in the cold war always existed as a kind of retroactive thing - only to be used when the strategic weapons were in the air anyways. As you so accurately observed, a nuke is a fucking nuke - a JDAM kit doens't change that, and I highly doubt there's anyone in the upper echelons of the US Military stupid enough to think it does.

Except that politicians and Generals really don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties...in most cases they come under the heading of "collateral damage" and we all know that shit happens in war, right?

They sure do give a fuck if its THEIR civilians - their entire job is to protect those people. And that gets kind of hard if you instigate a nuclear exchange. For instance, take this analysis (by an anti-nuke group) of the likely targeting priorities in America's current nuclear attack plan against Russia: http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/wa... You will note how in a strict counter-force attack (only targeting enemy offensive nuclear weapons) the civilian casualties still number in the millions due to fallout. You will also note the limitations on just how many of those weapons they can locate and destroy - the road-mobile missiles are written off as impossible to fully engage. Even with a theoretically fully functional National Missile Defense system, the chances of the United States emerging from a nuclear war without taking a single strike are ludicrous, and even a single strike will result in at least a million people dead or dying (note that the Russian nuclear strategy is typically a counter-value one, i.e. targeting cities exclusively. There is no possible pre-emptive strike on Russia that won't inflict casualties serious enough to warrant an angry and vengeful counter-value strike.)

I have never understood the insistence of anti-nuke activists that this weapon or that system will somehow make nuclear war more appealing to the military high command. Even if the score is light by nuclear war standards, it's still catastrophic by normal ones - a

Re:WTF? Seriously?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Ah, yes, the old "General Ripper" fallacy. Everyone in the military is just a knuckle-dragging ape who thinks with the wrong head and is looking to shove other nations into the lockers during passing time every chance they get.

No, not every one of them (not even most of them), but some are and when the weapon is a nuclear warhead then things become a bit unbalanced. Read Kill Chain if you want to see how giving trained troops weapons increases the chance they'll be used (and misused). It doesn't just increase the chance, it virtually guarantees that they'll be used. It's like giving a little kid a hammers and telling them, "Now, don't hit anything with it!"

They sure do give a fuck if its THEIR civilians - their entire job is to protect those people.

Yes, but the fact is that they aren't bombing THEIR civilians, they're bombing the "bad guys" and who the fuck cares if a few million of their civilians burn in the process? They'll count it as a win, and the term they use for it is "mowing the grass".

Seriously, fuck nuclear weapons, no good is going to come of using them now that very tin-pot dictator can get his hands on one. "Oh, you blew up Shitstainistan? Fine, we'll blow up New York or LA or Charlotte!"

Re:WTF? Seriously?

[whodunit]

Read Kill Chain [amazon.com] if you want to see how giving trained troops weapons increases the chance they'll be used (and misused). It doesn't just increase the chance, it virtually guarantees that they'll be used. It's like giving a little kid a hammers and telling them, "Now, don't hit anything with it!"

A book about drones? I find it marginally fascinating that someone felt the need to write an entire book on why a precision-strike weapon which exposes no friendly forces to danger and can directly assassinate enemy chain-of-command elements became 1. popular and 2. prone to being overused. It would require a complete ignorance of the political problems that influence warmaking decisions to not understand it. Drones are "clean." Drones are quick. Drones are easy. Drones are precise. Drones can loiter and wait for hours for the right moment to strike to minimize collateral casualties. (And you can royally fuck up all those advantages by being too quick on the trigger, as we have learned to our chagrin.)

"Clean, easy and low collateral casualties" are three traits that have never, ever, ever been associated with nuclear weapons. There is an institutional bias towards viewing nuclear weapons as a tactical battlefield solution - especially dual-purpose weapons like the B-61 bomb, which can very well be assigned to more valuable strategic targets. In the modern era of reduced nuclear armories, nukes are more valuable than ever. Even from a cold-hearted and dispassionate viewpoint, it just doesn't make doctrinal sense.

 

Yes, but the fact is that they aren't bombing THEIR civilians, they're bombing the "bad guys" and who the fuck cares if a few million of their civilians burn in the process? They'll count it as a win, and the term they use for it is "mowing the grass".

You really, honestly believe that - in today's world, in 2016, in a world where the specter of global thermonuclear war is but a shadow of its former self - that there is anyone in the military who'd accept "a few million" casualties as a small price to pay to put the specter of a larger nuclear war permanently out of the picture? I suggest you update your stereotypes, sir.

Re:WTF? Seriously?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Drones are "clean." Drones are quick. Drones are easy. Drones are precise.

Drones are anything but precise. You've been watching too much FOX News if you really believe that. In many cases the drone program has been an abysmal failure, but don't look for that story on the six o'clock news. Sometimes they're very effective, but most of the time they've been a huge, shameful, and embarrassing disappointment. Half the time we end up killing a busload full of innocent people who have NOTHING to do with any war except that they're "nearby" and "in motion". Don't kid yourself, all this happy talk of "pinpoint strikes" and "surgical intervention" is mostly crap. But "rah rah rah, sis-boom-bah, USA numbah 1", don't let any pesky facts get in the way of your wet-dreams about our drone program.

as we have learned to our chagrin

Oh yes, we're so chagrined when we find out that once again we've blown up a convoy of innocent nobodies who happened to stop in the wrong place and "looked like terrorists" from 30,000 feet up. "Oh my", we say, "I feel SO chagrined at killing all those people...clumsy me!"

Or the ones who died because some idiot accidentally fat-fingered the wrong phone number into the database, and instead of tracking a dangerous Al Qaeda commander, we tracked a fucking rug merchant out into the desert and blew him and his entire family into little pieces. Killed them all, including the kids. But boy oh boy were we chagrined when we learned about our little "mistake". Whoops, sorry guys!

Here's a little thought experiment: how would you feel if Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan flew drones over your neighborhood night and day, and shot Hellfire missiles down onto groups of people they saw, like wedding parties, community meetings, or people out for a drive? No trial, no questions, just some guy back in Mosul who thinks you look "suspicious" or "of military age", and then *boom*, you or your friends or your family are dead. You might feel the same way they feel about us right now.

-

You really, honestly believe that that there is anyone in the military who'd accept "a few million" casualties

Yes, there are indeed people who would be just fine with this, and heaven help us if they ever rise to a position of real power or get their hands on a nuclear device. If you think there aren't people who would be okay with this, please let me know, because I'd love to emigrate to your planet.

They Very Well Might, But...

[crunchygranola]

"The Federation of American Scientists argues that the high accuracy and low destructive settings means military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited."

Just like MacArthur did during the Korean War, and by various folks during various stages of the Vietnam conflict.

But the President has to authorize any use of nuclear weapons, and will invariably ask "Is that your only option?" And when the answer comes back, "Well, no...." that will end the discussion.

Military commanders do not decide this.

Re: Great

[ememisya]

See, the remakes for Duke Nuke'm will always be terrible.

Re:$30B a year for war ("defense") is cool

[avandesande]

The solution is to fix what we have first before taking on new things.

Re: The old adage

[AutodidactLabrat]

The "peak" of the U.S. Arsenal was 1979, when Carter began dismantling the 'tankbuster' tactical warfield weapons in Germany in favor of the never- released "Enhanced radiation"
Our purpose in a nuclear exchange remains as ever, the destruction of 90% of any possible enemy's population, infrastructure and retaliatory ability within 12 hours.
It's just easier now without a great mass of Soviet counterforce weapons

No need for Nuclear Arsenal

[NewYork]

No need for Nuclear Arsenal;
There are so many fragile points on Earth;
Just drop a "Heat bomb" in Antarctic ice sheets.
You'll REBOOT the planet.

Re: Great

[lucien86]

The Davy Crocket had two safety systems - a padlocked outer box and an on off button..

Re: Great

[lucien86]

So comrade Putin's bombs are more gentle are they?? You.re an idiot.

Re:$30B a year for war ("defense") is cool

[ooloorie]

The reality is that half of our military spending, none of which currently goes to fund or support troops, would pay for universal healthcare, fund social security and a whole bunch of other programs

Current US Medicare/Medicaid spending alone is about $1.2 trillion / year, or about $3900 / American / year. That is more than the UK spends per person per year in their public and private system combined ($3600). So, the reality is that Medicare/Medicaid alone would pay for universal health care in the US if it was spent properly. The idea that any additional spending is needed to give the US universal health care is therefore false.

To be crystal clear about this: the problem with US health care isn't that we don't spend enough money on health care, it's that services in the US are far more expensive than elsewhere, largely because doctors, hospitals, and drug companies have lobbied Congress for massive handouts.