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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."
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."
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.
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.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
It's so accurate you can shoot it right down a building's chimney, before it detonates and levels the city.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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.