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US Preparing to Put Nuclear Bombers On 24-Hour Alert (defenseone.com)
DefenseOne reports on new preparations at Barksdale Air Force Base:
The U.S. Air Force is preparing to put nuclear-armed bombers back on 24-hour ready alert, a status not seen since the Cold War ended in 1991. That means the long-dormant concrete pads at the ends of this base's 11,000-foot runway -- dubbed the "Christmas tree" for their angular markings -- could once again find several B-52s parked on them, laden with nuclear weapons and set to take off at a moment's notice... Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, and other senior defense officials stressed that the alert order had not been given, but that preparations were under way in anticipation that it might come...
Already, various improvements have been made to prepare Barksdale -- home to the 2d Bomb Wing and Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service's nuclear forces -- to return B-52s to an alert posture. Near the alert pads, an old concrete building -- where B-52 crews during the Cold War would sleep, ready to run to their aircraft and take off at a moment's notice -- is being renovated. Inside, beds are being installed for more than 100 crew members, more than enough room for the crews that would man bombers positioned on the nine alert pads outside... Large paintings of the patches for each squadron at Barksdale adorn the walls of a large stairway. One painting -- a symbol of the Cold War -- depicts a silhouette of a B-52 with the words "Peace The Old Fashioned Way," written underneath.
General Goldfein, the Air Force's top officer and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "is asking his force to think about new ways that nuclear weapons could be used for deterrence, or even combat... 'It's no longer a bipolar world where it's just us and the Soviet Union. We've got other players out there who have nuclear capability. It's never been more important to make sure that we get this mission right.'"
Already, various improvements have been made to prepare Barksdale -- home to the 2d Bomb Wing and Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service's nuclear forces -- to return B-52s to an alert posture. Near the alert pads, an old concrete building -- where B-52 crews during the Cold War would sleep, ready to run to their aircraft and take off at a moment's notice -- is being renovated. Inside, beds are being installed for more than 100 crew members, more than enough room for the crews that would man bombers positioned on the nine alert pads outside... Large paintings of the patches for each squadron at Barksdale adorn the walls of a large stairway. One painting -- a symbol of the Cold War -- depicts a silhouette of a B-52 with the words "Peace The Old Fashioned Way," written underneath.
General Goldfein, the Air Force's top officer and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "is asking his force to think about new ways that nuclear weapons could be used for deterrence, or even combat... 'It's no longer a bipolar world where it's just us and the Soviet Union. We've got other players out there who have nuclear capability. It's never been more important to make sure that we get this mission right.'"
He's a narcissist sociopath with senile dementia.
But at least there's all that winning going around.
In the words of Darth Vader: Yippee!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's a statement that can be photographed and noticed - putting your ballistic missile force on high alert has few physical signs as potent as bombers sitting on ready alert at the end of a runway.
There are strategic resources for the equipment needed for renewable energy production and use. Rare earth metals for motor magnets for electric cars, as one example. Some of the 'new' critical resources are more localized and scarce than petroleum ever could have been. There will be new resource wars, just as there have always been.
There is no winning a nuclear war, ever. Radiation from Japan made it all the way to the west coast. The bombs of those days might as well have been a stick of dynamite compared to what we could release today.
That is just the consequences that would hit the mainland. Much of Asia would see a sizable radiation spike which will hurt many of our allies. Given our conventional weaponry is it asinine to use nuclear weapons. Now having them and maintaining them is necessary as it is one of the reasons the U.S. is considered a Super Power. Trump has given up a great amount of international leadership though. The U.S. no longer leads the world in diplomacy, nor climate change, nor nuclear non-proliferation. This is why Trump is so dangerous, when you give up your position of power it will be extremely difficult to ever get it back. We only landed in the leadership role because of WW2 as we were the only ones left standing. Hopefully that is not a sign of things to come.
Considering World War II caused between 50 and 80 millions deaths, military and civilian, it would take a long time to equal that number even with tens of thousands of deaths per year now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
North Korea doesn't have the ability to launch a massive counter-strike, so their continued existence after rattling the nuclear sabre the way they've been doing depends on utterly on the US sticking to the "no first strike" policy. Yet TFA claims that General Goldfein is asking his staff to come up with ways to use nukes in combat. To me that sounds very much like the US Joint Chiefs are preparing contingency plans for pre-emptive strikes and "small" tactical nukes after that. To be fair, it is the clear duty of the Joint Chiefs to come up for contingency plans for pretty much every possible scenario, even the incredibly unlikely ones. But, one doesn't juggle squadrons around and re-assign personnel for unlikely contingencies.
Meanwhile, there have been a slew of articles which suggest the US Navy is in dire straits. It's my understanding that successive administrations have forced them to cut back on new ship purchases and skimp on maintenance so long for the sake of short term availability, that now some ships are sitting in dry dock for years, waiting for repair. Likewise, there has been a clear trend to lower head counts in the ground forces as well. The focus has been on smaller, more nimble forces, aimed at dealing with insurgents and the like. That smaller force has become very sensitive to combat losses, has been forced to keep guys posted in combat far longer than expected (stop-loss) and is deployed in a number of hot spots all over the world. The ground forces are just not prepared to get into a land war in Asia right now. As an aside, I'm not sure I buy the fears of fanatically loyal human wave attacks. There was some concern about that in Iraq as I recall, because both Iraq and Iran had an established history of using such tactics. There were human wave attacks in the Korean conflict sure, but as in Iran, Iraq and WWII Russia, human waves always rely on political officers at the back, sending the hapless troops into battle at gun point, threatening family members back home if necessary. But, as we saw in Iraq, once the troops got totally cut off from high command, most couldn't surrender fast enough. (there is an apocryphal tale of an Iraqi regiment that tried to surrender to a BBC camera crew)
The only arm of the US forces that seems to be ready to open a can of whoop ass in Korea is the Air Force. Problem is, there is a long standing dictum "You can bomb it, shell it until the rubble bounces, but you don't control it until you stick a kid with a rifle on it." The Air Force is guaranteed to wipe out anything on the surface taller than a dandelion with conventional weapons alone. But the Koreans have had decades to dig in and there is a lot of evidence of their tunnelling prowess in the tunnels the south Koreans have intercepted at the DMZ. The upshot is that the Air Force can not win the war on it's own.
With that situation, it is going to be very tempting to just nuke the place.
And we have Donald Trump with his finger on the button.
Donald Trump...let that sink in for a moment.
Tactically, this is shaping up to be a bigger version of Vietnam and the US had to worry back then about the Soviet Union and The Peoples Republic of China who were not only pretty close allies at the time, but backing the north Vietnamese. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon were all far more savvy poli
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
... those “30 years” of war between Iran and Iraq, where more than a MILLION people died, by the way, were because, remember, Saddam, who had always been a major asshole, was still the USA‘s favorite "ally" (read: vassal/dog) in the region, and the US told him, that if he stops Khomeini, he’d get to keep the oil wells he conquered, and would keep getting the support (read: weapons, training, money) like all that time before.
But Saddam didn't get in, because the stupid Persians kept defending themselves, because they had the third or fourth largest military in the world at that time. This changed literally overnight, when Saddam became stroppy, wanted his promised oil wells anyway, and decided to take them from Kuwait. Suddenly, the USA got stroppy too... we can’t have it that Saddam doesn’t invade what he’s told to invade! ... But honestly, *what did he do different than before?* All he did, was *turn around*. ^^
Suddenly he was "The new Hitler".
And the best part is: The only reason Iran became such a big military power, with the third or fourth biggest military in the world, was because the USA previously armed them to their teeth too! "As a stronghold against the reds." ... Yeah, unless millions of you are prepared to die for it, your system won’t improve either. Things still need to get a *lot* worse for that to happen.)
But they had installed such an evil cruel dictator, that the Persians turned to Khomeini as the better alternative, in their desperation. Imagine how fucked-up of a situation you would have to be in, to turn to the WBC, to get rid of your president! (Okay, nowadays, that sounds almost reasonable. ^^)
Which, interestingly, ended in a semi-peaceful revolution! The military stopped shooting people because they realized that the people were so determined, they stopped giving a fuck about if they died. (So much about how you actually get rid of a dictator.
So whatever fake news reality distortion scheme about these things is going on in your "Number One!" (in propaganda, online trolls, and population control too) country... using the war between Iran and Iraq as an argument, for them to NOT have nukes to stop the USA from fucking with them, is REALLY FUCKED-UP! :)
That whole shit might not even have started, if they would have had nukes. (Remember, that Iran and Afghanistan were comparatively very modern countries back then, with women wearing mini-skirts and going to universities; with philosophy and sports clubs; and being a cool tourist destination for hippies! Extrapolate THAT!
But yeah, Pakistan did have nukes, and still got made to breed "mercenaries" for Afghanistan by the USA. Now known as the Taliban. I guess it also requires being determined enough to actually threaten the CIA with *using* them, instead of being best friends and drinking tea together, like those CIA operatives did with Hamid Gul (Pakistan’s ex military general who oversaw the construction of the nukes, told Bin Laden what to do, and was so crazy that the *Al Qaeda* gave him house arrest because he threatened to fly nuclear warheads to the US, and even Al Qaeda leaders knew that wouldn’t have ended well for them!).
So what do I know. I only have a dad who worked as an reporter and operative in this clusterfuck for 4 decades now. I’ve only been threatened to be killed by terrorist groups twice. One of those being backed by my own western government.
Maybe my flaw is that I don't hate *anyone*, not the USA, not Kim Yong whatever, not Israel, not the Palestinians, not even the literal Nazis. They're all fucked-up people, and all I want, is to fix shit so that we can have a self-determined happy life. Even you.
I'm not seeing any irrational leaders. There are no Kaiser Wilhelm's here. Pyongyang's chest thumping is as much for North Koreans' benefit as the US's.
You sir underestimate the power of the echo chamber.
Logically it seems more of a when than an if for nuclear weapons being used again. More nations get them, and sooner or later even non nations. I suppose that is the real risk, since a non nation is less likely to be a rational actor. North Korea might even at some point be a part of spreading them, though again, if we could prove they handed out the technology or the actual weapons to someone who used it, we would have no choice but to treat it as a strike by them.
I see no great solution to North Korea, nor am I sure there has been one in my lifetime. You have a country that has been indoctrinated for so long that if you destabilize it, either through war or other means, then it breaking out and causing untold problems, including probably extensive terrorism seems likely.
One could argue that it is better to pay that price sooner than later, but is that really true?
I see no clear path forward, other than continuing to make sure we can deal with any contingency, including having what feasible missile defence is possible. Beyond that, I'm less than sure that beating the drums of war is of any real help. North Korea is not going to stop with their weapons program. No talk is going to make them stop. Threats, if anything, will make them accelerate, though I'm doubting they can accelerate much more than they already are.
Actually in hindsight it might have been better to have never had the armistice that ended the Korean war. Perhaps then, if we had paid the toll in blood and treasure, this problem could have been solved then. Still, I'm hardly an expert. Are there any historians, amateur or otherwise, who would like to comment?
I suppose in the end when all decisions are bad ones, your back to the usual first rule of a physician. First, do no harm, or more simply, "First, don't make the existing situation worse."
We've got decades of promoting lunatics to high positions because they increase tension, and tension is good for business. I'm sure they all think 'Trust me I know what I'm doing.' Or 'we've had 70 years without nuclear war, we know what we're doing'. The US is now posing a serious danger to the planet and Trump is just a symptom.
I don't think Kim would start anything, his behaviour is too rational for that. The main danger is that he is deposed and someone worse takes over, but ironically Trump has actually strengthened Kim's grip on power by handing him some easy PR wins.
Both Kim and Trump consider saving face to be of the utmost importance, but fortunately for Trump that often just means lying and pretending he is winning, rather than actually having to come out on top. To an extent Kim can do that too, but he cares more about how other countries behave rather than the superficial PR aspect.
At this point the best we can do is try to contain and control Trump while relying on the Chinese to provide Mutually Assured Destruction if he tries anything. Hopefully people in the US government and military would refuse if he did. Unfortunately we have Russia trolling the West at the moment, but hopefully NK is one area where they will restrain themselves.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Rare earth metals are not localized, they're deposited all over the world. They're rare because they're spread out and it is expensive to concentrate them. The US was a major producer before the Chinese started selling cheaper.
The neighbouring country, Ukraine has plenty of oil, so does the recently annexed Crimean Sea. For some reason, Russia isn't worried about oil from the middle-east.
From wher do you get your facts? Ukraine is an importer of gas and oil. Coal they do export but that's not what this discussion is about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . Has it really come down to creating facts to support your viewpoint on a country?
It's without question that a single city hit on the US (LA/Long Beach) or NYC or Houston or some other key city (those are all major ports) would result in substantial economic disruption. Population displacement and refugees, the near-total loss of the struck region's economic capability, and so on.
The "good" news is that this would also collapse the entire world economy, including China who depends heavily on exports to the rest of the world. And they all know it.
In fact, I think China is so aware of it that they may already have contingencies in place for decapitating DPRK from inside. I find it hard to imagine that an offer from China to allow DPRK military leaders to run North Korea and/or gain permanent sanctuary in China for terminating Kim's leadership wouldn't be appealing to the DPRK officer corps. No more living in fear of sudden exile, prison or execution by Kim. Preservation of North Korea as an independent state.
China has had the access and relative credibility as supportive regime to pull this off, and a ton of motivation to make something like this work, both in terms of avoiding global economic catastrophe which would hurt them as bad as anyone, and in terms of avoiding a regional disaster whih may affect them further.
One thing that mitigates this as a hopeful idea, though, is that Kim, in spite of his reputation as a doughy egomaniac, has proved remarkably capable of quickly consolidating power and reshuffling his military leadership, which would make it a lot more difficult for even the Chinese to subvert Kim through an internal coup. The mitigating value of this, though, is that it shows Kim is savvy and intelligent and not just a madman, which means he must also understand the existential risks he faces.
The fallout will be far worse than in Japan because most of the fallout consists of soil that has been activated by the neutron flux from the explosion. The fission products are a secondary issue.
Yup, fallout is mostly soil. And the physics and pragmatic effects of any state deciding to use nuclear weapons as part of it's diplomacy eludes some folks. My mini essay with cites on the effects of a few 1 megaton nucs were met with "they are better designed now, and radiation isn't a problem" Bolshy yarblockos - what the fuq?
From what I've been able to suss out, the idea is that we turn Pyongyang into molten glass, the world will be forever grateful, and we'd establish permanent dominance. Any country or group that disagrees with us will then have the option of obeying us, or likewise be the target of our nuclear force. All will be well as we enter a new age of peace or else.
The problem of course is that not everyone in the world is all that hot on the idea of killing millions, even in a shithole like NK. Especially not with nucs.
Then there is the matter of precedent. Despite what some might think, the world has a lot of these little cuties. If we decide that turning NK into glass and irradiating a lot of countries nearby is just a great thing to do, well, we've opened Pandora's box, and we ourselves are now a justifiable target.
Note this in no way means support of that asshole regime. And it doesn't mean I wouldn't be happy to remove their capability to be any threat to anyone by more conventional things that go boom. But even then, it is a touchy situation, given that NK is not without some allies.
But altogether too much of the clamor to use nucs as a pre-emptive cure for the problem NC represents is a weird sort of end-of-the-world lust.
And while Pat Robertson and the merry death cult with major wood over the Rapture and end of the world might think this is greasing the skids for a glorious exit into the loving arms of their god, some of us would like to keep the world in better condition, and not turn ourselves into a worldwide pariah.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The General executed by AA gun was reported in NK media first. The Uncle fed to the dogs was reported in NK media first. SK and China and our own intelligence sources all report that he has total control. He is not controlled by nor limited by his Generals but rather he controls them.
I used "Beloved Cheeto" in comparison with the terminology used for Kim Jong Un. And because while I voted for him, and gladly so compared to the alternative. He was far from my preferred choice. But keep making assumptions, so far you are 0 for at least 4 in assuming my intentions or meanings.
Nice try trolling, comrade.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.