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Pentagon Document Confirms Existence of Russian Doomsday Torpedo (popularmechanics.com)
Popular Mechanics reports that "a key U.S. nuclear weapons document confirms that the Russian government is developing the most powerful nuclear weapon in more than a half century...a 'new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo'" with a range of 6,200 miles.
But what really makes "Kanyon" nightmare fuel is the drone torpedo's payload: a 100-megaton thermonuclear weapon. By way of comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 16 kilotons, or the equivalent of 16,000 tons of TNT. Kanyon's nuke would be the equivalent of 100,000,000 tons of TNT. That's twice as powerful as Tsar Bomba, the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever tested. Dropped on New York City, a 100-megaton bomb would kill 8 million people outright and injure 6 million more.
Kanyon is designed to attack coastal areas, destroying cities, naval bases, and ports. The mega-bomb would also generate an artificial tsunami that would surge inland, spreading radioactive contamination with the advancing water. To make matters worse there are reports the warhead is "salted" with the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60. Contaminated areas would be off-limits to humanity for up to 100 years.
Slashdot reader schwit1 adds that "being sea-based makes it immune to ballistic missile defense."
Kanyon is designed to attack coastal areas, destroying cities, naval bases, and ports. The mega-bomb would also generate an artificial tsunami that would surge inland, spreading radioactive contamination with the advancing water. To make matters worse there are reports the warhead is "salted" with the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60. Contaminated areas would be off-limits to humanity for up to 100 years.
Slashdot reader schwit1 adds that "being sea-based makes it immune to ballistic missile defense."
What the hell do you expect from the former head of the KGB? They were monsters from day one, and that hasn't changed.
Murphy's Law, everything that can go wrong will go wrong, has not been abolished. Nuclear weapons have prevented major wars for 70 years, but this may be the conservation of catastrophe. Putting out many small forest fires builds up to a huge one. Connecting our cities to a large electric grid stops frequent small blackouts but builds up to occasional huge, multi-state blackouts.
I don't find this scary in and of itself because we're already at the point where we could destroy human civilization several times over, and have been for decades. I'm far more concerned that so many are goading Trump into escalating with Russia to "prove" he isn't a puppet.
Such information being made public so quickly seems to be in line with the "make people fear the Russians" campaign that's been going on since the election. Normally, this kind of thing would be classified (we overclassify EVERYTHING, and Russian nuclear capabilities is a legit secret), so a public release likely indicates an attempt to shape policy. IIRC, US intel overestimated the number of Soviet nukes by an order of magnitude, which made an easy sell for building a fuckton of nukes.
Yes, Putin is bad. Russia is bad. That doesn't mean we should trust something the Pentagon releases.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
globalism is. The Aristocracy is global now. They don't own countries, they own the world. More specifically they have property all throughout the world and don't want to see it blown up. They'll allow a few bush fire style conflicts to keep war profiteering going (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) and they'll put down rebellions (Yemen) but they won't allow another full scale war to dip into their profits and break their stuff and, well, they're the aristocracy so they're in charge.
Hell, maybe about a decade ago Pakistan basically looked the other way while a major terrorist incident happened in India and nothing came of it. That's because an India/Pakistan war would be bad for business.
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While the article, true or not, is ripe with fearmongering...I wonder what our geopolitical rivals have to say about our undeclared "Doomsday" arsenal.
Exactly, this is America's fault.
Did Russia invade and annex the Crimea? No. It was America.
Was MH17 shot down by a Russian missile? No. It was American.
Has Russia violated numerous trade encumbrances with North Korea? No. America has.
Has Russia provided North Korea with nuclear missile technology? No. It's all American.
Does Russia have a troll farm trying to exploit divisions in rival countries in an effort to destabilize them? No. That's the American way.
The whole story sounds like complete and utter bollocks quite frankly.
Consider
1) How big is the torpedo. There's a picture of the original Tsar Bomba here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's enormous. Way larger than a torpedo tube.
2) How far away from the launching submarine would 100 Mt warhead need to be? 100 Mt is obviously an enormous amount and explosions under water are more damaging.
3) How is an 'intercontinental torpedo' propelled? It seems the propulsion system would add more weight to an already heavy concept
4) How is it guided? GPS won't work because it's underwater. Submarines use all sorts of subtle techniques like passive sonar to avoid revealing their location and ultra low frequency radio transmissions. A human crew on a sub can do this. It's far from clear a drone submarine is viable
5) Why salt the bomb? That would poison the oceans over a vast area.
It just sounds like the Russians have leaked this in attempt to make the US give up on missile defence. There's no evidence this project got funded. And Russia is so cash strapped it didn't even an SLBM subs patrolling as recently as 2006. Putin has pushed for new SLBMs and new subs to put them with the result the US no longer has nuclear primacy but that process was not exactly embarrassment free - tests failed for a while.
E.g. here in 2013
https://www.military.com/defen...
The idea Russia is going to get what is effectively a drone submarine working anytime soon when it seemed to have significant teething troubles doing what was the Russian equivalent of an Ohio class replacement is absurd. Most likely they're bullshitting in the hope it gives the US left an excuse to say that 'ballistic missile defence can't non ballistic missile threats, therefore it's not worth doing'.
Actually what it reminds me of is the US announcement of 'Star Wars' aka SDI. It wasn't technically practical then but the Russians didn't know that. If you read Gorbachev's autobiography him and Shevardnadze used SDI to make the case that the USSR had lost the Cold War and it was time to surrender. Rumours of this device are presumably intended to cause the same sentiment in the US.
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that's silly, merely moving such an asteroid would provoke retaliation. it's a "weapon" that takes months to stage for which immediate first-strike nuclear warfare is justified as response
Umm, no.
Assuming this isn't someone's fantasy, it wasn't developed in the last year. It would probably have had to be in development for a decade or two.
Note also that it's never been tested. And I'm not talking about the bomb, I'm talking about the torpedo. Until it goes through a real test, it's not worth wasting time with.
And then there's the bomb. Until one is detonated, you never really know if it'll work as designed. And one hasn't been detonated....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It looks too much like "Hey, look!! The evil child-eating communists are deploying bigger doomsday weapons!!! We must spend another trillion dollars in weapons NOW!!!" (many time later someone points that the document about the russian weapon is fake or just speculation, but it does not matter anymore because money has already created new millionaires)
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Putin isn't a lunatic who wants to end the world. He has murdered and robbed his way to the top, and he very much wants to retire with all his loot somewhere and enjoy it. Greedy materialists aren't really the type to want to destroy the world. North Korea isn't likely to shoot first unless Kim thinks that the US is about to kill him, and Putin is no different. His life is great, he has an entire country under his thumb. Both of these guys are monsters, but they are somewhat predictable in that they have motivation to want to keep their money, power, and health intact. They will act to preserve these things first and foremost.
Any investigation into doomsday weapons will be colored by these motivations. A super torpedo would be very, very slow compared to a ICBM. It would also be very large, and if detected in transit, it would give an opponent quite a bit of time to react. Moreover, there is the Dr.Strangelove problem: Unless you tell everyone about it, it serves as no deterrent so you cannot keep it secret. By telling people about it, you are giving them a first strike target and making it less likely that it will survive to complete its mission. This weapon is also limited to hitting coastal targets, that is quite a limitation.
This seems like a really expensive and risky weapon to construct. Wouldn't it just be simpler to restart the nuclear arms race, and start cranking out thousands and thousands of more conventional nuclear weapons to saturate anti-missile systems? You only need one or two to connect with a target.
However, this doomsday weapon is a great disinformation weapon if you want to 'leak' its existence and cause your opponents to worry. How much time and money will they spend trying to detect and defend from such a weapon?
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The US went to war all over the globe to stop the spread of global communism...
Yes, and that worked out really well. One of the classic cases, of course, was Vietnam. Several US presidents and other Washington officials solemnly assured us that, if "the commies" were allowed to "overrun" their own country, there would immediately ensue a "Domino Effect" with all the rest of South-East Asia going communist, followed by India, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, South America... and eventually they would come for the good ol' loveable US billionaires and take away their hard-earned dollars to give to worthless starving poor people.
Anything was preferable, so the USA spent over a decade and about 50,000 of their own soldiers' lives to kill over 3 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians while destroying villages, farms, and forests with napalm, Agent Orange and other pleasant substances.
And when they finally got ignominiously kicked out, having to fight for places on the last helicopters out, what happened? How many nations did the Domino Effect claim? Did the Red Tide reach the shores of the USA? South America? Africa? Europe? India?
No, it didn't. So those 3 million people died for nothing at all, except to boost the MICC's profits and to prove that the Domino Theory was complete and utter nonsense.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
America should maybe stop interfering in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, then.
Did America invade Iraq which led to the spread of Al-Qaida, Al-Nusra, ISIS, Al-Fuckedup? No, It was Russia.
Actually, Al-Qaida and all that is a direct result of the US. Osama Bin Laddin was a cool dude while on the CIA payroll and training.
keep beleiving the propaganda you are fed.