China: has like 300 nuclear weapons, none of them stationed outside their country. Has no forward military bases from which to stage or launch attacks, has limited forward radar visibility of incoming attacks. Has a couple SSBM subs which likely operate entirely in the south China sea from which it can launch. Wants to expand to 1000 by 2030.
Russia: Has over 4000 warheads, most aging. Has no meaningful forward military bases outside their country for staging attacks on the west. Has no meaningful forward radar visibility of incoming attacks from beyond its borders. Has a few SSBM subs from which it can launch.
US: Has over 4000 warheads, many aging. Has many hidden, classified, constantly operating SSBM submarines which regularly intentionally cruise to the north Atlantic (near Russia), the south Pacific (near China), and a variety of other locations. Has ground-launched missiles, an air delivery system. Has world class sonar (included super-sensitive listening stations bolted to the bedrock of the east and west coasts) and aggressive drone campaigns to hunt and constantly track Chinese and Russian missile subs to allow them a first kill. Has forward warning radar systems positioned thousands of miles from its borders in northern Canada, in Europe, in the Pacific on island chains. In addition has a massive, the most massive spy satellite network in operation constantly watching other powers in incredible detail. Has a space force dedicated to among other things sabotaging Chinese and Russian space assets with kill switches or remote disable explosives which could be used in aggression to blind their enemy first. Of all major world powers will have the most warning and most time to react decisively in case of a full scale launch and attempted sneak first strike on them by either Russia or China. Stations nuclear weapons with allies in “sharing” agreements where the US has final say on their use and launch in countries from the UK to mainland Europe near Russia to Turkey, is considering such an agreement with South Korea right on China’s border.
But tell me again how the US is backed into a corner in this situation and has no choice but to build more warheads and pour hundreds of billions that could feed, cloth, shelter, and provide healthcare to its people into new delivery systems which will fatten and enrich defense contractors to the tune of hundreds of billions of overage costs if not trillions for systems that may or may not even work thanks to contractor greed and sloppiness.
Someone REALLY needs to put America in its place. I’m sick of this ‘we rule the entire world, and there’s nothing you can do about it’ attitude we have here. It’s disgusting.
Also: Trump pulls out of our nuclear agreement with Russia, and this is how Biden’s government responds? Escalation? They seems to have similar ideals.
Are we in another cold war?
Spoiler, we never stopped the first one.
We are still in a cold war, only now it’s more complicated because more countries have nukes…including North Korea which is kind of a wildcard.
Check out Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen. It’s a well-researched and horrifying scenario where deterrence fails because N Korea launches on the US. it takes you step-by-step through the decision process our government would take in response. Its gripping and pretty damn terrifying and shows just how delicate the whole situation is.
If this topic is your bag, I’m guessing you’ve also read Jeffrey Lewis’s book on the topic: https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/books/
A great read, if very slightly outdated. Could still represent a possible future if Trump returns to power, or perhaps even if he doesn’t. Either way, Arms Control Wonk podcast is an entertaining and informative listen for anyone remotely interested in this topic.
That looks good, got it added to my read list. Thx!
Just recommended the audio book to my library. Thanks.
Already have more nukes than every other country, this is literally pointless. After a certain point having more nukes just becomes a hat on a hat.
It’s probably just a dick waving thing that’s meant to stress the blyats and get them to spend money on useless shit.
Have you ever played TF2? Because a hat on a hat makes sense, from a certain point of view.
Russia has more nukes. It also has weaker conventional armed forces and a history of nuclear sabor rattling, hence the US and its allies being nervous about a degraded MAD system.
5000 nukes is already enough to end civilization, what the fuck would having even more be worth?
With MAD, the idea is to be in the position that any adversary knows that if they attack you, they will be utterly annihilated. There should be no scenario under which an adversary sees a nuclear attack as advantageous. The US has aging systems and both China and Russia have been developing new capabilities. Numbers alone may not keep up, especially if a large number of missiles are disabled via nukes or other means.
5000 nukes will annihilate everyone. Earth wouldn’t recover for centuries.
Now, yes, delivery systems determine if the nukes can actually be used, but having more than 5000 nukes is just a hat on a hat. As long as they’re 5000 functional nukes there’s just no reason to have more.
Unless the enemy can intercept the missiles, then you need more to guarantee first strike capability.
If you need 500 nukes to hit and the enemy can destroy 90% of missiles then you build 5000+
Again, that’s more about delivery systems than just having more nukes. The capacity to intercept comes down to how fast and stealthy the missiles are.
Again, it’s not a matter of numbers. It’s a matter of maintaining a credible MAD threat so that any adversaries does not see nuclear war as a viable option. Nuclear weapons are meant to be brandished credibly as a response, not used.
I’m pretty sure that numbers are how you present a credible MAD threat.
Bro watched Dr.Strangelove and took the wrong message
Well, there are other parts to MAD. Things like keeping mil to mil communication open at all times, especially times of increased hostility, to avoid escalations. But in the end, it is insuring that the nuclear game is set such that it is never in anyone’s best interest to set off nuclear weapons.
America has a lot of warheads but its delivery systems are relatively behind Russian and Chinese systems. For instance, the current US land/silo based missiles are Minuteman 3s, which were first built in the 1970s. Even with upgrades, they are generally understood to be inferior to much more recent Russian Yars and Chinese Dong Feng missiles.
That said, increasing the number of warheads doesn’t really help in terms of that deficiency so the between the lines conclusion is that the new American missile systems have hit such snags that the military is considering making up the deficiency with numbers of warheads.
Do they need them to be good, or just to have a lot? Look at Hamas breaching the vaunted Iron Dome by sheer number of projectiles. Likewise, I heard Ukraine overwhelmed Russian S-300/400 with a simultaneous launch of something like a dozen ATACMS
ICBMs are notoriously difficult to intercept. Nobody realistically has an interception system able to take down enough of them to matter. The problem with old ICBMs is that they’re less survivable if the enemy strikes you first so you need even more warheads and delivery systems to compensate.
Does it really matter if the delivery system is inferior? Google says they have five thousand warheads. Even if 4900 get intercepted (98% success rate), 100 nukes will connect.
Also, besides the launch silos, there’s the bombers and the nuclear subs, which are enough to end the world by themselves
Nuclear war planning isn’t as simple as applying a rate of interception or failure to your stock of warheads. You have to plan for eventualities like what happens if you’re subject to a first strike - can you ensure that enough of your own warheads will survive to retaliate? If not, or if your opponent thinks not then your opponent is much more likely to try a first strike.
Modern missiles aren’t just faster or harder to shoot down, they’re also more survivable. Have you noticed that while the Russians and Chinese parade their missiles on big ass trucks, the US doesn’t seem to have any? That’s because there isn’t a road or rail mobile variant of the Minuteman 3. So those MM3s have been sitting in silos only for decades, more than enough time for opponent satellites to pinpoint exactly where they are. On the other hand, a Russian or Chinese missile can drive around their own road or rail systems and be untraceable unless you have real time satellite footage that just happens to catch them moving.
So if your missiles can’t move, you can only protect them by hardening their emplacements and silos. Unfortunately, most American silos are about as old as the missiles in them and were designed to withstand much lesser yields of warheads. Maybe some could be brought up to a newer standard, but building of that scale would also paradoxically tip your opponent off to which missile sites to target first.
Therefore, if you’re in a position where you aren’t convinced your own missiles will survive a first strike, your only move to maintain deterence is new missiles or more missiles (or both). Contracts were passed out for new missile designs around 2017 but it seems like nothing has come to fruition. Therefore the only other option is to build more warheads so that they can be fired from planes and other systems instead.
This leads on to the next point which is that warheads are not all necessarily sitting on missiles read to go at all times. Most of the time they’re in central stockpiles that are easier to guard and maintain and are only parcelled out to units in times of heightened nuclear tension. A modern nuclear power has more platforms that can deliver nukes than actual nukes themselves - the whole point of a nuclear triad (ICBMs, planes, subs) is to ensure maximal redundancy so that no one type of attack can destroy all delivery systems.
Hence, a nuclear war planner has to figure out how many ICBMs and warheads are likely to survive a first strike, then figure out how many warheads are needed to put on planes and ships and subs for a counter strike. If the US military is thimking it needs more warheads, then one major reason could be that it’s realized it’s delivery platforms are not as survivable as predicted.
Dongfeng 5 is he highest yield active service ICBM @ 5 Mt.
Yields have gotten smaller over time as a matter of practicality.
Oh there is a point. Hint: Who does the US Government pay to maintain/create it’s nuclear arsenal?
The US Department of Energy…
General Electric unless it’s changed
One of our most handsomest generals!
Lmao
Is this what Lt. Surge got promoted to in Pokemon Red 2/Blue 2?
Private contractors probably, it’s all a big bonanza for a few rich people to get richer I’m sure. Just paying for more hats on hats.
But never underestimate how dog brained these people are, they probably actually believe this makes us more secure lol
I hate this country
Tell Russia to stop issuing nuclear threats, we just got another one from Putin in the last 24 hours. It’s easy to dial back tensions when you aren’t being threatened with annihilation on a daily and weekly basis.
The United States has something like 5,600 nuclear warheads. A single one is capable of ending life as we know it. What number is enough of a deterrent for war hawks?
A single nuclear warhead is not capable of ending life as we know it, where did you read that ?
Have you heard of mutually assured destruction?
Yes, and it requires much more than a single nuclear warhead
MAD is a domino effect. One rogue launch is all it takes for nations all around the world to retaliate
Yeah. The 7.5 times (or is it 9.5 times, I forget) thing that has been thrown around since the cold war days never rings true to me.
The primary and secondary strikes for both sides will take out people living close to either a military installation or a major city.
Also there’s no way even a world war would involve every single country and every single island. There’s no way human life would be entirely obliterated. Most us posting here, perhaps. Certainly I’d likely be taken out in the second or third wave (close to London and also close to a military base). But life would go on.
Many of those are due for retirement purely due to age. There isn’t a replacement system for many of them. Furthermore, countermeasures have gotten better; future designs will better take these into account.
Truth on lemmy gets downvoted. It’s really that simple. Most of our Nukes are the same age as our grandparents at this point. Our ICBMs are running on 5.25" floppy disks from the 70s. All this shit is OLD and desperately needs modernization for safety and security.
But if the headline was 'USA to replace ICE nukes with EV nukes" it would be upvoted and celebrated.
Call me a bleeding heart but my preference would be that there are no future designs. The world needs to disarm of nuclear weapons
I’m on board as soon as we verify that Putin has completely disarmed.
Yeah, let’s just let China take over the world and nuke us when we get uppity.
god yes, please President Xi fire Dongfengs at DC ASAP 🙏🙏
NATO expansion after the dissolution of the UDSSR (against what threat?) Is the first aggression… Also, even though Medvedev like to bark a lot, Russia has a clear nuclear doctrine.
The US has no business in that conflict, we literally only make things worse. Putin and Ukraine have zero to do with our lives, and the idea that we need to be in a war with russia is just silly propaganda.
Should have let Hitler take over Europe and massacre all the Jews in Europe too.
Do you really think Russia in 2024 has a similar economic capacity to Germany in 1930s?
Happy cakeday. And yeah deescalation requires both parties to open to de-arm not only one of them.
Honestly though the best case scenario of how this all ends doesn’t really look great to me.
Either Russia loses the war, the government destabilizes, a power vacuum is formed which causes a power shift in a way likely to lead to more aggressive action in the future.
Or Russia wins the war, eyes other countries after it settles into Ukraine, NATO/US need to respond or else it sends the wrong message to other countries allied with them, and we head for WW3
Edit: There is also the idea of a stalemate and this just becomes a continuous war that doesn’t really end, but honestly I can’t see that being stable long term.
Well shit.
What the fuck is a GRAVITY BOMB???
What the fuck is a GRAVITY BOMB
Simply means it is a free-fall bomb. They are cheaper to make as they don’t require an entire ICBM to deliver.
nah bro, it’s a black hole bomb that destroys the solar system.
Just a bomb that is dropped from storage to fall in free-fall. Aka, a bomb with literally nothing else, the simplest possible bomb. An alternative name (which is better imo) is a “Dumb Bomb”.
Gravity bomb just sounds so much more extraordinary than it actually is.
…I’m sure its nothing /s
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The comments on Friday from Pranay Vaddi, a senior director of the National Security Council, were the most explicit public warning yet that the United States was prepared to shift from simply modernizing its arsenal to expanding it.
Mr. Vaddi, speaking at the annual meeting of the Arms Control Association, a group that advocates limits on nuclear weapons, confirmed what officials have been saying in private conversations and closed congressional testimony for more than a year.
Fifteen years ago, President Barack Obama outlined a vision of moving toward a world without nuclear weapons, and he took steps to reduce their role in American strategy and defenses.
While the nation’s nuclear complexes were improved and made safer, and old weapons were swapped out for more reliable or updated versions, the United States insisted it was only “modernizing” its arsenal, not expanding it.
“Absent a change in the trajectory of the adversary arsenal, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required, and we need to be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision,” he said.
The failure of Russia and China to engage in meaningful negotiations, Mr. Vaddi said, was “forcing the United States and our close allies and partners to prepare for a world where nuclear competition occurs without numerical constraints.”
The original article contains 969 words, the summary contains 223 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
there were not decades of cuts. Obama’s “modernization” efforts were categorically expansion and escalation.
Does anyone else have dreams about nuclear war on a regular basis? Cause I do, and I don’t particularly care for it.
Maybe Todd Howard?
buy skyrim
No Todd plz, I already bought the Nokia nGage version!
Does anyone else want to set the world on fire? Cause I don’t. I just want to start a flame in your heart.
I’m dreaming of nuclear war 
Biden is doing everything in his power to eliminate the argument that trump is worse/less responsible/more bellicose.
As a trans person, I still hope genocide joe wins for my own personal safety. but I’m also aware that safety provided by dems is tenuous at best. Especially if we decide to fry the planet over Taiwan and Crimea.
If you want Joe to win, I’d probably stop using that label for awhile. Make it easier to, y’know, do that thing.
I won’t engage in genocide denial
Just saying, it may be wise to engage in acts of patience given the risk of the current climate. Hold him accountable after we get over the current hurdle. Like, keep it in your back pocket. We should hold advantages where we can and come together. That’s all. A sorta strategic focus to eliminate issues one at a time without dividing energy or people. Because I think the larger opinion is the same, we just differ on what to focus on first.
hold him accountable how
As a fellow trans person, I don’t think Biden can guarantee my safety because I’m in a red state. He seems to be allowing red state anti-trans legislation without much pushback. At best he might not make the problem even worse, but he won’t protect us.
Shroedinger’s Russian nuclear arsenal. When there’s a story about risking escalation, libs tell me it’s fine because Russia doesn’t have the money to maintain its nukes, so it’d only be a “limited” nuclear exchange. When this story comes out, the libs tell me that Russia has a much larger and better maintained nuclear stockpile, so it’s only necessary for the US to spend more on it to catch up. It’s sort of the same way that Russia simultaneously is on the verge of defeat, yet also has the intention and capability to conquer all of Europe, like Hitler, if we don’t stop him here.
The enemy is both strong and weak, and you never know which one it’s gonna be.
The thing is countries can change. Russia was ill equipped to fight a war against a prepared equipped country. Supplies were missing because people sold off supplies they thought were never gong to be needed. Now they know they need that equipment and the countries economy is on a war footing.
Look at how much a difference being prepared made for Ukraine the recent invasion compared to the earlier invasion of Crimea.
I’m not talking about changes over time, talking about things I’ve seen recently on here regarding Russia’s current status, in response to news stories and comments discussing the danger of escalation going nuclear.
The Posadists have too much sway over US politics.
I fucking wish, let’s do it already and stop this edging
This is bad for you. It’s also bad for me. And everyone else.
lmao tends of millions of people are starving in US right now, but the priority is to build more nukes 🤡
Let them eat fuel rods!
They have high energy content!
