Nuclear weapons

[Liffguard]

I’ve been thinking a lot about nuclear weapons recently. Specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot about how little we seem to spend thinking about them as a species, given the threat they represent. Since the end of the cold war they seem to have mostly fallen off the public radar. Even when interest occasionally spikes, usually when a “rogue” nation looks like it might acquire a weapon, it fades again pretty quickly. And the discussion is almost entirely around how to prevent others from acquiring weapons, never about examining the case for the existing ones.

It’s been mostly two books that have sparked this thought process in me, Command and Control by Eric Schlosser and My Journey at the Nuclear Brink by William Perry. Both have made it starkly clear that the odds of a nuclear disaster are much higher than many people tend to think.

This might seem like an alarmist metaphor, but I think it’s mostly valid. Imagine if the USA and Russia invested a huge amount of money into robot building programs. They each deploy a huge fleet of autonomous robots, one for every human being on Earth. Each robot is small and unobtrusive, but it picks a human being and follows it around for the rest of their life. It doesn’t really get in the way, it just hovers around beside you. Aside from the cost of developing and building the robots (which is considerable), their existence can be largely ignored. Oh, and every single one of these robots has a gun permanently pointed at its human’s head. Always. And at any time, Putin or Trump can go into their offices, press a button, send out a signal, and every single robot pulls the trigger.

Would we stand for this state of affairs? Could we live with it? It sounds bizarre and slightly unhinged to say it out loud, but it is indisputably true that, if he felt like it, Donald Trump could end nearly all human life on Earth. He could do it today. He could do it right now. He could do it with a single command. We all of us have guns pressed to our heads every day. We just can’t see them, hidden away as they are in submarines and silos.

I’m sympathetic to the argument that the existence of nuclear weapons has prevented any large-scale great power wars from breaking out since WWII. Maybe living in a permanent Mexican standoff is the price we pay for relative peace. And I’m sympathetic to the deterrence argument, that the very devastation of these weapons is exactly what prevents them from being used. No one wants to be on the other end of one, so no one will use one first. Makes sense.

Except, of course, that this entirely presupposes informed, rational actors. It presupposes that there will never be a miscommunication that goes too far before being corrected. It presupposes that a major nuclear-armed state will never be taken over by a fanatic government. It presupposes that a rational government will never find itself in a desperate enough situation (climate-change influenced water wars maybe?). There are a lot of different factors that prevent a weapon from being fired. And as long as these factors continue to line up in the right way, we’ll be fine. But on a long enough timeline, eventually they’ll line up in just the wrong way. All of the failure points will align. And it only has to happen once. Just once.

To be clear, I’m not necessarily arguing for unilateral disarmament. If we’re in a multi-party Mexican standoff situation, then I can see how one side suddenly dropping their gun could actually make the situation less stable. I’m arguing that multi-lateral nuclear disarmament needs to take centre stage in political discourse going forward. As voters and citizens, we need to start demanding that our politicians treat the topic with the intense seriousness it deserves.

[DMC]

44 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

And the discussion is almost entirely around how to prevent others from acquiring weapons, never about examining the case for the existing ones.

I don't know if that's entirely fair.  Non-proliferation (and disarmament) was clearly a key priority for the Obama administration.  It's just he didn't much discernible progress due to pushback domestically and internationally (guess who?).  Even Dubya articulated new non-proliferation initiatives (if they were somewhat controversial/unfair).  

But yes, I'd say in recent years the doomsday clock has gotten much much closer to zero, and it's not hard to identify who's to blame for that.  So I'd agree there should be renewed interest and emphasis in expanding upon the NPT and improving New START.

[Jen'ari]

Hm, it’s a tricky topic imo.

Obviously I’m not pro nuclear weapons and hope one never gets used against another nation again.

At the same time,like you say, the situation is like a Mexican stand off and should a rogue state develop them it could be a huge disadvantage for others if they disarmed, they do,in a strange kind of way,keep the peace.

I also think that no remotely sane person would want to take their nation into a nuclear exchange.

The situation you mentioned with Trump, would that be theoretically possible?, I’m only asking because I’d have thought unless he had very,very good and justifiable reasons the military top brass wouldn’t go ahead?.

As far as I know both the US and Russia have decommissioned a lot of their nuclear weapons from the cold war era, I’d feel more comfortable if they decommissioned a lot more still-they still have something like 3000 each iirc?, keeping a nuclear deterrent is justifiable but that much of one is both unnecessary and downright frightening, that said, I find the thought of a chemical or biological attack even more terrifying to be honest.

[Liffguard]

2 minutes ago, Jen'ari said:

The situation you mentioned with Trump, would that be theoretically possible?, I’m only asking because I’d have thought unless he had very,very good and justifiable reasons the military top brass wouldn’t go ahead?.

My understanding - and I'm willing to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable - is that the President has total authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. It is also my understanding that the US military regularly runs nuclear drills wherein the operators don't know until the actual point of launch whether or not it's a drill. They do this specifically so that the operators won't know whether or not to refuse the order to actually launch. I don't know how high up the chain of command that level of ignorance is maintained.

Quote

As far as I know both the US and Russia have decommissioned a lot of their nuclear weapons from the cold war era, I’d feel more comfortable if they decommissioned a lot more still-they still have something like 3000 each iirc?,

Currently over 6000 each.

[Liffguard]

18 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't know if that's entirely fair.  Non-proliferation (and disarmament) was clearly a key priority for the Obama administration.  It's just he didn't much discernible progress due to pushback domestically and internationally (guess who?).  Even Dubya articulated new non-proliferation initiatives (if they were somewhat controversial/unfair).  

But yes, I'd say in recent years the doomsday clock has gotten much much closer to zero, and it's not hard to identify who's to blame for that.  So I'd agree there should be renewed interest and emphasis in expanding upon the NPT and improving New START.

Fair point. Saying that reducing current weapons is never discussed was making too broad a case. But yeah, I definitely don't think it gets the attention it deserves.

[Jen'ari]

6 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

My understanding - and I'm willing to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable - is that the President has total authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. It is also my understanding that the US military regularly runs nuclear drills wherein the operators don't know until the actual point of launch whether or not it's a drill. They do this specifically so that the operators won't know whether or not to refuse the order to actually launch. I don't know how high up the chain of command that level of ignorance is maintained.

Currently over 6000 each.

I’m not sure of the process either, I’d have thought most senior military personnel would know one way or the other?, but like you, don't actually know at all.

6000 each? , absolutely no need for that kind of stockpile for a deterrent, or even 3000 each or anywhere near that amount, that’s just pure dick swinging imo.

Another thing I’ve wondered is, obviously they cause huge destructive damage, on top of that they release radiation too, what kind of level of radioactivity is there afterwards?, and how long does it take to become safe, for example Hiroshima is a large normal city now which is safe but Chernobyl is still a no go zone.

[Liffguard]

5 minutes ago, Jen'ari said:

6000 each? , absolutely no need for that kind of stockpile for a deterrent, or even 3000 each or anywhere near that amount, that’s just pure dick swinging imo.

To be clear, that figure includes weapons that are no longer officially in service, but have not yet been physically dismantled. Commissioned weapons either deployed or in storage number just over 4000 for the USA.

Edit: Also, for obvious reasons, exact figures are hard to come by. But these rough figures seem to be fairly widely agreed upon.

[Liffguard]

45 minutes ago, Jen'ari said:

Another thing I’ve wondered is, obviously they cause huge destructive damage, on top of that they release radiation too, what kind of level of radioactivity is there afterwards?, and how long does it take to become safe, for example Hiroshima is a large normal city now which is safe but Chernobyl is still a no go zone.

Depends a lot on the type of weapon, the yield, where on Earth it detonates, and how high. Very roughly, airburst (i.e. the primary fireball doesn't touch the ground) has relatively low fallout. Groundburst (i.e. the primary fireball makes contact with the Earth) has a lot of fallout.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I spent the six months after I listened to the Hardcore History podcast on nuclear weapons "Destroyer of Worlds" thinking about nukes all the time.  I feel like there was a real opportunity in the 80's and the fall of the USSR for a major disarmament to happen.  We've seen some countries give up nuclear weapons, or at least South Africa.  East Germany too but pretty sure those just went to Russia.  

Would be cool to see the US and Russia start reducing their arsenals by 500 nukes each a year and see if it gets anywhere.  Logistically, how would a significant (like over 90% reduction of nuclear weapons) look like?  UN oversight?

[Rippounet]

4 hours ago, Liffguard said:

My understanding - and I'm willing to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable - is that the President has total authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure it's a bit more complicated than that. For starters, there was this story back in 2017...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-strategic-command-gen-john-hyten-resist-illegal-nuke-order-from-trump/

[Jen'ari]

4 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Depends a lot on the type of weapon, the yield, where on Earth it detonates, and how high. Very roughly, airburst (i.e. the primary fireball doesn't touch the ground) has relatively low fallout. Groundburst (i.e. the primary fireball makes contact with the Earth) has a lot of fallout.

Sure, there are obviously a lot of variables, I just wasn't sure if the radiation released is as damaging to human health as the ones in powerplants etc.

11 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I spent the six months after I listened to the Hardcore History podcast on nuclear weapons "Destroyer of Worlds" thinking about nukes all the time.  I feel like there was a real opportunity in the 80's and the fall of the USSR for a major disarmament to happen.  We've seen some countries give up nuclear weapons, or at least South Africa.  East Germany too but pretty sure those just went to Russia.  

Would be cool to see the US and Russia start reducing their arsenals by 500 nukes each a year and see if it gets anywhere.  Logistically, how would a significant (like over 90% reduction of nuclear weapons) look like?  UN oversight?

Exactly, would it really make a difference if the US and Russia had nuclear arsenals in the low 100s opposed to thousands, still more than enough of a deterrent to anyone else.

7 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure it's a bit more complicated than that. For starters, there was this story back in 2017...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-strategic-command-gen-john-hyten-resist-illegal-nuke-order-from-trump/

Good on him for taking that stance.

I'm not remotely pro Trump at all but at the same time I don't know if even he would be of the mentality to ever consider using one without very good reason, although his recent escalations with Iran doesn't fill me with much confidence to be fair, it's good to know that the military has guys like John Hyten in it.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Good thread. 

Looking into the future, I think the really scary scenario for nuclear weapons is not related to Russia or the USA. It is nuclear proliferation. Nowadays, almost every country in the world has the capability of creating these weapons. For highly developed countries that already have nuclear power, such as Japan or South Korea, we are talking about months rather than years if they really wanted to. But even poor and dysfunctional countries can get nukes provided they are willing to put in the time and effort. Just look at North Korea, whose GDP per capita is only a bit higher than Europe's was during the Middle Ages. 

So while at present only a handful of countries in the world have nuclear arsenals, and most of these are quite small (excepting Russia´s and the USA´s), one can easily imagine a global nuclear arms race that spirals completely out of control. 

Take North Korea again as an example. If they keep their nuclear program going, keep developing more and more advanced missiles, and keep threatening their neighbous, it is quite possible that pressure will rise in nearby countries to get nuclear weapons of their own. So in addition to China's already existing stockpile, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan could end up becoming nuclear powers as well. If that happens, what will other countries that in turn border this region do, like Vietnam, the Phillippines, and Indonesia?

Or why not take the Middle East. If Iran does get a nuclear weapons program up and running, you can definitely expect Saudi Arabia to want one too. They are deathly afraid of Iran even without nukes, and they have already aired plans for starting nuclear weapons programmes in the past. If that happens, then what will other nearby countries with great power aspirations think, like Turkey and Egypt? Etc, etc. 

If you think the current situation is scary, where you have a couple of thousand operational nuclear weapons across a handful of countries, most of which have relatively capable military and political establishments. Then just imagine a world with tens or hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons spread across dozens of countries. Many of which have badly organized and poorly trained militaries, are led by religious extremists or paranoid dictators, and hate each other. 

That is absolutely terrifying. 

 

[felice]

6 hours ago, Jen'ari said:

Hiroshima is a large normal city now which is safe

Modern nuclear weapons can be two orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones used on Japan. I'm not sure if the fallout is proportionately greater or longer lasting.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Good thread. 

Looking into the future, I think the really scary scenario for nuclear weapons is not related to Russia or the USA. It is nuclear proliferation. Nowadays, almost every country in the world has the capability of creating these weapons. For highly developed countries that already have nuclear power, such as Japan or South Korea, we are talking about months rather than years if they really wanted to. But even poor and dysfunctional countries can get nukes provided they are willing to put in the time and effort. Just look at North Korea, whose GDP per capita is only a bit higher than Europe's was during the Middle Ages. 

So while at present only a handful of countries in the world have nuclear arsenals, and most of these are quite small (excepting Russia´s and the USA´s), one can easily imagine a global nuclear arms race that spirals completely out of control. 

Take North Korea again as an example. If they keep their nuclear program going, keep developing more and more advanced missiles, and keep threatening their neighbous, it is quite possible that pressure will rise in nearby countries to get nuclear weapons of their own. So in addition to China's already existing stockpile, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan could end up becoming nuclear powers as well. If that happens, what will other countries that in turn border this region do, like Vietnam, the Phillippines, and Indonesia?

Or why not take the Middle East. If Iran does get a nuclear weapons program up and running, you can definitely expect Saudi Arabia to want one too. They are deathly afraid of Iran even without nukes, and they have already aired plans for starting nuclear weapons programmes in the past. If that happens, then what will other nearby countries with great power aspirations think, like Turkey and Egypt? Etc, etc. 

If you think the current situation is scary, where you have a couple of thousand operational nuclear weapons across a handful of countries, most of which have relatively capable military and political establishments. Then just imagine a world with tens or hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons spread across dozens of countries. Many of which have badly organized and poorly trained militaries, are led by religious extremists or paranoid dictators, and hate each other. 

That is absolutely terrifying. 

 

The thing is though, that as far as getting a nuke goes, only nations who are on a superpowers shit list or have limited allies are going to go bother going nuclear - it's not worth the sanctions.  I don't think we'll see anymore nations like say Israel or India or Pakistan covertly developing them, because there are too many financial negatives for doing so.  It'll be (and i hate this term) rogue states like Iran or NK who pursue this as a last ditch effort at security where diplomacy has failed or total alienation is a likely outcome.  

I can't see the UN security council allowing Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Japan, or South Korea, to develop a nuclear program (unless Trump just decides to give away nukes next Christmas).  What's the angle for anyone to allow this?  And these countries would need to torch major alliances and bear brutal sanctions to get there.  What's the upside for anyone? 

I feel like with modern tech and surveillance that anyone who wants to go nuclear is going to face a major uphill battle involving a lot of sacrifices.  And yeah that means autocracies and dictatorships are going to be the most prone to this, but it's a limited pool and everyone's been watching.  

The terrorism angle is horrifying, but it's been almost an inevitability since anyone decided to go through with building the bomb.  

[Jen'ari]

2 hours ago, felice said:

Modern nuclear weapons can be two orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones used on Japan. I'm not sure if the fallout is proportionately greater or longer lasting.

I've no idea either, I know the explosion can be of a far greater magnitude, I'm not sure if the amount of radiation would be linked to the amount of radioactive material used or not?.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

23 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

The thing is though, that as far as getting a nuke goes, only nations who are on a superpowers shit list or have limited allies are going to go bother going nuclear - it's not worth the sanctions.  I don't think we'll see anymore nations like say Israel or India or Pakistan covertly developing them, because there are too many financial negatives for doing so.  It'll be (and i hate this term) rogue states like Iran or NK who pursue this as a last ditch effort at security where diplomacy has failed or total alienation is a likely outcome.  

I can't see the UN security council allowing Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Japan, or South Korea, to develop a nuclear program (unless Trump just decides to give away nukes next Christmas).  What's the angle for anyone to allow this?  And these countries would need to torch major alliances and bear brutal sanctions to get there.  What's the upside for anyone? 

I feel like with modern tech and surveillance that anyone who wants to go nuclear is going to face a major uphill battle involving a lot of sacrifices.  And yeah that means autocracies and dictatorships are going to be the most prone to this, but it's a limited pool and everyone's been watching.  

The terrorism angle is horrifying, but it's been almost an inevitability since anyone decided to go through with building the bomb.  

One can hope for that, but I wouldn't be so sure. Especially not in a more multipolar world of the future. But even in recent times, China could have stopped North Korea from developing nukes had they really wanted to. Being able to strangle their economy in a matter of months as they are, by simply stopping the export of vital commodities to them with the flick of a switch. But China doesn't do that, because they still view North Korea as a useful (although very troublesome) opponent of the USA and its allies. 

Similar dynamics could play out in the case of other countries. Also, I am not certain at all about the USA being willing to harshly sanction its own allies to stop them from developing nukes, if push came to shove. 

[ants]

I would very much like Australia to develop nuclear weapons.  I think it is a major failing on our behalf.

And yes, I'm serious.  If Australia truly wants to be independently "safe", nuclear weapons are pretty much the only option.  

[Rippounet]

A few silly words after coming back from the pub (apologies for the drunk-posting)...

On 1/13/2020 at 3:33 PM, Jen'ari said:

6000 each? , absolutely no need for that kind of stockpile for a deterrent,

Indeed. A few dozen modern nuclear weapons are probably way enough to completely deter an attack. Once we talk about thousands we have:
i) Beyond MAD. MAD is the idea that you destroy your attacker. Beyond MAD is the idea that you destroy human civilisation in the process. The idea is to involve everyone in your geopolitics. It's actually quite efficient (it's why we pay attention to all conflicts involving nuclear powers).
ii) The military-industrial complex. Like all military weapons, nuclear weapons mean profit for some specific companies. Technically, MAD could work with rather old-ish weapons (say, Cold War-era weapons), but modernizing those means profits for some people.
iii) The cult of death. It's my own little pet theory. War, weapons, atomics... It's all part of a cult of death that humanity has. Humans are fascinated by death, and we're fascinated by the "ultimate" weapons. So yeah, that's "dick swinging" but with a much darker twist.

I'm tempted to say that nuclear weapons are a symptom rather than a cause, the symptom of humanity's incapability of being rational when it comes to conflict (among so many other things). If humans were rational, barely any nuclear weapons would have been made. Given how destructive these weapons are, a few dozen would be far enough to affect geopolitics in a positive way. But because we're apes we had to build thousands of these. It's nuts.

On a more pragmatic note: the situation today is more dangerous ("volatile") because unlike the Cold War era we have kinda forgotten the threat of nuclear weapons. They're still here, but we don't think much about them anymore. Hence public pressure on politicians or leaders to reject "first-strike" is at an all time low. Not to mention the fact that nationalism is on the rise again. That's not good.
And of course, you have the very ugly idea that there's too many humans anyway, and that nuclear winter might offset global warming. Yeah, it's a crazy idea, but we're a crazy species. Since we're obviously incapable of working on climate change, the odds of a strongman using nuclear weapons are greatly increased. For many it'll be a win-win situation: one enemy/rival less, fewer humans, a drop in temperature...
Point is, "superpowers" like the US, China, or the EU, will soon loose the incentive to prevent nuclear war in distant lands. And even if it's not-so-distant, the idea of "acceptable casualties" was always part of nuclear warfare. Once we hit +2°C, blowing up one's neighbor will seem far less scary if it potentially brings back temperatures to normal and saves agriculture.
But I hope I'm wrong and we're better than that.

[Gorn]

Haven't modern papers pretty much disproved the "nuclear winter" hypothesis? Even in the original scenario, it would only come about as a combination of multiple worst-case scenarios ("40 coin-tosses coming up heads").

[rotting sea cow]

On 1/13/2020 at 3:27 PM, Liffguard said:

 

Currently over 6000 each.

START II SORT  limits the number of  strategic warheads to 1700 - 2200 each. It doesn't say anything about the tactical warheads, which amount to these numbers

By strategic they mean the weapons that can reach the country soil without overseas deployment.