Nuclear weapons

[rotting sea cow]

4 hours ago, Gorn said:

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").

One of the things that bothers me is that the apocalyptic scenarios often focus on the nuclear winter, short and long term effects of radiation, etc but barely they touch what it would mean for countries, societies, governments the sudden disappearance of countries, production chain, international commerce and service, etc.

Imagine if you are living in South America, New Zealand or South Africa (I leave Australia out because it has a quite good chance of getting nuked too). You will receive delayed effects of radiation and nuclear winter. However, the international system just collapsed meaning that you cannot export or import anything meaning that some of your most productive sectors are now worthless. You may find yourself short of critical products for your populations, including foodstuff, fuel, medicines, machinery, communications, etc. It is highly likely that famine and disease will affect these countries too as well as their capability to respond to further threats natural and man-made. 

 

[Rippounet]

4 hours ago, Gorn said:

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").

The "40 coin-tosses coming up heads" bit dates back to 1986 I believe.

Nuclear winter was always controversial. For starters it's based on computer model(s) which in turn are based on a number of assumptions or hypotheses, so it's easy to reject the conclusion by attacking these assumptions or hypotheses. Which many people would want to do since the theory pretty much made nuclear weapons un-usable, thus undermining MAD and nuclear deterrence altogether.
Conversely, nuclear winter was also a way to back pacifism with scientific arguments. It's a moral stance as much as it is a scientific theory. Just think about Sagan's famous quote:
"Imagine a room awash in gasoline. And there are two implacable enemies in that room, one of them has nine thousand matches, the other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned with who's ahead, who's stronger. Well, that's the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the US and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other that if it weren't so tragic it would be laughable."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYMLq7NY_M

So no, "modern papers" haven't disproved nuclear winter any more than old ones. The scientific debate has raged on to this day. It's commonly accepted that the original studies were too pessimistic and that one could talk of "nuclear autumn" rather than "nuclear winter." But the core theory, that a nuclear war would lead to some "global cooling" remains rather solid. It's by nature difficult to prove or disprove, but volcanic cooling being incontrovertible I'd take any paper "disproving" nuclear winter with a lot of salt...

Edit: also, we're now talking about stratospheric aerosol injection to mitigate climate change...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/geoengineering-treatment-stratospheric-aerosol-injection-climate-change-study-today-2018-11-23/

[A True Kaniggit]

On 1/15/2020 at 8:20 PM, Rippounet said:

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

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.

I think the rationale for having more than a few dozen is to ensure that an enemy first strike is incapable of destroying said deterrent. If you only have a few dozen nukes, then they better be spread out among a few boomers, so that they can't be taken out all at once.

That's why MAD means each side having thousands. If you get to a low enough number, one side may start to think a first strike to destroy a majority of the opposition's arsenal is achievable. Even if they lose a few cities in the process.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I think the rationale for having more than a few dozen is to ensure that an enemy first strike is incapable of destroying said deterrent. If you only have a few dozen nukes, then they better be spread out among a few boomers, so that they can't be taken out all at once.

That's why MAD means each side having thousands. If you get to a low enough number, one side may start to think a first strike to destroy a majority of the opposition's arsenal is achievable. Even if they lose a few cities in the process.

I'm familiar with the rationale, I just think it's bullshit.

Honestly, the "first strike" hypothesis was always a scare tactic used by hawks to engage in the dick-swinging contest.
It might have been credible if there was ever a point in time when nuclear weapons were exclusively delivered via fixed ICBMs... But if you think about it, was there even ever such a point in time? The development of the triad as well as MIRVs threw any "first strike" theory out of the window.
And that's all assuming you don't think tactical nukes can act as a deterrent anyway (which honestly doesn't make sense if you're a sensible human being). If the "first strike" theory died with SLBMs or MIRVs, the cruise missile buried it so deep it's got to be close to Earth's core by now.

But yeah, of course, if you have fewer warheads they have to be spread on multiple delivery vehicles. That's deterrence 101.

[A True Kaniggit]

Just now, Rippounet said:

I'm familiar with the rationale, I just think it's bullshit.

Honestly, the "first strike" hypothesis was always a scare tactic used by hawks to engage in the dick-swinging contest.
It might have been credible if there was ever a point in time when nuclear weapons were exclusively delivered via fixed ICBMs... But if you think about it, was there even ever such a point in time? The development of the triad as well as MIRVs threw any "first strike" theory out of the window.
And that's all assuming you don't think tactical nukes can act as a deterrent anyway (which honestly doesn't make sense if you're a sensible human being). If the "first strike" theory died with SLBMs or MIRVs, the cruise missile buried it so deep it's got to be close to Earth's core by now.
 

The triad is what? Silos, aircraft, and subs. (Look people! I know more than the president of the US of A! (not saying much.)).

Israel has what, 50, 150 (I can't remember which.)?

Yes, for the region that is a deterrent.  Are any sub launched? Are any actually capable of hitting the Americas?

[A True Kaniggit]

Oh. To be clear. I would love a world with no nukes. I live within 15 miles of a high priority target.

 

Edit: Ya'll remember this fun incident? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

Seems appropriate for the nuclear weapons thread.

 

[Rippounet]

23 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Israel has what, 50, 150 (I can't remember which.)?

Yes, for the region that is a deterrent.  Are any sub launched? Are any actually capable of hitting the Americas?

Not sure what your point is. Mine is that you don't need huge quantities (i.e. thousands) of warheads to have a second-strike capability (and thus a good  deterrent).

Israel could have a mere 50 warheads and not be seriously afraid of "first strike" as long as those warheads are spread on various modern delivery systems (SLBMs/SLCMs, a mix of bombs/cruise missiles, a few ballistic missiles... ) over a significant geographical area to ensure they are not destroyed in a surprise attack.

In actuality Israel could have as many as 300 warheads, and -among other things- they have SLCMs based on about half-a-dozen Dolphin class electric-diesel submarines. They can't really hit anything in the Americas, but why would they want to?
This NYT article has a few nice maps:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/07/world/asia/north-korea-missile-proliferation-range-intercontinental-iran-pakistan-india.html

[A True Kaniggit]

12 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Not sure what your point is. Mine is that you don't need huge quantities (i.e. thousands) of warheads to have a second-strike capability (and thus a good  deterrent).

Israel could have a mere 50 warheads and not be seriously afraid of "first strike" as long as those warheads are spread on various modern delivery systems (SLBMs/SLCMs, a mix of bombs/cruise missiles, a few ballistic missiles... ) over a significant geographical area to ensure they are not destroyed in a surprise attack.

In actuality Israel could have as many as 300 warheads, and -among other things- they have SLCMs based on about half-a-dozen Dolphin class electric-diesel submarines. They can't really hit anything in the Americas, but why would they want to?
This NYT article has a few nice maps:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/07/world/asia/north-korea-missile-proliferation-range-intercontinental-iran-pakistan-india.html

The point is, that's not MAD.

A few dozen nukes isn't enough of a second strike to stave off some loony who wants to destroy you forever. I mean, the USA has over 300 cities with 100,000 people or more. 

Some loony may think a couple dozen cities is worth completely annihilating an opponent.

[Rippounet]

7 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

The point is, that's not MAD.

A few dozen nukes isn't enough of a second strike to stave off some loony who wants to destroy you forever. I mean, the USA has over 300 cities with 100,000 people or more. 

You think one needs to be able to nuke USA's 300 large cities to stave off a US attack?
I would think that being able to nuke USA's 10 largest cities (1M inhabitants or more) and cause about 20M casualties would be enough to deter a US president from doing anything foolish...

But yes, that's not technically MAD. Given that the US has a huge territory with many large cities, it is a country that's particularly difficult to annihilate. But then, I don't think you need to be able to annihilate to deter. That's precisely the kind of perspective that I associate with "dick-swinging" or a "cult of death." Because honestly, any US president that would see 20 million casualties as "acceptable" would be a madman in my book.
And most countries are way easier to annihilate than the US.
 

[A True Kaniggit]

13 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

1) You think one needs to be able to nuke USA's 300 large cities to stave off a US attack?
 

2)Because honestly, any US president that would see 20 million casualties as "acceptable" would be a madman in my book.

1) Negative

2) Yes, a loony. As I've mentioned.

I've only been using my own country as an example, because the only other comparable country would be Russia.

My initial reply was to your statement that a few dozen nukes is enough of a deterrent for anyone.

But to countries like the USA or Russia, a few dozen wouldn't mean crap if there was some loony in charge. Especially if they thought they could destroy the majority of these few dozen nukes in a first strike.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

My initial reply was to your statement that a few dozen nukes is enough of a deterrent for anyone.
But to countries like the USA or Russia, a few dozen wouldn't mean crap if there was some loony in charge.

Actually, IIRC strategic planning during the Cold War saw Russia as easy to "annihilate" because the population was concentrated on about 1/4th (perhaps even 1/5th, can't remember exactly) of the territory.
The US was really the one country that required lotsa nukes to wipe out. Of course today we'd have to look at China or India as well (my knowledge is rather outdated I must confess).

I also view the "madman" argument as somewhat circular. If you think you need tons of nukes to deter madmen then you yourself build more nukes and become harder to deter... That's pretty much how arms races get started. Except nuclear deterrence, pretty much by definition, requires the assumption that you're dealing with an opponent who will be rational enough to be deterred in the first place.
What you're saying here is basically "what if there's a loony that can only be deterred with lotsa nukes." But the existence of such a specific madman is rather hypothetical to say the least. And no offense, but I'd say you're the one who ends up effectively arguing that a few dozen nukes inflicting millions of casualties are not enough of a deterrent... 
In my eyes that's precisely the type of thinking that led us to building thousands of these weapons... If you go down that road you quickly end up with a Strangelovian nuclear doctrine...

Edit: To clarify, I'm not blaming you for such "thinking" because it lies at the heart of the very principle of nuclear deterrence in the first place. "MAD" is the idea that your opponent is enough of a madman to use nuclear weapons (the most powerful and horrible weapons in existence) against you, but rational enough to be deterred from doing so if your counter-attack can destroy them.
In a nutshell there's a kind of doublethink involved... To believe in MAD you must yourself be rational enough to seek to prevent aggression... By being crazy enough to answer such aggression with mutual destruction.
And you're assuming that your opponent has a kind of doublethink of their own.
If you think about it it's nuts, for the simple reason that such thinking involves preventing a catastrophic nuclear exchange by starting the very chain of events that increases the odds of it happening.
A different way of putting it is that you theoretically decrease the odds of nuclear war by increasing its stakes.
I think it's best not to speculate on the existence of madmen/loonies at all.

My position would be the very opposite. It's not enough to be rational, you also need to assume the opponent is rational as well ; deterrence requires rationality anyway. And if you do that you only need a few dozen nukes.
And if a madman does come along, well at least he'll only have a few dozen nukes to threaten people with...

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

A few dozen nukes is quite little. Make it a few hundred though and you basically have China's nuclear doctrine. Their rationale is basically that, as long as they don't directly threaten the US mainland, even a minor nuclear retaliation should be sufficient to deter the USA from iniating a nuclear exchange in protection of its allies in the Pacific.

Regardless of what US presidents may threaten with or promise, China thinks that if it really comes down to it, the US isn't all that likely to sacrifice multiple large cities for the sake of a country like Taiwan. So then it is better to spend money on achieving conventional military superiority than building a larger nuclear arsenal. 

A kind of similar dynamic was in play in Europe during the Cold War. The USA's threats of responding to a conventional invasion of Western Europe with nuclear weapons were always viewed as a bit iffy. So in order to discourage anyone from calling that bluff, NATO had to build up enough conventional forces in Western Europe to theoretically win a war against the Warsaw Pact without either side going nuclear. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SerHaHa]

Interesting threat, Rippounet, I've had many similar thoughts and opinions to your posts.  One thing I've always thought about regarding "nuclear winter" - there have been well over a thousand nuclear weapons tests since 1945, most of the ending decades ago (above ground ones at least) due to various non proliferation treaties.  Some of those warheads were ridiculously large in terms of yield, such as the various hydrogen bombs and the Soviet Tsar Bomba.  Yet, the world marches on sans nuclear winter. 

Regarding Israel's nuclear weapons, they have some pretty spun up short and medium range ballistic missiles, I refuse to believe these are all armed only with conventional warheads - they have a triad of their own, with gravity/cruise missile aircraft launched weapons, the aforementioned Dolphin air independent propulsion subs, likely armed with a modified Popeye missile  (add on turbofan kit for an estimated 1000 mile range at high subsonic speeds) with a mid100s kt warhead.  Israel absolutely has a pretty strong second strike capability, those AIP subs have small crews and a pretty large logistics tail, and can likely stay out at sea for a couple of months at slow speeds loitering after they sortie.  Very, very quiet and hard to detect as well.

I read a really interesting book about the supposed Israel/South Africa joint nuclear weapons program, the "Vela incident", and the possibility that Israel greatly increased its nuclear weapons stockpile beyond what the USA likely "gave" them decades ago.

Japan of all countries has made noises recently about spinning up a nuclear weapons program, due to tensions with China, and China's massive rearmament and modernization programs.  Japan.  Crazy times.  They could do it too, they have the tech and nuclear capability to spin up piles of centrifuges/etc and weaponize nuclear material in a matter of months probably.  With their own subs, and an F35 capable carrier, they could deliver them too, without any land based ballistic systems. 

Here in Canada, I grew up on air force bases, and as an elementary student in the 70s and 80s, I remember doing the duck and cover drills, as well as the race to the underground survival bunker that was underneath our school gymnasium.  Different times - as the OP mentioned in the opening paragraph...not all of us have forgotten, believe me.  One base I was at was the primary alternate for B52s from Minot, should their home base eat a warhead or two in an exchange, and we somehow didn't have one launched at us (unlikely, but that was the theory).  Canada had US nuclear weapons stored at some of our bases back then (none now however, not for a long time).  Canada also had the Genie air to air missile for our Voodoo fighters which had a 1.5kt nuclear warhead, and our Bomarc SAMs had nuclear warheads as well.  I can understand why Australians would consider wanting nuclear weapons right now, and I can also understand why some would not. 

[all swedes are racist]

give the dolphins a nuke

[A True Kaniggit]

23 minutes ago, george jar jar martin said:

give the dolphins a nuke

Dolphins don't need nukes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnohhGCNLJs

 

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

On ‎1‎/‎17‎/‎2020 at 8:47 AM, A True Kaniggit said:

Oh. To be clear. I would love a world with no nukes. I live within 15 miles of a high priority target.

 

Edit: Ya'll remember this fun incident? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

Seems appropriate for the nuclear weapons thread.

 

I don't worry about them nearly as much as I should considering I work in Midtown Manhattan and would be incinerated in a fraction of the time it takes me to blink.

[maarsen]

On 1/19/2020 at 11:22 PM, SerHaHa said:

Interesting threat, Rippounet, I've had many similar thoughts and opinions to your posts.  One thing I've always thought about regarding "nuclear winter" - there have been well over a thousand nuclear weapons tests since 1945, most of the ending decades ago (above ground ones at least) due to various non proliferation treaties.  Some of those warheads were ridiculously large in terms of yield, such as the various hydrogen bombs and the Soviet Tsar Bomba.  Yet, the world marches on sans nuclear winter. 

Regarding Israel's nuclear weapons, they have some pretty spun up short and medium range ballistic missiles, I refuse to believe these are all armed only with conventional warheads - they have a triad of their own, with gravity/cruise missile aircraft launched weapons, the aforementioned Dolphin air independent propulsion subs, likely armed with a modified Popeye missile  (add on turbofan kit for an estimated 1000 mile range at high subsonic speeds) with a mid100s kt warhead.  Israel absolutely has a pretty strong second strike capability, those AIP subs have small crews and a pretty large logistics tail, and can likely stay out at sea for a couple of months at slow speeds loitering after they sortie.  Very, very quiet and hard to detect as well.

I read a really interesting book about the supposed Israel/South Africa joint nuclear weapons program, the "Vela incident", and the possibility that Israel greatly increased its nuclear weapons stockpile beyond what the USA likely "gave" them decades ago.

Japan of all countries has made noises recently about spinning up a nuclear weapons program, due to tensions with China, and China's massive rearmament and modernization programs.  Japan.  Crazy times.  They could do it too, they have the tech and nuclear capability to spin up piles of centrifuges/etc and weaponize nuclear material in a matter of months probably.  With their own subs, and an F35 capable carrier, they could deliver them too, without any land based ballistic systems. 

Here in Canada, I grew up on air force bases, and as an elementary student in the 70s and 80s, I remember doing the duck and cover drills, as well as the race to the underground survival bunker that was underneath our school gymnasium.  Different times - as the OP mentioned in the opening paragraph...not all of us have forgotten, believe me.  One base I was at was the primary alternate for B52s from Minot, should their home base eat a warhead or two in an exchange, and we somehow didn't have one launched at us (unlikely, but that was the theory).  Canada had US nuclear weapons stored at some of our bases back then (none now however, not for a long time).  Canada also had the Genie air to air missile for our Voodoo fighters which had a 1.5kt nuclear warhead, and our Bomarc SAMs had nuclear warheads as well.  I can understand why Australians would consider wanting nuclear weapons right now, and I can also understand why some would not. 

I recall the Bomarc missiles in Canada being nuclear capable but Diefenbaker wouldn't allow nuclear war heads to be installed. Considering that he cancelled the Avro Arrow to pay for them was one reason he got turfed from office. 

[TheNecromancerofMirkwood]

On 1/13/2020 at 4:29 PM, 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.

Thing is the initial thermal pulse (the fireball) is only going to get up to about 1.5-2.5km at the very most (still gonna suck, but its not like a 20km fireball). People usually don't understand that nuclear weapons simply don't scale the way they think since a 1mT bomb isn't really 1000% stronger than a 1kT tactical bomb. Its why they developed the MIRV instead of going the Tsar Bomba route. Sure, the hurricane force winds and other associated secondary effects can reach outwards of 30km from ground zero (on perfectly flat terrain). Of course, fallout spread depends on the detonation: ground bursts create lots of fallout while air bursts not nearly as much.

Given where I live in the US, it doesn't matter if its a 500-device exchange or a 2000-device exchange (IIRC, those are the 2 basic scenarios put out by FEMA), I'm dead. I live close enough to 7 bullseyes, including a hub airport only a mile away. However, it would be nice if the USGov and the rest scaled down to about 300 devices (which is more than enough to wipe out large scale military forces and targets of any nation-state that currently exists). 

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 1/15/2020 at 5:39 PM, ants said:

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.  

I’m curious to your rationale for such a stance.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 1/16/2020 at 7:50 AM, Rippounet said:

 

Edit: also, we're now talking about stratospheric aerosol injection to mitigate climate change...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/geoengineering-treatment-stratospheric-aerosol-injection-climate-change-study-today-2018-11-23/

 Oh my......

I hope they only proceed with diligence and an abundance of caution. I could foresee some possible scary, unintended consequences from that proposal. What if it makes conditions worse for one area of population while better for another area? We're now in a very grey area of picking winners and losers, not very comfortable to imagine.