Is Nuclear War Inevitable?

[DogOnPorch]

2 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

The technical path already exists....platforms and nuclear weapons don't know if they are being launched by the Wicked Witch of the West or Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.   

What you are asking is a political question and feel good ruse for the masses.

 

 

I think...obviously...that America doesn't want a Little Mac in charge of strategic interests...where emotion rules over logic, etc. They've had several large mistakes to learn from to get this ingrained into the thinking. 

[Dougie93]

I just think people are delusional about politics being the bumbling clown show over here, and nuclear war being a completely separate universe over here, and never the two shall come together.

Not talking about Trump, but at permanent hair trigger alert, there's plenty of time for something to go wrong, and in historical terms, we haven't actually been sitting at hair trigger alert for that long, so could just be the salad days so far for all we know.

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

War is simply politics by other means, I don't need any feel goods, like you, I've been living under the shadow of it since childhood, got used to it a long time ago.

 

Agreed...I never worried about it.   It was like being on a starship and the Soviets were the Klingons. 

 

 

 

[Dougie93]

I started getting a wee bit worried when the Soviets went after the Rivet Joint and shot  down KAL 007 instead.   1983 was sketchy.

[Dougie93]

But to the topic, what I would say is more "Is nuclear war Inevitable if we remain on hair trigger alert forever"  to which I would say, yes. 

[bush_cheney2004]

6 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I just think people are delusional about politics being the bumbling clown show over here, and nuclear war being a completely separate universe over here, and never the two shall come together.

Not talking about Trump, but at permanent hair trigger alert, there's plenty of time for something to go wrong, and in historical terms, we haven't actually been sitting at hair trigger alert for that long, so could just be the salad days so far for all we know.

 

Again, the system is designed not to launch and warheads are designed not to arm unless a lot of actions are executed.  

In fact, it takes extra assets to compensate for reliability and operational degradation / failures.

It may be a hair trigger, but that hair is very thick.

 

[Dougie93]

1 minute ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Again, the system is designed not to launch and warheads are designed not to arm unless a lot of actions are executed.  

In fact, it takes extra assets to compensate for reliability and operational degradation / failures.

It may be a hair trigger, but that hair is very thick.

 

And in a crisis at the brink, they don't thin the hair out?  What is the notice to launch time at DEFCON 3?  What is it at DEFCON 2?

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

And in a crisis at the brink, they don't thin the hair out?  What is the notice to launch time at DEFCON 3?  What is it at DEFCON 2?

 

I don't know now, and even if I did, I don't want a visit from the FBI.

Strategic nuclear assets are said to be on "alert" or not, regardless of DEFCON level.

 

[Dougie93]

lol.  Copy that.

[Dougie93]

You know the thing that makes thermonuclear bombs more dangerous or less dangerous is not really the yield, so much as it is a function of the make up of the warhead and how it is employed.

So you can have  "clean" thermonuclear bomb and employ it in way that generates almost no nuclear fallout at all, and you can have a "dirty" thermonuclear bomb which maximizes nuclear fallout, airburst neotron bomb at the cleanest end of the spectrum, low detonated Operation Red Wings style super dirty bombs at the other.

It's all about how much uranium you build into the warhead or not, and how high you detonate it or not.

Hence a 100 kiloton dirty profile is exponentially more destructive than a 50 megaton air burst without uranium casing.

 

[DogOnPorch]

1 hour ago, Dougie93 said:

You know the thing that makes thermonuclear bombs more dangerous or less dangerous is not really the yield, so much as it is a function of the make up of the warhead and how it is employed.

So you can have  "clean" thermonuclear bomb and employ it in way that generates almost no nuclear fallout at all, and you can have a "dirty" thermonuclear bomb which maximizes nuclear fallout, airburst neotron bomb at the cleanest end of the spectrum, low detonated Operation Red Wings style super dirty bombs at the other.

It's all about how much uranium you build into the warhead or not, and how high you detonate it or not.

Hence a 100 kiloton dirty profile is exponentially more destructive than a 50 megaton air burst without uranium casing.

 

 

The B41 developed from Redwing has to be one of the scariest weapons actually deployed (1961-68). Both clean and dirty versions. City buster, indeed!

NukeMap (see initial post) gives a good reading on the differences between air and surface bursts....including casualty predictions.

As was discovered in testing, air bursts produce a reflected shock wave besides the original, making what is called a Mach Stem...very destructive...exponentially. 

MIRVs allowed several small air bursts to create multiple Mach Stems effectively outperforming single larger weapons.

Edited January 13, 2019 by DogOnPorch

[Dougie93]

57 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

The B41 developed from Redwing has to be one of the scariest weapons actually deployed (1961-68). Both clean and dirty versions. City buster, indeed!

NukeMap (see initial post) gives a good reading on the differences between air and surface bursts....including casualty predictions.

As was discovered in testing, air bursts produce a reflected shock wave besides the original, making what is called a Mach Stem...very destructive...exponentially. 

MIRVs allowed several small air bursts to create multiple Mach Stems effectively outperforming single larger weapons.

This is also why the Americans continue to pursue counterforce, and as a result are in my opinion at some point comeback to the neutron bomb to replace the current countervalue inventory and go to super counterforce only.

I would guess the Russians will respond by trying to make themselves look scarier and go in the other direction to Red Wings over the CONUS as their deterrent leverage.

[Dougie93]

See, the ultimate purpose is not actually to kill people, the actual target is the industrial capacity and resources of the adversary state, because in many and most cases for America, said adversary is going to be despotic and so does not care if you kill their people, they only care if you destroy their capacity to wage war.

Problem then being that the industrial wastage and resource contamination along with associated radioactive plume, will simply come back to rain down on the Global Hegemon by default.

Ergo; in extremis with backs against the wall, you instead target the population which is upholding the adversary regime, without the fallout, as part of a super counterforce option to take the adversary regime down, but do it "clean" instead of "dirty"

Thus, the neutron bomb.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

This is why the Neoconservatives are right and why they fled the Democrat Party in the first place.

In that the Balance of Terror is not balanced, MAD is utopian and as a result fatally flawed, as in order for mutual vulnerability to be actual mutual, both sides in the conflict must be democratic, as if the population has no say, they cannot respond to your countervalue deterrence, furthermore despotic regimes are not rational actors, as despotism is ultimately irrational unto itself.

[Dougie93]

Thus, in order to actually deter Mister Ivan, America must seek Full Spectrum Dominance to render it a totally unfair fight where America holds all the cards and can back it up with a super counterforce which is not only credible, but an unassailable over match which Ivan wouldn't want to mess with even if he was backs against a wall, because it would be massively incoming and minimally outgoing for his regime.

I refer to this as the Curtis LeMay Doctrine, otherwise expressed as Peace Through Strength.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Dougie93

[DogOnPorch]

17 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

This is why the Neoconservatives are right and why they fled the Democrat Party in the first place.

In that the Balance of Terror is not balanced, MAD is utopian and as a result fatally flawed, as in order for mutual vulnerability to be actual mutual, both sides in the conflict must be democratic, as if the population has no say, they cannot respond to your countervalue deterrence, furthermore despotic regimes are not rational actors, as despotism is ultimately irrational unto itself.

 

I do think MAD is wearing thin. I'm not as confident that Islam would be deterred by such a notion seeing that cult's ultimate goal is to achieve paradise. Committing such an act of Jihad would mean a fast track to Muhammad's table in the hereafter...no matter if you lived or died in the resulting exchange...or died later of radiation poisoning. Allah's works have been done.

[Dougie93]

44 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

I do think MAD is wearing thin. I'm not as confident that Islam would be deterred by such a notion seeing that cult's ultimate goal is to achieve paradise. Committing such an act of Jihad would mean a fast track to Muhammad's table in the hereafter...no matter if you lived or died in the resulting exchange...or died later of radiation poisoning. Allah's works have been done.

I think deterrence will hold despite the asymmetry,, but technological displacement will force them to go to ever higher levels of readiness to be able to respond to increasing counterforce capabilities until such time as there is a crisis, wherein in the crisis the Russians have a false alarm and then launch on false warning,

[DogOnPorch]

2 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

I think deterrence will hold despite the asymmetry,, but technological displacement will force them to go to ever higher levels of readiness to be able to respond to increasing counterforce capabilities until such time as there is a crisis, wherein in the crisis the Russians have a false alarm and then launch on false warning,

 

I think...like BC alludes to...that within 20-25 years, some rogue Islamic actor will be given access through some method and take out a city. Tel Aviv is the safe money. But, you know...Memphis would also suffice. 

[DogOnPorch]

And here's another scary beast...still in front-line service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile)

Huge throw weight...much more than US equivalents. Ten 750 kt MIRVs or one big MF 20 megaton cracker.

If anything gives Russia First Strike capability, it's this critter.

 

[Dougie93]

15 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

I think...like BC alludes to...that within 20-25 years, some rogue Islamic actor will be given access through some method and take out a city. Tel Aviv is the safe money. But, you know...Memphis would also suffice. 

That islamo bomb could be targeted at Russia as well, at which point, if the Russians have Dead Hand activated at the time, the Dead Hand sensor network will detect a nuclear detonation, and that will incite launch on warning autonomously without any human intervention at all.

[Dougie93]

And as to the R-36 Voyevoda, IIRC, that is now being replaced by a new liquid fueled heavy ICBM which will be even more capable, called the RS-28 Sarmat.

[DogOnPorch]

The US has ERCS so it is highly probable that Dead Hand is still in use. I mean...why not, eh?

[DogOnPorch]

The Russians ultimately need to get a proper solid fuel BM for their submarines. That mixing of dangerous hypergolic chemicals...combined with dubious reactors...has got to make the average Russkie boomer a Hell hole waiting to happen.

[Dougie93]

Dead Hand is so scary even the Russians don't leave it on all the time, they would only turn it on in a crisis.

So, if you are an Islamo nuclear bomber,  and you want to totally destroy America, you wait for a nuclear stand off, then you hit Russia not America, and then Dead Hand does the rest, your single small bomb incites the Russian survivable second strike system to destroy the CONUS with the full weight of the Russian deterrent force.

[DogOnPorch]

And for the math challenged: One single 20 megaton warhead equals 1333 Hiroshimas in one Earth shattering KABOOM.

Edited January 14, 2019 by DogOnPorch