Nuclear Weapons

[helolumpy]

This would actually have the opposite intention I believe. Instead of Iran or North Korea wanting to develop several hundred they will now want to build several thousand as well mainly to surpass us.

If we were to announce that we only had 10 nuclear weapons, wouldn’t that actually inspire Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-il to start bulding more? If they felt they could become a nuclear peer, wouldn’t they try???

What has the United States done beside confirm what everyone suspected; we have a sh!t-load of nukes. Right now we have over 5K that we can launch immediately. Give me a couple of days and we can have a bunch more!

Iran is struggling to attain its first nuke and you’re thinking their goal is to become a nuclear peer? Iran wants nukes so it can become the world power its government feels it should be. They do not want to just dominate the Gulf region, they want to be a world player. They also want to ensure that is Israel were to attack Iran, the response would involve a mushroom cloud. Getting a nuke will give them a seat at the 'Adult Table', so its their goal.

North Korea already has nukes but does not have the capital to produce weapons on a scale to rival the United States. So while they can develop nukes, they do not have the capability to come up to our level.

So, what have we done and why have we done it? The President has stated his goal is a nuclear free world. An admirable goal, but probably unrealistic. If the U.S. wants to continue to wear the white hat and portray ourselves as the good guy, then its beneficial to take the first step and bring these topics out into the open. We’ve now done this, the jury is still out. Let’s see what other nuclear powers do now that we’ve let the other players see what’s in our hand.

So everyone now knows we have 5113 nukes; so what? And other than the occasional ‘oopsie’ moment involving Air Force load teams, we know where they all are.
The bigger fear is how many nukes does the Former Soviet Union have and do they know what they all aire???

 

[Jim123]

They would be bankrupt long before they got there, nukes are not a cheap or easy endeavor.

^^^

The Soviets pulled a fast one on us in the 1950s with the "Bomber gap." I always thought we turned around and beat them at their own game in the 1980s with SDI, because they believed it and basically spent themselves into bankruptcy. More or less...

 

[twobecrazy]

They would be bankrupt long before they got there, nukes are not a cheap or easy endeavor.

I concur. I am still relatively young and a bunch will change from now until the time they will have accumulated a significant quantity. I just believe something’s we should just keep our mouths shut about and this was one of them.

 

[squorch2]

I just believe something’s we should just keep our mouths shut about and this was one of them.

Any particular logic to your unassailable position?

 

[Brett327]

I concur. I am still relatively young and a bunch will change from now until the time they will have accumulated a significant quantity. I just believe something’s we should just keep our mouths shut about and this was one of them.

Disclosures of this type are written into arms reduction treaties to which we are signatories, so we're really just abiding by the specifications of international agreements which have been ratified by the Sennate. It's part of that whole transparency thing which allowed us and the Soviets to build enough trust so that we could mutually pull back from the brink in the 80s. Read up on the SALT and START series treaties if you want to understand the big picture involved here.

Brett
(underway)

 

[twobecrazy]

Disclosures of this type are written into arms reduction treaties to which we are signatories, so we're really just abiding by the specifications of international agreements which have been ratified by the Sennate. It's part of that whole transparency thing which allowed us and the Soviets to build enough trust so that we could mutually pull back from the brink in the 80s. Read up on the SALT and START series treaties if you want to understand the big picture involved here.

Brett
(underway)

Roger WILCO.


Edit:
It seems you are spot on with your response. This was a result of the "New SMART" treaty that was recently agreed upon but has yet been through the Senate. However, the article makes only a small mentioning of this in the last few sentences. My understanding of this changes my view as we are not releasing actual numbers but rather setting a level for our numbers to be reduced to with another approximation of how many nukes we have deployable. Since I have been out of the military I must have forgot how bad the news is with reporting. I should not have been obtuse and researched the subject matter. Reading a news article to satisfy my understanding would have flagged me in the past and I wouldn’t have just taken their word for it.
I apologize.

 

[twobecrazy]

Any particular logic to your unassailable position?

I always thought of it as playing a hand of poker. What I believe this did was put us "all in" while showing are cards which I didn't believe anyone would ever do. However, this is probably due to my limited knowledge concerning arms reduction treaties. I am going to adhere to Brett's recommendation to gain a larger understanding of the subject matter.

 

[PerDiem]

"We've got about 2600 more than anybody else, whatever."

Hahaha. YES!!!

"But I'm le tiirrreeeddd."

 

[Swanee]

Hahaha. YES!!!

"But I'm le tiirrreeeddd."

"Fucking Kangaroos..."

 

[jtmedli]

The U.S. announced today it has 5113 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. This is one of the dumbest things the leadership of this country has done in my opinion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100503/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_nuclear_weapons

I really don't think it matters when 20 of them going off would pretty much throw us into Nuclear Winter. All that tells me is that we have more than enough to kill everything on the planet. 'nuff said for me.

 

[SkywardET]

With nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence it's never really about having "more than enough to blow up the world," and so forth. It's about accountability, not for us, but for nations who are concerned with the number of nuclear weapons we have. If they can't account for all of our weapons, they will always retain a level of uncertainty in their decision calculus that must be made up for with better intelligence.

Granted, with several thousand we will likely never be at risk of all of them being compromised simultaneously. Additionally, even knowing the total numbers does not yield their locations, so accountability is still required on the part of potential nuclear adversaries. In conclusion, this isn't such a big deal.

This issue has nothing to do with Iran whatsoever. Nuclear deterrence either works or does not work almost independent of the number of weapons involved. Simply knowing that America has "hundreds or thousands" creates the deterrent. Whether it works or not is entirely dependent upon the decision calculus of the leadership of Iran, or any given country to be deterred.

 

[PhrogLoop]

I always thought of it as playing a hand of poker. What I believe this did was put us "all in" while showing are cards which I didn't believe anyone would ever do. However, this is probably due to my limited knowledge concerning arms reduction treaties. I am going to adhere to Brett's recommendation to gain a larger understanding of the subject matter.

+1 for taking the comments for the constructive criticism that they were. We've seen too many AW pissing matches recently...thankfully this didn't become one. Nicely played!

 

[zpatman]

I'm just spitballing here but i can't remember where i saw the number, but we have enough in our nuclear arsenal to blow up all human life about 20 times over? That number boggles the mind

 

[P3 F0]

I really don't think it matters when 20 of them going off would pretty much throw us into Nuclear Winter. All that tells me is that we have more than enough to kill everything on the planet. 'nuff said for me.

I think people have a strange view of nukes. Show me something that says 20 (for the sake of argument, I'll say 20-kt) bombs will produce something even approaching a nuclear winter? I'm guessing you could probably sprinkle fifty nukes around the US and not have to worry about something like that. When you start getting into the thousands, like you see in War Games, then it's a concern. Heck, look at Mt Eyjafjallajokull and how much ash that's pumping out. We're in no danger of any kind of nuclear or atmospheric winter.

You have to worry about radiation clouds, but the radiation fallout hazard for a sophisticated nuke that burns most/all of its fuel will reduce to next to nothing within a couple weeks.

twobecrazy, the amount of nukes is nothing. Did you know Russia can come over here any old time and take pictures from their airplane over any part of the US? Area 51, White Sands, the White House, you name it. If you're already white-knuckling over nuke numbers, that should make you sleep well tonight. Welcome to the world of Diplomacy.

 

[helolumpy]

The treaty that P3 FO is speaking of is Open Skies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies