Trump wants more nukes

[imported_tajmahal]

Ahh the left is again showing us its true colors.

Its ok if Iran, China, Russia, anyone that hates America works on getting better, more modern nukes. But if the USA does it, we are terrible evil people.

Yes, and President-elect Trump tosses out a Twitter rabbit and the howling pack of leftists spends a week running after it.

 

[Commodus]

Ahh the left is again showing us its true colors.

Its ok if Iran, China, Russia, anyone that hates America works on getting better, more modern nukes. But if the USA does it, we are terrible evil people.

No, we're not saying that it's okay. Please don't put words in our mouths (also: Iran doesn't have nukes, to the best of our knowledge).

The point: the correct answer is always nuclear disarmament. These are weapons that at best commit large-scale atrocities with long-term environmental effects, and at worst end human civilization. Maybe keep something as a deterrent, but you won't get to the goal of zero nukes by building more of them and making other countries feel as if they have to "keep up." The US has nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons as of March 2016; what's the point of having even one hundredth of that amount?

 

[IronWing]

Ahh the left is again showing us its true colors.

Its ok if Iran, China, Russia, anyone that hates America works on getting better, more modern nukes. But if the USA does it, we are terrible evil people.

It is Trump who is promoting nukes for everybody.

 

[IronWing]

No, we're not saying that it's okay. Please don't put words in our mouths (also: Iran doesn't have nukes, to the best of our knowledge).

The point: the correct answer is always nuclear disarmament. These are weapons that at best commit large-scale atrocities with long-term environmental effects, and at worst end human civilization. Maybe keep something as a deterrent, but you won't get to the goal of zero nukes by building more of them and making other countries feel as if they have to "keep up." The US has nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons as of March 2016; what's the point of having even one hundredth of that amount?

Quick history lesson:

Q: How many nukes did it take to get Stalin to back down from a threat of overrunning western Europe at the end of WW2?

A: Two. That was all that the U.S. had and Stalin knew it.

 

[pcgeek11]

That's really not quite right. While submarine and silo based weapons are of course important (nuclear triad) using planes with gravity bombs - albeit with some GPS correction ability - is certainly a part of nuclear weapon delivery scenarios for the US and Russia.

In fact delivery systems from planes are currently being enhanced to be higher precision drops allowing lower yield to be used. This has been touted as a "safer" use of nuclear bombs, though some fear making them "safer" also enhances the likelihood they will be used. Using a 50Kt bomb sure sounds a lot less nutty than a 1Mt weapon on paper I guess.

You could do the same with submarine and silo launched weapons and without the danger of losing an airplane and crew.

 

[pcgeek11]

The U.S. backed away from MIRVs for the land based missiles in the 90s. MIRVs are great for nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies but are a handicap when you only want to nuke a single target.

You obviously know little about triangulation and air burst on a single target.

All of the submarine based ballistics Tridents have MIRVs. Granted I know nothing much about the land based weapons. I don't see how they can be a handicap.

 

[theeedude]

How much money will we have to spend to compensate for Trump's inadequacy?

 

[pcgeek11]

You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

But America should know that. This is the country founded on bloodshed and violence and they have kept that lifestyle going after 300+ years.

Oh right ... spreading Democracy through peace and love and all that ...

Not too good at math are we?

2016 - 1776 = 240 years.

 

[IronWing]

You obviously know little about triangulation and air burst on a single target.

All of the submarine based ballistics Tridents have MIRVs. Granted I know nothing much about the land based weapons. I don't see how they can be a handicap.

If you only need one warhead to do the job, you have to figure out what to do with the other two (Minuteman) or nine (MX) warheads. The accuracy of each re-entry vehicle is such that you won't need more than one warhead per target. The MIRVs were designed for an all out nuclear exchange. So the Air Force elected to remove warheads from the Minuteman missiles and retire the MX.

 

[pcgeek11]

On the submarine weapons they can have differing warhead configurations on each missile. And can be launched with respect to the need. Each submarine can carry up to 24 missiles each with MIRVs.

 

[trenchfoot]

How much money will we have to spend to compensate for Trump's inadequacy?

This single character trait of Trump's will be his undoing and Putin is just the guy to pull it off if he wanted to (or already has?).

Trump's been compensating for this exploitable weakness since his childhood years. As POTUS, that's a direct threat to our national security. His cabinet members will surely exploit that trait of his and so will those many enemies of his that he's cultivated over the years.

 

[pcgeek11]

As someone that was on nuclear submarines during the cold war as a Missile Technician ( with Nuclear Warheads). This is so much ado about nothing. It wouldn't be much of an arms race as Russia still don't have the money.

 

[hal2kilo]

You could do the same with submarine and silo launched weapons and without the danger of losing an airplane and crew.

I don't think there have been any gravity bombs in planes after the B-52. They are all Air Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs). But, the point is actually mute, per agreement none of these are forward deployed at this time (nuclear that is). The triad is basically as you described above.

 

[Commodus]

As someone that was on nuclear submarines during the cold war as a Missile Technician ( with Nuclear Warheads). This is so much ado about nothing. It wouldn't be much of an arms race as Russia still don't have the money.

The issue isn't so much that you'll suddenly see the US waste billions on warheads as that Trump would be willing to do it. It's like the Stanford prison experiment in a sense: seeing how dark a person can get when you give them power. This is a guy who'd rather risk Armageddon than to even hint at weakness.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

The issue isn't so much that you'll suddenly see the US waste billions on warheads as that Trump would be willing to do it. It's like the Stanford prison experiment in a sense: seeing how dark a person can get when you give them power. This is a guy who'd rather risk Armageddon than to even hint at weakness.

That's been the advantage of the now eroded seperation of powers. Since Bush it's all been down hill. "Congress wouldn't do it so he had no choice"- what a foolish and short sighted attitude. One day the guy you don't want gets to embrace and expand on the trend.

Perhaps, just perhaps, that genie may be stuffed back in the bottle after this last election. If so the next partisan on either side who says "Congress isn't doing their job so the President should do it for them" needs to be tarred and feathered.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

As someone that was on nuclear submarines during the cold war as a Missile Technician ( with Nuclear Warheads). This is so much ado about nothing. It wouldn't be much of an arms race as Russia still don't have the money.

Agreed, as long as we don't spend a penny on this nonsense.

 

[Jhhnn]

Putin's remarks were made in reference to the ABM system being constructed in eastern europe-

Putin said Moscow must “strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defence systems.”

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/22/putin-and-trump-talk-up-need-for-more-nuclear-weapons/

It backs up what he's said about the destabilizing nature of that system, how it hurts Russia's ability to retaliate should they be attacked by NATO. Of course it does, quite by design.

Meanwhile, the US pretends that the system isn't about Russian missiles but rather nuclear tipped missiles from Iran that don't even exist.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/11/politics/nato-missile-defense-romania-poland/

It's not like the system won't work against Russian missiles, is it?

Trump then puts out this-

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

It's typical Trump. The listener can make whatever they want out of it (particularly the "expand" part) & Trump can run away from it in six different directions. He's testing how well an arms race would sell to the faithful. If they go for it like they did "drain the swamp" then he won't have any qualms about making it that way.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

OK, I giggled. A lot.

So mercenary armies it is. Hi Pax Romana.

I don't support abolishing the DOD entirely. I also don't see why we need more nukes than the thousands we already have.

 

[MrSquished]

If a warhead was headed for NYC right now and you were offered a system with a 20% chance of success, would you take it or would you simply say "nah man, I'd prefer to be vaporized if it's that ineffective."

NYC sure. It's worth it. You have to prioritize your most important targets. Now if a warhead was headed towards Tulsa, I wouldn't waste the resources of an obviously very expensive system.

 

[pcgeek11]

Agreed, as long as we don't spend a penny on this nonsense.

Oh don't be mistaken we are going to spend the money to maintain our nuclear weapons. We have to. How do you think the cuban missile crisis would have played out if we didn't have the required strength at the time. We would all be calling each other comrade.

 

[jman19]

You could do the same with submarine and silo launched weapons and without the danger of losing an airplane and crew.

There are advantages to having a weapon on a plane that you don't get with a sub or ICBM obviously. Different scenarios call for different deployment methods. Anyway, you were wrong - the military has been testing new gravity bombs, so obviously not so passe.

 

[xthetenth]

Oh don't be mistaken we are going to spend the money to maintain our nuclear weapons. We have to. How do you think the cuban missile crisis would have played out if we didn't have the required strength at the time. We would all be calling each other comrade.

Soviet nuclear forces were still not that great back then, and we had in Turkey what we were freaking about them having in Cuba back when ICBMs took long enough to prep that a first strike was still plausible.

But you're right that we're going to keep the capability against any reasonable combination of nations. I would be interested to see whether we eventually walk back to a Chinese style no first use doctrine because right now our rocket artillery and ballistic missiles are not good in part because of constraints from making it absolutely clear we aren't launching a first strike and those are becoming increasingly compelling these days.

 

[JSt0rm]

You obviously know little about triangulation and air burst on a single target.
.

this sentence is funny. Like how many people are expecting to know such a thing? lmao.

 

[JSt0rm]

what if missiles were called anti-gravity bombs? Then what?

 

[pcgeek11]

There are advantages to having a weapon on a plane that you don't get with a sub or ICBM obviously. Different scenarios call for different deployment methods. Anyway, you were wrong - the military has been testing new gravity bombs, so obviously not so passe.

What are the advantages? I'd love to hear them as I cannot think of one. Serious.