“Keeping up with the Ivanovs,” they said.
“We build them so they’ll never be used,” they said.
“A new kind of war,” they said.
“Our enemy is an ideology,” they said.
“Non-nation-state targets,” they said.
So what are these for?
Officials of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the nuclear weapons complex, said yesterday that they hope to receive administration and congressional authorization by the end of 2008 for the development and production of a warhead that could be deployed on submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Mutually assured destruction: If you don’t get that suitcase nuke out of Los Angeles, we’ll nuke Los Angeles.
28 Responses to “Unilaterally Assured Destruction”
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I dunno…the whole world isn’t a ‘24′ episode consisting solely of shadowy terrorists with suitcase nukes - nation-states and nation-states that we could potentially butt heads with as enemies do exist. I don’t think that we should ignore the massive annual increases in the Chinese defense budget or the fact that the Russians do remain a (very prickly) nuclear power.
To protect us against the asshat spammers?
Man, fuck John Edwards.
That douche just lost my vote.
Rock on, Amanda. I hope you’re back here soon.
We have been through this before: the USA is the only nation to have used nukes on civilians, and has consistently led the arms race while others have followed.
It’s always “they”; an external threat who is worse than “us” for doing what we do.
Projections. We are the monster we project on others.
But, what if “they” destroy the world before we do? Shall “we” pre-empt “them”?
Lunacy.
Nukular matches do not belong in the hands of powerhungry simpletons.
The biggest trouble with nuclear deterrence is that it only works until there’s an attack.
The other problem is, nuclear retribution, even if targeted at the right enemy, is likely to cause more harm than anything else.
I’m not really understanding that article; all Trident missiles - in fact all American submarine-launched ballistic nmissiles all the way back to Polaris - have always carried nuclear warheads, up to eight of them on one missile. Here’s some more data on the Trident and its payloads.
The developments in the U.S. nuclear arsenal I’ve read about recently have been to make earth-penetrating bombs that can actually go a little way underground before detonation, in order to destroy buried facilities such as the Iranian centrifuge plant at Natanz. Not that this is a new idea. I remember reading (in Richard Rhodes’s book Dark Sun, I think) that as far back as the Korean War, the U.S. had a hardened atomic bomb, a u235 gun design, which was intended for use against reinforced concrete submarine pens.
Well, we already have nuke armed subs in the water now. The only “problem”: the missiles are just plain old ballistic style missiles. By developing *intercontinental* ballistic missiles, we won’t need as many subs in the water to loose armageddon. It’s all part of the plan to cut the deficit, I’m sure.
I don’t think this is anti-terror weapons development this is anti-China weapons development. They are just taking the long view and trying to get such a jump on the next arms race that no one else will bother to join in.
There is a competition underway between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program, in which each laboratory has submitted designs for a new warhead to replace the warheads currently in the US nuclear inventory.
There is also a separate effort under way to design a ground-penetrating ‘bunker buster’ design, but this effort has been even less successful than the missile defense program so far. Which is to say not at all. And the idea that it could be a ‘cleaner’ bomb is completely wrong — if anything, it would throw more radioactive dust into the atmosphere than a more conventional air-burst bomb.
Yeah, I’m appalled that I know all this too.
Same reason we developed the GBU-43 Massive Ordinance Air Burst (aka “Mother Of All Bombs”), same reason we invaded Iraq, same reason the Administration does anything: Dubyah is still overcome with joyous awe that he has a penis, and is enraged that the rest of the world is not impressed by this fact.
The Trident D-5 is an intercontinental range missile already (5,000+ mile range). Going from 8 (or 4) warheads to 1, would vastly increase the range of the missile, say maybe 8,000. The current nuclear arms treaties are slowly but surely putting an end to MIRV/MARV (missiles with more than one warhead per vehicle).
It’s not all that difficult, really. It’s a deterrent. These armaments need to be kept up to date, or they are not an effective deterrent. The whole “penis extension” bit is a little juvenile.
The USA cannot risk any form of slowing or reversal of nuclear-arms innovation and development as long as the “non-negotiable American lifestyle” (Dick Cheney) requires our appropriation of an outsized share of the world’s resources, particularly when China is coming on fast as an overpopulated resource consumer. There’s nothing more difficult to prevent than a war over resources when the respective parties intend to expand their use of same without limit.
Kevin:
A deterrent against whom? China? North Korea? Iran? Do we really need replacement warheads for the warheads we now have? That is, is our entire blow-up-the-world-100-times-over arsenal about to go bad? Is it Russia? I thought the worry about Russia was that their warheads will end up in the wrong hands - if they do, will they be deterred by a sub-based ICBM?
A more complete answer than “it’s a deterrent, dummy” would be appreciated.
Reading a number of serious lay texts about nuclear strategy, such as this has left me with several opinions:
1) Yes, the military-industrial complex exists, and it exploits the American tendency towards paranoia in order to win contracts and spend far more money than necessary, though in general they don’t spend it recklessly.
2) Nuclear strategy is hashed out by immensely thoughtful people who are neither crazy nor careless. They don’t want to be vaporized either. These are not the same people that brought you the Iraq war.
3) The arguments presented by the political left are taken seriously by strategists, even if they are shallow, uninformed and poorly considered. Which is often.
4) It is reasonable to argue that nuclear weapons have saved millions of lives by making conventional conflict less desirable. But nobody will ever know for sure. Anyone who thinks that the morality of nuclear arms is clear-cut is wrong.
5) If Auguste could actually set nuclear policy, we’d be in big trouble. It’s a lot harder than it looks.
Tony:
I’m not being a smartass here, honest, but when you say “even if they are shallow, etc.”, which is the antecedent for “they”? The left’s arguments, or the strategists?Tony:
Considering that your exemplar lay text was written 20 years ago, I don’t see how your final sentence of #2 necessarily follows; meanwhile, in #3 and #4 you’re making a lot of assumptions about my beliefs which are not present in the post, and #5 is even larger projection.
I still would like an explanation in specifics, not generalities, of why these particular warheads are important, in this day and age, and more important than other potential uses for the money. That’s the sum total of this post.
Oh, and Kevin’s comment earlier drew my eye away from Magis’ which appears to at least come closest to the explanation I’m looking for.
Magis, is the idea to lower the number of subs in the water? Is there an existing hole in our nuclear striking capability that an 8,000 mile missile will remedy?
I’m not being a smartass here, honest, but when you say “even if they are shallow, etc.�, which is the antecedent for “they�? The left’s arguments, or the strategists?
The arguments presented by the left, which often amount to little more than slogans. Like “you can’t have peace if you’re preparing for war”, which I think is very wrong.
Considering that your exemplar lay text was written 20 years ago, I don’t see how your final sentence of #2 necessarily follows; meanwhile, in #3 and #4 you’re making a lot of assumptions about my beliefs which are not present in the post, and #5 is even larger projection.
The text I pointed to is but one of several, so #2 does not follow from that. But I don’t see the neoconservatives having all that much influence over nuclear strategy.
#3 and #4 are not a direct response to what you wrote.
#5 is somewhat tongue in cheek but I’d say it’s literally true; I would say the same about myself. What I am saying is, look at what the strategists say and take them seriously, because it’s a very complicated subject and they know a lot more than we do.
“If you don’t get that suitcase nuke out of Los Angeles, we’ll nuke Los Angeles.” Either way America wins!!
So what you’re saying here, Tony, is:
a.) that official American nuclear strategy is decided by some nameless someones, rather than by those stupid reckless jackasses Cheney and Bush, and
b.) that Cheney and Bush, for some reason, defer to the wiser judgment of these nameless someones rather than making their own decisions, even if the nameless wise men disagree with Cheney and Bush’s inclinations.
What you suggest would be a very nice thing if it were true - indeed, were any branch of American government policy decided by rolling dice, or by coin-flips, or by pigeons pecking at push-button switches, or any other random means, the outcome would almost certainly be preferable to the invariably malign consequences of Cheney and Bush’s mad incompetence - but you know what, Tony? I don’t believe that it is the case.
I think there are two main reasons to build this new warhead:
1. Our existing warhead stockpile is degrading; those warheads were not designed to last for decades and most of our current stockpile has aged beyond their design lifespans.
Believe it or not, even if you never use a device, components degrade over time. These are complex and delicate devices and they are slowly breaking down. Moreover, these devices were not designed with the idea that you could periodically open them up and replace various components; as a result, even trying to determine how much the devices have degraded is enormously difficult.
Even if you believe that the weapons still work now, we are far less certain that they will work in 20-30 years. If we start now, it will take many years to ramp up production and actually produce a new warhead. That’s why they’re starting now: they want to finish building warheads before our current stockpile is no longer trustworthy.
2. We haven’t designed and built new warheads in many years. As time goes on, we lose the ability to design and build these things.
Seriously, engineering a nuclear weapon is an extremely specialized task. It requires a tremendous amount of knowledge that you can only learn by doing, and much of that knowledge can’t be written down or easily communicated.
There is a lot of intuition behind good engineering as well as a lot of tricks: heuristics, analytical simplifications, unlikely similar problems in other domains, etc. As the group of people who designed and built the last generation of nukes gets old and retires, we are literally losing the ability to make new nukes. Now, if they all died off, we could still make new nukes, but, it would be far far more costly and it would require test detonations, which all recent administrations have forbidden.
Now, I happen to think that we should NOT be designing new weapons and that we should let our stockpile quiety decay away, but that’s my opinion. There are good reasons to be designing a new weapon now.
Full disclosure: I’m an engineer. I’ve never worked on nukes. I did interview for some jobs at Livermore where I picked up a lot of what I’ve just written. All the stuff about losing the skill needed to make these things came from conversations with Prof Hugh Gusterson at MIT; Gusterson wrote a book about weapons scientists.
I have to agree with common sense here…as much as I don’t want to. The weapons do degrade and we need to keep the specialized skills and techniques going. Something like this happened to NASA when they junked the Saturn rocket program and went to the shuttle. Years later when they wanted to get back into heavy lift rockets they discovered that we no-longer had the tools or the expertise to make them.
As to the concept of mutually assred destruction, it works. It’s the ugliest form of game theory but it works. It kept the two largest powers on earth off each other’s throats for decades. I have a horrible suspicion that its that same threat that keeps China from going imperial now.
Just my two cents though.
Tony:
Then you’re a fool.
You *can’t* have peace when you’re *preparing for war*. *Prepairing for war* is not a peaceful action.
You can have peace when you have a solid defense, a top-notch military, able to mobilize quicky if there is need.
There’s a big difference between having a solid military, and “preparing for war”.
Tony,
I can’t seem to follow your logic. Is defending yourself when attacked not also war? I would argue that you can not peaceably defend yourself when attacked. If you mean something like “a war of aggression” you really ought to say so - especially before you call someone a fool.
As for the updated warheads - part of the rational is to be able to REDUCE the total number of warheads. Who is really against that?
How many of us drive a car built in the early 80’s? A few I am sure, but not most. Well, that is when the current D5 missiles were built. At some point, that becomes a safety issue. Nothing man made lasts forever.
I used to ride around in a Trident Sub and we went through constant launch drills. Every man on that submarine understood that if we ever were to really launch them, it would mean our families were already gone.
I often thought that the people like me who actually lived with the missiles and the anti-nuke folks were the only ones who properly understood just how horrific a thing they were. The difference being we had decided on opposite ways to best deal with it.
Auguste:
I would think our biggest potential rival is China, or will be in the near future, although Russia has announced that they are upgrading their nuclear arsenal and they are not happy about our attempts at a strategic missile defense. Our relations with them have cooled significantly in the last few years. (Before I hear the typical refrain “It’s Bush’s fault!” for that, I would think Putin’s grabs for more executive power are the biggest issue there).
Nuclear warheads need to be updated and maintained - they do not last indefinitely - and as technology advances, missile capabilities and accuracy increase. After all, we wouldn’t want one of those nukes to go off at a time and place not of our choosing, now would we?
Doug:
I don’t agree with Tony’s reasoning, either, but it’s my reasoning (not logic) that you were questioning.
However:
If you’re being attacked, or at immediate risk of being attacked, certainly you can *prepare for war*, because there’s going to be one. But having a strong, ready military is not being *prepared for war*.
It’s really not that hard. “Ready for any emergency” and “prepared for war” are two entirely different phrases with entirely different meanings.
That’s why I set the phrase “prepare for war” off in my response. See? It’s set off, in asterisks or quotes. to emphasize that it’s the particular phrase that’s the problem.
No, you can’t have peace if you’re preparing for war. You *can* have peace if you have a solid military that is ready for mobilization if necessary.
Am I missing something?
It seems to me that big dumb nuclear weapons are most valuable to terrorists, of moderate value to countries which are smaller and weaker than their potential enemies (North Korea? Iran?) and of least value to a country that has an overwhelming advantage already over any potential enemy or combination of enemies.
Therefore, it only makes good conservative strong-defense sense for Americans to try to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world.
No?