Russia has more nukes. It also has weaker conventional armed forces and a history of nuclear sabor rattling, hence the US and its allies being nervous about a degraded MAD system.
With MAD, the idea is to be in the position that any adversary knows that if they attack you, they will be utterly annihilated. There should be no scenario under which an adversary sees a nuclear attack as advantageous. The US has aging systems and both China and Russia have been developing new capabilities. Numbers alone may not keep up, especially if a large number of missiles are disabled via nukes or other means.
America has a lot of warheads but its delivery systems are relatively behind Russian and Chinese systems. For instance, the current US land/silo based missiles are Minuteman 3s, which were first built in the 1970s. Even with upgrades, they are generally understood to be inferior to much more recent Russian Yars and Chinese Dong Feng missiles.
That said, increasing the number of warheads doesn’t really help in terms of that deficiency so the between the lines conclusion is that the new American missile systems have hit such snags that the military is considering making up the deficiency with numbers of warheads.
Does it really matter if the delivery system is inferior? Google says they have five thousand warheads. Even if 4900 get intercepted (98% success rate), 100 nukes will connect.
Also, besides the launch silos, there’s the bombers and the nuclear subs, which are enough to end the world by themselves
Nuclear war planning isn’t as simple as applying a rate of interception or failure to your stock of warheads. You have to plan for eventualities like what happens if you’re subject to a first strike - can you ensure that enough of your own warheads will survive to retaliate? If not, or if your opponent thinks not then your opponent is much more likely to try a first strike.
Modern missiles aren’t just faster or harder to shoot down, they’re also more survivable. Have you noticed that while the Russians and Chinese parade their missiles on big ass trucks, the US doesn’t seem to have any? That’s because there isn’t a road or rail mobile variant of the Minuteman 3. So those MM3s have been sitting in silos only for decades, more than enough time for opponent satellites to pinpoint exactly where they are. On the other hand, a Russian or Chinese missile can drive around their own road or rail systems and be untraceable unless you have real time satellite footage that just happens to catch them moving.
So if your missiles can’t move, you can only protect them by hardening their emplacements and silos. Unfortunately, most American silos are about as old as the missiles in them and were designed to withstand much lesser yields of warheads. Maybe some could be brought up to a newer standard, but building of that scale would also paradoxically tip your opponent off to which missile sites to target first.
Therefore, if you’re in a position where you aren’t convinced your own missiles will survive a first strike, your only move to maintain deterence is new missiles or more missiles (or both). Contracts were passed out for new missile designs around 2017 but it seems like nothing has come to fruition. Therefore the only other option is to build more warheads so that they can be fired from planes and other systems instead.
This leads on to the next point which is that warheads are not all necessarily sitting on missiles read to go at all times. Most of the time they’re in central stockpiles that are easier to guard and maintain and are only parcelled out to units in times of heightened nuclear tension. A modern nuclear power has more platforms that can deliver nukes than actual nukes themselves - the whole point of a nuclear triad (ICBMs, planes, subs) is to ensure maximal redundancy so that no one type of attack can destroy all delivery systems.
Hence, a nuclear war planner has to figure out how many ICBMs and warheads are likely to survive a first strike, then figure out how many warheads are needed to put on planes and ships and subs for a counter strike. If the US military is thimking it needs more warheads, then one major reason could be that it’s realized it’s delivery platforms are not as survivable as predicted.
Do they need them to be good, or just to have a lot? Look at Hamas breaching the vaunted Iron Dome by sheer number of projectiles. Likewise, I heard Ukraine overwhelmed Russian S-300/400 with a simultaneous launch of something like a dozen ATACMS
ICBMs are notoriously difficult to intercept. Nobody realistically has an interception system able to take down enough of them to matter. The problem with old ICBMs is that they’re less survivable if the enemy strikes you first so you need even more warheads and delivery systems to compensate.
Oh dear. I was planning to visit Japan in the autumn. Guess I will give it a swerve. Maybe Korea then? I haven’t flown anywhere since the Before Times and have a hankering for foreign travel.
Depends when and where. Avoid summer or winter vacation. If you’re doing Kyoto, visit temples very early in the day to avoid crowds. Or perhaps find slightly less famous places.
I was just in Japan a couple weeks ago. Kyoto was incredibly crowded at the tourist spots, but it was the peak of cherry blossoms so I expected it to be crowded. I didn’t meet a single unfriendly person while we were there, it’s definitely worth it.
I live in korea and recently visited Japan. Both countries are wonderful to visit.
Went to Tokyo and Kyoto, the touristy spots were very busy. As long as you’re polite and respect Japanese social “rules”, it’s fine. And there’s plenty of other places to visit if Kyoto is too contentious right now.
Korea also has a lot to offer in Seoul and Busan. It’s a short few hours and reasonably priced high speed train between the two cities.
Plenty of other countries in the region to visit as well.
Feel free to DM me if you want some recommendations in Japan that aren’t the top 3 cities. I can probably guide you toward some towns that would have a greater appreciation of your spending money. You might have to pantomime a bit more, though.
If you believe this conflict is about religion, you are a gullible idiot. The conflict is a colonial one; the same sort of genocidal displacement we saw in North America only on the age of smartphones.
If everyone on both sides became Atheists, the Israelis would still be butchering the Palestinians and the Palestinians would still be fighting for their freedom.
I am not sure if it is all 100% religion. But I sure know that the extremists of both side will have a toast on those great news. Netanyahu and his right wing party will love that 4 hostages could be freed by so much violence. At the same time Hamas in control people also love this news. Non of the people in charge on either side cares for the lives of civilians, no matter if they are Israeli or from Gaza or any other country. They just clinge on to power by spreading hate and killing any sympathy for the other side. And this day is truly a sad and devastating day for peace in this region.
More similar to Sunak calling the current General Election. It’s very unlikely they will win but they have to do something rather than let it get even worse!
Tell Russia to stop issuing nuclear threats, we just got another one from Putin in the last 24 hours. It’s easy to dial back tensions when you aren’t being threatened with annihilation on a daily and weekly basis.
The United States has something like 5,600 nuclear warheads. A single one is capable of ending life as we know it. What number is enough of a deterrent for war hawks?
Many of those are due for retirement purely due to age. There isn’t a replacement system for many of them. Furthermore, countermeasures have gotten better; future designs will better take these into account.
The US has no business in that conflict, we literally only make things worse. Putin and Ukraine have zero to do with our lives, and the idea that we need to be in a war with russia is just silly propaganda.
NATO expansion after the dissolution of the UDSSR (against what threat?) Is the first aggression… Also, even though Medvedev like to bark a lot, Russia has a clear nuclear doctrine.
Happy cakeday. And yeah deescalation requires both parties to open to de-arm not only one of them.
Honestly though the best case scenario of how this all ends doesn’t really look great to me.
Either Russia loses the war, the government destabilizes, a power vacuum is formed which causes a power shift in a way likely to lead to more aggressive action in the future.
Or Russia wins the war, eyes other countries after it settles into Ukraine, NATO/US need to respond or else it sends the wrong message to other countries allied with them, and we head for WW3
Edit: There is also the idea of a stalemate and this just becomes a continuous war that doesn’t really end, but honestly I can’t see that being stable long term.
We are still in a cold war, only now it’s more complicated because more countries have nukes…including North Korea which is kind of a wildcard.
Check out Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen. It’s a well-researched and horrifying scenario where deterrence fails because N Korea launches on the US. it takes you step-by-step through the decision process our government would take in response. Its gripping and pretty damn terrifying and shows just how delicate the whole situation is.
If this topic is your bag, I’m guessing you’ve also read Jeffrey Lewis’s book on the topic: www.armscontrolwonk.com/books/
A great read, if very slightly outdated. Could still represent a possible future if Trump returns to power, or perhaps even if he doesn’t. Either way, Arms Control Wonk podcast is an entertaining and informative listen for anyone remotely interested in this topic.
Do you think a peace deal that cedes Crimea and parts of Donbas to Russia, while also keeping Ukraine out of any defense pacts, to be a lasting prospect? It is hard to imagine that the story would end there.
All I can say for certain is there is no scenario where the story ends. If the Republicans gets into office next year, the new administration may wrap things up as quickly as possible in order to focus their belligerence on China, which in the grand scheme of things is no better, but it might stabilize things in eastern Europe for the short- and maybe even medium-term. Starting a hot war with China still seems years away, which leaves the possibility of it never happening 🤞 But I don’t mean this as any sort of endorsement for the Republicans in general or Trump in particular. Maybe Biden’s administration will make similar moves after the election, should they win it.
This article is missing some information. CNN-News18 has had live coverage for the past six hours. Things started off well. White House staff installed anti-scaling fencing, which is normal. They were waving flags, holding signs and a red border signifying a red line. The chants were loud and all seemed well organized.
As the crowd grew, a few protesters began spray painting a statue and throwing smoke bombs, obviously discrediting to the cause. Park Police began taking spray cans from the protesters, who in turn started throwing objects at the Park Police. That’s when the pepper spray came out. Bad actors were ejected and the protest continued.
The vast majority of protesters are civil and facing no resistance in their protest.
I have to believe the actual poll and report aren’t as glaringly stupid as that headline. If you ask nearly anyone, “do you want peace?” They are going to respond with “yes.” The devil is always in the details though. Ask them, “should the war in Ukraine be ended by the Ukrainian Government capitulating to all Russian demands to secure an immediate peace?” And, you might find a lot of folks are suddenly less peaceful. This reminds me of the old saw:
There’s lies, damned lines and then there is statistics.
With a crafted question and a bit of p-hacking you can get a lot of results you want out of people.
Tourism has a limit. Too much and you overwhelm the culture you are there to see. It’s happened a lot in the US Parks the last few years and I’m happy to see popular foreign locations broadcast this. Heritage sites are important and may need to restrict the number of visitors. Much as I hate this.
Also, Trump isn’t the President. So whatever he may, or may not do, is hypothetical… It’s also irrelevant to what Biden is actually doing…you know, because he’s the current president…
I know. The concern is just that people will run from Biden to someone even worse, not realizing he is even more extreme in his support for Netanyahu. So it seems worth mentioning. I know there’s no ready answer. The electoral system leaves Americans no good options.
How come we aren’t allowed to discuss how bad Biden is being over this without people just saying ‘Trump is worse.’ You can discuss one without bringing up the other. A condemnation of Biden is not supporting Trump. Nobody here was saying lets not vote for Biden. I am voting for him because obviously Trump is worse. But that is literally the only defense of Biden when it comes to all this. “Trump would supply even more bombs to blow up children with.”
That’s literally whats just happened. Those are most likely bombs paid for with my tax dollars and so many of Biden’s cultists refuse to allow you to criticize him.
The problem is it’s been co-opted by Trumpers, Russian bots/influence and right wing nuts.
So unless a comment carries an explicit statement of something along the lines of “Still going to vote for him”, I will treat such comments as simply another attempt to dissuade Biden voters to get Trump in office
As far as i can tell, Biden is historically pro isreal. Openly refers to himself as a zionist. His religion demands that isreal gains power in order to attempt to make the bible only embarrassingly incorrect. His parents instilled in him that due to WWII the Jews are justified in taking the land and this includes their current encroachment. He has been the main and highest paid donar recipient of pro isreal groups for his 5 decades in politics . Changing course now would force a critical evaluation of his 5 decades of blindly giving unwavering support to Israel and recognition that Palestinians are people. Also the US has made enemies of everyone in the region, and Israel gives us a “foot hold” there.
All this makes the finding of a genocide a mere consideration for his polling numbers.
It boggles my mind that you can type out “I’ve already decided everyone who disagrees with me is faking it” and still think of yourselves as reasonable.
Because he is the poster child of conserving the Reagan-enshittified status quo, and the US administration is attempting to continue keeping a leg up on the cold war it desperately wants to continue.
Your analysis is right but I think you mean Zionist lobbies. Many Jews have been vocal and condemn Israel’s action. Just because Israel calls itself a Jewish state dies not mean Jews accept to be assimilated with its actions, far from it.
the Chinese economy is as fake as any economy can get and non of there numbers are actually public like you would have in a democracy there a dictatorship that can make up any numbers they want.
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