Posted on 10/14/2019 4:11:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Why risk it? Even if NATO wants the nukes in Europe, Erdogans unstable regime is 68 miles from Syria, the hottest conflict zone on earth.
When President Donald Trump and other heads of state meet at this weeks NATO Summit it might be a good time to discuss the wisdom of keeping 50 U.S. thermonuclear weapons in Turkey, just 70 miles from Syria, the most intense combat zone on the planet.
Each of the B61 gravity bombs stored at Incirlik Air Base, 68 miles from the Syrian border have a maximum yield of 170 kilotons, or 10 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. But these bombs also have a dial-a-yield capability that allows them to be set to explode at various levels, down to less than one kiloton of force. They are the vestige of the thousands of battlefield weapons once deployed by the United States and the Soviet Union to wage nuclear war in Europe. Almost all have been withdrawn from deployment except these at Incirlik and approximately 100 other B-61s stored at NATO bases in Belgium, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands.
However, unlike those airfields, there are no aircraft based in Turkey capable of carrying the American nuclear weapons stored there. In a crisis, planes would have to fly from other U.S. bases, assuming they could be freed from their other assigned conventional missions. The actual strategy for their use is hazy at best.
Today, the symbolism of these bombs is far more important than their military utility, says nuclear historian Eric Schlosser. Missiles carrying nuclear warheads reach targets much faster, more reliably, and with much greater accuracy. Rather, the case for keeping the weapons is the nuclear equivalent of the old phrase about the purpose of NATO, to keep America in, Russia out and Germany down. In this case, the bombs are there to demonstrate that Americas nukes are in, Russian nukes will be kept out, and German nukes are unnecessary.
Is this symbolism worth the risk? Warning signs are mounting about the security of the weapons as U.S.-Turkish relations deteriorate and the war in Syria intensifies.
Just last year, the United States temporarily lost access to Incirlik during the attempted coup against Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Senior Turkish officers in charge of the base were said to be among the leaders of the coup, and were accused of flying missions from the base in its support. Turkish forces loyal to Erdogan surrounded Incirlik and cut off power for days, effectively trapping some 2,500 U.S. servicemen stationed there and the 50 nuclear weapons. A week later, the base was again under siege, surrounded this time by thousands of anti-American protesters who burned American flags and demanded the government close the base.
Erdogans rule since the coup attempt has grown increasingly authoritarian. His forces killed over 250 people during the uprising, wounded more than 1,400 and arrested almost 3,000. Since then he has purged more than 2,700 judges, detained nearly 50,000 people, including many soldiers, journalists, lawyers, police officers, academics, and Kurdish politicians, sacked 120,000 public servants and vowed to clean all state institutions of the virus of Fethullah Gülen supporters loyal to the cleric Erdogan claims was behind the coup.
As Elmira Bayrasli wrote in Defense One, Erdogan holds his own country hostage for his political benefits.
Even if you believe the United States should keep tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, is Turkey a safe place to do so?
Since the attempted coup, Turkish forces carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against the Kurdistan Workers Party, who are armed by the United States to fight ISIS. If media reports are correct, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn blocked a plan to use Kurdish forces to spearhead an attack on the ISIS capital of Raqqa, perhaps at the behest of Turkey.
Most recently, during Erdogans visit to Washington, his personal bodyguards punched, choked, and kicked peaceful demonstrators outside the Turkish Embassy. Astonishingly, Turkeys Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned the U.S. ambassador in Ankara to lodge a formal protest over the alleged aggressive actions of U.S. police in protecting the demonstrators, further straining relations.
Meanwhile, U.S. combat operations in Syria are intensifying. U.S.-led forces last week fended off an attack by Iranian-affiliated militia fighters operating in Syria and, according to the Pentagon, ignoring even Russias request to stand down. The battle for Raqqa is now back on track, and the most violent fighting of the war could occur in the coming months. As ISIS faces elimination, might its fighters strike out across the border inside Turkey?
Can we be sure that Americas nuclear bombs at Incirlik are secure? We cannot. There is growing concern that Incirlik is vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Last March, military families were evacuated from southern Turkey, mainly from Incirlik Air Base, as a result of security concerns from ISIS activity threatening the area. Major security upgrades to base are now underway, including around the vaults used to store the nuclear weapons. But new fences are not the answer. The security risk of basing U.S. nuclear bombs in Europe, warns former NSC staffer Steve Andreasen and Isabelle Williams, clearly demonstrate the case for consolidating U.S. nuclear weapons in the United States.
Why risk it? No member of NATO will doubt our resolve or the credibility of our nuclear assurances if we pull 50 dangerously exposed nuclear weapons from Turkey. They may actually breathe a sigh of relief.
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Joe Cirincione is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. In 2004, he co-wrote WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, the definitive independent analysis of how U.S. officials systematically misrepresented the threat of Iraqs WMD
As far as I ever knew our military does not ever acknowledge where our nuclear arsenal is stored or staged. Any media outlet that puts this sort of article in print is not our friend.
How do we know he hasn’t already? The last thing you want to do with nukes is announce where they are and when they will be moved.
A B61 is not big at all, maybe 1000 lbs.
What they have is a permissive action link. There is a somewhat complicated procedure to unlock the weapon. It must be followed exactly. Any attempt to override it renders the weapon useless. Details are very classified.
The Soviet Golf class sub that sank off of Hawaii may have been due to an attempt at a rogue launch. Their version of a PAL took out the sub. Brute force? Risk a thermonuclear war by rogue personnel or lose a sub. Its logical. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis could have been worse if Castro and Guevara carried out their plan to arm and launch the missiles - a plan that made Khrushchev crap his pants.
The devices in Turkey have been there since 1961 in various amounts, sizes, and types. And what’s there now is sensitive and is not common knowledge. Just that they are there.
It actually is hard to detonate a nuclear package. But it takes a series of actions to do it and must be done in a particular order. HE is the popular product to do it by creating pressure on the unit in a particular way to move neutrons. This is what takes it to critical mass. Critical mass is defined as the amount of material at which a neutron produced by a fission process will, on average, create another fission event. There is plenty there to do it.
When they dropped the two in Japan they weren’t even sure they would detonate. But the ones in Turkey were stored for both deterrence and use. And have been in that aea for that since the early sixties.
rwood
where will Iran test? Do they have enough desert?
Okay - thanks for that. I’ve heard some needed those triggers but I guess that was old style stuff.
Trump should have already removed the nukes. I agree with Trump that we should not be bogged down in the mideast forever but a thoughtful plan should have preceded the exit. After all ... there was no real hurry on any of this seeing how Trump waited 3 years to start the exit.
Isaiah 17: God will destroy Damascus and make it forever uninhabitable.
Yeah, pull them out of Turkey and base them in France.
Then there were the nuclear weapons that were not documented by aerial photography, which remained unknown for several months after the blockade.
Let Turkey have the nukes...after they have been detonated.
Easy to think of a cost-saving way to “move” these “supposed” devices....Dial’em down and move them to some place in Saudi... There’s a bomb assembly & disposal facility name Mecca that would be perfect...
Yeah that too.
Nobody has been able to articulate what *any victory, anywhere* would look like.. for years now.
I think Israel would be a better choice.
Might actually stabilize the ME.
Why did you show the date of publication to be 10/14/2019?
This opinion article is from May 2017 and was written by an anti-American leftist.
Testing is not the problem. The devices we hold over there in coordination with them are already tested and ready to go. The following list are the known ballistic missiles Iran has in possession at different times as of seven years ago:
Ashoura, Dezful, Emad, Fajr-3, Fateh-110, Fateh-313, Ghadr-110, Hwasong-10, Hwasong-12, Khorramshahr, Persian Gulf, Qiam 1, Safir, Sejjil Shaha, Shahab-1, Shahab-2,Shahab-3, Shahab-5, and Shahab-6, Tondar-69, Zelzal-1, Zelzal-2, and Zelzal-3.
They also have underground missile bases and are directly trading with Russia through North Korea and with Pakistan for the technology. And like most of the middle east, they are getting their chem and bio from Germany, China, France, and us.
Many years now they have been building up independently. They re no threat to our mainland, but are to the locals to include Israel who is our only real ally in the middle east we can half way trust.
But answering your question directly, the Plateau of Iran, lying within the center of the country and extending eastward into central Asia, contains two salt deserts which comprise 25 percent of Iran’s land area. They can run non-payload tests there with the missiles they are getting from different sources and load when they need to if they can get at them. We supervise them.
rwood
I would like to think these nukes have long ago been moved and it is just smoke & mirrors that they are still there. But, sadly, I see Drudge and MSN suggesting they are now hostage.
“Even if you believe the United States should keep tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, is Turkey a safe place to do so?”
I suspect they are no longer in Turkey. If they are it is an error. Even if Turkey does not know the codes and triggers for the weapons a nation with sophisticated engineers, which Turkey does have, could make them operational. They would need to confiscate them from our forces. If such were to be attempted, a rather large bang would happen. We would deliver the large bang. I hope those weapons are no longer in Turkey. They are really not needed. Only a couple of our boomer submarines can annihilate all nations of threat. We have many boomer subs.
Our defense is composed of the triad of Missile, Aircraft, and subs for retaliatory nuclear strike. The logic is any of the triad can take the enemy out and even after a first strike against us can not take it all out. Those subs lurk in the deep of the arctic and Pacific and Atlantic to unleash nuclear hell if needed. They are the ultimate weapon of retaliatory destruction.
Each boomer has the capability of 192 MIRVed warheads dependent on treaty rules with the Soviets. Just one boomer can reduce any nation to a non functional nation in ruins. As mentioned we have many boomers. Each of those warheads are about 250 kilotons. Nagasaki was only 20 kilotons.
In the past we had weapons of many megatons. These are now archaic now. A properly dispersed array of smaller weapons will inflict far more damage than one big bomb. It is a function of distance from the bomb and the area of targets. If one looks at the area of a circle it expands greatly by radius, thus a few bombs of lesser yield are much better than one big bomb.
Anybody, with or without the actual knowledge of nukes and their whereabouts, must state when asked, "I can neither confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons at this location/base."
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