Bush s Proposed Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament Measures Will Increase Chances of Nuclear War

November 20, 2001 | David T. Pyne, Esq.

[WALLACE212]

Don't be to harsh man. Man has never failed to use ON A MASSIVE SCALE, any weapon he possesses. It is a question of when and who, not if. Thats a historic fact, not a politicaly generated opinion. Eventually somebody is going to push the Big Red Button.

[WALLACE212]

Shi'ite! Your right, thats the one that they moded out of the water into a land based weapons system because their subs are, um, JUNK. The boys can at Pearl can name the boat when it leaves the harbor in China...

[Poohbah]

Yeah, I have often wondered that about a lot of the older birds.

And newer ones, too. Reliability issues are part of the reason we're getting rid of Peacekeeper--the airframe (spaceframe?) is just not holding up as well as we hoped it would.

An ICBM's a rather complicated bugger, given the miniscule BS that will ground a shuttle, you do have to wonder what all those rockets would do if TSHTF.

Remember that you can't predict failures in any sort of deterministic fashion, too. You could allocate a bunch of missiles to the one "we absolutely gotta kill this target or we're hosed" DGZ, and ALL of them could malf...

Maybe we should have kept SAC around... planes dropping iron may be the only survivable delivery system after all.

Aside from the issue of killing really deep targets, maybe CONVENTIONAL iron bombs (with sophisticated guidance) are the best strategic weapons...

One thought: the best way to kill a given deep bunker is with a monster earthquake that collpases the cavern. Some folks say that one of HAARP's jobs is causing big earthquakes around the world.

Nah...too tinfoil :o)

[Poohbah]

Supposedly, the only danger involved in having a US sub trailing a Chinese boat is that the sonar tech's might go deaf :o)

[Rule of Law]

I completely disagree with Bush's planned unilateral nuclear disarmament plan.

Reminds me of how we were going to ensure peace through disarming in the 20's and early 30's.

Worked real good then. Probably have the same effect now.

Why, oh why, won't these bozos learn from history?

[rightwing2]

Gee,I wonder why Russia is considere to be the most "capable" of doing this? Would it be becasue they are practically the only ones with the CAPABILITY to do so? "Capability" does not speak to "intent". As for the rest of it,my best suggestion to you is thearapy to learn how to deal with unreasonable fears. Or suicide. Your pick.

You obviously do not understand the least little bit about military intel analysis. In the intelligence world, "Threat" is determined not merely from intent, but from a combination of capability and intent, properly weighted according to the impact of guessing hostile intent incorrectly. In regards to nuclear weapons, threat projections are regularly issued by CIA/DIA based primarily upon capability and in this area the Russian Federation outdoes all of our other potential enemies by a factor of hundred or more. As further evidence of these facts, recently compromised top-secret US contingency nuclearwarfighting plans, revealed that Russia and China were among those nations which would be targeted by US nuclear weapons in the event of a crisis. To ignore this reality and put your head in the sand is the very height of stupidity, no where better demonstrated than by your comments here, which go far beyond the realm of geopolitical ignorance.

[WALLACE212]

Yeah, I know of the reliability questions with the MX... my objection to their retirement is not that they are the Almighty Sword of God or anything, its that we aren't replacing it with anything better. We are taking a compromised warhead system (thanks Clinton) on a 60's launch paltform and calling that progress. Its Bullsnot!

A real readiness exercise would be nice, never happen but I can dream. Call the list of people who have reciprocal Big Red Buttons, warn them first, and then pick up the red phone and scare the crap out of a couple of Air Force officers... ya know, this is not a drill code of the day is.... blah blah- cold testing. Launch a few Minuteman 3's and Peacemakers (dummy warheads of course), totally cold. No maintenance or prepping beyond normal...

This of course will never happen because it would reveal any shortcomings in the system, for the whole world to see.

[Poohbah]

Don't forget that the act of mounting dummy warheads might tend to alert the launch and maintenance crews that something is up.

Notice that no one else is going to do this, either--for exactly the same reasons.

[rightwing2]

Add me to your ping list, please. To much disinformation on this topic for me to ignore.

I have added you to my ping list as you requested. Your informed and enlightened input on this topic is much appreciated.

[WALLACE212]

Bingo.

[WALLACE212]

Thank you sir, I try.

[rightwing2]

A few reminders for all the "Yawn, Russia is our friend now" drones.-

1) The subs are a paper unit- little warheads- no independent launch capabilty- Clinton removed the PAL codes. They now rely on the ELF signal for a warning/ launch order. If you simultaneously squish Washington (or wherever the Prez is at the time) LOOKING GLASS, and the two TACAMO planes- guess what? No PAL codes, no launch, first strike wipes us UNOPPOSED.

4) The US has 500 ICBM's. A lot you say? consider this- Russia currently has over 700 SS-18 Mod-3's (14 550 kiloton warheads) & 5's (1 20 megaton bunker buster) deployed. And that is ONE type of missile. They could squish every silo, launch command center, military base, airfield, and a decent chunk of our largest cities with the SS18's alone.

Great post here. The Clinton elimination of our nuclear missile subs capability for independent launch (circa 1995) is extremely disturbing. Bush is merely continuing and accelerating the previous Clinton initiated unilateral US nuclear disarmament suicidal death march. A word on Russian MIRV's. Over the last several years, I have done some very diligent research into US and Russian nuclear missile capabilities and found out some very interesting info. One book I purchased was an anti-nuke work entitled "The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy" revealed some of the most interesting tidbits one of which was the fact that all of the MIRV’d warhead limits are entirely artificial creations. For example, the SS-18 is artificially limited by the SALT II Treaty as having only 10 warheads, even though it was never ratified.. However, according to this anti-nuke book and another book entitled “How to make Nuclear Weapons Obselete”, the Russians had the technology as far back as 1983 to pack THIRTY warheads onto an SS-18 Mod 1-4 ICBM.

Doing the math, you can figure about FOURTEEN warheads would fit on a never ratified START II Treaty permitted SS-19 ICBM even though only SIX of those warheads are counted by the START II Treaty. Our Trident I SLBMs had the same payload capacity and were downloaded to eight warheads following the signature of the treaty. The Russian SS-27 mobile ICBM is supposed to be a single warhead missile even though it can carry a greater payload than the missile from which it was derived the THREE warhead, the SS-20 IRBM. In fact, Russian sources have stated that the SS-27 can be uploaded to SEVEN to TEN modern Russian nuclear warheads which also means that the payload of every existing Russian ICBM and SLBM can be determined by multiplying their SALT II Treaty payload by two to three times. Furthermore, the Russians produce “thousands” of new miniaturized nuclear warheads each year according to sworn Congressional testimony by former Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy and Director of the CIA, James Schlesinger, (Rummy’s predecessor as SECDEF during his original tour of duty at the Pentagon) given in late 1997.

All of the above combined with the fact that the Russians have FOUR TIMES AS MANY NUKES AS THE US (40,000 to 9800) and that smaller lower yield tacnukes can be “packed” into strategic missiles (using the Russian “barrage” tactic) means that the Russian strategic nuclear potential is being grossly estimated. A CIA report issued around 1993 stated as much when it estimated that Soviet STRATEGIC nukes had likely been underestimated by as many as 4,000 warheads! Furthermore, Russian refire and non-deployed missiles and warheads are not even counted in our estimates of their strategic nuclear arsenal or for arms control treaty purposes. The bottom line is that THE US HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW LARGE THE RUSSIAN STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ARSENAL REALLY IS. The only thing we do know is that it is a lot larger than we think it is which makes these types of draconian Bush unilateral nuclear disarmament measures and unverifiable nuclear arms control treaties WITH A NATION THAT HAS SERIALLY VIOLATED EVERY ARMS CONTROL TREATY THAT IT HAS EVER SIGNED all the more dangerous. The problem is that the US will invariably adhere to its treaties by disarming our ICBMs to one warhead a piece and our SLBMs to four, while the Russians can be counted to keep their missiles uploaded to maximum payload even as they retire older missiles and launchers. That is why the Russian nuclear superiority over the US will only continue to increase with the Bush unilateral nuclear disarmament plan even if Russia disarms to what the US considers to be an arsenal capable of launching only 2000 SALT II limited strategic warheads. If anyone here thinks that it costs the Russians red cent to upload their missiles to TWO to THREE times SALT II capacity, they are completely delusional.

[WALLACE212]

"The bottom line is that THE US HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW LARGE THE RUSSIAN STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ARSENAL REALLY IS..."

The FAS website hasn't had any "estimated current deployed forces" numbers for Mother Russia for a while now... that has always bugged me. They got a bunch of warheads and delivery systems, and they ain't tellin...

"Trust but Verify..." to which I will add "You lower your gun, I'll lower mine Vladmir"

[sneakypete]

You obviously do not understand the least little bit about military intel analysis. In the intelligence world,

Yeah,I do. I also understand these people are in business to find threats,and they WILL find them. I have no doubt they have also researched and graded the chances of our being invaded by Finland,too.

I repeat,Russia is the most likely nuke aggressor merely because they are the only ones with that number of nukes.

[Poohbah]

Actually, if you look at the FAS site, it hasn't a LOT of the material (including OUR stuff) updated since 1998 or so. Updating that big a static content is very painful.

They need a database and ColdFusion or Apache Tomcat and XML processing to make that site a wee bit more cutting edge.

[Paul Ross]

Really, Neville Chamberlain implied much the same dose of medicine to the 'alarmists' of his day, Winston Churchill. You cannot deny capability bespeaks intention. The unreconstructed communist hardliners in their Strategic Rocket corps. is telling. If Boris had been SERIOUS about disarmament instead of looting, he would have made it clear to the Rocket Corps. that a loyalty oath REPUDIATING all communism should be required. Didn't happen. He was way too willing to just let the military have its way, the communist imperialism's way, to risk his own power.

[WALLACE212]

We have a winner!

The fact that there are not THOUSANDS of ex-Spetsnaz and Strategic Forces guys looking for a job is a REAL big indicator that the Russkies don't quite have their heart in the disarmement thing.

[Poohbah]

You've obviously never heard of "featherbedding."

[sneakypete]

Really, Neville Chamberlain implied much the same dose of medicine to the 'alarmists' of his day, Winston Churchill.

Yeah,that's me all-over. A pacifist. How did you ever guess?

You cannot deny capability bespeaks intention.

Of course I can,and I DO. The US seems to have a lot of nukes,including ones on the new Sea Wolf sub. I suppose you must take this to mean the US fully intends to attack Russia,China,and Cuba with nukes,right? Do you have any guns? Does this mean you intend to rob the local 7-11? Shoot your neighbors?

The unreconstructed communist hardliners in their Strategic Rocket corps. is telling.

Paranoria is not always your friend.

[GOP_1900AD]

What is the source of the figure "20?" Curious... that has been the "official figure" for quite a while (years).