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To: tanknetter
Russian quality control is what’s wrong with the picture. We can afford to have fewer nukes. Ours are more likely to work, AND to hit their targets.

That's what the Germans thought. You might be right and you might be wrong, but strategic decisions must not be based on hopeful supposition or temporary advantages. One Russian technological advance could change the whole picture. Rose Gottemoeller's "We still have more work to do" statement indicates that further American nuclear weapons reductions are planned, so this problem is only going to get worse.

36 posted on 12/19/2014 9:05:12 AM PST by Always A Marine
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To: Always A Marine

Also consider that the development of conventional weapons has reduced the need to use nukes in many instances.

Iirc, for all the talk from Bush and Thatcher and Major and others leading up to Desert Storm, using nukes to respond to an Iraqi chemical attack was off the table.

The contingency plan was to use F-111s with GBU-15s to blow the Tigris and Euphrates dams and put Baghdad under 10’ of water. Those GBUs were ultimately used to close off those pipes Hussein had opened up to dump oil into the Persian Gulf.

Consider a hypothetical military conflict with China where they nuke a US carrier. Or at least try to. Why pop off a nuke in return when a couple B-2s with MOPs can drop the Three Gorges Dam? “Yes, we were within our rights to respond with nukes, and were fully prepared to, but decided to show great restraint in the face of unwarranted Chinese escalation”.


50 posted on 12/19/2014 9:56:00 AM PST by tanknetter
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To: Always A Marine

Moreover, Russia is developing new ICBMs and improving both accuracy and warhead survivability (along with a host of other new nuclear capable delivery systems), while the US is relying on old ICBM tech - land based is the oldest, followed closely with sea based.

Russia has had anti-ICBM tech for decades - mostly relying on small nuclear warheads, but has now deployed SA-500s country-wide and is certainly working on an SA-600. Currently Russia is looking to add to the land mobile ICBM carriers by reinstating its railroad mobile launch program.

The US only has SM-3s which are in very limited supply and only sea based. (The SM3 development budget was severely slashed to $7 million or so). The US neither has nor is working on anything comparable to the SA 500 (or SA-400 for that matter). The list of Russian weapons systems for which the US has no current answer is growing daily. A bunch of blimps over DC is a joke - maybe they missed the memo that Russia now has nuclear capable hypersonic naval missiles.

It is perfectly reasonable to think that by the end of the current Resident’s current term, the US will have exactly zero nukes.


52 posted on 12/19/2014 9:57:01 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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