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One might wonder if the US, Russia, and China don't already have nuclear weapons under their control on foreign soil. Seems physically easy and only politically

One might wonder if the US, Russia, and China don't already have nuclear weapons under their control on foreign soil. Seems physically easy and only politically difficult. Would the US announce the discovery of such a hidden weapon if they found one in the US? I doubt it.

jonhendry18 8y ago
I assume you mean "without permission or knowledge of the host country". The US has bunkers of nuclear weapons in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey. Apparently the US had nuclear weapons in Japan until 1972.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jadedhacker 8y ago
  This is called our "Extended Deterrence". We also had nukes in South Korea for some time. Some of our NATO allies of course have their own weapons (UK, France). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas... EDIT: An interesting point about the history of extended deterrence is that the US put nukes in Turkey and that precipitated the Cuban Missile crisis as the Soviets felt they needed parity. Turkey is in the same ballpark range from Moscow as Cuba is from Washington D.C. This history is not often told to make it seem as though Washington was responding to some kind of unprovoked aggression. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-rea...
- chriselles 8y ago
  I believe all nuclear weapons may have been removed from Turkey following the fallout of the 2016 Coup attempt in Turkey.
cascom 8y ago
Terrifying thought - given their small size and the porosity of U.S. borders one would have to imagine it would be pretty easy to accomplish - on the other hand if the weapon were attributable to the host country it and discovered one would imagine that the u.s. would likely go to war over it. Especially considering the response to the positions of nuclear mussels in Cuba...
duxup 8y ago
It would be such a political risk to keep one in a target country without telling them, and they can already deliver them without much hassle when they need to. It would be a constant threat not to the US (they don't know it is there) but to the Russia or China who at anytime could be found out and the response will not be what they want. Only in the case that you want to set it off is it a net benefit, and even if you did it anonymously... the response still could be what Russia and or China wouldn't want. There is really no good reason to do it, particularly since they could deliver one anytime fairly quickly if they needed to. Much less risky to play politics remotely. ...
toomanybeersies 8y ago
The USA and Russia certainly have the capability [1], both in terms of technology and in terms of being able to smuggle it in. There were secret caches hidden all over Europe by NATO and the USSR, and potentially Soviet caches on US soil, although officially none have been found. But what would they have to gain by having a nuclear weapon in the wild, which is essentially controlled by whoever happens to have possession of it. There are a lot of checks and balances before a normal nuclear weapon can be armed and detonated, most of which you wouldn't be able to have in a backpack nuke. There's no political gain to be had by one of those weapons, if it was detonated it would be fairly obvious who's weapon it was. Conventional weapons have deniability. The problem of reliably getting nuclear weapons onto a target has been largely solved. Between the nuclear triad and MIRV [2] warheads, mutually assured destruction has never been more assured. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Muni... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...
- njarboe 8y ago
  I hope that the US military kept/keeps a firm grip on the nuclear arsenal and the CIA never gets their hands on a suitcase nuke. The organization has a history of some very questionable ops.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    There is a paradigm shift between covertly assassinating leaders or orchestrating coups, and detonating suitcase nukes.
randyrand 8y ago
There's really no reason. ICBM's are just as good and carry less political risk

jonhendry18 8y ago

I assume you mean "without permission or knowledge of the host country". The US has bunkers of nuclear weapons in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey. Apparently the US had nuclear weapons in Japan until 1972.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jadedhacker 8y ago
This is called our "Extended Deterrence". We also had nukes in South Korea for some time. Some of our NATO allies of course have their own weapons (UK, France). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas... EDIT: An interesting point about the history of extended deterrence is that the US put nukes in Turkey and that precipitated the Cuban Missile crisis as the Soviets felt they needed parity. Turkey is in the same ballpark range from Moscow as Cuba is from Washington D.C. This history is not often told to make it seem as though Washington was responding to some kind of unprovoked aggression. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-real-cuban-missile-crisis/309190/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/the-rea...
chriselles 8y ago
I believe all nuclear weapons may have been removed from Turkey following the fallout of the 2016 Coup attempt in Turkey.

cascom 8y ago

Terrifying thought - given their small size and the porosity of U.S. borders one would have to imagine it would be pretty easy to accomplish - on the other hand if the weapon were attributable to the host country it and discovered one would imagine that the u.s. would likely go to war over it. Especially considering the response to the positions of nuclear mussels in Cuba...

duxup 8y ago

It would be such a political risk to keep one in a target country without telling them, and they can already deliver them without much hassle when they need to. It would be a constant threat not to the US (they don't know it is there) but to the Russia or China who at anytime could be found out and the response will not be what they want. Only in the case that you want to set it off is it a net benefit, and even if you did it anonymously... the response still could be what Russia and or China wouldn't want. There is really no good reason to do it, particularly since they could deliver one anytime fairly quickly if they needed to. Much less risky to play politics remotely. ...

toomanybeersies 8y ago

The USA and Russia certainly have the capability [1], both in terms of technology and in terms of being able to smuggle it in. There were secret caches hidden all over Europe by NATO and the USSR, and potentially Soviet caches on US soil, although officially none have been found. But what would they have to gain by having a nuclear weapon in the wild, which is essentially controlled by whoever happens to have possession of it. There are a lot of checks and balances before a normal nuclear weapon can be armed and detonated, most of which you wouldn't be able to have in a backpack nuke. There's no political gain to be had by one of those weapons, if it was detonated it would be fairly obvious who's weapon it was. Conventional weapons have deniability. The problem of reliably getting nuclear weapons onto a target has been largely solved. Between the nuclear triad and MIRV [2] warheads, mutually assured destruction has never been more assured. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Muni... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...

njarboe 8y ago
I hope that the US military kept/keeps a firm grip on the nuclear arsenal and the CIA never gets their hands on a suitcase nuke. The organization has a history of some very questionable ops.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  There is a paradigm shift between covertly assassinating leaders or orchestrating coups, and detonating suitcase nukes.

randyrand 8y ago

There's really no reason. ICBM's are just as good and carry less political risk