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Turkey ‘effectively holding 50 US nuclear bombs hostage’ at air base

GhettoMaestro 7y ago
As counter-intuitive as it may sound, this is honestly a non-issue in my eyes. Nuclear C2 (Command and Control) has provisions for these types of scenarios through the usage of Permissive Action Links (PALs)[1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link
- sroussey 7y ago
  Hopefully has protection from disassembly.
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    Oh, it does. The kind that self-disables via detonation if conditions are met that trigger what it believes is an intrusion or unauthorized disassembly attempt. To be clear the "detonation" is NOT the nuclear material going critical, or even a "dirty bomb" type explosion. It is akin to thermite on the electrical firing ICs/circuits to completely destroy the intelligent logic of managing the conventional explosives that triggers the nuclear material.
    - nerpderp82 7y ago
      The fissile material would still be available to build another bomb. You don't even need to use them, just disappearing the weapons and insinuating you know where they are is a powerful threat.
      - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
        Somewhat. If you don't have the knowledge (math and skills) you really can only threaten a dirty bomb in the worst case. Al-Qaeda did that for years. We didn't know if they were bullshitting or not until way later (they were full of shit).
      - dogma1138 7y ago
        Nukes make terrible dirty bombs the isotopes in questions are very stable and not highly radioactive, for a dirty bomb you want isotopes with a fairly short lifetime of years/decades. PU239 has a half life of 24,110 years and that's your best case for a dirty bomb, if the core is U235 then it has a half life of 703,800,000 years which means when it's not in any substantial mass in which the nuclear decay is can to turn into a chain reaction it's about as radioactive as cat litter or a banana.
    - jammygit 7y ago
      With 50 bombs to learn from, I would be amazed if the clever engineers in charge wouldn’t find a way past those measures given enough time and money
    - sliken 7y ago
      So you create the intrusion, then you can extract the various sub-critical pieces that if combined precisely (in position and in time) creates a nuclear explosion.
- jiveturkey 7y ago
  It's not simply a risk of a loose nuke. > It is feared that removing the weapons could signal the end of relations between the Nato allies, while leaving them in place could put the weapons of mass destruction at risk. From your wikipedia link: > The conventional explosives needed to start the chain reaction are tailored to the characteristics of the fissile material in the core of the weapon. If the detonation does not occur exactly as planned, such as in the case of a misfire, a nuclear reaction is unlikely to occur—the explosion will be no greater than the amount of conventional explosive (although radioactive material—the unreacted nuclear fuel—may be dispersed). The anti-tamper protection results in a misfire. One does not need to have a ballistic nuke to cause unspeakable damage. Misfire 50 nukes in a water supply, eg Lake Assad[1] and you could have a major humanitarian disaster on your hands. If a misfire is safe against dispersal (as some googling indicates might be true), why not detonate them in a bunker, then retrieve the nuclear material for incorporation into a dirty bomb? Now, yes thanks to PAL it may not be a risk like 9/11, but it's much more than a non-issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Syria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    Let us be clear and erase some baseless speculation: a "misfire" is 100x times better than a nuclear explosion. A "dirty bomb" is still somewhere between 10x and 50x better. Also for education purposes, the B61s in question are stored in hardened "storage bunkers"[1] under the control of US personnel at the airbase. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Storage_and_Security_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Storage_and_Security_S...
- dogma1138 7y ago
  These devices can be defeated however the skills required are likely beyond anything Turkey has, I doubt if you transfer these nukes in a faraday cage to some bunker in Russia or China they wouldn’t be able to disarm the PAL and arm the physics package. However it would likely take weeks or even months of careful reverse engineering of the mechanisms involved. The likely scenario if those nukes are put at risk is either some sort of a self destruct mechanism that is designed to disable to physics package without detonating the core itself and an immediate military response to deny any access to the area. The US can stage in Greece, Cyprus and Israel if need be as well as Saudi Arabia not to mention that they can move a carrier group into the region fairly quickly. And they would have to do so because if they don’t Russia is invading turkey in full force and after the purges in the Turkish military and their out dated equipment (they just rolled into a Syria in M60 Patton tanks) they don’t stand a chance against either really. However even a hint of this being possible would likely end Erdogan’s regime over night.
- thrill 7y ago
  A knowledgeable person can certainly take apart the devices and reuse the material. The devices are well protected and would require completely overwhelming well trained and equipped personnel who suffer no lack of clarity in their mission. If that did occur, the US certainly has significant options to prevent unauthorized parties from getting their hands on the devices.
- RijilV 7y ago
  Maybe, after all wasn't the launch code for US nukes all zeros? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-us-nukes-was-00000000-for-20-years/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-... I'm sure there's a large group contractors who have fancy presentations and complex systems to protect nukes. They're very highly motivated, fiscally, to convince everyone they've done a good job. As for if that's actually the case, has there been any peer review?
dogma1138 7y ago
Turkey won’t be able to arm or use those nukes, while they might be bold they aren’t bat shit crazy taking control of those weapons would require them to engage and likely kill the entire protection detail and effectively start a war with the US. If Turkey takes those weapons the US would have to respond with an immediate assault if not Russia will as there is no freaking way Moscow would allow 50 US nukes to go missing on their drop step, Israel might also decide to take action but their options are limited to only a large scale air assault since troop deployment over that area is impossible as there would be no safe ground to retreat too. Turkey isn’t holding anything hostage in fact I think the moment they even jokingly mention those weapons is the moment the US expels them out of NATO and introduces Turkey to a USMC amphibious ready group and a carrier strike group.
- aparashk 7y ago
  AFAIK Turkey’s army is NATO's biggest and quite modern by any standard, hence Israel may want to stay out of such a conflict. Neither US nor Russia have had a war at this scale since WW2.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    Their military isn't that modern, not in any way in comparison to the US. Their newest tank is the Leopard 2 in an A4 variant, the main workhorse of their armour is still the roughly 1000 M60 Patton (with about 200 improved by Israel to "M60 Sabra" based on the Israeli M60 Magach 7C design). Airforce wise they have about 200 F-16's and about 50 F4 Phantoms they have no air superiority fighters. Neither Turkey nor Israel can engage in land warfare as neither has force projection beyond a land invasion, the engagements would be limited to air power, and possibly strategic strikes by conventional ballistic/cruise missiles which turkey doesn't seem to have much off if any. Incirlik Air Base is fairly close to sea about 40KM from the coast line, Israel can definitely use standoff munitions which Turkey lacks as long as the weapons are not moved deeper into Turkey beyond that they would have to engage the Turkish air defense systems and CAP. Overall Israel has an air force which is slightly larger than Turkey, however they do have over 80 F-15's including about 30 F-15I (Improved derivative of the Strike Eagle) and nearly 20 F-35's in service now, they have better air to air missiles and their air defenses are better than Turkey's and they have proven experience in carrying out successful air raids in denied airspaces which Turkey lacks. While they are unlikely to engage each other this isn't a conflict that can blow out to an all out war however it can turn into a small scale skirmish as long as Turkey is kicked out of NATO prior to any Israeli action it's not a skirmish that would favor turkey overall. Israel is quite likely to be able to execute an air raid without losses and retreat back to friendly airspace, both Cyprus (Republic of) and Greece have strong military ties to Israel and a sufficient beef with Turkey so even if the Israeli assets can't retreat fast enough to Israeli air space there are friendly skies which Turkey would not likely immediately breach in the region for them to retreat too. That said this is a highly unlikely scenario because if either Russia or Israel take action against Turkey to stop them seizing from the nuclear weapons it would make the US look even weaker, and while Russia wouldn't mind doing that Israel would only do that in case they know fairly for certain that the US would not do anything other than backchannel talks to get the nukes back.
jammygit 7y ago
As somebody who avoids the news except during elections, what the heck is going on? Turkey and Russia is invading Syria? The USA pulled out suddenly? I’ve missed a lot
- rurban 7y ago
  The USA (ie. only Trump) pulled out (Pence and everyone else are battling this), Turkey is invading North-Syria (the autonomic Kurds areas, claiming Rojave are PKK), and Russia came to help Syria to protect its borders. ISIS prisoners escaped. Economic sanctions will soon end this charade, their NATO ally status is in question and Sultan Erdogan's time will be over soon.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    Thanks!
neam 7y ago
IMO; the headline is overly exaggerated. It sounds like Turkey has physically taken control of the nuclear bombs and refuse to give up. Turkey would need to attack a US base/military to take the bombs which would be 'effectively declaring war' against US and pretty much rest of the world - even probably including Russia. There is nothing in the article to suggest this is the case. Only a single paragraph pointing US officials hesitation: `One official told the paper the bombs were now effectively Mr Erdogan’s hostages. It is feared that removing the weapons could signal the end of relations between the Nato allies, while leaving them in place could put the weapons of mass destruction at risk.` I believe a more fair headline would be: 'US hesitant to pull missiles out of Turkey for keeping relations intact' edit/grammer
jerome-jh 7y ago
Trump gave up all his positions in the area, for nothing in exchange. And now his country is being blackmailed by a much weaker one. That is even worse as how he handled Iran. This is a mystery strategy.

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, this is honestly a non-issue in my eyes. Nuclear C2 (Command and Control) has provisions for these types of scenarios through the usage of Permissive Action Links (PALs)[1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link

sroussey 7y ago
Hopefully has protection from disassembly.
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  Oh, it does. The kind that self-disables via detonation if conditions are met that trigger what it believes is an intrusion or unauthorized disassembly attempt. To be clear the "detonation" is NOT the nuclear material going critical, or even a "dirty bomb" type explosion. It is akin to thermite on the electrical firing ICs/circuits to completely destroy the intelligent logic of managing the conventional explosives that triggers the nuclear material.
  - nerpderp82 7y ago
    The fissile material would still be available to build another bomb. You don't even need to use them, just disappearing the weapons and insinuating you know where they are is a powerful threat.
    - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
      Somewhat. If you don't have the knowledge (math and skills) you really can only threaten a dirty bomb in the worst case. Al-Qaeda did that for years. We didn't know if they were bullshitting or not until way later (they were full of shit).
    - dogma1138 7y ago
      Nukes make terrible dirty bombs the isotopes in questions are very stable and not highly radioactive, for a dirty bomb you want isotopes with a fairly short lifetime of years/decades. PU239 has a half life of 24,110 years and that's your best case for a dirty bomb, if the core is U235 then it has a half life of 703,800,000 years which means when it's not in any substantial mass in which the nuclear decay is can to turn into a chain reaction it's about as radioactive as cat litter or a banana.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    With 50 bombs to learn from, I would be amazed if the clever engineers in charge wouldn’t find a way past those measures given enough time and money
  - sliken 7y ago
    So you create the intrusion, then you can extract the various sub-critical pieces that if combined precisely (in position and in time) creates a nuclear explosion.
jiveturkey 7y ago
It's not simply a risk of a loose nuke. > It is feared that removing the weapons could signal the end of relations between the Nato allies, while leaving them in place could put the weapons of mass destruction at risk. From your wikipedia link: > The conventional explosives needed to start the chain reaction are tailored to the characteristics of the fissile material in the core of the weapon. If the detonation does not occur exactly as planned, such as in the case of a misfire, a nuclear reaction is unlikely to occur—the explosion will be no greater than the amount of conventional explosive (although radioactive material—the unreacted nuclear fuel—may be dispersed). The anti-tamper protection results in a misfire. One does not need to have a ballistic nuke to cause unspeakable damage. Misfire 50 nukes in a water supply, eg Lake Assad[1] and you could have a major humanitarian disaster on your hands. If a misfire is safe against dispersal (as some googling indicates might be true), why not detonate them in a bunker, then retrieve the nuclear material for incorporation into a dirty bomb? Now, yes thanks to PAL it may not be a risk like 9/11, but it's much more than a non-issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Syria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  Let us be clear and erase some baseless speculation: a "misfire" is 100x times better than a nuclear explosion. A "dirty bomb" is still somewhere between 10x and 50x better. Also for education purposes, the B61s in question are stored in hardened "storage bunkers"[1] under the control of US personnel at the airbase. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Storage_and_Security_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_Storage_and_Security_S...
dogma1138 7y ago
These devices can be defeated however the skills required are likely beyond anything Turkey has, I doubt if you transfer these nukes in a faraday cage to some bunker in Russia or China they wouldn’t be able to disarm the PAL and arm the physics package. However it would likely take weeks or even months of careful reverse engineering of the mechanisms involved. The likely scenario if those nukes are put at risk is either some sort of a self destruct mechanism that is designed to disable to physics package without detonating the core itself and an immediate military response to deny any access to the area. The US can stage in Greece, Cyprus and Israel if need be as well as Saudi Arabia not to mention that they can move a carrier group into the region fairly quickly. And they would have to do so because if they don’t Russia is invading turkey in full force and after the purges in the Turkish military and their out dated equipment (they just rolled into a Syria in M60 Patton tanks) they don’t stand a chance against either really. However even a hint of this being possible would likely end Erdogan’s regime over night.
thrill 7y ago
A knowledgeable person can certainly take apart the devices and reuse the material. The devices are well protected and would require completely overwhelming well trained and equipped personnel who suffer no lack of clarity in their mission. If that did occur, the US certainly has significant options to prevent unauthorized parties from getting their hands on the devices.
RijilV 7y ago
Maybe, after all wasn't the launch code for US nukes all zeros? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-us-nukes-was-00000000-for-20-years/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-... I'm sure there's a large group contractors who have fancy presentations and complex systems to protect nukes. They're very highly motivated, fiscally, to convince everyone they've done a good job. As for if that's actually the case, has there been any peer review?

dogma1138 7y ago

Turkey won’t be able to arm or use those nukes, while they might be bold they aren’t bat shit crazy taking control of those weapons would require them to engage and likely kill the entire protection detail and effectively start a war with the US. If Turkey takes those weapons the US would have to respond with an immediate assault if not Russia will as there is no freaking way Moscow would allow 50 US nukes to go missing on their drop step, Israel might also decide to take action but their options are limited to only a large scale air assault since troop deployment over that area is impossible as there would be no safe ground to retreat too. Turkey isn’t holding anything hostage in fact I think the moment they even jokingly mention those weapons is the moment the US expels them out of NATO and introduces Turkey to a USMC amphibious ready group and a carrier strike group.

aparashk 7y ago
AFAIK Turkey’s army is NATO's biggest and quite modern by any standard, hence Israel may want to stay out of such a conflict. Neither US nor Russia have had a war at this scale since WW2.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Their military isn't that modern, not in any way in comparison to the US. Their newest tank is the Leopard 2 in an A4 variant, the main workhorse of their armour is still the roughly 1000 M60 Patton (with about 200 improved by Israel to "M60 Sabra" based on the Israeli M60 Magach 7C design). Airforce wise they have about 200 F-16's and about 50 F4 Phantoms they have no air superiority fighters. Neither Turkey nor Israel can engage in land warfare as neither has force projection beyond a land invasion, the engagements would be limited to air power, and possibly strategic strikes by conventional ballistic/cruise missiles which turkey doesn't seem to have much off if any. Incirlik Air Base is fairly close to sea about 40KM from the coast line, Israel can definitely use standoff munitions which Turkey lacks as long as the weapons are not moved deeper into Turkey beyond that they would have to engage the Turkish air defense systems and CAP. Overall Israel has an air force which is slightly larger than Turkey, however they do have over 80 F-15's including about 30 F-15I (Improved derivative of the Strike Eagle) and nearly 20 F-35's in service now, they have better air to air missiles and their air defenses are better than Turkey's and they have proven experience in carrying out successful air raids in denied airspaces which Turkey lacks. While they are unlikely to engage each other this isn't a conflict that can blow out to an all out war however it can turn into a small scale skirmish as long as Turkey is kicked out of NATO prior to any Israeli action it's not a skirmish that would favor turkey overall. Israel is quite likely to be able to execute an air raid without losses and retreat back to friendly airspace, both Cyprus (Republic of) and Greece have strong military ties to Israel and a sufficient beef with Turkey so even if the Israeli assets can't retreat fast enough to Israeli air space there are friendly skies which Turkey would not likely immediately breach in the region for them to retreat too. That said this is a highly unlikely scenario because if either Russia or Israel take action against Turkey to stop them seizing from the nuclear weapons it would make the US look even weaker, and while Russia wouldn't mind doing that Israel would only do that in case they know fairly for certain that the US would not do anything other than backchannel talks to get the nukes back.

jammygit 7y ago

As somebody who avoids the news except during elections, what the heck is going on? Turkey and Russia is invading Syria? The USA pulled out suddenly? I’ve missed a lot

rurban 7y ago
The USA (ie. only Trump) pulled out (Pence and everyone else are battling this), Turkey is invading North-Syria (the autonomic Kurds areas, claiming Rojave are PKK), and Russia came to help Syria to protect its borders. ISIS prisoners escaped. Economic sanctions will soon end this charade, their NATO ally status is in question and Sultan Erdogan's time will be over soon.
- jammygit 7y ago
  Thanks!

neam 7y ago

IMO; the headline is overly exaggerated. It sounds like Turkey has physically taken control of the nuclear bombs and refuse to give up. Turkey would need to attack a US base/military to take the bombs which would be 'effectively declaring war' against US and pretty much rest of the world - even probably including Russia. There is nothing in the article to suggest this is the case. Only a single paragraph pointing US officials hesitation: `One official told the paper the bombs were now effectively Mr Erdogan’s hostages. It is feared that removing the weapons could signal the end of relations between the Nato allies, while leaving them in place could put the weapons of mass destruction at risk.` I believe a more fair headline would be: 'US hesitant to pull missiles out of Turkey for keeping relations intact' edit/grammer

jerome-jh 7y ago

Trump gave up all his positions in the area, for nothing in exchange. And now his country is being blackmailed by a much weaker one. That is even worse as how he handled Iran. This is a mystery strategy.