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I don't think cameldrv is saying that a first strike is really feasible right now. It's just that in the past, the second strike capability had layers upon laye

by yccs27 5y ago

I don't think cameldrv is saying that a first strike is really feasible right now. It's just that in the past, the second strike capability had layers upon layers to make 100% sure no war-hungry commander could delude themselves into thinking they had any chance of disabling it. Now all of the 7 points have eaten away at this certainty. For now, it looks like the equation is still in favor of MAD, but it with a smaller margin. But what if Russia or China has some trick/secret weapon to disable the SLBMs? Or maybe they are just waiting until they know the locations of all carriers/subs - they have many years, and it might only take one random moment of 100% detection! I'm sure the odds are very low, but I'm not comfortable with a gamble when nuclear annihilation on the line. The fact that the dominant military doctrine hinges on some increasingly uncertain calculations is terrifying to me.

dragontamer 5y ago
> But what if Russia or China has some trick/secret weapon to disable the SLBMs? Then do they have a secret / trick to disable all briefcase bombs? The Davy Crockett nuke is under 50lbs and was designed for infantry to use (in a almost certainly suicide manner). And then plenty of other types were invented as time went on. If you can't get them with the big guns, you get them with the small ones, which are still devastating. There are still layers-upon-layers to ensure MAD, as far as I can tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition And let me remind you: the pipebomb guy from Jan6th hasn't been found yet, despite modern surveillance methods and nearly a year of FBI searching and interviews.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Generally the smaller the bomb the easier it is to sneak it past defenses. You couldn't do enough damage for it to matter on a country scale. You'd have to sneak many small payloads by which would be easier to detect, at that point a larger single payload would be easier to sneak in. Radioactive payloads are harder to sneak in as ports are scanned with geiger counters, easier to do pipe bombs or fertilizer bombs, etc, but less effective. To do real collateral damage you have to deliver the payload via the air. Off-topic nitpick, the pipe bombs were planted on Jan 5th near the DNC and RNC headquarters. There's no known relation to the Jan 6th capitol protest.
  - lb1lf 5y ago
    > To do real collateral damage you have to deliver the payload via the air. -My pet scenario is you just use DHL and ship the thing in a container. Imagine a handful of nukes going off in, say, the Suez canal, in a lock in the Panama canal, Shanghai, Singapore, LA and Rotterdam. You don't need to kill billions to bring the world to a halt. We'd face shortages of pretty much everything for quite a long time, with all the difficulties, suffering and general havoc that would bring with it.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    - Can a state drop enough radioactive contaminants from the air that it would be impossible to detect a Davy Crockett bomb (20kt) in a container?
    - Arrath 5y ago
      The weight delta between a man portable device like a Crockett and the expected load of a container is surely enough for a determined actor to shield and disguise the contents well enough to both appear as the normal stated cargo and shield the weapon's emissions from typical port of entry scanning.
- cameldrv 5y ago
  A Davy Crockett may weigh only 50 lbs, but it only has a yield of 20 tons (not kilotons) All of the other super small nukes have small yields (less than 1kT). Besides the fact that they're all decommissioned, they just aren't big enough to the kind of damage people think of when they imagine a nuclear war.

by yccs27 5y ago

dragontamer 5y ago

> But what if Russia or China has some trick/secret weapon to disable the SLBMs? Then do they have a secret / trick to disable all briefcase bombs? The Davy Crockett nuke is under 50lbs and was designed for infantry to use (in a almost certainly suicide manner). And then plenty of other types were invented as time went on. If you can't get them with the big guns, you get them with the small ones, which are still devastating. There are still layers-upon-layers to ensure MAD, as far as I can tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_demolition_munition And let me remind you: the pipebomb guy from Jan6th hasn't been found yet, despite modern surveillance methods and nearly a year of FBI searching and interviews.

hunterb123 5y ago
Generally the smaller the bomb the easier it is to sneak it past defenses. You couldn't do enough damage for it to matter on a country scale. You'd have to sneak many small payloads by which would be easier to detect, at that point a larger single payload would be easier to sneak in. Radioactive payloads are harder to sneak in as ports are scanned with geiger counters, easier to do pipe bombs or fertilizer bombs, etc, but less effective. To do real collateral damage you have to deliver the payload via the air. Off-topic nitpick, the pipe bombs were planted on Jan 5th near the DNC and RNC headquarters. There's no known relation to the Jan 6th capitol protest.
- lb1lf 5y ago
  > To do real collateral damage you have to deliver the payload via the air. -My pet scenario is you just use DHL and ship the thing in a container. Imagine a handful of nukes going off in, say, the Suez canal, in a lock in the Panama canal, Shanghai, Singapore, LA and Rotterdam. You don't need to kill billions to bring the world to a halt. We'd face shortages of pretty much everything for quite a long time, with all the difficulties, suffering and general havoc that would bring with it.
- laurent92 5y ago
  - Can a state drop enough radioactive contaminants from the air that it would be impossible to detect a Davy Crockett bomb (20kt) in a container?
  - Arrath 5y ago
    The weight delta between a man portable device like a Crockett and the expected load of a container is surely enough for a determined actor to shield and disguise the contents well enough to both appear as the normal stated cargo and shield the weapon's emissions from typical port of entry scanning.
cameldrv 5y ago
A Davy Crockett may weigh only 50 lbs, but it only has a yield of 20 tons (not kilotons) All of the other super small nukes have small yields (less than 1kT). Besides the fact that they're all decommissioned, they just aren't big enough to the kind of damage people think of when they imagine a nuclear war.