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How can we be sure of even a conservative estimate of current warheads. Why wouldn’t US/Russia have significantly more nuclear war heads than they are a) allowe
by deanc 5y ago
How can we be sure of even a conservative estimate of current warheads. Why wouldn’t US/Russia have significantly more nuclear war heads than they are a) allowed and b) saying they have? Surely it’s in their interest to have more than the other.
- hollerith 5y agoThe US frequently inspects Russian nuclear facilities and vice versa per the New START Treaty.
- deanc 5y agoPlaying dumb here but there’re not going to invite each other to the secret nuclear warhead stash are they?
- hollerith 5y agoThe most expensive part of a warhead by far is the fissile material. I imagine the Russians show the US inspectors their stockpiles of fissile material that would need to be melted, cast, then machined before it could be incorporated into a functional warhead. There were over a dozen inspections last year IIRC. Nothing known to science produces gamma rays at the rate per unit of mass that fissile material does, so that is how the US would detect sham fissile material. In fact I suspect that the inspectors measure the entire gamma-ray spectrum and would be able to distinguish Russian fissile material from, e.g., Chinese or French fissile material using that spectrum. I imagine so because after a nuclear explosion there is a US agency that can determine from which country's stockpile the bomb's fissile material came from (by measuring isotope ratios in the fallout). My guess is that the inspection regime is not airtight but if the Russians are cheating then it has cost them 10s of billions of dollars (to produce new fissile material).
- pixl97 5y agoRussia has about the same economic output as Texas. Trying to keep a massive number of weapons is a stupendous expense already. That many more weapons is throwing money in a pit that you cant use for things like building an economy, or a palace for a dictator.
- ALittleLight 5y agoWhat do you gain from having additional warheads? If you have enough to kill all enemy decision makers and effectively destroy the enemy nation then having more doesn't do anything for you. The big cost is that your enemy will discover you are secretly amassing nuclear weapons and will escalate against you. Incentives seem to align to keeping relatively low numbers of nukes to me.