4 ms·

Given the decay of Russia and their forces, it’s questionable whether they would work.

ceejayoz 2y ago
Even if 99% are non-functional it’s a significant threat.
epolanski 2y ago
No I don't think it is. They have detonated more than 800 nukes in their history, ballistic ones from subs since 60 years ago, and have almost 2k warheads deployed. Don't confuse the fact that they tend to start and conduct wars poorly, until cornered, with complete ineptitude.
- JohnBooty 2y ago
  Right, but when is the last time they detonated one? What is the current status of their stockpile and the infrastructure required to launch it and strike a target thousands of miles away? Nuclear missiles have a lot of stuff that degrades over time. The plutonium. The conventional chemical explosives. The electronics. Were their nukes even designed to be serviced 25, 50 years in the future? Russia went through quite a bit of economic difficulty in the waning years of communism and in the years after communism. The state of their other big expensive military toys (their navy, etc) and even their ability to equip their infantry on a personal level seems to be pretty far from ideal. I'm not telling you that Russia doesn't have functional nukes, and it's certainly not a bluff that other nations can afford to call, but I think it's a very legitimate question.
  - swagasaurus-rex 2y ago
    Safe to say they probably got more than one functional nuke, which is more than enough for concern.
- malfist 2y ago
  Sure, they might be inept now, but wait until they're desperate!
- tomjen3 2y ago
  russia is completely corrupt. Nuke upkeep is expensive and is an obvious area for corruption (you will only know at the end of the world). There is zero reason that more than a handful has actually been maintained. Not to mention that their recent launch was a bit - eh. The Soviet Union was evil, but it was somewhat competent. The russian regime is not.
  - jabl 2y ago
    OTOH current day Russia doesn't have the yoke of communism around their neck. Is the level of corruption worse than the economic inefficiency of communism? I don't know, possibly? As for nukes, nuclear saber rattling seems to be one of the few remaining reasons the rest of the world gives a f*ck about whatever Putin and his cronies are saying. Without nukes, the West would have massively stepped up support for Ukraine, and the Russian army would be nothing but a breadcrumb of smoldering wrecks all the way to Siberia. So I'd think that Putin has a huge incentive to keep his nuclear deterrent functional, no matter how corrupt and inept the rest of his armed forces are.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    I've never heard any expert in nuclear weapons suggest that Russian nukes don't work, especially the ones that have been modernized since the fall of the SU, which is all the ones attached to ICBMs and SLBMs. Until a few years ago, US nuke experts regularly inspected Russian nukes and Russian nuke delivery systems. If Russian nukes don't work, it seems likely that the inspectors would have been able to tell, e.g., through gamma-ray spectrography. The ICBMs and SLBMs to "deliver" the nukes are more expensive and harder to develop them the nukes themselves, and Russia routinely tests those. "harder to develop": London, not having had as much money to spend on nukes as the US and USSR had, gets its SLBMs (along with the launch tubes) from the US (whereas they make their own nukes and SLBM-carrying subs) and a few minutes of searching finds no signs of them ever developing an ICBM. (In fact, they might never have had ICBMs: they certainly don't now.)
    - rjsw 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile)
- oneshtein 2y ago
  Yep, but thos ICBM's are developed by Ukraine and need regular (every 10 years) maintenance to be performed in Dnipro, Ukraine.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    That's not the case for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat. The one you describe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile) - is being actively phased out.
    - oneshtein 2y ago
      Quote from Wikipedia about Sarmat: > Despite the Russian claims that the missile is on 'combat alert', since its 2022 flight test, it has experienced four failed tests, the most recent on 21 September 2024 We have the short opportunity window, when Satana stopped to work and Sarmat is not working yet.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        I think it'd be a pretty big mistake to interpret "it needs servicing every ten years" as "it stops working immediately after that", and similarly a mistake to think the Russians can't accomplish at least some of that maintenance themselves. One can run a car without oil changes for quite a while before the problems add up.
        oneshtein 2y ago
        Even one nuke is a big threat for a non-nuclear country, but Russia is not the only one with nukes, so number of well maintained nukes in service is important, if RF want to win a war with nukes. It will be pretty dumb for RF to strike FIRST with expired nukes.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        There's no winning a war with nukes. Even if 1% are operational, they could devastate the US.

Even if 99% are non-functional it’s a significant threat.

No I don't think it is. They have detonated more than 800 nukes in their history, ballistic ones from subs since 60 years ago, and have almost 2k warheads deployed. Don't confuse the fact that they tend to start and conduct wars poorly, until cornered, with complete ineptitude.

JohnBooty 2y ago
Right, but when is the last time they detonated one? What is the current status of their stockpile and the infrastructure required to launch it and strike a target thousands of miles away? Nuclear missiles have a lot of stuff that degrades over time. The plutonium. The conventional chemical explosives. The electronics. Were their nukes even designed to be serviced 25, 50 years in the future? Russia went through quite a bit of economic difficulty in the waning years of communism and in the years after communism. The state of their other big expensive military toys (their navy, etc) and even their ability to equip their infantry on a personal level seems to be pretty far from ideal. I'm not telling you that Russia doesn't have functional nukes, and it's certainly not a bluff that other nations can afford to call, but I think it's a very legitimate question.
- swagasaurus-rex 2y ago
  Safe to say they probably got more than one functional nuke, which is more than enough for concern.
malfist 2y ago
Sure, they might be inept now, but wait until they're desperate!
tomjen3 2y ago
russia is completely corrupt. Nuke upkeep is expensive and is an obvious area for corruption (you will only know at the end of the world). There is zero reason that more than a handful has actually been maintained. Not to mention that their recent launch was a bit - eh. The Soviet Union was evil, but it was somewhat competent. The russian regime is not.
- jabl 2y ago
  OTOH current day Russia doesn't have the yoke of communism around their neck. Is the level of corruption worse than the economic inefficiency of communism? I don't know, possibly? As for nukes, nuclear saber rattling seems to be one of the few remaining reasons the rest of the world gives a f*ck about whatever Putin and his cronies are saying. Without nukes, the West would have massively stepped up support for Ukraine, and the Russian army would be nothing but a breadcrumb of smoldering wrecks all the way to Siberia. So I'd think that Putin has a huge incentive to keep his nuclear deterrent functional, no matter how corrupt and inept the rest of his armed forces are.
- hollerith 2y ago
  I've never heard any expert in nuclear weapons suggest that Russian nukes don't work, especially the ones that have been modernized since the fall of the SU, which is all the ones attached to ICBMs and SLBMs. Until a few years ago, US nuke experts regularly inspected Russian nukes and Russian nuke delivery systems. If Russian nukes don't work, it seems likely that the inspectors would have been able to tell, e.g., through gamma-ray spectrography. The ICBMs and SLBMs to "deliver" the nukes are more expensive and harder to develop them the nukes themselves, and Russia routinely tests those. "harder to develop": London, not having had as much money to spend on nukes as the US and USSR had, gets its SLBMs (along with the launch tubes) from the US (whereas they make their own nukes and SLBM-carrying subs) and a few minutes of searching finds no signs of them ever developing an ICBM. (In fact, they might never have had ICBMs: they certainly don't now.)
  - rjsw 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile)
oneshtein 2y ago
Yep, but thos ICBM's are developed by Ukraine and need regular (every 10 years) maintenance to be performed in Dnipro, Ukraine.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  That's not the case for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat. The one you describe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile) - is being actively phased out.
  - oneshtein 2y ago
    Quote from Wikipedia about Sarmat: > Despite the Russian claims that the missile is on 'combat alert', since its 2022 flight test, it has experienced four failed tests, the most recent on 21 September 2024 We have the short opportunity window, when Satana stopped to work and Sarmat is not working yet.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      I think it'd be a pretty big mistake to interpret "it needs servicing every ten years" as "it stops working immediately after that", and similarly a mistake to think the Russians can't accomplish at least some of that maintenance themselves. One can run a car without oil changes for quite a while before the problems add up.
      - oneshtein 2y ago
        Even one nuke is a big threat for a non-nuclear country, but Russia is not the only one with nukes, so number of well maintained nukes in service is important, if RF want to win a war with nukes. It will be pretty dumb for RF to strike FIRST with expired nukes.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        There's no winning a war with nukes. Even if 1% are operational, they could devastate the US.