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Russia has either no capacity to build new strategic bombers at all, or has al they need to do it, depending on the timeframe you're talking about. If they rea
by jojobas 1y ago
Russia has either no capacity to build new strategic bombers at all, or has al they need to do it, depending on the timeframe you're talking about.
If they really decided to do it, they could make some kind on narrow-body bomber derivative of Il-96 in a few years.
- idiotsecant 1y agoThe basic premise of nuclear safety is mutually assured destruction. If Russia believes that another superpower believes that Russia might be less capable of MAD due to losing a huge chunk of one leg of the nuclear trifecta they might be more likely to act premptively in launching a nuclear exchange. Also, The Russian government relies on projection of an image of strength not just externally, but internally as well. If the Russian government is seen as weak internally they might be more likely to take drastic actions to stay in power. Put all these together, and it seems like the world might just be a bit more dangerous today than it was yesterday. Maybe that is the Ukrainian strategy - make Russia do something monstrous to a western power to force western action.
- goalieca 1y agoThere’s no 4D chess here. Ukraine was attacking the planes used to bomb their civilians day in and day out.
- credit_guy 1y agoIt doesn't follow. For the US the most survivable part of the nuclear triad was always the submarines. For Russia it was the road-mobile nukes. The rest of the nuclear deterrent for both the US and Russia is quite optional, and serves mostly political reasons.
- at0mic22 1y agoRussia has 50 nuclear submarines, of which 14 are ballistic missile carriers. Every couple of years they produce a new one, think its clear where the bets are on
- preisschild 1y agoAll of them are probably being monitored closely by US submarines, with them being ready to take them out should that be necessary.
- at0mic22 1y agoIt is a game you can play together
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ethbr1 1y agoUS attack subs are doing their best, but it's never 100%. Nuclear missile subs are very good at hiding (they've been doing it for 60+ years) and the ocean is a big place. 1 Borei is what, 96 MIRVs? Which is the point... even one missed is unacceptable.
- nradov 1y agoI doubt it. The USSR / Russia concept of operations for nuclear missile submarines is way different from NATO countries. They don't typically conduct wide-ranging strategic deterrence patrols out in the open ocean. Instead they tend to stay in or near their own territorial waters, protected by surface warships and land-based aircraft. While US attack submarines have occasionally violated Russian territorial waters for special missions they don't do so on a regular basis because it's so dangerous.
- mrguyorama 1y agoAnd not a single strategist on either side actually believes that to nullify the threat. A single boomer launching might not be outright MAD, but it would be too many warheads to defend against, and several major cities would be hit.
- hollerith 1y agoSubs are very hard to track or to locate, which is why Washington has been deploying two thirds of their strategic warheads (the ones that are ready to use as opposed to being in cold storage or in disassembled state) on subs and why Russia, China, Britain, France and India all decided incur the substantial expense of deploying nukes on subs, too.
- mmooss 1y ago> The rest of the nuclear deterrent for both the US and Russia is quite optional Do you have some basis for that? I've never heard it, I would be very surprised if either country allowed any part of their triad to be disabled, and both invest enormous resources in other parts of their triads.
- ethbr1 1y agoIt's woven through strategic thinking in the 50s and 60s -- a nuclear delivery triad ensures any adversary that's able to neutralize one leg will still be held under MAD and therefore unlikely to launch a first strike. Because technology was rapidly advancing, it was unclear whether any breakthrough (e.g. high altitude SAMs, etc.) might suddenly nullify one leg. If that were the only leg, the game theory response would be for the nullifier to immediately launch a first strike, to take advantage of their no-doubt temporary superiority.
- mmooss 1y agoThat is the basic concept for the triad, which isn't the question. The GGP said that for Russia strategic nuclear weapon bombers and subs are 'quite optional, and serves mostly political reasons.".
- ethbr1 1y agoAgreed. credit_guy doesn't understand what a multi-leg capability is for. Now as to whether Russia's other triad legs are credible MAD components on their own... numbers do matter. With their strategic airforce being degraded post-USSR without replacement and amidst recapitalization of the Deltas to Boreis, it's questionable is Russia can afford to maintain an effective three leg triad in the intermediate term. And if the other legs atrophy, there's also an incentive for the US and China to invest more in nullifying the remaining leg(s).
- bdangubic 1y agoThat is entirely too many words written that make no sense… The Ukrainian people were being killed by X, the Ukraine eliminated a bunch of X - end of story
- hayst4ck 1y agoIt is a clever manipulation strategy via controlling the frame of analysis. George Lakoff studied this type of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff If you analyze from the US or Russian perspective, you presuppose/assert them as the entities with agency while denying Ukrainians theirs. Any framing of an analysis that does not start from the frame of a Ukrainian with agency is suspect.
- breppp 1y agoAny recommended reading by Lakoff on the subject?
- aspenmayer 1y agoNot who you're replying to, but I remember his face and probably remember it from one or the other of these Talks at Google from a bit ago. They were each to talk about his new books at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNLP88aTg_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNLP88aTg_8 > Author George Lakoff discusses his book "Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea" as a part of the Authors@Google series. This event took place Thursday, July 12, 2007 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saDHFomGW3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saDHFomGW3A > The Authors@Google program was pleased to welcome author and professor George Lakoff to Google's New York office to discuss his new book, "The Political Mind". > George Lakoff is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Rockridge Institute, a think tank in Berkeley, CA. He is author of "Don't Think of an Elephant!", "Moral Politics", "Whose Freedom?", and coauthor of "Thinking Points: A Progressive's Handbook", as well as many books and articles on cognitive science and linguistics. In this talk Professor Lakoff speaks about his latest work The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain. In "What's the Matter with Kansas?", Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In "The Political Mind", George Lakoff explains why.
- ericmay 1y agoEscalation from picking on Ukraine to using nuclear weapons is an escalator ladder that doesn’t make sense with respect to projecting strength - because utilization means direct war with the United States, which Russia will decisively lose. Once they use a nuclear weapon there is nothing else left to escalate. All the cards have been played. Their only action would then be to use more nuclear weapons and they just aren’t going to do that because they don’t want to end the world.
- hayst4ck 1y ago> because utilization means direct war with the United States, which Russia will decisively lose. Not necessarily, Russia's successful intelligence efforts for regime change in the US may have nullified US response.
- ericmay 1y agoNah that’s just marketing. The US hasn’t fundamentally changed anything with respect to Ukraine. Even Trump can’t, and hasn’t changed that.
- hayst4ck 1y agoDid you watch the same oval office event I did? The national rhetoric has absolutely changed. The talk of mineral "deals" instead of values and realpolitik is also a clear change. We are literally experiencing a purge of the old guard for replacement with loyalists throughout the US government bureaucracy, and once there are loyalists in every position of enforcement, the actions can be changed to match the rhetoric change, assuming they already haven't.
- ericmay 1y agoNo because I don’t waste my time watching press releases like that. If you’re watching those videos and thinking something has changed, you’re the target audience and the marketing was successful. Those are for entertainment purposes only. Instead, find clear instances where the US is doing things like no longer sending Patriot missile launchers and missiles to Ukraine. [1] [1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-working-allies-deliveries-patriot-161248666.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-working-allies-deliveries-patr...
- dralley 1y agoRussia was using those bombers to terrorize their cities night after night. Ukrainians are not required to (nor will they) sit back and take it out of abstract MAD force balance concerns. If Russia cared that much about the value strategic aviation holds in their nuclear doctrine, they wouldn't be using it to chuck missiles at chldren's cancer hospitals and apartment blocks. If you want to try to impose some deeper strategic meaning onto this, a more plausible one would be the reverse: that the more "western powers" pull back from supporting Ukraine, the more Ukraine is are forced to establish they are capable of less conventional, less predictable, more aggressive means of deterrence to compensate for the absence of strong western partners.
- mmooss 1y ago> Ukrainians are not required to (nor will they) sit back and take it out of abstract MAD force balance concerns. Ukraine has very strong interests, but they have in fact restrained themselves from doing things that will provoke a war involving NATO. The US government has put many restrictions on Ukraine that Ukraine has abided by. MAD isn't "abstract", if by abstract you mean somehow unreal. It has kept the humanity from being destroyed for generations, and the US and Russia invest a lot in maintaining it.
- dralley 1y agoStrategic aviation is the least important and most dual-purpose of any of the three branches of the nuclear triad, and by this point Ukraine has ample justification for attacking it. It's an abstract concern in that sense. Destroying their entire strategic aviation forces would not meaningfully impact MAD.
- mmooss 1y ago> Destroying their entire strategic aviation forces would not meaningfully impact MAD. The only person I see saying that is some random Internet commenter. I've always heard the opposite from professionals in the field, especially that any threat to capability is a threat to stability.
- DonHopkins 1y agoBoy what a classically insincere insecure schoolyard bully's rationalization of why he brutally attacked an innocent child. Blame Putin for being a vicious bully, not the kids he's brutalizing for provoking him by defending themself from the assault.
- mmooss 1y agoIt's not a matter of blame; it's a matter of consequences. No matter who is to blame, increasing the likelihood of nuclear war is harmful.
- koonsolo 1y agoLetting the bullies of the world rule the world is also harmful.
- mmooss 1y agoYes, you need to accomplish both goals. Actual decision-makers don't have the luxury of ignoring one of them, like people on HN do.
- koonsolo 1y agoPutin is the actual decision maker here, and he obviously has no problem killing thousands of people, including killing and mutilating kids. Maybe the average HN commenter would be more humane.
- mmooss 1y agoIf Urkaine adopted that position - which they haven't - it's just playing victim. Victims have no responsibility because it's someone else's fault. That is, in fact, irrelevant to responsibility for your actions. Putin (Russia) is to blame for the war, but that's irrelevant to this issue. Ukraine is still responsible for the consequences of its actions. Putin starting the war makes it legitimate for Ukraine to assassinate Putin, for example; but if killing Putin makes Ukraine less safe or causes other negative outcomes, Ukraine is responsible for choosing the best set of outcomes. Maybe Russia will use tactical nukes - is that what Ukraine wants? They need to assess the risks and make the best choice; blame is irrelevant.
- tim333 1y agoNuclear bombers haven't really been much of a factor in MAD since Dr Strangelove was made. It's all ballistic missiles these days, or newer stuff.
- HeadsUpHigh 1y agoI still don't understand how Putin managed to convince so many people that a rule that exclusively works to his benefit is a good idea. Weak of mind.
- tim333 1y agoA lot of the reasoning around MAD seems a bit nuts. Really if you have the nukes to get fifty hits on the enemy that's enough to deter them. You don't really need thousands.
- libertine 1y agoUkraine is one of the few countries that could develop a nuke quickly - they have the know how as they were the key for USSR nuclear arsenal. The reality is if they were nuked and no one reacted, in a matter of months they would be nuking Russia.
- mcv 1y agoNot striking Russian airfields hasn't exactly worked very well to tone down Russian aggression, so it makes sense to try to directly hurt their ability to attack. It's an entirely legitimate target: military equipment, from a country waging war against Ukraine. By comparison, Russia keeps bombing civilian targets in a futile attempt to terrorize Ukrainians into surrendering. Or maybe just out of sheer spite. Either way, it seems Putin is not at all interested in peace, which means the only way to stop this war is to stop Russia's ability to wage this war. The claim that Putin might resort to nuclear strikes in response to Ukraine defending itself, is pure propaganda aimed at cowing defenders into compliance. If he actually wanted to launch nukes, he'd have done so already.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoBombers require unpressurized bomb bays. The B-52 is built completely unlike any Boeing airliner. The fuselage is significantly different than an airliner and the structural changes would not be trivial to implement. They also need to have control surfaces designed to take off with a full load and land empty. Airliners don't have to take that into consideration.
- jojobas 1y agoB-52 was designed in the 40's. Much has changed since and a lot of things that had to be figured out by costly experimentation are much easier and completely calculated. Sure the resulting plane would not be optimized in a lot of aspects but they could do it.
- distances 1y agoRussia can't currently design and produce a new tank. I very much doubt they could create a new bomber model that would actually work.
- tim333 1y agoBombers in the traditional sense of dropping bombs over a target seem almost a thing of a past these days due to missile defences. Russia has been using them as a platform to launch missiles from from a distance.