I don't believe it is a funding issue, how is approx. $900 billion not enough? It is not how much we spend but how we spend it. The Navy wasted $75 Billion (and counting ) on LCS, Zumwalts and Ford But lets look at the other services The Army spent $18 billion trying to replace the Bradley without buying a single vehicle. The M-1128 was …
I don't believe it is a funding issue, how is approx. $900 billion not enough? It is not how much we spend but how we spend it. The Navy wasted $75 Billion (and counting ) on LCS, Zumwalts and Ford But lets look at the other services The Army spent $18 billion trying to replace the Bradley without buying a single vehicle. The M-1128 was at least another half billion dollars. Who knows the what he XM-10 total cost will be as for some stupid reason they want to add a 40 ton MBT (same weight as a Leopard I) to a "Light" Infantry division TO&E . IF the Stryker MGS was too heavy for the 82nd ABN (they acquired LAV-25s from the USMC) why would a heavier vehicle now be suitable? So right their we have around $20 billion how many thousand Harpoon anti-ship missiles or hundreds of JASSM -XRs would that have bought? Then we have the USMC which used to beknown for being able prudent financial managers. $3 billion on the failed EFV an I am still not convinced the MV-22 was a good buy for the Corps (Spec Ops and grey hound replacement yes but USMC no). The USAF wants to continue to fund and develop fixed target known as ICBMs . How are our less vulnerable SBLBM and Strategic bomber force not enough? Proposed replacement for the ICBM force would be approx. $90 billion on the low end. That would buy a lot of cruise missiles. Of course the are saving that could be made in personnel costs that would be politically unpopular like no first term enlistments w/dependents/getting married /committing parenthood.; cutting the number of GOFOs and turning more non-combat jobs over to civilian contractors.
"The USAF wants to continue to fund and develop fixed target known as ICBMs . How are our less vulnerable SBLBM and Strategic bomber force not enough?"
Actually the AF wants no part of that mission and would be happy to see it cancelled so they could waste more on fighters whose legs are too short to matter in a fight with China. Luckily STRATCOM is forcing them to still fulfill that vital mission.
ICBMs make our SLBMs more survivable by complicating adversary targeting and by providing a huge target sink that exponentially increases the number of targets an adversary has to nuke to fight the US. Without ICBMs an adversary could hit the US with 5 nukes and destroy all of our nuclear capability except for our at-sea SSBNs which would slowly wither and die without trained maintainers or spare parts.
You really want to put the president, any president regardless of party, in a position where their only choice is to watch the deterrent slowly wither away or just say "fuck it" and launch all of our surviving SLBMs in revenge for an adversary hitting 5 military bases with 5 nukes? I certainly don't want to put any president in that position. The investment in ICBMs is minimal for the deterrence impact they provide and the survivability they help to provide to our Nation and to our SSBNs.
You really think. any nuclear exchange woudl end with only 5 strikes? Those 5 bases are not isolated remote postings but also near population centers. Imagine a nuke strike at the sub base at Bangor, you don't think Seattle would be affected You don't think we would respond in turn? Of course it would escalate and after that everything else is moot. Survivors will be fighting over the ashes We lose nothing by taking our triad down from 3 to 2.
I think it would be pretty stupid to put the President in a situation where he would have to face that choice.
The bases actually are all quite isolated from major cities. You could easily hit Bangor with a 20 kiloton warhead and have little to no impact on Seattle or any other major population center.
It could certainly escalate after that... but the only thing the US would have left to escalate with is our few surviving SSBNs that were at sea at the time of the strike if we are dumb enough to get rid of our ICBMs.
IIRC Russia does not have had a have single ICBM armed with a warheads of less than 100kt and SLBM of less than 50kt and they are mostly MIRVs. and while the people of Seattle might be spared most of the effects the blast you can't say the same about radiation/fallout.
How they arm and use their missiles today doesn't matter - the question is how they arm their missiles and how they use them in a future where we give up all of our ICBMs and make ourselves vulnerable to such a small attack.
Go ahead and look at the fallout cone for a 25 KT airburst on the Delta Pier in Bangor - Seattle is spared completely.
Exactly what we need to avoid. Sustaining a robust triad - including our prompt & stabilizing ICBMs is a key part of that.
Increasing our tactical nuclear capabilities to deny Russia and China the perception of an advantage at low levels of escalation is also a key part. The W76-2 on D5 helps with that but we need more. We got rid of too much after the cold war ended. Our zeal to reduce the size of our arsenal wasn't match by Russia and now China is rapidly expanding theirs.
I maintain that bombers and SLBM are enough,. No need to make targets of our food production regions by placing nukes there. I would also add that none of the ICBMs are equipped with low yield tactical warheads to allow for the limited response you seem to think is feasible. If anything it is the bombers that would be the most easily to provide for that.
We know the Triad works to prevent large scale nuclear war. The risky and borderline insane strategy of inviting a first strike by eliminating the stabilizing influence that our ICBMs have provided for over 50 years and reducing ourselves to 5 relatively soft and easy to destroy targets is a terrible way to try to save a few dollars. We lost far more to Earned Income Tax Credit fraud every year than we spend on ICBMs.
Also, just because ICBMs don't deter tactical nuclear use doesn't mean they aren't useful at deterring large scale nuclear exchanges. Those 450 hard targets, and over 500 more at the height of the cold war, have been in the midst of our food production region for over 50 years.
If it makes you feel any better, the bomber leg of the triad is pretty much a non-player, so it's pretty much taken out. We have 20 stealth bombers and 72 B-52s. The B-52s, which have a radar cross-section the size of downtown Chicago, aren't getting anywhere near Russia.
So cancel the B-21 Raider, a rare defense project that looks to be almost on time and budget? I would argue given the performance of Russian military to date you are underestimating the B-52 given the range of the up to 20 cruise missiles it carries. Plus there is your tactical nuke ability if you want it. The way you play the only thing we should just have is ICBMs which cannot be recalled. The two things the USAF does better than anyone else is Logistics and SEAD.. I would keep the bombers and Subs and get rid of the ICBMs. Not entirely true, I would keep some armed with conventional warheads (Maybe even deep penetrating warheads) for a global strike anyway almost anywhere in 30 minutes ability.
Where did I say anything about canceling the B-21? I'm all for building a couple thousand but there will be some leftist the chops the procurement. As for the B-52, that thing was obsolete in 1983.
I will also add that be it 5 missiles or 500, if they get launched our strategic nuclear force's whole rational for existing has failed- deterrence, mutually assured destruction did not work.
Simple math proves your wrong - hitting 450 hardened targets is far harder and more complicated than hitting 5 soft targets.
If someone launches just a few nuclear weapons that doesn't actually mean strategic deterrence failed. Strategic deterrence is about deterring an existential threat to America, not to trying to pretend that it deters every kind of nuclear attack. The fact that it has since 1945 is a nice bonus but no one should be dumb enough to think that a small nuclear war isn't possible. That kind of folly is what led us to getting rid of almost all of our tactical nuclear weapons after the cold war ended only to try to get back some of them now.
I am sure our European allies were thrilled with the idea of a tactical nuclear war since it would take place mainly on their soil. The countries with the most tac nukes woudl be spared most of the effects.
It is true that even with a nuclear umbrella you might get a little wet. But they didn't object strongly and even allowed for the basing of the weapons there --- including equipping their own plans to drop them.
They knew what the alternative was and accepted it.
"As only a fool believes in limited nuclear war or the “only works in the faculty lounge” concept of “tactical nukes” - any NATO use of nukes in Europe has a greater than 75% chance of escalating in to the entire northern hemisphere nuking itself in to making the next Cold War between Brazil and Nigeria."
Wow, so the USAF squandering a billion dollars on ECSS was a real bargain! (Problem is, there's a thousand programs that don't get much attention because they die without producing anything and waste "only" a billion dollars.) The only reason anybody heard of this one was because of he fanfare behind it. https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/air-forces-expeditionary-combat-support-system-ecss/
I don't believe it is a funding issue, how is approx. $900 billion not enough? It is not how much we spend but how we spend it. The Navy wasted $75 Billion (and counting ) on LCS, Zumwalts and Ford But lets look at the other services The Army spent $18 billion trying to replace the Bradley without buying a single vehicle. The M-1128 was at least another half billion dollars. Who knows the what he XM-10 total cost will be as for some stupid reason they want to add a 40 ton MBT (same weight as a Leopard I) to a "Light" Infantry division TO&E . IF the Stryker MGS was too heavy for the 82nd ABN (they acquired LAV-25s from the USMC) why would a heavier vehicle now be suitable? So right their we have around $20 billion how many thousand Harpoon anti-ship missiles or hundreds of JASSM -XRs would that have bought? Then we have the USMC which used to beknown for being able prudent financial managers. $3 billion on the failed EFV an I am still not convinced the MV-22 was a good buy for the Corps (Spec Ops and grey hound replacement yes but USMC no). The USAF wants to continue to fund and develop fixed target known as ICBMs . How are our less vulnerable SBLBM and Strategic bomber force not enough? Proposed replacement for the ICBM force would be approx. $90 billion on the low end. That would buy a lot of cruise missiles. Of course the are saving that could be made in personnel costs that would be politically unpopular like no first term enlistments w/dependents/getting married /committing parenthood.; cutting the number of GOFOs and turning more non-combat jobs over to civilian contractors.
"The USAF wants to continue to fund and develop fixed target known as ICBMs . How are our less vulnerable SBLBM and Strategic bomber force not enough?"
Actually the AF wants no part of that mission and would be happy to see it cancelled so they could waste more on fighters whose legs are too short to matter in a fight with China. Luckily STRATCOM is forcing them to still fulfill that vital mission.
ICBMs make our SLBMs more survivable by complicating adversary targeting and by providing a huge target sink that exponentially increases the number of targets an adversary has to nuke to fight the US. Without ICBMs an adversary could hit the US with 5 nukes and destroy all of our nuclear capability except for our at-sea SSBNs which would slowly wither and die without trained maintainers or spare parts.
You really want to put the president, any president regardless of party, in a position where their only choice is to watch the deterrent slowly wither away or just say "fuck it" and launch all of our surviving SLBMs in revenge for an adversary hitting 5 military bases with 5 nukes? I certainly don't want to put any president in that position. The investment in ICBMs is minimal for the deterrence impact they provide and the survivability they help to provide to our Nation and to our SSBNs.
You really think. any nuclear exchange woudl end with only 5 strikes? Those 5 bases are not isolated remote postings but also near population centers. Imagine a nuke strike at the sub base at Bangor, you don't think Seattle would be affected You don't think we would respond in turn? Of course it would escalate and after that everything else is moot. Survivors will be fighting over the ashes We lose nothing by taking our triad down from 3 to 2.
I think it would be pretty stupid to put the President in a situation where he would have to face that choice.
The bases actually are all quite isolated from major cities. You could easily hit Bangor with a 20 kiloton warhead and have little to no impact on Seattle or any other major population center.
It could certainly escalate after that... but the only thing the US would have left to escalate with is our few surviving SSBNs that were at sea at the time of the strike if we are dumb enough to get rid of our ICBMs.
IIRC Russia does not have had a have single ICBM armed with a warheads of less than 100kt and SLBM of less than 50kt and they are mostly MIRVs. and while the people of Seattle might be spared most of the effects the blast you can't say the same about radiation/fallout.
How they arm and use their missiles today doesn't matter - the question is how they arm their missiles and how they use them in a future where we give up all of our ICBMs and make ourselves vulnerable to such a small attack.
Go ahead and look at the fallout cone for a 25 KT airburst on the Delta Pier in Bangor - Seattle is spared completely.
https://youtu.be/EcK6ad_t9ak
Exactly what we need to avoid. Sustaining a robust triad - including our prompt & stabilizing ICBMs is a key part of that.
Increasing our tactical nuclear capabilities to deny Russia and China the perception of an advantage at low levels of escalation is also a key part. The W76-2 on D5 helps with that but we need more. We got rid of too much after the cold war ended. Our zeal to reduce the size of our arsenal wasn't match by Russia and now China is rapidly expanding theirs.
I maintain that bombers and SLBM are enough,. No need to make targets of our food production regions by placing nukes there. I would also add that none of the ICBMs are equipped with low yield tactical warheads to allow for the limited response you seem to think is feasible. If anything it is the bombers that would be the most easily to provide for that.
We know the Triad works to prevent large scale nuclear war. The risky and borderline insane strategy of inviting a first strike by eliminating the stabilizing influence that our ICBMs have provided for over 50 years and reducing ourselves to 5 relatively soft and easy to destroy targets is a terrible way to try to save a few dollars. We lost far more to Earned Income Tax Credit fraud every year than we spend on ICBMs.
You have to find them first to destroy them. They know were the missile silos are. 5 with up to 240 warheads (MIRV) each sounds pretty good to me.
Also, just because ICBMs don't deter tactical nuclear use doesn't mean they aren't useful at deterring large scale nuclear exchanges. Those 450 hard targets, and over 500 more at the height of the cold war, have been in the midst of our food production region for over 50 years.
If it makes you feel any better, the bomber leg of the triad is pretty much a non-player, so it's pretty much taken out. We have 20 stealth bombers and 72 B-52s. The B-52s, which have a radar cross-section the size of downtown Chicago, aren't getting anywhere near Russia.
So cancel the B-21 Raider, a rare defense project that looks to be almost on time and budget? I would argue given the performance of Russian military to date you are underestimating the B-52 given the range of the up to 20 cruise missiles it carries. Plus there is your tactical nuke ability if you want it. The way you play the only thing we should just have is ICBMs which cannot be recalled. The two things the USAF does better than anyone else is Logistics and SEAD.. I would keep the bombers and Subs and get rid of the ICBMs. Not entirely true, I would keep some armed with conventional warheads (Maybe even deep penetrating warheads) for a global strike anyway almost anywhere in 30 minutes ability.
Where did I say anything about canceling the B-21? I'm all for building a couple thousand but there will be some leftist the chops the procurement. As for the B-52, that thing was obsolete in 1983.
I would argue that ICBMs do not complicate an adversarie's targeting because Russia has enough that they don't have to worry too much about prioritizing and China is well on its way to getting there: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/03/china-increasing-nuclear-arsenal-much-faster-than-was-thought-pentagon-says
I will also add that be it 5 missiles or 500, if they get launched our strategic nuclear force's whole rational for existing has failed- deterrence, mutually assured destruction did not work.
Simple math proves your wrong - hitting 450 hardened targets is far harder and more complicated than hitting 5 soft targets.
If someone launches just a few nuclear weapons that doesn't actually mean strategic deterrence failed. Strategic deterrence is about deterring an existential threat to America, not to trying to pretend that it deters every kind of nuclear attack. The fact that it has since 1945 is a nice bonus but no one should be dumb enough to think that a small nuclear war isn't possible. That kind of folly is what led us to getting rid of almost all of our tactical nuclear weapons after the cold war ended only to try to get back some of them now.
I am sure our European allies were thrilled with the idea of a tactical nuclear war since it would take place mainly on their soil. The countries with the most tac nukes woudl be spared most of the effects.
It is true that even with a nuclear umbrella you might get a little wet. But they didn't object strongly and even allowed for the basing of the weapons there --- including equipping their own plans to drop them.
They knew what the alternative was and accepted it.
"As only a fool believes in limited nuclear war or the “only works in the faculty lounge” concept of “tactical nukes” - any NATO use of nukes in Europe has a greater than 75% chance of escalating in to the entire northern hemisphere nuking itself in to making the next Cold War between Brazil and Nigeria."
CDR Salamander
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/how-weak-is-the-strongest-nation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=247761&post_id=129617972&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Sadly Putin has shown himself to be a fool so who knows what he believes. Escalate to de-escalate is a published Russian doctrine.
Wow, so the USAF squandering a billion dollars on ECSS was a real bargain! (Problem is, there's a thousand programs that don't get much attention because they die without producing anything and waste "only" a billion dollars.) The only reason anybody heard of this one was because of he fanfare behind it. https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/air-forces-expeditionary-combat-support-system-ecss/