I have to disagree about the utility of land-based ICBMs--their presence essentially forces at least some of any adversary's nuclear weapons into counterforce targeting, thereby decreasing the number of nukes available for countervalue. Against Russia, that might not make much of a difference. Against China, it might be the difference between them deciding that they can take more than we can dish out and them deciding that they can't.
The other point I would make about missile silos v. B-21 and other bombers is that Ukraine has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that aircraft bases are easily vulnerable to cheap drone attacks.
I once served as one of the two soldiers who held the keys to blow up the world. We went to Offutt to get briefed on how it would really look on the map. They used Pinsk as an example (maybe the Russians might have used Minneapolis). Too classified to talk about, but the details made the whole thing horrific. We were seeing the end of life on earth
Was there any significant debate in Congress about the wisdom of spending so much money on the land-based leg of the Triad? HOWEVER, if there is no utility in the land-based leg of the Triad, WHY IS CHINA building loads of them???
CDR Sal, a deep discussion. Spent a lot of time in my past lives on this. A great summary of the issues, especially the "wargaming" aspect, and I share your perspective. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) worked due to the semblance of overall sanity of the major and minor nuclear weapons possessing participants, the small numbers of said participants, and in a couple of previously well documented and recently disclosed "near misses"...sheer good luck and perhaps divine providence. Your chart and logic essentially defining MAD is simplistic, reductionist, and totally useful as a tool that defines the essence of the concept in a way decision makers can understand. All of that said, the world today is different, there are more players, and more variables in the equation that has previously allowed MAD to work (even NK chooses to survive so far). Which brings us to Iran, and whoever is actually running things there. Strongly suspect the "Mercedes Mullahs" would be totally happy to have some nukes and enjoy the "strange new respect" a nuclear power enjoys. Their "Shia Millennials" in the security apparatus would be far more likely to use them. Desiring to would initiate an "initial limited exchange" with, say, Israel, and bring about the coming of the 12th Imam. Oddly, we never seemed to examine that as part of our wargames...
It might be worth discussing some of the issues raised by Annie Jacobsen in her 2024 book Nuclear War: A Scenario. Interesting stuff. For instance, President Reagan wanted a full-bore nuclear game played. I believe the game was called Proud Prophet and the results, as I recall them, was that no matter what variant was played, and there were many, total destruction of the world ensued. A rational look at the irrational.
We began to understand nuclear winter over time. Considering the impact on our reliance on the electronic spectrum, and what a Carrington Event solar flare like EMP event would due to the world today is a new variable AND an attack vector if used against a nation...
Oldies but goodies. "Ghost Fleet" is a bit more up to date and includes...present day aspects not included in your list...which are all bad enough. And it only had a limited exchange.
Read them all, and more. Then there was the original, "Hiroshima" by John Hersey (1946). ("Based on a true story", as the saying goes.). It went well with an episode or two of "The Big Picture", 1951-64, a documentary series about the US Army.
One of several episodes dealing with the use of atomic weapons on the battlefield.
I am reminded of the war gaming scene from Nicholas and Alexandria where the general staff is playing with pieces on a map on a table and determining that they will beat the Kaiser. The officers cheer when they learn Germany has declared war. The Prime Minister Count Witte played by Sir Laurence Olivier is trying to warn everyone what will happen when their troops meet machine guns but to no avail.
It will be interesting to see how the Iranians will respond to the bloody nose they received last month. Will they desist from enriching uranium or will they proceed full speed ahead to build an atomic bomb. No war game no matter how sophisticated can determine what decision of that kind will be made. How do you factor the Apocalypse into a program?
That’s why I was so upset and said so in this chat room by Ukraine’s attack on one leg of Russia’s trial. Putin could easily have mistaken that attack for a first strike and ordered his submarines to launch their missiles. In one hour we might have lost a dozen or more large cities.
"Putin could easily have mistaken that attack for a first strike"
Yes and no. There were no bases blowing up, no mushroom clouds. Just individual bombers loaded with fuel, burning. It's an unlikely first strike scenario. Still, he could have looked at the Ukrainian attack, seen that it served US interests very well, blamed us, and considered a response.
Concur, especially since much of the cost of the ICBM replacement program isn’t in the missiles, but the silos. The big head-hurter being that any launch of long-range missiles may be taken as a potential nuclear strike. Claiming that your missiles are only conventionally armed is difficult to verify.
But there are four things that you have not mentioned.
First, we’re in a world with three major nuclear powers, not two. And both Britain and France have enough nuclear firepower to make a difference. What constitutes adequate deterrence? Are we talking about a one-power standard, or two?
Second, we are developing a potential for effective missile defense. Which shifts the calculus, especially with regard to being able to launch a counterforce strike and parry the riposte - wherever it’s targeted.
Third, a major conflict is very likely to start with a conventional phase - the 1970s assumption, not the 1950s “wake up and nuke the Americans” scenario. In which case nuclear forces are legitimate targets for nonnuclear attack. FWIW, I think this was the planned U.S. scenario for the 1990s - in case of war, use SSNs and B-2s to degrade Soviet nukes, use SDI to hold off any counterstrike.
Finally, none of the major combatants have an interest in a Clausewitzian Total War. We don’t want Russian or Chinese dirt…and I’m not sure they want ours. This is a classic War For Limited Goals scenario, a fight for relative superiority. Which makes a non-nuclear conflict more likely, but an all-out conflict less likely. It also argues strongly for a revival of the Laws of War.
The plan is to upgrade the silo hardness considerably. Minuteman was designed around a 1970-vintage threat. Today, the warheads are going to come in a lot closer.
There's also so much equipment needs to be replaced that it's cheaper to buy new, even with the cost overruns. Virtually none of the electronics are still produced, plus we have some better hardening technology now.
I am pretty sure that the plan was to replace all the electronics. That stuff wasn't even as new as the 1980s, don't imagine they have any desire to continue using the 8" floppies (not a typo!). Rewiring from command/launch capsule to the surrounding missile silos could be interesting.
I thought I had heard that the Sentinel physically wouldn't fit. But there seems to be a lot more to it based on a quick conversation with someone who has been there and done that.
The existing missile fields are all in the northern US where winters are long and harsh and take a toll on the facilities. This, likely more than anything else, maybe the issue. There doesn't seem to be any issue with the small number of silos at Vandenberg where the 3 test launches annually are made. Those few (2, maybe 3) have been refurbished repeatedly after launches with no issues.
Building new will be a challenge. The current fields, and I think they are going to use them as much as possible, are all in places where winter is long and hard. I suspect that building season is probably less than 3 months there.
This came out when USAF was still talking about reusing the silos. His point was that he had never found an old bridge foundation that he could reuse economically for the new bridge in decades of working on bridge foundations for replacement bridges.
This blog is primarily dedicated to naval issues, but we cannot afford to play the union game. Differentiating your assets provides a far more resilient defense because doing so makes things harder for an enemy. No Tiffany systems. No Tiffany system elements.
But he did ramble a bit and giving the environmental activists any credence at all was a bit odd. Lost a bit of credibility with that, IMO.
Will also say that his clip of "moving a missile" was inaccurately portrayed. Missile bodies and warheads are moved separately. The missile convoy is way less of an event. Note the large truck in the middle of the convoy. It is not a TE that missile bodies are moved on. That convoy was moving a warhead. That's what they take really seriously. He was correct in stating they stop for nothing. That is the literal truth.
So while he makes valid points, it is clear that his knowledge is somewhat distant (as is mine, though mine is fairly recent, I'm not sure his is). That erodes confidence in what he says some.
Something close to the truth will come out before too long as they get close to standing the Sentinel up.
"As no one will give a short and clear definition... I’ll offer my own one sentence shorthand"
Looks like we can't even agree on the definition of 'one sentence.' ;)
===
"If the first strike party targets the population (countervalue) at the expense of military targets, then the other party will have a remnant military power"
How so? It wouldn't take many to wreck population centers and production.
according to Grok:
"This totals around 400 nukes for comprehensive destruction of all 346 major cities [100k+ population]. If "major" is limited to the top 100 cities (a common cutoff in lists of U.S. urban centers), the estimate drops to ~150-200 nukes, aligning with strategic analyses that suggest 200 warheads could cripple the U.S. by targeting key population and economic hubs, killing ~100 million people and destroying infrastructure."
Russia has ~5-6k warheads, the US 4-5k.
For Russia:
"This totals around 250 nukes for comprehensive destruction of all 213 major cities [100k+ population]. If "major" is narrower (e.g., top 100 cities), it drops to ~120-150, sufficient to cripple Russia's economy and population centers (e.g., killing ~50-70 million in direct effects). Real scenarios would amplify via fallout and chaos, potentially requiring fewer for equivalent societal impact."
===
Another issue I have is the massive overselling of the after-effects of a nuclear war. Long-term radiation isn't nearly as bad as has been sold, probably due to Soviet infiltrators in academia back in the Cold War.
"Airbursts produce only late fallout, and in practical terms, this will have surprisingly little effect. The total yield of our 4,000 weapon war is going to be on the order of 1,800 MT, only 4.25 times the yield of atmospheric nuclear testing worldwide, which even at peak seems to have produced doses of maybe half of natural background radiation. Even if we assume that our war will produce 10 times as much late fallout as the tests (due to shorter timescale and the fact that operational warheads may be dirtier than test ones), the peak exposures are approximately the same as those for aircrew today."
"Calculations here [early fallout] are horrendously complex, but looking through Effects of Nuclear Weapons, it appears that you’d probably be sick but survive 140 miles downrange of our W88 surface burst, provided you took no protective measures at all. Even simple protective measures (staying indoors, preferably in a basement or interior room) and evacuation after a few days would be enough to minimize ill effects as little as 70 miles downwind."
It is a valid question as to what fraction of those USSR-produced nukes would avoid fizzling given the intervening quality of maintenance or lack thereof.
It is also a valid question as to the actual material content of the Middle Kingdoms’s newly produced nuclear devices, given the reports of various creative substitutions in their ICBM force, presumably with the cost savings over actual fizzy materials lining flag rank pockets.
Both societies have an enough issues with corruption that questioning each sides actual capability seems prudent.
The missile failure/dud warhead rate has always been guesswork. Dr. Pournelle once mentioned that in the mid ‘60s, we estimated 50% duds for Soviet warheads. Not that we were a lot better - the W47 that armed the early Polaris missiles was known to be unlikely to produce the 1MT yield it was touted for. My guess is that our own dud rate would have been on the order of 35%.
It is when talking about long-term effects. Granted, many died including John Wayne due to the immediate effects of the testing when winds shifted, but the long-term isn't nearly the "those who died had it lucky" situation that many including the author portray.
It was always my non-read-in impression that first use was a Fulda Gap Overrun option, and given that’s long in the past, I don’t see it either. On the other hand, “Riding It Out” always seemed to me to be “sacrifice the ICBMs and most of the bombers” if the bad guys pick counterforce, so if that’s the current default, we’re down to the Boomers anyway. If they pick countervalue and our side picks “Riding It Out”, well, bad day all around, and that certainly would seem to inform which one they would choose.
But add in an actual ballistic missile defense (vice the token “don’t scare the Russians” thing we have now) and “Riding It Out” starts to calculate a bit differently. Plus that up with a valid cruise missile defense and more restraint might actually become viable.
But. The accepted wisdom that any defense decreases stability is still baked in the force structure pie. How the whole “Golden Dome” project would change things is a subject worthy of study and deep thought.
Sal, you touched on the wider impact on the world in general. I don’t have the figures in front of me, but my memory is that a two year COVID impact to our economy caused millions of deaths worldwide. I rather think that your 100 year impact is optimistic, given the need to bootstrap ourselves from the 18th century to the 21st. Think two centuries to fully regain today’s productivity and logistics. Two centuries’ impact looks like a full-blown romp by the four horsemen.
Two centuries? That seems extreme as we're not inventing new technology. Building what infrastructure that can't be salvaged, sure, and that would take a while with limited capital and human resources. And there's going to be places unaffected that could be leveraged to bring in the needed resources to rebuild.
But with, hopefully, with the majority of the government gone I'd expect the 2 year environmental impact studies would be out the door and we could move on with haste.
We are talking about feeding the rest of the world. If I were China, my attack would include slagging the electronics of all those container cranes we bought from them. Also, I was looking at the degree to which we have already given away our hard core manufacturing capability plus a study of the impact of a simple EMP, without ground level radiation. I will give you that 200 years may be a bit pessimistic, but 100 years after losing a lot of engineering intellectual capital seems optimistic.
Oh, well feeding the world. No, of course not, they're on their own.
Electronics and computing will be the rub. Though sourcing OUS seems feasible...assuming we don't have to buy from China. My stack of old PCs dating back to WIN95 would probably be my meal ticket at that point.
Importing human capital is what the US does best. The rub is going to be whether anyone is still interested.
I have to disagree about the utility of land-based ICBMs--their presence essentially forces at least some of any adversary's nuclear weapons into counterforce targeting, thereby decreasing the number of nukes available for countervalue. Against Russia, that might not make much of a difference. Against China, it might be the difference between them deciding that they can take more than we can dish out and them deciding that they can't.
The other point I would make about missile silos v. B-21 and other bombers is that Ukraine has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that aircraft bases are easily vulnerable to cheap drone attacks.
Start runs out soon. Build hardened air shelters and get back in the airborne alert force game.
China, after restraining its nuclear deployment for many years, is now increasing it at a rapid rate, perhaps because of your point.
So if there were no ICBMs, China's deployed nukes might stay at a level more conducive to human survival.
That doesn't hold water. If that was their motivation, they would have done this a long time ago.
I once served as one of the two soldiers who held the keys to blow up the world. We went to Offutt to get briefed on how it would really look on the map. They used Pinsk as an example (maybe the Russians might have used Minneapolis). Too classified to talk about, but the details made the whole thing horrific. We were seeing the end of life on earth
OpSec.
Was there any significant debate in Congress about the wisdom of spending so much money on the land-based leg of the Triad? HOWEVER, if there is no utility in the land-based leg of the Triad, WHY IS CHINA building loads of them???
Maybe it is because China is contemplating first use
Seems to be a lot of concrete tunnels and such under construction as well...
From what I’ve heard, their SSBNs are pretty loud…and really have no good route to open ocean.
New gen, with a lot of help from the Russians.
They have a long, long way to go.
It is Anyone’s guess as to how many nukes China has parked in our ports. They won’t need much range fired from either coast.
So you're saying I should hold on to that stainless steel colander face mask and spiked codpiece?
I for one look forward to the rule of our Lord Humongous...
I will be a harsh but unfair Lord Humongous.
Stay out of any Vaults too!
Hockey and football pads are the best investment one can make now, along with real leather fetish gear as a hedge.
Call your broker today!
CDR Sal, a deep discussion. Spent a lot of time in my past lives on this. A great summary of the issues, especially the "wargaming" aspect, and I share your perspective. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) worked due to the semblance of overall sanity of the major and minor nuclear weapons possessing participants, the small numbers of said participants, and in a couple of previously well documented and recently disclosed "near misses"...sheer good luck and perhaps divine providence. Your chart and logic essentially defining MAD is simplistic, reductionist, and totally useful as a tool that defines the essence of the concept in a way decision makers can understand. All of that said, the world today is different, there are more players, and more variables in the equation that has previously allowed MAD to work (even NK chooses to survive so far). Which brings us to Iran, and whoever is actually running things there. Strongly suspect the "Mercedes Mullahs" would be totally happy to have some nukes and enjoy the "strange new respect" a nuclear power enjoys. Their "Shia Millennials" in the security apparatus would be far more likely to use them. Desiring to would initiate an "initial limited exchange" with, say, Israel, and bring about the coming of the 12th Imam. Oddly, we never seemed to examine that as part of our wargames...
Given their track record over the past several decades, it would behoove our so-called expert class to demonstrate some humility.
Like General Milley?
Our expert ruling class does not engage in introspection.
It might be worth discussing some of the issues raised by Annie Jacobsen in her 2024 book Nuclear War: A Scenario. Interesting stuff. For instance, President Reagan wanted a full-bore nuclear game played. I believe the game was called Proud Prophet and the results, as I recall them, was that no matter what variant was played, and there were many, total destruction of the world ensued. A rational look at the irrational.
We began to understand nuclear winter over time. Considering the impact on our reliance on the electronic spectrum, and what a Carrington Event solar flare like EMP event would due to the world today is a new variable AND an attack vector if used against a nation...
Reading list then
"Alas Babylon"
"Fail Safe"
"Bedford Incident"
"On The Beach"
Oldies but goodies. "Ghost Fleet" is a bit more up to date and includes...present day aspects not included in your list...which are all bad enough. And it only had a limited exchange.
How about movies? Dr. Strangelove for example.
I remember reading that it was a movie version of Red Alert. I’d read Red Alert, and I understand why they decided to do that.
yep,'n so many more. most pointed moment in Strangelove.....ending, with song "We'll Meet Again"
I had Alas Babylon in paperback as a teenager and read it multiple times. Made me think even then.
Threads, War day, Count down to looking glass.
"Down to a Sunless Sea"
Read them all, and more. Then there was the original, "Hiroshima" by John Hersey (1946). ("Based on a true story", as the saying goes.). It went well with an episode or two of "The Big Picture", 1951-64, a documentary series about the US Army.
One of several episodes dealing with the use of atomic weapons on the battlefield.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auyVynqg31A
Nukes were just another big bomb back then. "Tactical" nukes like Davy Crockett were issued at battalion level, in addition to nuclear artillery.
One Second After by Forstchen is a fairly recent addition. Great read.
I am reminded of the war gaming scene from Nicholas and Alexandria where the general staff is playing with pieces on a map on a table and determining that they will beat the Kaiser. The officers cheer when they learn Germany has declared war. The Prime Minister Count Witte played by Sir Laurence Olivier is trying to warn everyone what will happen when their troops meet machine guns but to no avail.
It will be interesting to see how the Iranians will respond to the bloody nose they received last month. Will they desist from enriching uranium or will they proceed full speed ahead to build an atomic bomb. No war game no matter how sophisticated can determine what decision of that kind will be made. How do you factor the Apocalypse into a program?
That’s why I was so upset and said so in this chat room by Ukraine’s attack on one leg of Russia’s trial. Putin could easily have mistaken that attack for a first strike and ordered his submarines to launch their missiles. In one hour we might have lost a dozen or more large cities.
My guess is that mullahs will try to figure out a better way of disguising their nuclear production plants.
They'll lay low for a bit then get right back to it, a bit wiser but not wise enough.
"Putin could easily have mistaken that attack for a first strike"
Yes and no. There were no bases blowing up, no mushroom clouds. Just individual bombers loaded with fuel, burning. It's an unlikely first strike scenario. Still, he could have looked at the Ukrainian attack, seen that it served US interests very well, blamed us, and considered a response.
Yes and No does not exactly fill me with confidence when dealing with atomic bombs.
If it was NY, LA and Chicago, we should just send Putin a thank you card.
And DC?
"will they proceed full speed ahead to build an atomic bomb"
Almost a certainty. It's motivated by religion, not politics.
Concur, especially since much of the cost of the ICBM replacement program isn’t in the missiles, but the silos. The big head-hurter being that any launch of long-range missiles may be taken as a potential nuclear strike. Claiming that your missiles are only conventionally armed is difficult to verify.
But there are four things that you have not mentioned.
First, we’re in a world with three major nuclear powers, not two. And both Britain and France have enough nuclear firepower to make a difference. What constitutes adequate deterrence? Are we talking about a one-power standard, or two?
Second, we are developing a potential for effective missile defense. Which shifts the calculus, especially with regard to being able to launch a counterforce strike and parry the riposte - wherever it’s targeted.
Third, a major conflict is very likely to start with a conventional phase - the 1970s assumption, not the 1950s “wake up and nuke the Americans” scenario. In which case nuclear forces are legitimate targets for nonnuclear attack. FWIW, I think this was the planned U.S. scenario for the 1990s - in case of war, use SSNs and B-2s to degrade Soviet nukes, use SDI to hold off any counterstrike.
Finally, none of the major combatants have an interest in a Clausewitzian Total War. We don’t want Russian or Chinese dirt…and I’m not sure they want ours. This is a classic War For Limited Goals scenario, a fight for relative superiority. Which makes a non-nuclear conflict more likely, but an all-out conflict less likely. It also argues strongly for a revival of the Laws of War.
I’ve never tried doing so, but it would seem relatively easy to backfit an existing silo to house a new missile.
The plan is to upgrade the silo hardness considerably. Minuteman was designed around a 1970-vintage threat. Today, the warheads are going to come in a lot closer.
I. hadn’t thought of that angle. Thanks.
There's also so much equipment needs to be replaced that it's cheaper to buy new, even with the cost overruns. Virtually none of the electronics are still produced, plus we have some better hardening technology now.
I am pretty sure that the plan was to replace all the electronics. That stuff wasn't even as new as the 1980s, don't imagine they have any desire to continue using the 8" floppies (not a typo!). Rewiring from command/launch capsule to the surrounding missile silos could be interesting.
Laying new cable for more extensive communications was one reason the Air Force decided to dig new silos.
Geotechnical engineers suggest that it is not that easy. These things are old and were not intended for the lifetime they have had.
Curious. Are you familiar with the issues?
I thought I had heard that the Sentinel physically wouldn't fit. But there seems to be a lot more to it based on a quick conversation with someone who has been there and done that.
The existing missile fields are all in the northern US where winters are long and harsh and take a toll on the facilities. This, likely more than anything else, maybe the issue. There doesn't seem to be any issue with the small number of silos at Vandenberg where the 3 test launches annually are made. Those few (2, maybe 3) have been refurbished repeatedly after launches with no issues.
Building new will be a challenge. The current fields, and I think they are going to use them as much as possible, are all in places where winter is long and hard. I suspect that building season is probably less than 3 months there.
I appreciate the additional information.
Sentinel will fit just fine. That was the easy part.
This came out when USAF was still talking about reusing the silos. His point was that he had never found an old bridge foundation that he could reuse economically for the new bridge in decades of working on bridge foundations for replacement bridges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TWStWU_sW4
This blog is primarily dedicated to naval issues, but we cannot afford to play the union game. Differentiating your assets provides a far more resilient defense because doing so makes things harder for an enemy. No Tiffany systems. No Tiffany system elements.
Points taken and they are valid concerns.
But he did ramble a bit and giving the environmental activists any credence at all was a bit odd. Lost a bit of credibility with that, IMO.
Will also say that his clip of "moving a missile" was inaccurately portrayed. Missile bodies and warheads are moved separately. The missile convoy is way less of an event. Note the large truck in the middle of the convoy. It is not a TE that missile bodies are moved on. That convoy was moving a warhead. That's what they take really seriously. He was correct in stating they stop for nothing. That is the literal truth.
So while he makes valid points, it is clear that his knowledge is somewhat distant (as is mine, though mine is fairly recent, I'm not sure his is). That erodes confidence in what he says some.
Something close to the truth will come out before too long as they get close to standing the Sentinel up.
"As no one will give a short and clear definition... I’ll offer my own one sentence shorthand"
Looks like we can't even agree on the definition of 'one sentence.' ;)
===
"If the first strike party targets the population (countervalue) at the expense of military targets, then the other party will have a remnant military power"
How so? It wouldn't take many to wreck population centers and production.
according to Grok:
"This totals around 400 nukes for comprehensive destruction of all 346 major cities [100k+ population]. If "major" is limited to the top 100 cities (a common cutoff in lists of U.S. urban centers), the estimate drops to ~150-200 nukes, aligning with strategic analyses that suggest 200 warheads could cripple the U.S. by targeting key population and economic hubs, killing ~100 million people and destroying infrastructure."
Russia has ~5-6k warheads, the US 4-5k.
For Russia:
"This totals around 250 nukes for comprehensive destruction of all 213 major cities [100k+ population]. If "major" is narrower (e.g., top 100 cities), it drops to ~120-150, sufficient to cripple Russia's economy and population centers (e.g., killing ~50-70 million in direct effects). Real scenarios would amplify via fallout and chaos, potentially requiring fewer for equivalent societal impact."
===
Another issue I have is the massive overselling of the after-effects of a nuclear war. Long-term radiation isn't nearly as bad as has been sold, probably due to Soviet infiltrators in academia back in the Cold War.
"Airbursts produce only late fallout, and in practical terms, this will have surprisingly little effect. The total yield of our 4,000 weapon war is going to be on the order of 1,800 MT, only 4.25 times the yield of atmospheric nuclear testing worldwide, which even at peak seems to have produced doses of maybe half of natural background radiation. Even if we assume that our war will produce 10 times as much late fallout as the tests (due to shorter timescale and the fact that operational warheads may be dirtier than test ones), the peak exposures are approximately the same as those for aircrew today."
"Calculations here [early fallout] are horrendously complex, but looking through Effects of Nuclear Weapons, it appears that you’d probably be sick but survive 140 miles downrange of our W88 surface burst, provided you took no protective measures at all. Even simple protective measures (staying indoors, preferably in a basement or interior room) and evacuation after a few days would be enough to minimize ill effects as little as 70 miles downwind."
https://www.navalgazing.net/Nuclear-Weapon-Destructiveness
Note that we've nuked Nevada about 1,000 times, much of it within sight of Las Vegas, and it is still there.
It is a valid question as to what fraction of those USSR-produced nukes would avoid fizzling given the intervening quality of maintenance or lack thereof.
It is also a valid question as to the actual material content of the Middle Kingdoms’s newly produced nuclear devices, given the reports of various creative substitutions in their ICBM force, presumably with the cost savings over actual fizzy materials lining flag rank pockets.
Both societies have an enough issues with corruption that questioning each sides actual capability seems prudent.
True, if by both sides you mean all nuclear nations. IIRC, the UK had a nuke test recently where the missile failed, so they abandoned the testing.
The missile failure/dud warhead rate has always been guesswork. Dr. Pournelle once mentioned that in the mid ‘60s, we estimated 50% duds for Soviet warheads. Not that we were a lot better - the W47 that armed the early Polaris missiles was known to be unlikely to produce the 1MT yield it was touted for. My guess is that our own dud rate would have been on the order of 35%.
I will note that we nuked Nevada over decades; that might not be a great comparison to lots of nukes going off all at once.
It is when talking about long-term effects. Granted, many died including John Wayne due to the immediate effects of the testing when winds shifted, but the long-term isn't nearly the "those who died had it lucky" situation that many including the author portray.
IIRC, Wayne died from stomach cancer. He loved to burn his meat and that is a known carcinogen.
It was always my non-read-in impression that first use was a Fulda Gap Overrun option, and given that’s long in the past, I don’t see it either. On the other hand, “Riding It Out” always seemed to me to be “sacrifice the ICBMs and most of the bombers” if the bad guys pick counterforce, so if that’s the current default, we’re down to the Boomers anyway. If they pick countervalue and our side picks “Riding It Out”, well, bad day all around, and that certainly would seem to inform which one they would choose.
But add in an actual ballistic missile defense (vice the token “don’t scare the Russians” thing we have now) and “Riding It Out” starts to calculate a bit differently. Plus that up with a valid cruise missile defense and more restraint might actually become viable.
But. The accepted wisdom that any defense decreases stability is still baked in the force structure pie. How the whole “Golden Dome” project would change things is a subject worthy of study and deep thought.
Maybe we can ask ChatGPT what it all means.
Sal, you touched on the wider impact on the world in general. I don’t have the figures in front of me, but my memory is that a two year COVID impact to our economy caused millions of deaths worldwide. I rather think that your 100 year impact is optimistic, given the need to bootstrap ourselves from the 18th century to the 21st. Think two centuries to fully regain today’s productivity and logistics. Two centuries’ impact looks like a full-blown romp by the four horsemen.
"He turned the car around to face the thousand years of darkness".
Two centuries? That seems extreme as we're not inventing new technology. Building what infrastructure that can't be salvaged, sure, and that would take a while with limited capital and human resources. And there's going to be places unaffected that could be leveraged to bring in the needed resources to rebuild.
But with, hopefully, with the majority of the government gone I'd expect the 2 year environmental impact studies would be out the door and we could move on with haste.
We are talking about feeding the rest of the world. If I were China, my attack would include slagging the electronics of all those container cranes we bought from them. Also, I was looking at the degree to which we have already given away our hard core manufacturing capability plus a study of the impact of a simple EMP, without ground level radiation. I will give you that 200 years may be a bit pessimistic, but 100 years after losing a lot of engineering intellectual capital seems optimistic.
Oh, well feeding the world. No, of course not, they're on their own.
Electronics and computing will be the rub. Though sourcing OUS seems feasible...assuming we don't have to buy from China. My stack of old PCs dating back to WIN95 would probably be my meal ticket at that point.
Importing human capital is what the US does best. The rub is going to be whether anyone is still interested.
Cogent and well-presented argument. I'd not thought of characterizing gravity bombs as in the same class as bayonets, but I see the point.
In my youth I saw an ICBM warhead re-enter. It's absolutely beautiful until you realize it's the beginning of a nightmare you might not awaken from.
Again, good post.
From 1972, I was 12 years number of base/unit level logistics jobs in SAC and NORAD. After many years in acquisition a lot large radars and or C2.
Nothing has changed my mind about the “living envying the dead” after a nuclear exchange.
All the theory is flap jawing.