This seems inevitable in the evolving post-Cold-War geopolitical environment. MAD only works when there is a nation-state whose cities you could conceivably target. When the threat model is a larger number of non-state terrorist organizations that do not have well-defined borders, permanent populations, or even stationary bases, having a 450kt warhead targeting a city is basically useless. Imagine that say a Chechnyan separatist group detonated a nuclear warhead on U.S. soil. What would the response be? Nuke Moscow? "Yes, please, we never liked them anyway."
The unfortunate thing is that everyone saying that this dangerously lowers the threshold for use of nuclear weapons is right. Deterrence works when there's an oligopoly of nuclear powers. When nuclear weapons proliferate beyond a handful of powerful nation-states, into countries or groups with nothing to lose, there's nothing stopping them from using their nukes. It's like how in the tech patent world pre-2010, people described all these "defensive" patent portfolios as mutually assured destruction, "and then Nokia launched the missiles".
IMHO nuclear winter is a far more likely end of civilization than global warming is.
This hasn't happened, as far as we know - largely indicated by the fact no one's been detonating nuclear weapons they have.
There has not, in fact, been a proliferation of nuclear weapons to non-state actors as people predicted might happen when the Soviet Union broke up. Because if you're a terrorist group with a nuclear weapon, why would you not use it as soon as possible, given that it's a large, hard to obfuscate item which you're otherwise likely to use (and would represent the most incredible asset you're ever going to have).
If your commander in chief is unwilling or unable to use nuclear weapons you are effectively disarmed. However, it is unlikely that anyone would be happy about the use of such weapons.
If any nation was threatened by imminent nuclear attack they would expect their government to use whatever means it had available to prevent such an attack, including the use of nuclear weapons, were such available. It is unlikely they would be happy or cheering.
I am not a psychologist but it seems to me that being pleased about the use of a nuclear weapon would be aberrant behavior; far outside the normal range. Only a tiny number of people are likely to demonstrate this level of psychopathy.
Personally, I'm fine with the nuke strikes on Japan during WW2. The committed numerous atrocities (just look at the rape of Nan King).
They had also prepared all of mainland Japan to fight to the death, involving all aged men, women and children.
My grandfather was to be part of that invasion force. I likely wouldn't be here had the nukes not been used. Estimates of US losses in invading mainland Japan were over a million (sorry, I dont have a reference to quote, but it's a number I remember hearing from some random History channel episode a few decades ago). I'm not remise in the slightest. Around 300k lost their lives in the 2 strikes, yes, this is an awful loss of life, but in a time of war "us vs them" does play a rl. Over 450k lost their lives in the firebombing of Tokyo. A near similar number lost their lives in the firebombing of Nuremburg.
But, we dont talk about Tokyo and Nuremburg like we do Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just because of the nuclear element. Each city only had around ~50k dead, immediately more may have died due to radiation induced cancer, bit thats hard to prove.
Less damage was done in the nuclear cities, less people died, but we focus on them because of nuclear.
If you let fly with a Hiroshima sized bomb (what this is) you can be pretty assured that the chain reaction will be about the same as if you let fly with a megaton sized warhead.
I could see the argument about reducing barrier to use if this were a 1kt bunker buster but this nuke is still big enough to be treated the same as any other nuke in the fleet.
> If you let fly with a Hiroshima sized bomb (what this is)
It's actually less than half (1/3rd in most cases). W76-2 warhead (what's on these missiles) contains 5-7kt[1] yield vs. Little Boy's 15kt[2], and Fat Man's 21kt[3]
But I do think your other point still stands - these are still pretty large - large enough to not just be launched for any reason, or small reasons.
Yeah, the point dsfyu404ed is making remains the same. In fact, I'd wager that in practice, there likely is no yield at which a nuclear warhead would not evoke an immediate nuclear response.
I mean, just thinking about it from my American point of view: If we get hit by a nuclear warhead, you can try to rationalize it away all you like by saying, "Now bilbo0s, don't get angry. It was only 5kt." Sorry, maybe I'm too vindictive, but I'm still gonna want the President to respond in kind. Immediately.
I think the only way you don't get a nuclear response, is that the country you hit is not capable of delivering a nuclear response. Even then, I mean, are the other countries with nuclear weapons just gonna wait for you to come after them? I don't think so. You just proved that you would use nuclear weapons. (Against people without nuclear armaments no less.) I just think that if, say, China or the US were to do that, it would alter the entire foreign policy environment in which they operate.
Again, maybe I'm just the type who holds too much of a grudge and most people wouldn't retaliate? But I wouldn't bet on it.
> I'm still gonna want the President to respond in kind.
Probably shouldn't take it upon myself to speak for all humanity but I think that's a universal response. Everyone wants revenge. But are they going to get it immediately? No need to guess, we already know what the US government will do when a foreign actor commits mass murder on US soil.
"We will respond at a time, place and manner of our own choosing and not be forced into knee-jerk responses."
An attack will precipitate a meticulously planned response where the US has considered all the angles and stacked the deck to ensure that it achieves the best possible outcome. I don't think the mechanism used for the attack (nuclear) makes a difference.
On 26 September 1983, the computers in the Serpukhov-15 bunker outside Moscow, which housed the command centre of the Soviet early warning satellite system, twice reported that U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles were heading toward the Soviet Union. Stanislav Petrov, who was duty officer that night, suspected that the system was malfunctioning and managed to convince his superiors of the same thing. He argued that if the U.S. was going to attack pre-emptively it would do so with more than just five missiles, and that it was best to wait for ground radar confirmation before launching a counter-attack.
I'm at work so unable to spend time finding the source, but I recall seeing declassified documents that a US opening attack probably would have started with one or two missiles to trigger exactly this sort of response, followed by the all-out strike at around the time the first missiles would be confirmed by ground radar and they couldn't hide it anymore. Fun!
No need to source it, seems plausible. Even knowing this was the official strategy you still can't go full MAD upon spotting a small number of weapons in flight. You need to be absolutely sure because maybe these 1-2 missiles were launched in error and maybe total annihilation can be avoided.
In the 1980s, I read a book ("The Third World War" by General Sir John Hackett, IIRC) that speculated on how a West vs Soviet war might unfold. Facing conventional-forces defeat, the Soviets launch a single nuclear missile as a "warning shot" (vs. Manchester, IIRC). The Allies carefully choose a similar Soviet city in size and strategic importance (Kyev) and nuke it. The nuclear exchanges end there.
It's an interesting book, but it did not age well. His predictions about alliances and spheres of influence were way off (he expected Sadat's Egypt to be the Mideast's Soviet bastion and the Shah's Iran to be the Allies' counter, for example).
"Facing conventional forces defeat". How arrogant this sounds. West tried to occupy Russia all the time in the history. Napoleon and Hitler were predicting exactly the same: "conventional forces defeat and all Russians will happily surrender and march into gas chambers to democratize and free themselves"
But so far this never happened and never in it's history USA attacked a strong opponent. Military success looting small and powerless third world countries like Iraq and Libya doesn't mean much. Note that invasions failed in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria.
Even more: though Iran is a very lucrative target for looting (lots of oil and advantageous geographic location), US doesn't have the courage to invade and colonize it. Although Iran does not have nuclear weapons or any other kind of wmd.
>One weapon is unlikely to trigger MAD, even after detonation.
Well, not after detonation. After detonation, all bets are off. You can't take out, say, Miami, and expect not to receive a nuclear response to that message. You're going to lose a city.
Now, if you launched the Miami strike by mistake, the loss of, say, Rostov-on-the-Don, should be the end of the matter. But you're definitely going to lose a city.
But one weapon, if it is shown not to be real, would not trigger a response at all if everyone acts in a professional manner. After all, no cities are lost on either side in such a scenario.
Let's say the error goes the other way. Criminal actors within the US illegally launch a strike and destroy Rostov-on-Don. The US agrees to hand over the culprits for Russian trial and pay reparations. The Russians decline and destroy Miami instead.
Of course not. Now in addition to putting the criminals responsible on trial for the murder of the residents of Rostov-on-the-Don, I'm going to add charges for the murder of the residents of Miami. Might even invite Russian prosecutors over to get in on the trial? Who knows?
In any case, once the criminals are executed, the matter will be settled.
The OP was about sub-launched ballistic missiles - I was trying to make the point that when a ballistic missile flies from a sub, you cannot tell the yield, and the potential hair trigger-response will be the same regardless of yield.
This type of weapon is essentially destabilizing, as the article said.
I agree with you on other weapons, the flight profile will be vastly different.
I like this argument. At a less lethal level it works for guns as well. WW2 taught that you can’t drive countries to the point of having nothing to lose. A potentially positive spin is that we advancing to societies that prevent this from happening to individuals. Though the cost...
The first sentence is comparing to the vast array of "less" lethal weapons modern police are equipped with with and how they seem to be more willing to use them in situations where they wouldn't be willing to shoot someone.
> Imagine that say a Chechnyan separatist group detonated a nuclear warhead on U.S. soil.
What sort of response would having low-yield nukes enable? Drop a 1-kiloton bomb on a Chechnyan neighborhood in Russia? That hardly seems less insane. What sort of problems can low-yield nukes address that cruise missiles or guided non-nuclear bombs couldn't?
EDIT:
> "A 5kt nuke that blows up a roughly 150m radius and causes negligible fallout could be used [...] without causing massive diplomatic problems."
I have serious doubts. Even a single atmospheric test of such a nuke in the middle of Nevada would probably cause a diplomatic incident. Why would using such a nuke on foreign soil cause any less trouble?
The parent comment is complete nonsense. The motive for making low-yield weapons is the same as the motive for making high-yield ones. Deterrent. You can simply look this up in the DoD’s Nuclear Posture Review:
> Russia’s belief that limited nuclear first use, potentially including low-yield weapons, can provide such an advantage is based, in part, on Moscow’s perception that its greater number and variety of non-strategic nuclear systems provide a coercive advantage in crises and at lower levels of conflict. Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear to lower the threshold for Moscow’s first-use of nuclear weapons. Russia demonstrates its perception of the advantage these systems provide through numerous exercises and statements. Correcting this mistaken Russian perception is a strategic imperative.
> To address these types of challenges and preserve deterrence stability, the United States will enhance the flexibility and range of its tailored deterrence options. To be clear, this is not intended to, nor does it enable, “nuclear war-fighting.” Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression. It will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely.
Chechnya is Russian sovereign territory. I doubt Russia would take kindly to the US dropping a small nuke on their territory, no matter how weak, or where, or why.
> What sort of problems can low-yield nukes address that cruise missiles or guided non-nuclear bombs couldn't?
Their sheer explosive power? It would take thousands of cruise missiles to destroy 1945 Hiroshima.
> Chechnya is Russian sovereign territory. I doubt Russia would take kindly to the US dropping a small nuke on their territory, no matter how weak, or where, or why.
Isn’t this how WW1 started?
Hey your terrorists killed our Duke!!
Yeah so?
You gotta let us send in the army or at least the police!!
No thanks
aaaand alliances pulled everyone into a gruesome war
Find the training camp that assembled and delivered the nuke and nuke that (or drone it, if you have the logistics for that, but the point of nuclear deterrence is to assure that if you use nukes you die).
The point of having low-yield nukes is so you can do precision targeting. A 20mt nuke that blows up a whole city cannot be used if there's a danger that fallout might fall on friendly or neutral territory. A 5kt nuke that blows up a roughly 150m radius and causes negligible fallout could be used on a small training camp, or even a warehouse in a lightly-populated suburban area, without causing massive diplomatic problems.
Use of nukes is punished with annihilation. That's the unwritten rule. Since it's unwritten, a lot of the fine print is unwritten too, like how soon and by what mechanism. Maybe, if you nuke your 150m radius it sets in motion a chain of events that five years later culminates in nuclear war. You have no way to know whether you would be opening the door to that. Since the loss is effectively infinite and the probability is finite, the expected value of this action is infinite and negative.
People want certainty when it comes to nuclear weapons. The only way to get that is not to use them.
It makes no sense why use of a small-scale nuclear weapon would somehow escalate to armageddon. It seems to hinge on the assumption that government leaders are completely irrational robots that, once a nuclear weapon of a size equivalent to a conventional bomb is used, take that as license to use nuclear weapons of any size.
It's much more likely the "unwritten rule" you speak of would just shift, where nuclear weapons of a certain payload (probably equivalent to conventional weapons) would be acceptable for use. Government leaders, being acutely aware of MAD, would clearly communicate the new accepted boundaries and proceed from there.
Nukes are expensive. Small size/weight is what you get for that money.
For example, if you want a 1kt bunker buster using conventional explosives that's gonna be a heck of a bomb and therefore greatly limited in where/when/how it can be used. A 1kt nuke could fit in a JDAM sized form factor and be dropped by pretty much any military aircraft. Similarly, if you want to decimate a city with conventional bombs you'll need to deliver a heck of a lot of bombs. With nukes you only need one.
I'm not sure why you've been downvoted, what you say seems true. Smaller nukes are not necessarily efficient nukes. The smallest nukes, using a "linear implosion" design, are very inefficient. A W48 warhead with a tiny 0.072 kt yield has more Plutonium than the 21 kt "fat man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki. (~13kg for the former, <7kg for the later)
> IMHO nuclear winter is a far more likely end of civilization than global warming is.
I think before we get to the nuclear winter stage we'll experience the effects of a dirty bomb somewhere. This is much easier to do for an isolated (non state actor) group and has the same effect. Statistically this is overdue and only a question of time IMO.
> Statistically this is overdue and only a question of time IMO.
A dirty bomb is an act of terror and not much else. No, seriously. Likely builds aren't extremely dangerous, except to those constructing them. There's many ways that you could create these, including amassing fire alarms (there's issues with this).
So you make a pipe bomb with some nuclear material in it and there you go. You have cancer, and now your pipebomb sets off geiger counters. Added terror, but little added in terms of damage. The truth is that setting off a pipebomb in a NYC dumpster is going to cause relatively the same amount of terror as if that same pipebomb had radioactive material. Difference is your suitability and cost, so why do it?
We're not overdue. We've never seen one in use. We've only seen a handful constructed. It just doesn't make sense. Its added kill count is potentially +1 (you) and added terror is only slight. It is much cheaper and easier to just make a bunch of standard pipebombs and place them around a major city. But we aren't seeing that happen. Why? Because there just aren't that many terror attacks (sorry to those that supported the patriot act). [0]
So sorry, we aren't overdue. We haven't seen one because they are just a dumb idea that is expensive and difficult to execute.
[0] Between 9/11/01 and 10/15 there were 3066 Americans killed by terrorists. 2961 of those were on American soil. 2902 were on 9/11/01.
The unfortunate thing is that everyone saying that this dangerously lowers the threshold for use of nuclear weapons is right. Deterrence works when there's an oligopoly of nuclear powers. When nuclear weapons proliferate beyond a handful of powerful nation-states, into countries or groups with nothing to lose, there's nothing stopping them from using their nukes. It's like how in the tech patent world pre-2010, people described all these "defensive" patent portfolios as mutually assured destruction, "and then Nokia launched the missiles".
IMHO nuclear winter is a far more likely end of civilization than global warming is.