Obama's Showdown Over Nukes

[babylonsister]

Obama's Showdown Over Nukes

By Mark Thompson / Washington Monday, Jan. 26, 2009


A Trident II missile, usually armed with a nuclear warhead, is launched from an Ohio class submarine
Getty


The latest U.S. nuclear showdown doesn't involve a foreign enemy. Instead it pits President Barack Obama against his Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and concerns the question of whether America needs a new generation of nuclear warheads. While serving under former President George W. Bush, Gates had repeatedly called for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program to be put into operation, because the nation's current nukes — mostly produced in the 1970s and '80s — are growing so old that their destructive power may be in question.

"The Reliable Replacement Warhead is not about new capabilities but about safety, reliability and security," Gates said in a speech in the week before last November's election. In an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, released in early December after Gates was tapped by Obama to stay on at the Pentagon, Gates repeated that refrain. "Even though the days of hair-trigger superpower confrontation are over, as long as other nations possess the bomb and the means to deliver it, the United States must maintain a credible strategic deterrent," he wrote. "Congress needs to do its part by funding the Reliable Replacement Warhead program — for safety, for security and for a more reliable deterrent." RRW basically trades explosive force for greater assurance that new warheads would work predictably in the absence of tests, which the U.S. has refrained from conducting for nearly two decades to help advance nonproliferation goals. (See a graphic of the global nuclear arms balance.)

But Obama doesn't buy that logic. Shortly after taking the oath of office on Tuesday, he turned what had been a campaign promise into an official presidential commitment: the new Administration "will stop the development of new nuclear weapons," the White House declared flatly on its website, with no equivocation, asterisks or caveats.

Obama and Gates are "at loggerheads on this," says Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution who has specialized in nuclear issues. A senior Pentagon official says talk of a resolution is "premature" because he doesn't believe Gates and Obama have discussed the matter.

more...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1873887,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

[LSK]

1. Obama is the boss, Gates can go sit in the corner and cry

[EFerrari]

2. Gates' role in all this is sort of fascinating. n/t

[sandnsea]

3. What Great Thing

Did My President Do Today.

I love getting up in the morning with that expectation!

No new nukes.

Just makes me smile all the way up from my toes.

[bigtree]

4. O'Hanlon is a dubious fellow who has been making arguments in favor of the Reliable Replacement

. . . Warhead.

He's making an argument that Obama could avoid what O'Hanlon sees as an inevitable fight with Congress on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He wants Obama to offer the 'Replacement' option as a chip to get what he wants on the NPT. He's a shill and should always be viewed as lobbying for the RRW when considering what he writes and says.

But I love the report that Obama is resistant to all of it.

[babylonsister]

5. I remember O'Hanlon and have no use for him, but am also

happy President Obama isn't buying any of this.

O'Hanlon was a war cheerleader iirc.

[spin]

6. The reason we have not had WWIII

Is that nuclear warheads are one hell of a deterrent.

If an enemy truly feels that our warheads wouldn't go bang if we used them, we could face a real problem. If you think the war is Iraq is a big deal just visualize a Third World War. Now imagine it against an enemy that had working nuclear warheads.

That's bad enough. But what exactly does Robert Gates mean when he talks about the safety of the warheads?

[happyslug]

7. And bin Laden had NEVER attacked the us do to our Nuclear arsenal

oh, the attack on the USS Cole? The Attack on the American Embassy in Africa? 9/11? Those did not happen, our Nuclear Deterred stopped them!!! (oh yes, their didn't).

Lets get serious, we have over 4000 Nuclear bombs. Who will launch a first strike so we will have to nuke them? England? The European Union? Russia? China? India? Japan? Israel?

Notice I ignore Iraq and Iran, Iraq i presently under US occupation but neither country ever had the capability to launch an attack on the US. The same with the rest of the World (The biggest exceptions I listed above). Will we Nuke any of them in a war where they are on the other side in WWIII? The answer becomes a quick NO, we gain no advantages and lose no advantages by using Nuclear weapons. Realistically we have to look at who we will be fighting? Except for the above countries, no one Else in the world has the capability (or potential capability) of launching a Nuclear attack. Thus except for the above countries Nuclear weapons are useless, unless your intention is to kill every body in that country.

Now, if you read Mahan and his paper on Sea Power, you will see he advocated Sea Power over land power, for sea power could move by sea and outflank any land based army. His paper advocated this approach. The biggest problem with it was what about Russia and Central Asia? Basically Mahan ignored them for that represented a part of the world where his views did not work do to the distance from the coast. After WWII and the start of the Cold War his view was embraced by the US Air Force is a radical way, advocated air power to control the seaways, and to destroy that area of the world where sea power could NOT be brought to bear (i.e. Russian and Central Asia). This doctrine took on a life of its own in the US Air Force, shocking both the US Navy and the Royal Air Force when both were exposed to it for the first time in the 1950s (The exposure to the RAF had the affect of leading indirectly to the Movie, Dr Stranglove, or how I quite worrying and learn to love the bomb".). The sheer stupidity of this doctrine has been shown over and over again since the 1950s, but it survives.

Now an alternative theory, one that had been adopted by the US Navy and the RAF in the early 1950s (independently of each other) was to use Atomic Weapons to knock out the Soviet's Ability to support their Army. This is believed to be around 500 bombs (The Chinese seems to have embraced this doctrine, limiting themselves to 500 bombs). The Soviet Union, whose natural paranoid was reinforced by the US Air Force flying fully armed B-52s up to its borders, also adopted the doctrine. Through the Soviet Doctrine was tied in with mixing its ground forces with NATO ground forces quickly so that neither side would dare use Nuclear Weapons for fear of hitting their own personnel (Thus the Soviet Union adopted a non-first strike option, through the US always down play this doctrine while saying NATO'S doctrine was to use Nuclear weapons FIRST against any Soviet ground force attack).

As one historical of the period said (after observing the fact that American Politicians were quicker to opt for Nuclear Weapons then were the Military in war games of the time period), NATO doctrine was to "fight like hell for three days then blow up the World". The Soviet Union Doctrine after the death of Stalin, seems to have been to maintain a force in Europe so to be able to engage American Forces quickly in a time of war to minimize the chance of NATO using Nuclear weapons (The Soviet Union had the Capability to drive to the Atlantic Ocean from the Iron Curtain in a one week period, in fact the Soviet Union did a War game about 1985, where Soviet Forces roughly equal to the Soviet Army in Europe the same distance from Berlin to Lisbon in a one week period. Whether such a plan would have worked against NATO is debatable, but it show the power of the Soviet Union just before its collapsed. Would Nuclear weapons changed anything in Europe? According to NATO plans I have read about, NO, the Soviet Forces always had an edge no matter how much NATO increased the ante (this is also the chief reason the Soviet Union Collapses, you can NOT spend 40% of your GDP on Defense for any length of time, you will bankrupt the country doing so, as did the Soviet Union).

I go into the above several times over the last 30 years and I have come to a conclusion. The Soviet Union was doomed from the fall of Kruschev onward. No one in its leadership was willing to cut back on Military Spending (Kruschev seems to have been doing so, emphasis nuclear weapons in place of standing armies, but otherwise cutting back military spending). Once Brezhnev was in Charge, the Military was given what it wanted, even at the expense of the rest of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the Soviet real fear was an attack on Russia. This was their big fear and one reinforced by how the US targeted its bombers and missiles. This could have been achieved with 500 bombs, not the 4000 we have. Why 4000 bombs? While the Air Force looked at what was needed to make sure each target was hit, it decided the only way to be sure was to make sure each Soviet City/Target had at least three bombs allocated to it, in the 1950s by three different bombers, in the 1960s onward each target by a Bomber and at least two missiles (Both the Bombers and missiles had multiple bombs, so while each bomber/missiles had three or more cities on its bombing list, each city/target had at least three bombers or Missiles assigned to hit it. Furthermore to make sure these target were hit, secondary target had to be hit so minimized antiaircraft fire and missiles from hitting the bombers and missiles. Furthermore more and more targets had to be hit so the attack could be "successful" pretty soon 98% of the population of Russia had at least one nuclear device aimed at it. The only reason the US stopped at 98% was to get to 99% coverage we needed another 4000 bombs. The worse part the first 500 bombs would do most of the damage, the remaining 3500 bombs were to hit smaller and smaller target.

If you review the above, you quickly see that the US had no intention of ever occupying the Soviet Union, you do NOT destroy what you can take. The plan was to eliminate any threat from Central Asia by destroying it. The Soviet leadership seems to have accepted this policy and adopted a policy of never bring an action that could lead to Nuclear war (The biggest exception was the Cuban Missiles Crisis but that was when the Soviet was still why behind in bombs and missiles, Mutual Assured Destruction, MAD did NOT become the US doctrine till the mid 1960s as the Soviet Union finally caught up with the US in terms of Missiles and Bombs). The biggest problem with MAD was its assumption that you needed 4000 bombs to make it work, even the founder of MAD, McNamara believed you only needed 500.

Sorry, the need to keep 4000 bombs ready for use is NOT worth the investment, we can eliminate all but 500 and retain full retaliatory capability against anyone. Furthermore given the Collapse of the Soviet Union, we could eliminate all of our sea and land based missiles and rely on bombers to launch the bombs. The main advantage of bombers is they take six to 12 hours to hit their targets, which gives us time to reconsider the attack (The 20 minutes needed for a sea based missiles to hit its target is just to short a time period in today's age, we MUST make sure all sides have time to reconsider their attack especially since mist will be launched in "retaliation" not in some sort of preemptive attack. Even if the Russian Republic keeps its 6000 bombs, how will they use them and against whom? Russia is dependent on western furnace as is any other country so the bombs are useless (You do NOT attack someone you need to borrow money from OR sell to). The same with China, as least for the foreseeable future (i.e. next 20 years). China may developer missiles that can hit the US, but why? even if they did we can hit them back with bombers from the US or short range missiles from the Western Pacific. If we lose control over the Pacific that may be a different story, but as long as we control the Pacific, we can fly bombers over it any time we please. 500 missiles based on B-52s, B-1 and B-2 in the US is sufficient enough deterrent. We do NOT need 4000 bombs and delivery systems, lets get rid of them.

One last comment, you plan to fight the next war NOT the last war. We do NOT need 4000 bombs to defeat bin Laden. In fact launching a atomic bomb attack on him would make him a martyr (If we new where he was) AND produce a lot of new recruits for him based on the various civilians we will kill in such an attack. Thus Nuclear weapons are useless in the War Against Terrorism, and in fact counter productive. Given the limitation of any budget, paying for weapons we will never used is a waste of money, especially when we need it elsewhere. Thus we need more money of Special Forces so to find out where bin Laden i, and less on Nuclear Weapons we will never use. They is no one we will fight in the next 20 years (China being the biggest exception) that we need Nuclear Weapons to fight. As to China, keeping 500 bombs back will provide enough of a deterrent. We need an army to fight the war we are facing, one where we need boots on the ground and that means infantry not air power, not nuclear weapons. Thus my comment at the beginning in of this thread, we are in a war with bin Laden, lets set up our military for that war.


Some More on Mahan and his view on Sea Power:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan

[spin]

8. The argument is not about the number of bombs...

but about the safety, reliability and security of the warheads.

Nor is the argument about preventing war with terrorists. Terrorists are not deterred by nuclear weapons. Even if we knew for certain where bin Laden was hiding, we would never drop a nuclear weapon on him. He knows that. Using a nuclear weapon against a terrorist or a terrorist group would be like using a 105 mm howitzer against a rattlesnake in your back yard. You might kill the snake but the neighbors and the authorities would be upset to say the least. Consider how much heat has been generated by the recent Predator Drone attacks on terrorists in North and South Waziristan. Twenty two people died, some were terrorists but many were civilians.

The only purpose of our nuclear arsenal is deterrence. MAD (Mutually assured destruction) was the name of the game. I agree that we never had any intention of occupying the Soviet Union. We did feel there was a possibility of a war in Europe in which the Russians could have won in a short period of time. I'm sure they seriously considered the possibility that we might go nuclear to prevent their advance. Realizing the consequences, they decided not to attack Europe. Not only would Europe have been a been a nuclear wasteland, their homeland would have been obliterated.

So, in my opinion MAD prevented a Third World War. Nuclear weapons might have actually worked as a deterrent.

But if we fail to upgrade our warheads and there is actually a problem with older warheads, the scientists of a opposing nation might realize this. If they seriously believe that the majority of our warheads will be duds but that theirs will work, they may feel confident in confronting our nation or our conventional forces with the threat of nuclear annihilation. We may comply with any demands they make because we lack confidence in our own nuclear weapons performance.

Let's use an Old West analogy. You are an old gunfighter. In you prime years, you were so good that no one in their right mind would challenge you. But you still carry the old black powder pistol that you used years ago. While you keep it loaded, it's been several years since you actually fired it. In fact, you have never reloaded it since you last fired it. The powder might have got damp. You have a serious problem with a man with the more modern Peacemaker revolver. You might just end up in a shootout with him. He knows his revolver is reliable and knows that yours will more than likely go pop rather than bang. Is your handgun and your ability going to deter him? If you're wise you might invest in a new handgun. or at the minimum clean and reload your weapon.

But I was also concerned with the safety of the warheads. I'm not entirely sure what Gates was talking about. If they are not safe could it mean they might explode like some old unstable ordinance from WWII? Plus Gates mentioned security. Does that mean that someone who managed to obtain one might be able to bypass the safety features and use it as a weapon?

We need to keep our nuclear deterrent up to date to achieve deterrence. The object is not to use these weapons, the object is to NEVER have to use these weapons.

We need enough of these weapons to be certain that no enemy can be certain that he can eliminate all of them. If we place all of our nuclear weapons on submarines and the enemy develops the technology to find those submarines and destroy them before we can launch, our deterrence fails. Therefore, we need multiple methods of delivering our weapons. Each of these methods should be capable of delivering an divesting blow. We should also consider developing the most accurate delivery systems possible so that we can reduce the payload of our weapons. We also need to develop warheads which will penetrate far enough to destroy any hardened bunkers the enemy might have. This might require more than 500 warheads, but I agree that 4000 is a bit much.

I often think that the test of a civilization is the ability to avoid destroying itself through warfare. If we can survive this test and learn to use our technology for peaceful purposes, we may someday travel to the stars and meet other civilizations who managed to pass the same test.

[blogslut]

9. Nuclear weapons don't just go boom

They have an triggering system that fires them up and then they go boom.

What's actually going to happen to all that old plutonium is that it will degrade and keep eating away at its containment facilities so that they will have to keep being replaced and this will be repeated for hundreds of years. We got a warehouse full of those little balls of poison 40 miles down the road from me and so far, no permanent place designated to store them.

If I'm understanding the whole Reliable Replacement Warheads thing correctly, they want to make new pits from fresh batches of whatever radioactive material the hip kids are using these days. I have a real problem with that. The old pits may be degrading but it was just a decade ago the US was in the nuclear weapons dismantling business. I'm pretty sure the precepts of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty were about eventually ceasing production, disarming and disassembling ALL nuclear weapons.

We don't need to reinforce our nuclear arsenal. We need to destroy it as best we possibly can, which is kind of impossible because some of that stuff ain't going anywhere for a long time.

[babylonsister]

10. I'm very happy that Obama doesn't want to 'grow' what we

already have. It's a good first step. As for storing what's existing, I imagine not many states would be interested, but it all has to go somewhere.