Vocal Voices

The Americans are planning to upgrade their nuclear arsenal.

Out will go the milti-megaton weapons in favour of smaller and more easy to deploy tens-of-kiloton weapons.

It pushes the Doomday Clock closer to midnight according to Russia and China, it is already at 23:58 Zulu, but it kind of makes sense, or does it?

All of the current declared nuclear powers have weapons to take out major cities with one bomb. the payback is that you get one, or more, in return - mutually assured destruction or MAD. It has been the modus operandi between East and West for over fifty years. We take out Moscow and St Petersburg they take out London, Washington and New York. It has worked and kept us relatively safe.

The new plan is a different ball game, and I agree with the Russians and Chinese. The weapons used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki were of the 15 - 20 kiloton range. They could not take out a Tokyo or a Chcago or even a Leeds or Manchester, but they were used to send a message. If we go back to that way of thinking then their use is more likely to destroy smaller cities and send out the message "do not mess with us". The problem there is that instead of creating a relatively small nuclear hot-spot you create a countrywide wasteland.

Take out Blackburn and Doncaster and the North is lost. Do the same to Derby and Coventry and the midlands go. Watford, Chelmsford and Crawly see the end of government and London.

The world just became a more dangerous place.

I thought these so-called "smaller" nukes were mainly for deployment on the battlefield, in advance of the invading army. In which case, the USA are only now developing and deploying something the Russians have had for a while?

Ossie, what you are talking about are low-yield tactical nukes for use on or near the battlefield. They come in all shapes and sizes, from artillery shells to bombs to missiles, designed to take out small targets and we all have them.

What the Americans are now talking about are high-yield strategic nukes of the types typically used to take out large cities. What they are proposing is to reduce their yields from megatons down to kilotons meaning more will be needed to do the same job, but that also brings in many more places as potential targets.

I am not suggesting that we should not take steps to reduce the arsenals of nuclear weapons, we should, urgently, but I would like it to be done in a way that at the same time MAD still comes into play.

I think we should now all accept the fact that the dreaded day of a vast nuclear world war is almost
certain to happen, sooner or later. So it is best not to worry about it, but to enjoy life while you can.
I don't see that anyone can possibly do anything about it. The human race, like the dinosaurs, will go.

Aggers, you are probably right. When the bombs do start to fall my aim is to be directly beneath the first one.

I'm not so sure. We've had 10kt warheads which could be shot from the barrel of a field gun with a rocket booster pack that would send it up to 20km away when I was serving. These are battlefield nukes for levelling an army but can also take out a moderate size city.

The point being, about these weapons, you don't get to stop them. There is no, truly effective, anti battery weapon for an artillery strike. You can only destroy the guns on the ground before they fire.

America has had what they call "dial a yield" nukes for years now. Depending on the requested yield, the same weapon can deliver from 5kt to 125kt. It is the province of 3 stage nuclear weapons and, as far as I know, there are only three countries in the world who have this technology. US/UK and Russia.

If they are saying that they're replacing the old monolithic ICBM's with smaller multi head systems, then I can understand this. The threat has changed. Half a dozen 12kt warheads and Little Rocket Man is toast. Even more interesting is they can be steered right down the access tunnels before exploding.

However these weapons are cheaper, more frugal on fuel as they are multi stage fusion weapons and they are more easy to transport and deliver. Essentially your US Naval battle group becomes a US annihilation group as it has more weapons of greater flexibility.

To me it makes sense. If you need to win a war, rather than talk the ears off your opponent, then you need to WIN it and if there is even the slightest chance they are going to use a nuke on you, you want a proportionate response to come back with. After all if some idiot lobs a 5kt nuke at you, the world will look much more favourably if you just take out a city or two than if you vaporise half their country..