U.S. reveals nuclear bomb numbers after Trump blackout

One glance at North Korea and China tells me that a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons will come in handy when it all goes loose. Tit for tat.

On second thought, MAD is not such a bad idea at all.

Yes, it's true the Communist China only has a fraction of nuclear warheads that the US and the Russia have but Xi Jinping was the most warmonger creature on the earth. Xi Jinping mentality was as much as same as Hitler mentality. I am very much concerned about the Communist China under the President Xi Jinping. Any nuclear arms treaty must include the Communist China which has 350 nuclear warheads that can still destroy the world.

The competition on number of warheads is just nations spreading their feathers

The number of warheads was driven by the number of targets war planners anticipated in a major NATO-USSR war and the relative inaccuracy of legacy unguided munitions. There is actual logic to this. To be sure your weapon will destroy the intended target the rule of thumb is the blast radius should be equal or greater than than a measure of accuracy called CEP for Circular Error Probable. It is a circle where the weapon is equally likely to land inside or outside the circle. When weapons had no precision guidance and thus had CEPs in the hundreds of meters, sometimes even thousands of meters, blast radii had to be very large. Only a nuclear weapon had the requisite blast radius.

Today, precision guided munitions have CEPs measured at most in tens of meters and often only a few meters. Precision guidance makes it practical to use conventional munitions to reliably take out targets that used to require nuclear weapons. By the end of the Cold War there was even open source discussions of maybe using stealth bombers and precision guided heavy penetrator munitions to take out an enemies nuclear weapons (US and UK SSNs and P-3s/Nimrods would be busy sinking their SSBNs). Would an enemy faced with the steady destruction of their nuclear arsenal go nuclear if their enemy was not considering the nuclear calculus worsened for them every day? Or would they sue for peace to prevent losing it all?

If you are going to use it, you’ll do it once or twice.

Not necessarily. And all this warhead counting ignores what a few B-2s could do without being detected.

Google "1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident"

Not the first time something like this happened. On October 5, 1960, the U.S. nuclear command center NORAD received signals from its early warning radar in Thule, Greenland, indicating that a massive Soviet nuclear attack on the U.S. was underway. Instead what the radar saw was the rising moon, ( ! ) which unexpectedly reflected radar waves back to the Thule radar. The radar correctly assessed that it was seeing something big coming over the horizon in the right place for a Soviet attack. It immediately began sending urgent warning reports to NORAD. Cooler heads apparently figured this out fast enough to prevent the US from launching a real nuclear attack on the USSR.

China will not negotiate until it has more than both the US and Russia, because it wants to be the worlds strongest nation in all areas. Remember China has no respect for rules or laws except it's own which it can make up to suit itself.

China is digging a hole for itself, one it will not be able to get out of. I say let them do it.

Feed their paranoia, get them worried and they’ll be buried in the hole they dug themselves in.

As of September 30, 2020, the U.S. military maintained 3,750 active and inactive nuclear warheads, down by 55 from a year earlier and by 72 from the same date in 2017.

If you are going to use it, you’ll do it once or twice.

The competition on number of warheads is just nations spreading their feathers.

Sensible of the US to reduce the stockpile, knowing China they’ll have an accident sooner or later!!!

Let's not forget which country actually USED it.

Why? The effects were an unknown until they were used and the Americans could take pictures but only Japan knew the real effects until after the war.

Lets not forget that America was not the first nation to use a WMD. Chemical weapons were used in WWI and biological weapons were tried by Japan with infected fleas floated to the US via balloons.

While nobody has deployed Nukes again in war, that cant be said for chemical warfare used by Syria and Iraq on their own people.

Yes America lives with the history of being the only ones to use nukes. If they had not been used then, they would have been used by someone else by now anyway. It is in knowing the damage and destruction they cause that gives them the ability to make people fear using them ever again.

That's enough to wipe out all life on this planet a hundred times...

Let's not forget which country actually USED it.

Fortunately Britain and France are not as naive as American Democrats.

They also hold 2/3's of Japans plutonium stockpile. A stockpile, all told, that could generate 6000 nuclear bombs.

Just wish I was in Europe and not Asia.

Perhaps you missed this bit:

"the United States had 5,550 warheads, compared to 6,255 in Russia, 350 in China, 225 in Britain, and 290 in France"

Perhaps you missed the bit where I said RAMPED UP. Also perhaps you missed this bit Perhaps you missed this bit:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/satellite-images-reveal-nearly-120-new-missile-silos-in-china/ar-AALFyHS

Must be nice to have head so firmly planted in the sand.

Why negotiate disarmament with Russia while China ramps up it's nuclear arsenal at breakneck speed? What kind of idiot would negotiate with one while ignoring the other.

The kind that is compromised by the one he chooses to ignore.

U.S. reveals nuclear bomb numbers after Trump blackout :

Why the revelation of the exact number of thousands US nuclear bombs at this critical juncture?

To scare the rest of the world and forcing them down to their knees?

Farcically preposterous..

Ego Sum Lux Mundi

> Google "1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident"

> Thank your lucky stars that Stanislav Petrov was on duty that night and not someone more zealous.

Thanks, my lucky stars.

And thanks for that bit of info.

 The billions needed for nukes, could instead be used for other peaceful purposes

A pandemic preparedness unit for example

The deal caps at 1,550 the number of nuclear warheads that can be deployed by Moscow and Washington

The USA has so many other serious problems that need to be funded and addressed. The billions needed for nukes, could instead be used for other peaceful purposes. And the brilliant scientists, engineers and technicians working in nuke fields could be better used applying their skills and knowledge on other issues within the US borders.

The estimate of $634 billion in total costs for nuclear forces over the 2021–2030 period is $140 billion https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57240

What if the USA eliminates all or enough of China and or Russia s nuclear weapons to prevent them from hitting back?

Not possible. Ballistic missile Submarines hold enough nukes to strike back. They are not all able to be followed 24/7 so you cant eliminate that threat. Then there are the mobile launchers of which there are hundreds in Russia and China. Cant know where they all are at any given time.

What if the USA eliminates all or enough of China and or Russia s nuclear weapons to prevent them from hitting back?

How do you envision they would do that? Send in 007 to "cut that wire"?

Humans aren't the sharpest tools in the shed when it comes to this issue.

Except mad is obsolete, the USA has the capability of eliminating other countries nuclear weapons with conventional weapons. What if the USA eliminates all or enough of China and or Russia s nuclear weapons to prevent them from hitting back?

I can’t see any differences in principle, so all owning countries are a potential threat to human kind and planet one way or another.

The U.S. has reduced nuclear bomb numbers from 31,255 to 3,750, a laudable endeavor on the part of the US. Even so, the number is too big, and so I think the U.S. cannot persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs completely. The U.S.'s attitude is like someone selfish trying to draw water only to his own paddy field at the cost of others.

I am aware of the concept of MAD, but numbers of warheads (down 55 warheads or not) in this range are absolutely excessive. Enough firepower to glass the world is not something any country needs to possess. Honestly even one is more than any country needs, but since the US started that arms race nobody can really step back from it.

The deal caps at 1,550 the number of nuclear warheads that can be deployed by Moscow and Washington.

Which is still a ridiculous number.

"the United States had 5,550 warheads, compared to 6,255 in Russia, 350 in China, 225 in Britain, and 290 in France"

China is 'out-nuked' 16-1 by the US. The US is also the only country to have used nukes (twice). I know which one I see as the bigger threat.

This is true but it ignores the fact that while the US and Russia have been reducing their arsenals for decades, China is going in the opposite direction and is significantly expanding its own. Its starting from a much lower start point so it hasn't caught up yet, but over the past few years it seems to have switched its nuclear position from maintaining a small arsenal as a deterent since the 1960s, to aggressively trying to "catch up" to the US and Russia, which is very concerning.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/05/what-s-driving-china-s-nuclear-buildup-pub-85106

For that reason I tend to agree with those (yes, including Trump) saying that nuclear weapons limitation talks should be expanded to include China (and ideally other nuclear capable countries like India, Pakistan, France, the UK etc). Its not just a Russia-US thing anymore, even though they both still have much larger "legacy" arsenals leftover from the Cold War than all other countries combined.

China will not negotiate until it has more than both the US and Russia, because it wants to be the worlds strongest nation in all areas. Remember China has no respect for rules or laws except it's own which it can make up to suit itself.

I agree.

I couldn't agree more. Each nation that has them should be limited to no more than 20 total. Even that is high but the savings for those nations would be tremendous.

In theory that would be reasonable measure to take for sure.

Why negotiate disarmament with Russia while China ramps up it's nuclear arsenal at breakneck speed?

China will not negotiate until it has more than both the US and Russia, because it wants to be the worlds strongest nation in all areas. Remember China has no respect for rules or laws except it's own which it can make up to suit itself.

Nuclear weapons are bad, and the fewer there are, the better.

I couldn't agree more. Each nation that has them should be limited to no more than 20 total. Even that is high but the savings for those nations would be tremendous.

Mutually assured self destruction.

Yep, there will be no winners. That’s for sure.

Google "1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident"

Thank your lucky stars that Stanislav Petrov was on duty that night and not someone more zealous.

Nuclear weapons are bad, and the fewer there are, the better.

Why negotiate disarmament with Russia while China ramps up it's nuclear arsenal at breakneck speed? What kind of idiot would negotiate with one while ignoring the other

Perhaps you missed this bit:

"the United States had 5,550 warheads, compared to 6,255 in Russia, 350 in China, 225 in Britain, and 290 in France"

China is 'out-nuked' 16-1 by the US. The US is also the only country to have used nukes (twice). I know which one I see as the bigger threat.

Yet fewer nukes increases the chance of nuclear war. Why? If a country does not have a second strike capacity, they have to launch on warning. It is easy to make a mistake and launch even when not being attacked. The USA has a potential first strike capacity on both China and Russia. When you have minutes to make a decision, that is the problem.Neither China or Russia want to surrender to the USA.

Why negotiate disarmament with Russia while China ramps up it's nuclear arsenal at breakneck speed? What kind of idiot would negotiate with one while ignoring the other.