US Strategic Command interview on why the US is quickly building new nuclear warheads

[gary]

In a 20 May 2019 (https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/aerospace/military/a-qa-with-us-nuclear-weapons-expert) article at The Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Spectrum magazine web site,
Maria Gallucci interviews Vice Adm. Dave Kriete, who is the
Deputy Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, on why and
how the United States has designed and is building new nuclear
warheads, the first time it has done so since 1988.

The "pit", named after the hard core found in stone fruit, is the
plutonium sphere at the heart of a weapon.

A "top line requirement" articulated by Kriete in the article is for the
United States to get to a production rate of 80 pits per year by 2030.

Article here :-
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/aerospace/military/a-qa-with-us-nuclear-weapons-expert

[LewisM]

They'll try to justify anything, so long as it kills.

[multiweb]

Very interesting article. :thumbsup:

[glend]

Thanks for posting that link. The IEEE Spectrum is widely read, including in Moscow, Bejing, and Tehran. The Admiral would know that as well. It seems like something of a "placement" article, designed to send a message, or even mislead. I have doubts about Los Alamos being the only place they can work, or build pits, but It's a good idea to spread that rumour, after all Los Alamos is already a target. Nothing he said inspires confidence that high speed Ruski torpedo tidal wave nukes could be stopped by their strategy; but he is unlikely to discuss those countermeasures in the IEEE mag. Peace.:einstein::

[gary]

Hi Glen,

The signal is implicit and has been well reported in the major US media
for over a year.

Not only is Los Alamos the only place where they are set up to make pits,
there was actually a big hoo-ha a year ago about it in Congress.

Congress people from New Mexico wanted their state to have
exclusive rights to make pits and those from South Carolina wanted the
government to re-purpose a facility in Savannah River to make them.

The contract comes with billions of dollars in jobs and facility money.

Obviously any moral qualms one might have about making the fission
detonators for thermonuclear warheads is seen as secondary to people
getting those vote winning job opportunities.

[Ukastronomer]

Am I missing something, I am 60 so have been around for some time.

1. WHY have we so soon forgotten the terror of WW1 and WW2
2. WHY in whoever's name, does not SOME nation/nations start to work towards full global peace, this is the 21st century, why are we still killing over who owns what
3. IF we have enough now to guaranteed full "MAD" is that not enough, you can only destroy the world once ???

[xelasnave]

The NP industry must be hurting as many reject the notion NP is best for all... can't sell power stations so let's sell bombs... is that too cynical or is it unrealistic.

More bombs can only be a good thing right...sure follow the money..who gets the money? Who pays the lobbiests who manipulate the elected representatives of the people ( humour alert) to come up with proposals to build more stuff.


The masses are controlled by various means...money superstition fear etc.

If the common folk are involved in war cold or hot they are less interested in thinking about the inequities of the system that allows a privileged minority to enjoy a greedy portion of resources..much of which comes from profiting in making war or supplying tools to wage it. Like are the foreigners really stealing Jobs or are the controllers of capital merely offering up scape goats to give the masses someone else to hate...

Making weapons is the perfect business ... it's like racing you can't stay with last year's model if you want to win and so that's the situation which can not and will not change.
Add to that fact the necessity that a market system needs growth year after year after year...And I am not criticising any of these things as after spending much time thinking for an alternative I have yet to offer a better model that could work with the current version of humanoid.

Whilst folk have a scape goat they enjoy what their superstitious beliefs teach and that unfortunately is that abdication of personal responsibility is really a good thing.


I don't know why anyone worries life will go on just maybe not humanoid.

Alex

[gary]

The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review Executive Summary may be of interest
to some readers.

The U.S. 2018 Nuclear Posture Review web site :-
https://dod.defense.gov/News/SpecialReports/2018NuclearPostureReview.aspx

The Executive Summary (translations also available in Russian, Chinese,
Korean, Japanese and French) :-
https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872877/-1/-1/1/EXECUTIVE-SUMMARY.PDF

[xelasnave]

I think this graph is interesting.
Alex

[multiweb]

I'd suspect that all US weapons delivery by now would be well above the atmosphere. From an efficiency stand point it makes sense to just drop some than flying them across continents and they have enough smart people who would have figured that out years ago.

[morls]

Mods? Why was my comment deleted?

[gary]

Hi Marc,

In order for the United States to have the flexibility to strike quickly,
not all nuclear weapons are delivered by ballistic missiles.

For example, the flight time for an ICBM from a base in North Dakota to,
say, Pyongyang. is approximately 30 minutes.

Consider a scenario where tensions have heightened on the Korean
peninsula to the point where it is believed that North Korea might
order a first strike against the US.

The United States might then likely deploy both submarines and B-52's
just outside of the North Korean defence system.

In such a hypothetical, then say the United States early warning system
satellites detected an ICBM launch from North Korea that was on a
trajectory toward the United States.

If it was known that the North Koreans had additional ICBM installations
that had not yet launched, the United States would deploy nuclear
cruise missiles from both the submarines and B-52's to take them out
as quickly as possible, the flight times of the cruise missiles being
considerably shorter than the 30 minute flight time of a retaliatory ICBM.

The B-52's use to be deployed with nuclear "gravity" bombs - meaning the
one's one drops from a bomb-bay.

In fact you will recollect from 1960 to 1968, the United States kept
wings of B-52's with thermonuclear gravity bombs on continual 24
hour airborne alert. At any one time either day or night, B-52's were
kept in the air by rotating aircraft and crews and by providing in-flight
refuelling so that they would be able to strike the Soviet Union at
short notice even if the United States ICBM installations were taken out
by a Soviet first-strike.

This was the premise of the movie "Dr. Strangelove." :)

However, it was clear even during Operation Rolling Thunder in the
Vietnam War where B-52's carpet bombed targets in Vietnam and Laos
that they were very vulnerable to air defence systems and several
were shot down by the North Vietnamese.

Today, with improvements in radar and missile systems, even stealth
bombers are more readily detected than they were during the Gulf War
and are vulnerable to being shot down.

Hence the US no longer equips the B-52's with thermonuclear gravity
bombs but instead they are equipped with long range cruise missiles,
including the option of nuclear tips.

The cruise missiles have terrain-following capability and are more
likely to reach their target than an aircraft at altitude.

As the document mentions, the US still has the ability to deploy nuclear
gravity bombs on F-15 fighters and plans to deploy them on the
new F-35.

Strategic planners always like to be able to provide options. However,
it is the multiplicity of these options and the concern that something
may one day go wrong in the command and control structure that
is still a very real concern today as it has been in the past.


Attached. Some snapshots I took some years ago of the wreckage
of a B-52 in a pond that was shot down with a SAM over Hanoi during
the 1972 Operation Linebacker "Christmas Bombing" campaign,
which was initiated by Nixon and Kissinger to try and get the
North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table in Paris.