If I’m reading you right you’re for the Strategic Defence Initiative. If so is that because it finalises the situation once and for all as opposed to the constant threat under Mutually Assured Destruction? And that only one power have this ability.

Edit: Mutually Assured Destruction as a preventative idea works only if opposing sides are operating rationally, right?

Yes, to every question...

The world of MAD actually looks quite civilised in retrospect, in that it seems to have kept everyone reasonably clear headed. The Cuban missile crisis being one example. How would such an event pan out today?
Did MAD actually work or have we just been lucky?

But I’m not sure if STI can really give a country security in an age of Terrorism. Assuming it did then, if America had the power and security of SDI, geo politics would definitely look different. How could anyone stop America doing this and what would it do to America as a nation?

The world of MAD actually looks quite civilised in retrospect, in that it seems to have kept everyone reasonably clear headed. — Brett

Yeah, but who wants to live in fear in perpetually?

The Cuban missile crisis being one example. How would such an event pan out today? — Brett

Actually, it was due to a sane and sober submarine officer that averted catastrophe. You don't hear about these stories because no nation wants to be portrayed as incompetent or irrational... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov_(vice_admiral)

Did MAD actually work or have we just been lucky? — Brett

That's open for debate, but I think we've been pretty lucky thus far.

I have to say I never considered just what this laser was. — Brett

Well yes. Exactly. Lol.

Yeah, but who wants to live in fear in perpetually? — Wallows

Under STI America would no longer live in fear and why should they, and their allies.
‘Might is right’ finally confirmed.
Happy wife (USA) happy life (the rest).

Second, one needs a 'controlled nuclear explosion' to generate the amount of power needed to create a laser beam powerful enough — ernestm

I have to say I never considered just what this laser was.

Yeah, but who wants to live in fear in perpetually? — Wallows

Well that is the frequently expressed, longer range problem with MAD. People don't stay afraid, and the growing apathy, or rather, oblivious disregard, becomes an ever greater danger in itself.

But then if people feel safe and secure, even if it’s only a perception, then I’d guess they’re less likely to behave aggressively.

The opposite is also a problem. They feel safe because there hasn't been a nuclear war, so they are more likely to act aggressively and ignore the threat of MAD because it never happened.

What the USA military is now apparently doing is converting the B-12 bombs, with about 15-Kt yield, into 'nuclear bunker busters.' Because they are converting rather than building new ones, the USA claims this does not break the START treaty. They should have about a hundred ready at the end of this year, which Trump may use against North Korea, again claiming it does not abrogate existing treaties because the DoD says, by converting them into nuclear bunker busters, they are 'tactical nuclear devices' rather than WMDs.

You can read the old stuff about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bunker_buster

What the Trump administration did in last year's budget was transfer the authority for manufacturing these things to a new group, avoiding legal obstacles. I forget the name of the specific organization now in charge of the conversion.

The 2016 flight test is in public domain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L14GMtf8Vwk

I’m interested in Wallows existential imperative. When he says ‘we’ I’m assuming he means the USA, which I accept and understand. Assuming such a thing as STI (sounds like a disease) is possible and was enacted what sort of country would this make America? Would it be better or worse?

its SDI not STI.

The USA already did enact it. The name says it. It was only strategic. It was always a technical impossibility. And it was effective.

I think, with the USA having figured out a way to use nuclear devices which have 'shaped charges,' to send most the energy downwards, and relabeling them 'tactical nuclear devices' which are not WMDs, and therefore do not break START II, the MAD doctrine has broken down.

↪Brett its SDI not STI. — ernestm

Oh, no wonder it sounded like a disease. Thanks.

That’s interesting. Then both are illusions. An illusion for each age.

The USA already did enact it. The name says it. It was only strategic. It was always a technical impossibility. And it was effective. — ernestm

Im a bit confused here. It can only be enacted if we had the lasers. Yet you say it was effective. But in fact we were still living the MAD strategy.

it was known from day one that it was virtually impossible.

At the time Reagan made the announcement, it was not even possible to detect the rockets from orbit. Now it is somewhat possible to detect the rockets from orbit with infrared cameras.

It was also impossible to target them. It is now vaguely possible to target them, but there are problems with keeping semiconductor circuitry in orbit, because above the Van Allen belt, there is alot of solar radiation which causes semiconductors to break down. Satellite computers are made of 'radiation hardened' sapphire on silicon, which cannot make devices as complex as modern computers. So the information mostly has to be processed on the ground, which introduces control latency. so it's vaguely possible only.

It was never possible to make something to blow up the incoming satellites. Missiles are too slow. Originally it was going to be particle beams, but they require even more energy than lasers. A laser still has not been made which is powerful enough, even on the ground, because it needs a 'controlled nuclear explosion' as energy source. Not even nuclear power stations are designed to deliver the needed amount of point power for a laser with enough energy to knock a missile out of the sky.

But it was effective. The technical problems were hidden, scientists were prohibited from publishing about the impossibilities, and instead there was an enormous amount of noise and distraction from the facts.

The Russians were scared out of their wits by it.

That’s very interesting. Once again, did it work or have we been lucky? I’m guessing it worked in the sense, as I understand it, that the USSR backed down. SDI was poker.

Totally correct. It was one of the biggest bluffs in history. Reagan went on TV and talked during computer animations. Most Americans believed it too.

In earlier news, it was stated conversion of existing B61-12s to nuclear bunker busters would start in July, after tooling and assembly line setup.

There was good news. Matthis himself has been dissuaded from using the term 'tactical nuclear device,' as wanted by progenitors of the Iraq war.

https://www.defensenews.com/space/2018/02/06/mattis-no-such-thing-as-a-tactical-nuclear-weapon-but-new-cruise-missile-needed/

But Matthis already resigned. Now it is Acting Defense Minister Shanahan in control, who has made no statement I know off. Trump's NSA advisor, John Bolton, who also was a major proponent for starting the war in Iraq, is said to want to be Defense Minister.

Note also, this article claims that the russians started making tactical nuclear devices first, well I have been following this for years, and that is the first time I ever read that claim. Maybe it has some justification, but mostly I have been reading of two nations complaining about the USA's program to convert B61-12 nuclear bombs into nuclear bunker busters: Russia, and Canada. Canada is where the things fly over between the USA and Russia, so it is understandably rather concerned, rather like Japan in the N Korea/USA faceoff to date.

But the point is, B61-12s can be dropped from bomber planes. So all the USA needs is an aircraft carrier near N Korea. The problem with that is, we don't really know where the aircraft carriers might be. The last time there was news of a US aircraft carrier near N Korea, it turned out to be in the South Pacific. The USA now has fake convoy groups too.

The reason why this thing started, back in 2016 when the problems first started with N Korea again, was because the bunkers in N Korea are too deep for conventional weapons to penetrate. The USA conducted a 100-missile test on Sharyat, in Syria. It found that even with 100 conventional warheads, it could not do significant damage.



So that's why the B61-12 program was kicked off again. Here is Trump approving the spending in 2016.

@ernestm

We're getting there...

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-air-force-f-35s-f-15s-and-f-16s-might-soon-have-laser-weapons-60362

Well sure, but as you say, and I agree totally, the SDI is not an issue, especially now nuclear bombs can be carried by aircraft-carrier supersonic bombers.

That means the radar-invisible B2 can also deliver nuclear bombs now. It can glide almost totally silently, too. Juyst about the only thing you can hear on this landing is the wheels turning.

Well sure, but as you say, and I agree totally, the SDI is not an issue, especially now nuclear bombs can be carried by aircraft-carrier supersonic bombers. — ernestm

Yes; but, the whole appeal in my mind of Star Wars is to render the entire nuclear armament industry as irrelevant. Something unimaginable in the USA, I suppose.

That's what Bolton says. He agrees. Therefore, he approved of converting B62-12 nuclear bombs into 'tactical nuclear devices' that, rather understated, can be dropped from silent and radar-invisible aircraft on cloudy days, from aircraft carriers that we don't know where they are.

Warmongering? What else is new in the great states?

Ah I remember now. The NSA, under Bolton, is paying for making tactical nuclear devices, because it has authority over the Department of Energy. Thus, the congress bill to stop the DoE doing it was sidestepped. That's when Russia got annoyed and started making tactical nuclear devices too. I totally forgot. Sorry.

This is the current state of affairs then:

In 2018 and early 2019, US strategic bombers engaged in a variety of forward deployments, including B-52s, B-2s, and non-nuclear B-1s to Guam in January 2018 (Lamothe 2018 Lamothe, D. 2018. “In a Rarity, the Air Force Temporarily Deploys Three Kinds of Bombers to the Pacific.” Washington Post, January 16.[

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2018/01/16/in-a-rarity-the-air-force-temporarily-deploys-three-kinds-of-bombers-to-the-pacific/?utm_term=.a55cb3a28f86

In March 2019, the Air Force deployed an unprecedented (in post-Cold War times) six B-52 bombers to the United Kingdom from where they flew missions over Europe from Norway, to the Baltic States, to Romania, to Greece, and to Morocco. Four of the six B-52s were nuclear-capable. The operations included a five-bomber operation over Norway (US Air Force Europe 2019a US Air Force Europe. (“B-52s Operate over Europe.” March 30, https://www.usafe.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2002107687/); and a four-bomber mission over the Baltic Sea (US Air Force Europe 2019b US Air Force Europe. “U.S. Air Force B-52s Train over Baltic Sea.” March 23, https://www.usafe.af.mil/News/Press-Releases/Article/1793735/us-air-force-b-52s-train-over-baltic-sea/ ).

In noticeable contrast to other trends, annual large-scale US-South Korean military exercises – Foal Eagle and Key Resolve––were significantly scaled back in 2018 due to ongoing diplomacy efforts between the United States, South Korea, and North Korea. In a stark departure from previous years, the 2018 exercises did not include US nuclear-powered submarines, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, or strategic bombers (Gady 2018 Gady, F.-S. 2018. “US, South Korea Kick Off Annual Military Drill Without US ‘Strategic Assets’.” The Diplomat, April 3.

https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/us-south-korea-kick-off-annual-military-drill-without-us-strategic-assets/

In March 2019, immediately following the Hanoi Summit, the United States and South Korea announced that these two annual strategic exercises will be cancelled and reorganized into a series of smaller exercises (Starr and Crawford 2019 Starr, B., and J. Crawford. 2019. “US, South Korea Scale Back Joint Military Drills ‘To Reduce Tension‘ with North Korea.” CNN, March 3.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/02/politics/us-south-korea-military-exercises/index.html

For information on current land-based nuclear missiles, see the full report:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2019.1606503
"United States nuclear forces, 2019"
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

It may seem unlikely to you that a nuclear-weapons attack from an aircraft carrier could in fact happen next year, but there's been alot of preparation for it in the last few years, since Kim Jung suddenly scared the world by lobbing a nuclear missile over Japan, something people thought he couldn't do. Trump even made his first secretary of state go to Japan and try to sell Japan nuclear weapons. The secretary of state since resigned, calling Trump an idiot. One does have to wonder whether Trump even knows what happened at Nagasaki, so he had a point. The real point is, Japan won't do anything about it, just like Canada. So Trump really does have a reason to approve Bolton making nuclear weapons to drop on N Korea which bypass START treaty restrictions.

What about Iran? I secretly think Trump is Islamophobic.

I think Iran, then Syria, would be after N Korea, if the nuclear bunker busters work in N Korea, because its an easier first victim.

Here's an article describing the alternatives to a nuclear attack on N Korea, from Popular Mechanics in 2017. It's wildly imaginative, but none of it makes as much sense as a B61-12 modified for directional nuclear blast:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a28147/north-korea-bunker-buster/

Also on the tactical nuclear device:

"Why the B-61-12 Bomb Is the Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon in America's Arsenal"
National Interest, October 2018
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-b-61-12-bomb-most-dangerous-nuclear-weapon-americas-arsenal-32976

To permit a directional nuclear blast for bunker busting, the Air Force modified the bomb's tail fins so that it would strike the ground at a known angle, permitting a directional nuclear blast. This article described the mechanical modifications in 2015, stating at that time, production was planned in 2020:

"Development and flight testing of B61-12 nuclear bomb"
Air Force Technology,
https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/b61-12-nuclear-bomb/

Boeing was awarded the contract to perform the manufacturing in April this year.

"Boeing awarded $127.6M contract for nuclear bomb life extension"
UPI Defense News, April 20
https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/04/29/Boeing-awarded-1276M-contract-for-nuclear-bomb-life-extension/6201556549973/

The conversions will be performed in Albuquerque's nuclear research facilities, where the modifications to the nuclear containment shape were made to create a more directional blast:

"Stockpile Stewards,"
Sandia News, March 2017, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labnews/articles/2017/03-03/stockpile.html