Thread: Trump Administration Rolls Out Low-Yield Nukes "around 1/3 of the force of the bom

Trump Administration Rolls Out Low-Yield Nukes



"around 1/3 of the force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima."

Mon, 01/28/2019 - 15:30
127 SHARES

video at the page link

The United States has begun manufacturing a low-yield nuclear warhead to be used in Trident missiles, reports The Guardian citing an emailed announcement by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).


The new weapon - the W76-2, is a modification of an existing Trident nuclear warhead. According to the NNSA, the first batch have come off the production line, and an unspecified number of them referred to as "initial operational capability" will be ready for delivery before the end of September.

According to Stephen Young, a senior Washington representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the yield on the W76 was likely reduced to created the W76-2 by removing one stage from the original two-stage device.
"As best we can tell, the only requirement is to replace the existing secondary, or second stage, with a dummy version, which is what they do every time they test fly a missile," said Young, who noted that the amount of the hydrogen isotope tritium may also be adjusted.
The result is that the yield has been reduced by 95% - from 100 kilotons of TNT to around five kilotons; around 1/3 of the force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.


According to the Trump administration, a low-yield nuke will make nuclear war less likely, as the US will have a more flexible deterrent. The W76-2 would be able to counter the perception by enemies (particularly Russia, according to The Guardian) that the US would balk at using its massive nuclear arsenal in response to a similarly small nuclear attack since existing US nukes are in the hundreds of kilotons range, and "too big to use" without massive civilian casualties.
Low-yield nukes "help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely" reads the 2018 nuclear posture review.
Critics point out that this is crazy talk which assumes that there are no miscalculations.
"There are many other scenarios, especially with a president who takes pride in his unpredictability and has literally asked: ‘Why can’t we use our nuclear weapons?'" said Young.
Meanwhile Melissa Hanham of the One Earth Future foundation notes that foreign enemies would have no way of knowing if the United States had fired a full-force Trident or the low-yield version.

Melissa Hanham @mhanham



Hey all you nuclear powers out there. We’re just going to trust that you recognize this is “just a little nuclear weapon” and won’t retaliate with all you’ve got.

Remember! The US only intends to nuke you “a little bit.”
Hans Kristensen ✔ @nukestrat

NNSA is moving fast. Has already started assembling the first new low-yield W76-2 warhead. https://twitter.com/leone_exm/status...10109885657090 …




83
5:16 PM - Jan 27, 2019



Hans Kristensen, the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists said the new warhead marked a sharp break from the Obama administration policy of making no new weapons or capabilities. He said it risked starting an arms race with Russia involving smaller nuclear weapons.

“To what extent does this signal a new willingness on the part of the US to start using strategic nuclear weapons in a tactical and very limited way early in a potential conflict?” Kristensen asked. “Frankly, mission creep is my greatest worry about this.”
There has been a spate of developments signalling that a new arms race is gathering pace. Vladimir Putin has unveiled a new generation of Russian weapons, and Russia’s suspected development of an cruise missile banned under the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.
Trump has declared he will take the US out of the treaty, and the administration is expected to suspend compliance and serve six months’ notice of withdrawal on Saturday. -The Guardian

The nuclear weapons review ordered by the Trump administration built upon an ambitious modernization plan which was already underway, and mandated a new sea-launched cruise missile.
The review says that the US could respond with nuclear weapons against "significant non-nuclear strategic attacks," including those on "civilian population or infrastructure." The order also calls for the strengthening and integration "of nuclear and non-nuclear planning."
Democrats could limit
While the first batch of low-yield nukes has rolled off the assembly line, Democrats - who just took over the House, could limit the program.
"I don’t think we need as many as they’re talking about," said Democrat Adam Smith, the new head of the House armed services committee. "I just don’t think we can afford what the NPR is calling for and I don’t think it is necessary."

The nuclear weapons budget is likely to be an important battlefield in the struggle between Trump and congressional Democrats. The president is increasingly surrounding himself with Reagan-era nuclear hawks, including John Bolton, his national security adviser and who pushed for the INF to be jettisoned. Bolton’s new deputy, Charles Kupperman, once argued a nuclear war could be won “in the classical sense” if one side emerged the stronger, even if there were tens of millions of casualties. The Guardian

Former Defense Secretary William Perry told reporters last week that he was less worried about the amount of nuclear warheads remaining in the world than by the dialogue shifting back to said weapons being "usable."
"The belief that there might be tactical advantage using nuclear weapons – which I haven’t heard that being openly discussed in the United States or in Russia for a good many years – is happening now in those countries which I think is extremely distressing," said Perry, adding "That’s a very dangerous belief."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ow-yield-nukes

American Suspension Of INF Treaty Is Aimed At China



“US land-based missiles from 500 km to 5,500 km are prohibited by the INF treaty, whereas the Chinese missiles are not, giving China a significant advantage...”

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 23:45
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Authored by Anatoly Karlin via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

So it’s done. The US has suspended its participation in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and Russia soon followed suit. This almost certainly spells an end to this late Cold War relic, which banned the two superpowers from deploying ground-launched ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500km. There have been recriminations all round. But in the end, so far as two of the world’s three most greatest military Powers are concerned, upholding the INF Treaty could never have been done exactly to the letter.



The US has specified Russia’s Novator 9M729 (NATO designation: SSC-8 as the offending missile that finally prompted US action. Russian nuclear weapons analyst Pavel Podvig has noted that it is very similar to the Russian Navy’s Kalibr-NK cruise missile, which has a range well beyond 500 km and has been touted as a potential “carrier killer”. Podvig goes on to speculate that if the US had observed a test of the 9M729 from a land-based Iskander-M launcher – even if on just a single occasion – then all of them “would have to be eliminated” by the formal terms of the treaty. This is obviously not something that Russia could reasonably be expected to carry out.
Moreover, any number of US missile systems can be considered to be in breach of the INF Treaty. For instance, the Russians have argued that America’s AEGIS Ashore program – a ground-based cruise missile, for all intents and purposes – can also be considered to be in systemic breach of the INF Treaty. Incidentally, this system was itself enabled by America’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, under the George W. Bush administration.
Trump has been taking heat for the INF withdrawal from the usual quarters. For instance, the top comment on this story at r/politics – a bastion of online Trump/Putin Derangement Syndrome – lambasts the US President for spoiling America’s image and letting down its allies instead of sanctioning Russia. (Naturally, no mention of where exactly it says that breaking the Treaty is grounds for such). In reality, dissatisfaction with the INF Treaty had been building up for years within the previous Obama administration, and NATO has released a statement of support for Trump’s decision. There is no significant division on this matter either within US political circles, or its transatlantic allies.

Because at the end of the day, rhetoric to the contrary, nobody really cares about the INF Treaty within Europe. Force levels on both sides of the border between the West and Russia – which has moved 1,000-1,500 km to the east, in large part thanks to NATO’s broken promises not to expand – are at a small fraction of Cold War levels. Few seriously believe that Russia has any territorial designs on the Baltics, and even on the off chance that it does, it’s not like the 9M729 is going to make any cardinal difference.
However, it is with respect to the balance of power in the West Pacific that the restrictions imposed by the INF on the US – but not on China – come into play. While consensus expert opinion holds that the US still retains dominance in the South China Sea vis-à-vis China, its margin of superiority is shrinking year by year. In a 2015 report, the RAND Corporation estimated that the number of US air wings required to defeat a surge of attacking Chinese aircraft over Taiwan increased from just a couple in 1996 to 30 by 2017. In a subsequent report released in the following year, we see the balance of power in potential China-US conflict scenarios shift from a terminal Chinese disadvantage in 1996, to parity over Taiwan by 2017 (though they believe that the US still holds a decisive advantage in a conflict over the Spratly Islands). Even so, it is especially notable that the only two categories in a conflict over Taiwan in which RAND now considers China to hold an advantage – “Chinese attacks on air bases” and “Chinese anti-surface warfare” – are both spheres in which intermediate-range ballistic missiles would play an important role.
This is not just my supposition. In another 2016 RAND report, tellingly titled “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable”, this consideration is stated openly and forthrightly:

“US land-based missiles from 500 km to 5,500 km are prohibited by the INF treaty, whereas the Chinese missiles are not, giving China a significant advantage.”

It has long been obvious that the US (correctly) regards China as the real long-term threat to its global hegemony. Meanwhile, Russia is a mere nuisance, a “dying bear” that is ever approaching collapse, in the wake of which Moscow will have no choice but to sign up to America’s China containment project. (Sure, this sounds like a crazy ideological narrative, and it is – but the US policy of alienating Russia and drawing it into a quasi-alliance with China is even crazier – just ask Kissinger). But like it or not, this really is how the American elites think, and it can’t be denied that there is a certain logic to it.
In this context, withdrawal from the INF Treaty – with Russia’s alleged violations as pretext – is just the logical next step to the military component of Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, one that the US is entirely happy to continue and follow through with. It really is as banal as that.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ty-aimed-china