nuclear weapons

Nuclear Nightmare

Mark Noonan60 Comments

I’ve talked a bit about the lies of our times (translation: yammered on endlessly about it), but something jumped out at me today.

There has been some chatter about the supposed threat of Putin using nuclear weapons in his war in Ukraine. Whether or not there’s anything to it, I don’t know. Could be just fear-mongering by our leaders to keep us on board with spending endless billions of never-to-be-audited dollars there. But it occurred to me that if, say, Putin were to use a nuke to destroy a Ukrainian division, just what could anyone do about it?

Ukraine gave up its nukes: so, no threat of retaliation from there. If there was to be a proportionate response, it would have to come from the USA, UK or France – the three nuclear-armed NATO powers. Which nation will risk a nuclear exchange with Russia over that? Nuke Smolensk and risk Nancy, Birmingham or Boston being wiped out in response? Not gonna happen – not in any conceivable universe of possibilities.

So, in the end, if Putin decided he has to use nukes, he’s got a free-fire zone. And that also got me thinking: just why haven’t nuclear weapons been used since 1945?

They kill lots of people?

Ok. They sure do. But so does conventional bombing: the conventional bombing raid on Tokyo March 10th, 1945 killed an estimated 100,000: about as many as were killed at Hiroshima. Dead is dead – whether in a nuclear flash or a firestorm. And nobody has been shy about killing since WWII – just between Korea and Vietnam about 6 million people were killed. And think of all the fighting all through the past 75 years! War after war after war and nothing is resolved and then some more war and killing because it wasn’t resolved and so on and etc. This is better than a nuclear bomb?

So, killing really isn’t the reason nobody uses them. But what about the long-term effects of nuclear war? Nuclear Winter! Land and water poisoned for thousands of years! Well…if you look into Nuclear Winter, if it is something which can happen (and there are doubts), then it is predicated upon thousands of nuclear weapons going off nearly at the same time. This is something which is very unlikely to happen. And as for poisoned land and water – well, as I’ve pointed out before, people never stopped living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even around Chernobyl they’re doing nature documentaries to chronicle how plants and animals are thriving in the absence of human activity. Think about that – the most deadly and poisonous nuclear accident in history…and they’re doing documentaries about how plants and animals are thriving. People live there now, too; some people have apparently lived there all along, and nobody is growing a third arm or having any other unusual physical actions.

So, just maybe the dangers of nuclear radiation are a bit overblown?

Now you have to think back a bit – and be over the age of, say, 45. People younger than that simply won’t have a memory of how we were positioned in the last part of the Cold War. At our peak, we had more than 31,000 nuclear warheads. And we didn’t just have the nukes – with rockets, bombers and subs, we had the ability to deliver these weapons with pinpoint accuracy in literal minutes from the word “go”. Old time veterans like me can remember SIOP: Single Integrated Operation Plan. That was military shorthand for how to wipe out the entirety of the Soviet Union in about thirty minutes.

But here’s the real kicker – and is once again something we know but we don’t know. Any of us of the right age who looked into weapons and capabilities of the USA and USSR knew at a glance that any nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union was only going to have one outcome: a wiped out USSR. Sure, the Russkies would try to respond but given their technological and organizational level (which was low – see Invasion of Ukraine for an example of Russian combat effectiveness), they’d have been lucky to get one or two shots off at us before they were utterly destroyed. Dirty little secret of the Cold War was that most Russian ICBM’s were not launch-capable at a moment’s notice. It is actually tricky to keep a liquid fueled rocket ready to go and the Russians just didn’t have the skill to do that. Their liquid-fueled rockets were usually standing empty and it would have taken hours or days to get them ready…and we would have seen that with our satellites giving us plenty of time to attack before they could even launch. This is why the Soviets invested so much money in mobile nuclear launchers…they needed to keep something they hoped we would miss (we wouldn’t have – any rocket which can go between continents is large and noticeable from the sky). Their bomber force was obsolescent before it took to the air – and they never mastered the American ability to build a genuine penetration bomber which would have a solid shot of making it to the target. The Cuban Missile Crisis was caused by the Russian desire to have at least some missiles with a decent shot of hitting the United States before we could destroy them on the ground.

But we never thought of it that way, did we? Even after sizing up capabilities, we were still frozen in the concept that a nuclear exchange meant mutual destruction. Nobody wins. Everyone is dead. Civilization is wiped out – and the few survivors are living in a Mad Max dystopia. Just can’t do it! And we got to that mental attitude early on – about the time MacArthur was suggesting that the best way to deal with a million ChiCom soldiers massing in Manchuria would be to drop an atomic bomb on them. You can’t! It would be mass murder! The Russians would nuke us in response and we’d all die!

Well, can’t see as sparing those ChiComs nuclear destruction was all that helpful – not to them or to us. Nobody knows how many Chinese soldiers died in Korea: Chinese government assertions on it are quite useless and while we made estimates, we never really counted. But, rely on it, they were enormous. Again and again the Chinese leadership sent masses of their soldiers straight into American firepower. Their deaths must have been in the hundreds of thousands. And then there’s the deaths they inflicted – ours, South Korean, other UN allies. Over a three year slugging match in horrible conditions for both sides. So, a nuke in Manchuria is the morally inferior choice? Even if it brings with it the possibility that the mere threat of nuking might have got the ChiComs to climb down? Or, if it didn’t, bring the war to the same, swift end it brought to WWII? With a lot fewer of ours dead? And does anyone really think that if we nuked the People’s Volunteer Army in Manchuria that Stalin would risk Moscow for the chance of nuking New York City?

Where’s the downside here?

But we were told that to even contemplate it was immoral. And who said so? Well, the usual suspects when we discuss any historical restraint placed on the application of American power – the American left and Establishment was against it. But why were they? It isn’t like we’ve found these people over time to be opposed to death. Oh, sure, they don’t want to die themselves, but again and again they have sent people they don’t know into the shambles of war…had them fight and die for no purpose and then awarded themselves medals and commendations for doing it. So, I can’t see that morality is what got them to advocate against nukes. And, in fact, the only thing a refusal to use nukes helped was…the enemies of the United States. Here you have this Super Power with overwhelming force which can make all your bravery quite useless…and that Super Power pledges not to use it against you. You can do whatever you want: start wars, murder people, loot and imprison…kill as many Americans as you can! And rely on it, no matter what you do, that Super Power will never take the easy way out of his problem by simply exterminating you with a few bombs well placed.

I just have to believe that the campaign to make nuclear weapons unthinkable emerged from the USSR. Had to: it only helped them. It allowed them to feel safe from destruction while also make it seem like they were a power equal to the United States.

But now it is 2022. Things are different. And serious people with actual knowledge of how nuclear weapons work are in power and to them it is a mere calculation: a cost-benefit analysis. We might find out soon that plenty of players around the world are willing to use nukes against the nuke-free – because the target can’t hit back and none of the nuke-armed powers are going to risk themselves by retaliating in the name of the victim. What I’m saying here is that after quite a long while of living a pipe dream about nuclear weapons, we might have to live in the real world of them.

And that makes me wonder: it has been a long time since we built or tested a nuke. Just how effective is our arsenal? Because if it isn’t up to snuff – and our enemies have fully penetrated our government and probably know to the last detail the condition of our nuclear force – then we might find a nuclear sabre rattled at us.

We might be in for a very difficult time – and all because, ultimately, we allowed ourselves to be conned on this and so many other issues.

Out and About on a Wednesday

Mark Noonan11 Comments

It appears that the Iran deal will allow Iran to inspect itself to determine if Iran is keeping its end of the bargain. As I said, the Iran deal wasn’t to prevent Iran from getting nukes – the Iran deal was to remove sanctions from Iran so that Iran can become our “partner” in the Middle East. Partner in what remains to be seen.

So, the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement wanted to a get a singer scheduled for a Spanish music fest to come out in favor of the BDS position. Singer refused. Singer was disinvited to perform. Usual bit of Progressive fascism for the most part – but the key to this one is that the singer in question was the only person asked to make the pro-BDS statement…and the singer is Jewish-American. In other words, the Jew was singled out for Special Handling. Anyone want to claim the left isn’t increasingly anti-Semitic? In the end, the disgusting nature of this forced the music fest to back down, apologize and re-invite the singer…but how many less famous Jews are getting ground up in this sort of thing? And how many of our Progressives even remotely realize that they are backing people who would massacre every Jew in Israel, if given the chance?

Once again – no, the e mail scandal will not force Hillary out of the race. In fact, it might even work to her advantage in 2016 with LIV. My bet is that by December or so the “investigation” will be complete and Hillary won’t be charged…this will work out in the MSM to Hillary being cleared of all wrong-doing and any GOP attempts to bring it up in 2016 will be “why are you re-hashing old news?”. Rely on it: Hillary will only be kept out of the White House by a great candidate running a great campaign. To be sure, this stuff does help a bit by attacking Hillary’s credibility in the overall public mind…but that was already a bit of a given. We have to beat her by beating her. Nothing else will do it for us.

Newest Planned Parenthood video indicates that PP may, from time to time, engage in a bit of infanticide if the child comes out alive. This has been a given in the abortion industry for a long time – you can’t be sure the kid is dead prior to extraction. Almost always, the child is dead – but there’s no way to be 100% certain about it, and so it appears that some children come out alive. The bottom line about abortion is that it is a nasty business where the end-product is a dead child and, very often, a poor woman struggling for years with the mental anguish (you’re “pro-choice” and don’t believe me about that last? Then go here and see. I dare you). Given that it is all about death-dealing, it is bound to be unpleasant in almost all respects. It has gotten a mental pass from the people because the use of euphemism has allowed people to turn aside and pretend they dont’ know what is happening. These videos end all that.

ISIS beheads 82 year old antiquities scholar – in case you forgot that these are savages who need to be defeated.

In better news, a bunch of Yazidi women have formed a military unit to kill ISIS goons. These women, by the way, risk death and worse if they are ever captured by ISIS. What saddens me is that we don’t want to fight ISIS as much as these women do.

They keep telling us that the economy in in great shape and that unemployment is dropping like a rock…but if this is so, why are wages flat? Two possible explanations:

1. There is no job growth and Uncle Sam is just faking the numbers

2. There is job growth but the importation of millions of illegals with Uncle Sam’s encouragement is keeping wages flat.

Take your pick, but either case is bad for the people.

Iran’s Nuclear Facility Unsafe?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Interesting bit of news from Strategy Page:

…Russians who worked at Bushehr complained of sloppy work by Iranians and a nuclear power facility that is fundamentally unsafe. Perhaps because of this, the government recently announced that 4,000 civilians living near the Bushehr plant would be relocated, at a cost of $10 million…

If the Russians are considering it unsafe, then one has to wonder just how bad it is…the guys who built Chernobyl are scared.  Just great.  Not only is Iran only building the bloody things so they can eventually get nuclear weapons, but they are building them badly, probably much too rushed and we have the risk of a major nuclear accident to add to the risk that those lunatics might get nuclear weapons.

This is the price of not acting decisively.  Iran’s nuclear facilities should have been destroyed years ago…long before any nuclear fuel could get to a nuclear plant which may be unsafe.  It is time for us to stop acting like fools – regimes like that which governs Iran are not legitimate.  They don’t have the right to issue a parking ticket, let alone build nuclear.  It is up to decent people to decide how far such a regime can go…and as soon as it became clear that Iran was bent on nukes, we should have taken the steps to halt the program, even if it meant war.

Now we’re kind of stuck.  We’ve got a President who doesn’t even realize the risks and we’ve got Iran an ace away from having nuclear weapons which can target all of the middle east.  It is just going to get worse and worse because we did not act with firmness an in accordance with American convictions about what constitutes legitimate government.  Just burns me up that the merest application of morality to the Iranian situation would have produced the correct decision…we didn’t and now we’re going to catch it hot.

The Need for a Nuclear Build Up

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Part of the problem with getting slip shod and thinking that the world has changed is that those who are determined and know it hasn’t changed can steal a march on you – China is doing this.  From the Washington Times:

China is expanding its nuclear forces with a new multiwarhead mobile missile and keeps its strategic stockpiles in deep underground bunkers, the Pentagon disclosed in its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military.

China is thought to have up to 75 long-range nuclear missiles, including hard-to-find, road-mobile DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to the report, which was released Wednesday. China also has 120 intermediate- and medium-range missiles…

The additional information that China has developed a massive underground network to protect its nuclear force indicates that China is reaching for a first class nuclear force – something which will give China the strategic ability to start wars, and then retreat behind a nuclear umbrella if the war does not go in China’s favor.  While the United States maintains sufficient nuclear force to destroy the Chinese population, we may lack means to strike hard a China’s nuclear force.  And massacring Chinese is not making war – no decent American government would ever contemplate doing that except in the extremity of the Chinese government massacring the American people via nuclear war.

While China is building a 21st century nuclear force, the United States has not produced a nuclear weapon in 20 years – and recent (asinine) nuclear agreements require us to reduce our aging force to 2,200 warheads or less – none of which, I’ll bet, are capable of penetrating China’s very hardened nuclear sites.  While the Strategic Defense Initiative  will increasingly protect us from an “out of the blue” nuclear strike, the fact that we lack “first strike” capability  (ie, the ability to hit it so hard that any response would be suicidal on China’s part) gives China immense strategic flexibility.

They can use this flexibility to start wars – on their own or via proxies like North Korea – with impunity.  If we fight and lose, China is happy – if we fight and win, we can’t fight it to a finish because China can retreat behind a nuclear umbrella and threaten a massive attack against the United States if we go for total victory.  We must redress this strategic balance.

First and foremost must come the most aggressive possible deployment of the Strategic Defense Initiative.  Technology is advancing so fast that we may soon have the capability even of thwarting a massed attack upon the United States.  This will go far towards curbing any Chinese nuclear-armed ambitions.  But crucial to a balanced nuclear strategy is the ability to wipe out all or most of China’s nuclear force in a first strike.  This will take new types of warheads designed for deep penetration, as well as the most advanced targeting systems to ensure we hit the target squarely.

It is time to wake up from the 1991 false hope that strategic nuclear thinking was obsolete.  We live in a world of nuclear weapons, and those weapons are simply going to spread, and more and more nations will develope the capability of hitting the United States.  As in all things military, the safety of the United States lays in maintaining an overwhelming qualitative edge.  In 1991, we easily had that over China – we very likely still do, but we won’t have it for long, if we don’t start rebuilding our nuclear force.  This is not a plea, necessarily, for more warheads than we have now but, instead, a plea that the warheads we have be of the latest technology, and fitting for our needs…and our need right now is to be able to destroy deeply buried nuclear sites (and not just in China – Iran and North Korea also deeply bury their nuclear forces).

The real world goes on, whether we will or no…time get back in to it as far as nuclear weapons are concerned.