Tactical Nuclear Weapons, the Menace No One Is Talking About

Tactical Nuclear Weapons, the Menace No One Is Talking About

www.politicsdaily.com

strategic nuclear weapons reduction treaty, a worthy goal. But Presidents Obama and Medvedev, who agreed on the outlines of the treaty at their Moscow summit, seem to have overlooked thousands of nasty nuclear weapons bristling right under their noses in Europe: Russian and American tactical nukes.

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All the hand holding, hugging and kissing going on between Russian and U.S. lately has been very concerning to me. It is quite evident that Obama does not have the interest of America at heart and that his goal is only to look like he is the peace-loving president for his own personal political gain.

He is making a serious mistake when it comes to Russia. They will always be our enemy, there are just too many basic ideological differences between our two countries.

If you think peace is as hand with Russia, then I'd like you to consider the fact that these talks, hailed as a new found peace/nuke treaty, did not even broach the subject of tactical nukes. And, THOSE are the real problem - especially in combination with reduced strategic nukes.

"as you cut down the deployed strategic forces, you end up with more tactical than strategic weapons deployed and that begins to create some problems. In the U.S., we don't have very many non-strategic [tactical] nuclear weapons compared to the Russians. If we agree to go down to very low levels of strategic weapons, that begins to matter to strategists.''

Almost nothing is known publicly about Russia's tactical nuclear weapons storage sites. The exact numbers and types of tactical nuclear weapons also are secret. Kristensen puts the number of deployed Russian weapons at 2,050, with an additional 5,390 in deep storage. Deployed U.S. weapons are said to number "less than 500.''

"Russia enjoys a sizable numerical advantage,'' the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, a blue-ribbon panel headed by former Defense Secretary William Perry, reported this spring. Russia "stores thousands of these weapons in apparent support of possible military operations west of the Urals,'' the report said. Whatever the number, strategists are coming to consider these weapons as an increasingly destabilizing factor in Europe.

www.politicsdaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Just to put the statistics out there...

The Russians have had more Nuclear Weapons than the United States for several decades now.

Total U.S. and Russian Nuclear Arsenals

From the "Federation of American Scientists"

Strategic

Russia.................2,790

U.S.....................2,200


Non-Strategic

Russia................2,050

U.S.......................500

This shows that if the Strategic Nuclear Arsenals are decreased sufficiently the Russians will have an advantageous position.

Because, as Iamonlyhuman stated, Russia leads the United States far more heavily in Non-Strategic Nuclear weapons than they do in Strategic Nuclear weapons.


Here's a Rough Wikipedia Graph of U.S. and Russian Nuclear Arsenal

[edit on 10-7-2009 by Studious]

reply to post by Studious


Unfortunately they already have an advantageous position. If Obama agrees to reduce the strategic nukes further (and I say that the probability of that happening is 100%), then we will have a seriously negative position.

This is absolutely the wrong thing for him to do. There never will be peace and the only thing they understand is deterrence. Obama is either naive or purposefully destructive.

yeah,,,, this is fishy

i bet neithert country will reduce nukes,,,, that's ttheir covert secret,,,,, but they can say to the world,, see we're reducing nukes,,, and that you don't need em



ps,,,, wastching a nuclear committee on c-span

most of the nuclear for our nuclear plants come from old, dismantled russian missiles

thought that was interesting and actually shows russia is really cutting down

lol tactical nuclear weapns are ones to be used in germany....


since the smallest ``tactical` weapon is at least 10x the power of hiroshima , they are a horrible misnomer.

Tactical nukes are pretty old technology. From nuclear rifles from the '60s to Green Berets walking the forests in Germany with tactical nuclear backpacks in the '80s.

They are powerful bombs, but much cleaner technology than used in Japan. Remember when people talked about a nuked city being uninhabitable for hundreds of years? Nagasaki and Hiroshima are still large cities today.

M.A.D. is sick, strategic capabilities should be scaled down and as the reduction process advances hopefully it will lead to a complete multilateral decommissioning of all strategic arms, period.

As i always say, we live in hope sanity shall prevail the madness.

Pax wasn't my first nick/tag age 15, 27 years ago, for nothing

But while nuclear capabilities can be developed by rogue countries or warheads can fall into the wrong hands, unfortunately, i do believe in global peace, but unfortunately nuclear arms are required to exist and the future is tactical with interceptor defence.

If somehow all switched to hot fusion generation and all countries decommissioned fission reactors etc and somehow fission sciences controlled completely as a banned science i'd say fine, no nukes strategic or tactical.

Reality is though fission physics and crude nuclear arms etc are not that hard to develop and there will always need to be a form of definitive deterrent to nihilist egomaniacs who gain power of a country somewhere on our planet or those seemingly existing now and want to throw a nuke at a major developed metropolis or something and that potential requires a deterrent factor, tactical smart nukes with decent ballistic or cruise ranging are just as capable of being that deterrent as multi megaton strategics.

Whatever steps to abolish strategic arms though, great stuff and hope reductions continue to that end, good work for getting it started again i will say for President Obama and European comrades in Russian polit, all gotta continue somewhere.

Nobody wants M.A.D. scenario to be realised and the total annihilation of Terra and i'd rather see a complete switch to tactical than how things are now because strategic = M.A.D. and nukes are always going to be a reality unfortunately, a blast area of a mile radius is better than losing a whole planet with a rich biodiversity.

However much i'd like to see a fission weapon free world, not going to happen any time soon, the notion is utopian.

Paxus.


[edit on 11-7-2009 by DeltaPan]

Yeah

I'm sure we don't have a weapon yet when spending Trillions building things like Cern (to study the BIG BANG) lol etc etc...Capable of cracking the entire center of Russia open with a single Boom.

And you know the 17,000 or so warheads we still have sitting in storage

and you know probably some Rabies/Ebola/Flu hybrid capable of a 99.9 % world wide kill ratio.

Yeah reduction of Icbm's matters especially when we can fry the targeting systems on them in mid flight to the 99th %

One things is right... This treaty means diddly in terms of being safe from destruction in a war.

Originally posted by mopusvindictus
Rabies/Ebola/Flu hybrid capable of a 99.9 % world wide kill ratio.

Engineered variant Necrotizing Fasciitis , etc etc.

Some things are an utter aberration of nature and shouldn't even exist, nukes are one thing, bio engineered pathogenics or biogenic weapons and considering them, to the lesser extent chemical weapons, are another, i've hoped somebody early in the 21st would eject them from the planet to incinerate in Sol.

Indeed, utterly abhorrent Pathogenics and chem's, etc, should be located however deep the projects, encased in several layers of C60 composites, collated together, moved to ballistic space platforms and space shot to Sol. And good riddence!
A more suitable end to the most disgusting weapons our species in it's folly has created could not be fathomed in my most humble opinion.

If only, ay.

Our species can well do without these things being left stored on this planet after the fringe nut jobs, i have a lot of respect for fringe science and always have but never anything so inhuman, were allowed to develop them decades ago. I trust there is no longer proliferation of these vile weapons.
One would hope so.

Yeah reduction of Icbm's matters especially when we can fry the targeting systems on them in mid flight to the 99th %

Systems hardening, many different very effective methods devised and plenty of proteges to think of more as tech' evolves from any potential rogue with missile and atomic warhead capability, much easier to develop than a thermonuke but simple atomic warheads are bad enough, hardening the delivery system is by no means impossible, so we have interceptors in the defence grid.

Paxus.


[edit on 11-7-2009 by DeltaPan]

Originally posted by mopusvindictus

One things is right... This treaty means diddly in terms of being safe from destruction in a war.

This treaty will mean something - The ratio of Russian to U.S. nukes (including both strategic and tactical) BEFORE this treaty is 5:1 (Russia to U.S.). The ratio AFTER this treaty is 14:1 (Russia to U.S.). But all of those nukes in the 14:1 ratio will be TACTICAL NUKES... those that pose a much more serious threat to the safety of the U.S. This is because strategic nuclear weapons (the ones they're talking about getting rid of) are a deterrence to using ANY nuclear weapon because no one on earth wants to set off an end-of-the-world war where we're launching strategic nukes at each other. Tactical nukes are a different matter altogether, especially when you take strategic nukes out of the equation because there is no deterrence.

Remember:
A tactical nuclear weapon - a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations.

A strategic nuclear weapon - which are designed to threaten large populations, to damage the enemy's ability to wage war, or for general deterrence.

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman


I was trying to be a bit humorous.

The main point I'm making though is,

Biological weapons are fare more frightening to me than any nukes...

1,000 nukes is enough of a deterrent, I know how to survive a nuke attack too... unless i'm unlucky and way to close to the center of a blast.

Biological is had by more countries than Nukes are, it is kind of frightening what actually might be out there, far cheaper and easier to produce and can be innovated by just about anyone...

The complexity and possibilities involved leaves little hope of a defense.

I am quite sure if anyone makes a serious attempt to end things for us, it will be biological not any kind of Nuke

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman


No but there is definitive surgical strike capability of any perceived threat if a development installation, mobile delivery platforms etc needs to be 'prevented', a whole battery or several if necessary, with one low yield delivery or several, with minimal collateral damage, is what i meant, when it is said/written, tacticals are intended for deployment in "battlefield in military situations" that should be **and other** military situations, it is wikipedia ye know matey.

Rather than taking out entire cities or major populations with a strategic strike.
That doesn't even bear thinking about, so many souls not to mention environmental damages which i don't blame some people for not understanding the nature of the manhattan project and other atmospheric tests of which the actual seriousness of their legacy is actually just being realised fully and are nothing to the consequences of SDI warheads if one or many detonate, those strategics aren't test devices.

I beg to differ, it can be perceived as a deterrant even if a 1Kt warhead and that is no where near what any SDI nukes yield is/are.

Missile defense data from the past is declassified and in the public domain, from that one can clearly see the situation of threat structure is very different from the 'cold war' era.

Of course current is classified and obviously a bit different, but look, that's why i say the future is tactical.

Paxus.


[edit on 11-7-2009 by DeltaPan]