Thanks!  ... I would have never looked in that particular spot. I've been within a stones throw of those more than once, and never had a clue they were there (I wasn't looking for them at the time either). I would have guessed they would have been placed further east than that.

First shot was an under-power load.  I guess the powder meter needed to be calibrated. ;)  See below.

It's actually more than 1550 warheads that are allowed in New START.  It's not simple numerical listing in the treaty, so verification is the only way to ensure conformance regarding the final number allowed.  This is for both countries.  There not a separate calculation for the Russians that favor them.  Some bloggers seem to think so.

Also, it does not become enforced until next year, but then will expire in 3 years after that. There are quite a lot of information on the web about it.

Limiting armament favors Russia because of the greater geographical area of their country.  Something like just under 2x the amount.  It was often said by analysts in the cold war years that we have the edge on delivery and accuracy over the Soviets.  I don't read about that much anymore so it's likely some gap closure has been made.

Russia, on the other hand, says the New START favors the USA because we don't have nuclear powers that are a close threat as they do.  There might be some basis for that argument.  Close threats would seem to be ideal for the intermediate range nuclear weaponry that the treaty bans.  Somebody much smarter than me should dig into and analyze that.

If that is true, and ICBM cannot be effectively used to counter intra-continental strikes, then China may actually be the best beneficiary of the treaty.  Russia has mentioned China as an example.  However, due to the cold war, I still think the typical American sees China and Russia as allies. So that is not going to get far in public sentiment over here.  I've always at those two as enemies of each other but only allied against a common enemy (USA) when the need requires it.

Of course, we know that the press has reported Trump saying the New START is a bad deal back in January.  I think anything Obama negotiated is suspect, so there maybe some truth there.  However, the people that really know whats going on, don't talk.  They face jail time, execution, or just simply disappear.

Thanks, I was actually surprised to be able to get Managing Nuclear Operations and Thinking About The Unthinkable at UNLV's library.

That's what I was thinking.

New START limits warheads and delivery vehicles, but bombers are counted as counted as a delivery vehicle with 0 warheads. So, you can have 1,550 warheads on I think 700 delivery vehicles, but you can go over with ALCMs and gravity bombs in strategic bombers. Which means that you can go over 1,550, but not with strategic ballistic missiles. 

As for IRBMs, the Russkies have just stopped abiding by that INF treaty for the reasons you stated. They have their hypersonic Iskander missiles and the new intermediate mobile cruise missiles. These are a threat to NATO in Europe, but not to the United States homeland. 

Is Philly still being used by the Gov..  I thought they bailed in the 80s.

Could you move Memphis closer to the top of the list  !!!!

Y'all sound disappointed. 

I learned something today.

Thanks

Malmstrom CRF 05-08 . 564th and group training before that.

My Dad was there 78-81 and again 82-84, with a short PCS to Wurtsmith AFB in there. (Just long enough of a PCS to cause me to have to attend four different schools for 5th and 6th grades.)

I will forever be able to navigate those dirt roads, no map necessary. Oh there was so much fun had. I'm sleep, need to drunk.

I wonder how that map looks if you add in the Chinese and the Pakistanis (in the event a hostile government takes over in a coup or wins by elections). Then there's the issues of North Korea/Iran getting a tactical nuclear device(s) into the US.

There was some tremendous hunting to be found, especially when most of the ranchers on whose land the sites are located are WW2 vets and they take a liking to you. My dad had permission to hunt a good number of VERY large ranches in the area. Seeing herds of 30-40 deer was a pretty common occurrence.

Of course, the game wardens didn't play around. One of them took a truckload of Security Forces guys into custody one night because, rather than just checking the silos, they were also using the spotlight on the truck to spotlight deer in the fields. He took them, their truck, their weapons, and everything else into custody until someone from the base came and signed for them.

And San Diego/Pt Loma and Pearl Harbor and Bremerton WA.

Pentagon is close enough to DC that DC would catch a few from the horrid CEP of Russian missiles, not to mention being well within the blast/overpressure damage zone.

Here is the paradox of nuclear war; when MAD was assured nuclear war was impossible because the outcome was too horrible and now that MAD is gone, there is still no way to win with nuclear parity. 

And yet, a nuclear war is still not off the books, because little suicidal nuts like Lil' Kim and the Iranian Mullahs may well be willing to go out in a blaze of glory. The holocaust that we were sold on may not happen, but the loss of apocalyptic risk only made the possibility of nuclear war more likely. We were safer with Kennedy and Kruschev than we are with Trump and Kim. 

HAH! I was there 06-09!  Proving the small world theory, yet again!

Good points, and leads to a couple of questions.  

In trying to solve the issues of North Korea and Iran (and for that matter, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Taiwan, all countries who have started to make noise about creating their own nuclear programs), what is the real failure point?

Can we summarize the problem by saying the hostile actors are failing to be...what's the word...deterred?

Though Hillary did a reset and the Rooskies are our pals now?

Back to Kissinger (paraphrasing), "There is great advantage for the weaker party to appear irrational in his behavior."

The failure point is we aren't willing to lose 50K citizens (or even allied citizens) to solve a problem.

They are.

Just to contextualize the problem, its not a new one, but was identified very early on in the Nuclear Age. Everyone saw the inherent instability in deterrence calculus between 30-50 nuclear powers.

Some first assessments...countries that want nukes can get them. Nukes are 1930s physics and 1940s material science at this point.

Two, in seeing this, and proving it multiple times in studies like the "Nth Country Experiment," the next step was to dissuade all possible actors, especially second tier powers and not-completely committed to the project powers that the rewards of proliferation weren't equal to the cost. Thus the US pursued a bipartisan foreign policy of collective regional security and counterproliferation. While only one of regional security condominiums was a success (NATO), a combination of bilateral defense agreements (ROK/US, JPN/US, RP/US), demonstrated willingness to intervene (Vietnam/Latin America) gave enough security to allies to not embark on WMD programs or abandon programs that were starting.

We probably crossed a bridge too far in 1994 with the Budapest Memo. One, the Democrats probably figured it would never be invoked, and even by then there was 20 years of history that Democrats could commit the nation to armed action, and then successful backstab actual Republican efforts to wage the war, usually to gain some domestic political advantage. The few adult Democrats continued to sweet talk the Republican Charlie Brown that everyone was still committed to the same goals, and there would be no way that the Democratic Party Lucy would pull the ball away, this time.

But, with the death/retirement of the national security Democrats, the DNC could maneuver completed unmoored, which it has. Meanwhile, the logic of a WMD program has proved itself to be irresistible once again. WMDs are unique political weapons, to be used in the last extreme, mostly as a threat. Saddam failed at it, and Assad has succeeded.

I think after the Ukraine and the saga of Nork proliferation, I think that an reasonable power is likely dusting off the plans in the basement. I certainly would were I them.

So, if we can't/won't stop proliferation, are their thresholds we can impose to create a safer environment?

Agree on both points, but I think the problem is more basic than that.

I've said for a while that deterrence has two components, capability, and will.  But at its heart, deterrence is about messaging.  So the third implied component of deterrence is a receiver for the message being transmitted.

IRN and NK have been rejecting our current deterrent message.

Outcomes for communications attempts are fairly straightforward:
1.  message not received
2.  message not received accurately (misread, could be garbled at transmitter, receiver, or both),
3.  Message received and acknowledged
4.  Message received and rejected.  

For example, the Korean War was sparked by a case of Outcome 2, where the US negligently and inadvertently gave the message that we wouldn't care if S Korea was invaded.  OTOH, the Cuban Missile Crisis can be viewed as a case of Outcome 3, where we told the Soviets in no uncertain terms what we were willing to go to war over.  

Two questions--
- What exactly is the deterrent message we're sending to Iran and NK, and
- Which of those comms outcomes are the case with Iran and NK?

That's my point exactly--what has been our deterrent message over the last 10-15 years, both intentionally explicit or unintentionally implicit, and how has it been received by our adversaries and allies?

I've believed for the last 10-15 years that there WILL be a second arms race at the regional level, driven almost entirely by your observation:  the US's unwillingness to assure our allies that their security is important to us, and lacking any demonstration that we'd be willing to come to their aid, our adversaries are thinking they have a lot of free reign, and our allies are taking matters into their own hands to protect themselves from those adversaries.

When Japan (JAPAN!!!) starts talking about a home-grown nuclear weapons program to protect themselves, things are pretty bad.....

Unfortunately, I don't think the message to our allies of



has been accidental or inadvertent.

When you have an insane state where The People exist to sustain the military and the military exists to protect the national leadership (as is the case in North Korea), then the threat of losing millions of your own people does not scare the national leadership.

People have assured us that Iran is not an irrational actor, but I am not convinced. This is a nation headed by religious zealots who adhere to an apocalyptic religious ideology. The mullahs either truly believe or are at least willing to convince their citizens that dying for the faith (particularly if you die killing unbelievers) is the ticket to paradise in the afterlife. 

How can a sane person possibly deter that kind of insanity? 

I think I'm safe out in Vail...

To Iran, its been a mess.

To NK, its been a touch more successful.

People hear the message they want to receive. One important fact is that regime endstates and their metanarratives are nearly opposite.

In the North Korean case, despite their propaganda of reuniting the Pen, the Koreans are in a defensive crouch.

In the Iranian case, they are a dying civilization on the march to try to make a Persian Empire that will sustain and insulate the Qomists until either the conversion of the World to Twelver Shia or the return of the Maadi.

If the targets on OP's map are hit, nothing at Ft. Bragg would be a threat to an opponent.  They would be up to their ass's in crowd control, securing infrastructure, rushing aid to the areas that had been hit, etc.

No  one is going to say, "Russia just hit the USA with a devastating nuclear attack.  Let's invade Russia with the 82nd."

Surly you don't believe we will be reloading a silo after a launch.  Those things are not ARs.  It would probably be quicker, cheaper and easier to build a new launcher in a Wall-Mart parking lot.

Agreed.  With both countries, I think Outcome 2 and 4 are both at play--our messages are going at garbled at best, and they're either being misinterpreted or rejected by both actors.

Garbled because we're sending mixed messages--words say "don't do this," actions to Iran say "but keep doing what you're doing," and to NK says "all we're going to do is talk about it, so basically we don't care."

Which means the actual message to both ("we don't want you to have nukes") is getting rejected.  By both.  NK because we've proven we're just going to send them a harshly worded letter, and Iran because the Iranian deal actually paid them to continue their nuclear weapons research.  

So, how do we clean up the signal, and get an acknowledgement back?

On a 4-8 year election cycle its impossible. Especially when much of the domestic policy debates have the technocratic class vs. the billpayers. The only political difference between parties is foreign policy, so our diplomacy is run at the operational side by people who aren't exactly conservative, so in execution it looks like Tounces the Cat steering the world's most powerful nation.

So, in the absence of a national strategy, because there is no consensus, just policy inertia, we procure to kill any selection of enemies on the planet. Thus, the military hopes to be able to give the POTUS some options. If that's sustainable is another question.

Last good national strategy was under Reagan (and Bush 41, who just continued Reagan's). The last four National Security Strategies have been...vague.  Obama nuclear policies (signing up to essentially a no-first-use policy, making it clear that our nuclear umbrella didn't cover our allies anymore, etc) made that vagueness worse.

So, yeah, first we have to decide what our national objectives are before we can decide what we can or can't live with from other nation-states, THEN craft an unambiguous message to those nation-states to outline what our expectations of them are, THEN make that message appealing enough (either positively or negatively) to get them to change their behavior.

Just that simple.  

Iran: Since the beginning of Obama's presidency, at least, our deterrence message appears to have been "We'll defer to the UN, who have no teeth or testicular fortitude in the matter; Build with confidence, despite the occasional harsh word, as it will not be backed up with anything tangible." Personally knowing some scientists educated in Iran, it's extremely unlikely that they don't have the means to develop and produce functional medium+ range weapons and associated vehicles in decently short order. Do not think for a moment that these people are backwards and stupid.

NK: As far as I can tell, most of the deterrent message we've sent in recent history has been "We'll keep our thumb on your international aid and ability to trade with countries whose name doesn't rhyme with China,", with perhaps just a touch of "It doesn't matter, you're too stupid and backward to develop this on your own" (a pretty naive concept, to be honest) for good measure.

Iran: Case 3.
NK: Case 4.

When a weaker party engages in Case 4, they make it appear that either A.) they're irrational actors, B.) they're convinced of a lack of resolve on the part of the stronger party, or C.) they place no value on the assets the stronger party is using as a negotiating stance. In any of these options, our usual methods of diplomacy break down pretty quickly.

I think that question has uncomfortable answers, for the most part. Having a President and SecDef who make no bones about being willing to use any and all military assets at their disposal to achieve our foreign policy goals is a good start. Eventually, though, they're going to have to put their money where their mouth is. They draw a red line, they're going to have to make it a wall when the time comes.

@limaxray

What's your thoughts on the NNSA production facilities as targets.  Pantex, Las Alamos, Oak Ridge?  

In your opinion do they care about the fundamental capability of production or just the command and control aspect of the mission?

We should take them up on it.

I think they're not being deterred because they don't believe we'll ever use what we have, no matter what.

As you said, there's benefit in appearing irrational, and delivering a physics pack to certain bad actors every once in a while would keep everyone afraid of pissing off the Americans.

Interesting thread. I am surprised that nobody has appeared bitching about OPSEC yet.

Hard to say. That one's fuzzy.  Once again, though, the magic number is 1550.

I first thoughts too.

San Diego and Norfolk not being on the list stood out to me the most.  I don't think every metro area in the country is an actual target as much as the would be a finishing strike in the same sense of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I could be wrong, though.

That's all well and goof but the Ruskies do know that James Mattis is now 4th in line to the presidency, right?

If he ends up in charge it will get sporty.

He will just knifehand any incoming nukes right out of the sky then march on Moscow destroying anyone who resists in the greatest blood orgy in the history of this planet.

You know, I have always thought of nuclear war as a scenario where the Russkies launch first and attack us. I wonder how unlikely it would be that some American president decided to launch first. 

I wonder how many people at the Pentagon are considering pre-emptive nuclear strikes against North Korea and/or Iran. I'm sure that there are warplans in someone's file cabinet for a whole bunch of pre-emptive nuclear strike scenarios. 

I mean that map in the Op does not have Tinker AFB (E-6B).

The US was always much more likely to use strategic nukes first.

6th.  The thing you were looking for was "6th."

Rex Tillerson is 4th.

I agree, we were always more likely to be able to carry out a decapitating first strike than anyone else ever was.

we were really the only one with the capability.  

In the 80s we had 117's, Pershing IIs, and GLCMs.  These were all first strike decapitation capabilities.  and the soviets had no counter for them to include massive retaliation because all would take effect prior to their decision cycle completing.

1st strike also matched our strategic defensive posture.

Dead Hand

The Premier loves surprises.