Satan 2 - Russia's new "country destroyer" missile

[Flarelaine]

Say Russia nukes Turkey once, would that be enough for the USA to nuke Russia? Would the USA really risk a nuclear world war because of one nuke?

And where would you draw the line? How many nukes before the US loses all credibility?

[Deleted]

And where would you draw the line? How many nukes before the US loses all credibility?

Well, which is worse? Not using a nuke in retaliation, and "losing all credibility"...or, using a nuke and causing a nuclear apocalypse and end of all civilization as we know it, but definitely keeping your credibility in the process.

[Flarelaine]

Well, which is worse? Not using a nuke in retaliation, and "losing all credibility"...or, using a nuke and causing a nuclear apocalypse and end of all civilization as we know it, but definitely keeping your credibility in the process.

If the US does not react to the first nuke, there will be a second. Then a third. There would go all the allies, piecemeal. That is to say, those that do not switch after the second, concluding that the US will not protect them.

Hell, where's @Skroe where you need to explain the domino theory?

I do not wish for Armageddon - I live too close to Russia - , but I do not think the US strategic doctrines care for the views of Europe's population.

[Deleted]

If the US does not react to the first nuke, there will be a second. Then a third.

...and if they do react, end of the world.

So which is better?

[Flarelaine]

...and if they do react, end of the world.

So which is better?

I'm not convinced being taken out one by one is better.

[Creotor]

I'm not convinced being taken out one by one is better.

This is what you think of Russia? They would start taking out countries with nukes because of some petty squabbles, as long as they could get away with it? You are a sad, sad person.

[Flarelaine]

This is what you think of Russia? They would start taking out countries with nukes because of some petty squabbles, as long as they could get away with it? You are a sad, sad person.

Either that or I have grown up next block to some Russian barracks in a country that has seen its share of Russian invasions. Seeing more of those happen next door over petty squabbles does not help to alleviate the view that the Russians will do whatever they think they can get away with.

At any rate, the discussion pretty much started with the proposal on someone's part that Russia should take out Istanbul and I merely voiced my view that they would not stop at one if they see they can get away with it.

[Shadowferal]

Well, which is worse? Not using a nuke in retaliation, and "losing all credibility"...or, using a nuke and causing a nuclear apocalypse and end of all civilization as we know it, but definitely keeping your credibility in the process.

It would all be irrelevant.
How are you forgetting France and the UK's nukes?

And then there's what happens afterwards. Because nukes are not only on the table, but now being used. India would certainly use them against Pakistan, and likely China (their real enemy). And then there's Israel...

Social collapse and dystopia forthcoming. No one wins a nuclear war.
The acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction is soo very accurate.

[Creotor]

Either that or I have grown up next block to some Russian barracks in a country that has seen its share of Russian invasions. Seeing more of those happen next door over petty squabbles does not help to alleviate the view that the Russians will do whatever they think they can get away with.

At any rate, the discussion pretty much started with the proposal on someone's part that Russia should take out Istanbul and I merely voiced my view that they would not stop at one if they see they can get away with it.

Cybran says crazy shit, he does not speak for Russia.
To think Russia would do what you described is to think Russians are radically different from other humans (to the point of not being human) in that they possess no empathy for others whatsoever. You're basically saying Russia is a psychopath of the highest caliber. Now if you truly believe that, then that's all I need to know.

[Flarelaine]

Cybran says crazy shit, he does not speak for Russia.
To think Russia would do what you described is to think Russians are radically different from other humans (to the point of not being human) in that they possess no empathy for others whatsoever. You're basically saying Russia is a psychopath of the highest caliber. Now if you truly believe that, then that's all I need to know.

No, I actually have no animosity for the Russian people. In fact, I owe some memorable moments in WoW to Russians and whoever invented vodka was a genius. It's the Russian government that's got me worried.

[Sunseeker]

Well, if that country is South Ossetia or Luxembourg, yeah.

But otherwise is it too late to say "Nukes don't work like that."?

[Enthusiastic Steward]

Well, if that country is South Ossetia or Luxembourg, yeah.

But otherwise is it too late to say "Nukes don't work like that."?

San Marino trembles before us. Monaco and Andorra are next.

[caervek]

Well, if that country is South Ossetia or Luxembourg, yeah.

But otherwise is it too late to say "Nukes don't work like that."?

Could actually oneshot Luxembourg:



I can't test South Ossetia because Google is American so for political reasons doesn't recognize the true borders.

On the plus side they can't destroy Sealand without drawing the UK into the war:

[Skroe]

...and if they do react, end of the world.

So which is better?

The US would absolutely react with overwhelming force.

This "would the US really go to war to defend Estonia" is nothing more than the latest iteration of the tired nonsense the US used to be smacked with in the 1990s... "would the US really risk it's troops lives in a war?".

That thought process was brought on by Somalia. People stopped asking it when the US waged wars in Afghanistan, and then finally an even bigger one in Iraq. Osama bin Laden and his inner circle, for their part, believed it as well. They thought, as a matter of record, that after Khobar Towers, after the USS Cole, after Clinton's ridiculous "Troops home by Christmas", the worst he'd get for 9/11 was some cruise missile strikes.

Invasion? Occupation? He never imagined the US would do that in Afghanistan, on the other side of the planet.


The US using overwhelming military force for goals individuals may not thing is "proportionate" is unthinkable to some people. It shouldn't be. The US has an extremely long record of doing just that. And an extremely long record of surprising said people when it does it.

There is pretty much nothing the US wouldn't do to defend the Baltics, because our entire mutual-security network, the foundation of our national security strategy since the 1940s, is based upon that credibility. Do you honestly think after Obama wrecked his second term by letting Assad cross that red line, any President will allow for a bigger, worse, repeat episode of that failure?

[Shadowferal]

Afghanistan was an exercise in retaliation. Iraq was an exercise in stupidity.
And nukes weren't used.

To imagine that the US will launch a nuclear strike unless nukes were already in the air is nothing more than speculation at best, a poorly contrived fantasy at worst.
Unless someone knows something that no one else in this little world of ours knows, the US has too much invested to say buh-bye to the world by using nukes as a first measure of attack.

[Skroe]

It would all be irrelevant.
How are you forgetting France and the UK's nukes?

And then there's what happens afterwards. Because nukes are not only on the table, but now being used. India would certainly use them against Pakistan, and likely China (their real enemy). And then there's Israel...

Social collapse and dystopia forthcoming. No one wins a nuclear war.
The acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction is soo very accurate.

I have a significant problem with this post (and the other one you made).

You treat MAD as some kind of immutable law of nature. You don't wanna look at it. You don't want to think about it. You basically take it for granted.

You're dangerously wrong, and self deluding, to be doing so.

MAD is an EMERGENT PROPERTY, that only exists due to a set of very specific conditions. It is not immutable. If two countries are building up large arsenals with relative capability and numerical party, yes there is MAD. When that is not the case, MAD becomes much more tenuous. The US and China for example, do not share a MAD relationship. Why? Because of China's 250-ish odd warheads, about 70 are of a type and are on launchers that qualify as modern and with sufficiently dangerous range and accuracy. The other 180 are short or medium range, use ancient launchers,, and / or are wildly inaccurate and are functionally useless.

Here is another example: the vast majority of US and Russian launchers are solid fueled, enabling launch-on-demand in just a few minutes. The vast majority of Chinese launchers are liquid fueled, older, easier tech... but liquid missiles need 30 minutes-2 hours to fueled with cryogenic fuel, and usually have to be de-tanked (drained) in a day or two. Concievably, the US or somebody else could strike all these liquid fueled rocket sites, as they are getting fueled.

The point I was making is about conditions exactly like this. Could China inflict massive damage on the US with 70 warheads? Absolutely. But 70 warheads is enough for missile defense to be feasible for, and enough that should that fail and every single warhead hit, while it would severely damage the US, it would not nearly destroy it or take it out of the war. The country is too big, too distributed, and nukes are too small, for 70 warheads to be enough, especially since most of those warheads would be aimed at things like very remote launch sites in South Dakota, and not San Francisco.

You treat MAD as an article of faith, and that's dead wrong because that doesn't respect the emergence of nuclear strategy nor why certain types of weapons were developed and certain technologies.

Case in point, the US is planning in retiring it's largest nuke, the 1.2Mt B83 bomb, our last "city buster". It is going to replace it with the 0.3 / 5 / 10 / 50 kiloton variable yield B61 Mod 12. The bomb is a fraction of the B83's size but it's JDAM-level accuracy (with a new guidance kit), compared to the mostly unguided B83, allows it to be used as a strategic weapon in the B83 class. The B61-12 will be the US's only nuclear bomb in about a decade, in order to consolidate costs.

So how does the B61-12 effect MAD? Well more aircraft can carry the B61 than the B83. Many allied aircraft can carry the B61 and several hundred are stored in Europe, but due to their inaccuracy (pre-mod 12 upgrade) are larger and used in a tactical role or earth penetrating role. The B61 is also physically smaller and lighter than the B83, meaning aircraft can carry more. But the biggest change is the cost savings from consolidating weapon types, allowing the money to be spent on other parts of the arsenal.

When the US decided to spend money on B61-12, or on putting GPS kits on warheads on Trident II D5 SLBMs, or decided to retire the newer Peacekeeper MX in favor of the older, smaller Minuteman III (which was subsequently armed with 1 warhead instead of 3), it wasn't because US planners were making some ritual offering on the altar of the MAD god. Rather they thought long and hard about how to best position the US to win a nuclear exchange in a number of scenarious. And that is the truth of it: nobody (well besides Ulmita) is interested in a nuclear exchange, but it is an serious, legitimate course of study to examine under what scenarios a country might come out on top.

The US-Russian nuclear relationship is not immutable. Both are constrained by a launcher and a warhead number set by NewSTART (700 launchers, 1550 warheads), and even if NewSTART were to be abandoned, only the US could afford to significantly expand it's arsenal if needed. So much of Russia's nuclear modernization is about replacing decaying old systems and adding some modest new capabilities because of that, and not truly "expansion".

A Russia that mirrors the US strategic defense set up - that is to say, many hundreds of land based targets with MIRV'd "deterrent" largely at sea and undetectable - would be, conceptually a much more difficult MAD nut to crack than one that we have, whereas Russia puts more of its missiles on land, and MIRV's them ever bigger, thus cutting it's launcher number far below the cap, thus giving the US fewer targets to hit. What is an easier set up? A Russia with 700 launcher targets or a Russia with 350? The US for it's part, is doing an excellent job riding that 700 launcher line because (a) it can afford to and (b) defense in depth, in that style, is exactly how the US approaches it's defense strategy in general.

This is a little old, but due to the slow moving nature of Nuclear Weapons policy, it's still largely accurate.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dpress/doc...Primacy_FA.pdf

Follow up Article:

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~dpress/do...Primacy_CS.pdf

These are not right wing cranks. They are a Professor from Notre Dame and a professor from the University of Pennsylvannia, examinging these issues.

Some data:





This lays out the types of launchers the US would aim for, how many "aimpoints" there are, and how many warheads would be fired at each aim point (the excess above the 1550 would be pulled from the "Hedge" stockpile, that is much larger).

Basically, under a counterforce strike, of all SS-27 silos, for example, hit by highly accurate warheads (like the ones the US has), there is a 2.097% chance of survival of one or more of them.

Russia, due to poor early warning, could conceivably hit before they knew it.

Now as @ringpriest very perfectly put, this is a Murphy's law-free scenario (insofar as it's been published). What do I mean by that? There hasn't been a weapon made in the history of warfare that hasn't had a dud. This is certainly true of nuclear weapons as well.

What happens if say, 10% of US launch vehicles fail to launch. They are effectively space vehicles... space vehicles suffer failures all the time, and a US first strike launch would be the largest simultaneous launching of rockets in history. That's a lot of moving parts. a 10% failure rate could mean many Russian launch sites don't get hit by a US warhead, especially if all 5 warheads for one "aimpoint" come from one Trident II D5 (which is MIRV'd with 8-12 warheads). What happens if 10% of W87 warheads fizzle and the only crater they make is from their re-entry vehicle hitting the dirt? Same difference.


This was one of the core reasons nuclear arsenals grew so preposterously huge in the Cold War - US and Russian planners knew that their arsenals likely had a significant "dud" rate, so they grew their arsenals to account for that dude rate (even if one fizzled, five would hit), which in turn, multiplied the number of targets, which in turn, required more warheads to target by the other side. Nasty positive feedback loop.

This is especially true of Russia. US nuclear weapons are built to last. Their reliability is believed to be extremely high (though not 100%), in large part because the US throws huge amounts of money testing, maintaining and improving. When the US stages a Trident II D5 test, as it does a few times a year... that's not cheap! That's a $30-$60 million test. The US is planning on replacing all its warhead types - W88, W87, W78, etc - with three new interoperable ones - IW1, IW2, IW3 - just so that if there is a systematic failure with a warhead type, it can be replaced by the other two. This "dud problem", when the stakes are so high, drives everything.

There are other factors into the whole nuclear launch scenarios that great clouds up how legitimate MAD is, which is in one part why we haven't been tested. But the fact remains, it is a lot more complicated than "If we loose nukes, everybody dies". Well sure.. but what happens in 3 out of 4 Satan 2s fail to launch - I mean Russia is a country whose Air Force has been cursed with a sub-30% combat capable rate for it's major combat aircraft for years, do we really think all it's ICBMs have a 100% launch capable rate? I'm pointing that out because it is really not as simple as "nukes fly, everybody dies". On paper, Russia has about ~400 launchers and falling. How many of those are none "duds" in some way? What hidden reliability problems are in Russian (and American) warheads that change the calculus?


You may think such considerations are stupid or pointless because "nukes fly, we die", but it is EXACTLY these types of question and scenarios that drive nuclear disarmament negotiations and strategic security policy. 1550 warheads and 700 launchers wasn't arrived at on a whim. Neither was the cunning US win in NewSTART to get prompt global strike missiles (again, 10+ years away but driving the Russians nuts already) exempted from launcher caps. US and Russia put these points up to each other in negotiations because they had excellent strategic regions for doing so. Sacrificing a pig on the altar of MAD? That's not how policy is made. That's how anti-nuclear diatribes by the Ploughshares Fund is.

Personally I think "why is it 1550 and not 300" is much more interesting than "oh my god, we're all going to die!". But as I said, nuclear policy to some people is like looking into the Sun... they're afraid if they stare too long they'll go blind. Well looking at the Sun is fine, so long as you got the right filters.

- - - Updated - - -

Afghanistan was an exercise in retaliation. Iraq was an exercise in stupidity.
And nukes weren't used.

That wasn't the point. On either case.

You may have been like 10. But back in the 1990s, the "Ghost of Vietnam", coupled with the 100 Hour Ground War in Iraq in 1991, convinced a lot of people who should have known better that under no circumstance would the US commit large scale ground forces to a military campaign ever again. It was taken as an article of faith. Even "retaliation", as you put it, was discounted. They were convinced Vietnam put an end to the US doing counterinsurgencies, long duration wars and occupations. It was, at most, Gulf War style, "left hook", Powell Doctrine, short-calendar warfare.

People believed it because they wanted to. From Osama bin laden down to your opinion writer in the New York Times.

And then the US goes and does it twice in a year and a half, making them all look like a bunch of damn fools. The same fools declared "quagmire" 3 days into the Iraq campaign when the Third Infantry Division "got bogged down" in Basra (in reality A-10s and AH-64Ds were chewing up Iraqi ground forces to the north, away from Cameras) before looking like even bigger idiots a week later when the Third Infantry Division drove around Baghdad.

The best part is the Pentagon, civilian officials and military planners had been saying as much for years. But people believed what they wanted because it was inconceivable that they were wrong about how the US would use force in the idyllic "End of History" Post-Cold War world.

I mean let's cut through it: most of it was Baby Boomers being full of shit as usual.

The US isn't deploying pretty substantial equipment to Europe (and even more to Asia-Pacific) for show.

[Kellhound]

Say Russia nukes Turkey once, would that be enough for the USA to nuke Russia? Would the USA really risk a nuclear world war because of one nuke? I know NATO is a thing but when shit really hits the fan would the USA instanly react with nukes or mainain their brain functionality and react in a more conventional way? I'm actually not so sure what would happen, and I dont see why you would be so sure about this.

Ok Russia killed a few thousand Turks, but would you sacrifice the life of all americans (and probably whole mankind) because of 'NATO'? Im really not sure.

The US would likely respond in a proportional conventional manner.

- - - Updated - - -

...and if they do react, end of the world.

So which is better?

The US can respond in a conventional manner.


Concerning MAD:
MAD is an academic concept predicated on the US and USSR exchanging full nuclear strikes. It calculated that each country would need 1000 warheads (of a size exceeding 100kt) to effectively destroy the other, both militarily and economically. Since Russia has fewer cities than the USSR, the number of warheads needed to achieve MAD against it is actually lower. Note that MAD does not assume the us of warheads to attempt to hit launch sites as it assumes those silos will already be empty.

[Shadowferal]

I have a significant problem with this post (and the other one you made).

That's too bad.
Unless you've the history to back up your opinions, your entire post is nothing but just that; opinion.

You treat MAD as some kind of immutable law of nature. You don't wanna look at it. You don't want to think about it. You basically take it for granted.

Very easy to do that since it's still working as intended.
Do you have anything that shows it isn't? Of course not. A couple of countries slugging it out KABOOM style would have to show that, and the closest that it ever came to reality was between India and Pakistan.

You're dangerously wrong, and self deluding, to be doing so.

You want to call me delusional? Fine.
But I'm not the one working hard to convince everyone of a fantasy scenario.
I don't have to. I can just post the history.
What do you have have? "What if" statements?

Just the facts please.

You may have been like 10. But back in the 1990s...

Nice...But I'm sure I was more than old enough to be your father back then.

[Skroe]

That's too bad.
Unless you've the history to back up your opinions, your entire post is nothing but just that; opinion.

Very easy to do that since it's still working as intended.
Do you have anything that shows it isn't? Of course not. A couple of countries slugging it out KABOOM style would have to show that, and the closest that it ever came to reality was between India and Pakistan.

You want to call me delusional? Fine.
But I'm not the one working hard to convince everyone of a fantasy scenario.
I don't have to. I can just post the history.
What do you have have? "What if" statements?

Just the facts please.

Nice...But I'm sure I was more than old enough to be your father back then.

You should have done more reading then, during those times. I included two articles and three graphs. If you don't like that data, too bad. Hows that for "What if" statements?

Here's four more that precisely address what I discussed

Russia and Conventional Prompt Global Strike
http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/10...rces-pub-53213

US First Strike Stability
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/ran...2008/R3765.pdf

Hypersonic weapons as a gamechanger... or not?
http://www.defenseone.com/technology...issile/127493/

The US and Russian conflict scenario
https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/us...-plan-conflict


You don't strike me as a very informed person. You should read more on this topic before commenting. Quite the contrary of convincing sombody of a "fantasy scenario", you have two posters (me and ringpriest), both laying out how in fact, MAD is the fantasy (or complete-MAD) under certain conditions.

Because you're a very political person who can't separate their opinions from their facts, you seem to mistake me as somehow ADVOCATING for nuking Russia. I am not doing that in the slightest. I'm laying out well sourced, reliable data that indicates this thing you take for granted... well.. you shouldn't be, because it only works under certain conditions that may not be met. It is as simple as that.

Here's your problem Shadowferal. This is RAND, Carengie Endowment, STRATFOR, and NotreDame+Penn all saying pretty much the same, or mutually compatible things.

[Shadowferal]

You don't strike me as a very informed person.

Since I don't agree with you, I'm sure you believe that.
But your links aren't anything.
They're scenarios..so what? They are what for worst cases.."maybe this will happen...This might occur..."
That's all that you have "Maybe...Might..Possible...scenarios.

Has a nuke exchange ever happened? Yes or no?
We already know the answer.

Those hairy-scarey scenarios are typically used for funding and for support. That's it.
I realize that it might be tough for you to admit it, but you've nothing in history that backs up your opinion other than other peoples' opinions. Which means your conclusions are...just more opinion.