The Senseless Danger of the Military’s New “Low-Yield” Nuclear Warhead | Hacker News Reader

The Senseless Danger of the Military’s New “Low-Yield” Nuclear Warhead

slate.com

10 pointssmacktoward7 comments

The US has possessed low-yield nukes for a long time

[citation needed]

It would take you five seconds to google "low yield nuclear weapon US". Or, you know, read the fucking article, which contains this gem:

> the U.S. already has about 1,000 low-yield nuclear bombs and cruise missiles

Not necessarily senseless. If a low-yield nuke is bad because it reduces the threshold to nuclear war, then the article itself mentions that America already has about 1000 such nukes. Adding a few more will not fundamentally change the picture in any way.

Then why create these new nukes? There's obviously an official explanation, which you can read here [1]:

"to address the conclusion that potential adversaries, like Russia, believe that employment of low-yield nuclear weapons will give them an advantage over the United States and its allies and partners. This supplemental capability strengthens deterrence and provides the United States a prompt, more survivable low-yield strategic weapon; supports our commitment to extended deterrence; and demonstrates to potential adversaries that there is no advantage to limited nuclear employment because the United States can credibly and decisively respond to any threat scenario."

But why are the new nukes necessary if the US already has 1000 low-yield nukes? The prior low-yields available were 0.3, 1.5, 5 and 10 kT TNT [2]. It appears that the new nuke, W76-2 has a yield that fits in the gap between 5 and 10kt (the exact yield is classified). More importantly though, the existing low-yield warheads are either gravity bombs (B61) or air-launched cruise missiles (AGM-86B). Launching them is a headache. Shifting these nukes from one military base to another is a headache. Just making the preparations necessary to launch these nukes will escalate tensions. Having W76-2 available 24/7 on nuclear submarines can change the situation. And finally, as the DoD states, the Trident-based nukes are more survivable.

The nightmare scenario that keeps US military planners up at night is a fait-accompli Russian invasion of the Baltic republics. How do you stop a few thousand tanks advancing towards Riga, when your closest mechanized forces are in Poland and the way to Riga goes through the Suwalki gap [3] that the Russians can easily interdict? An easy solution is to invoke Nato's Article 5, and then drop a nuke on the territory of a Nato member (Estonia). It's not nuking Russia. It's nuking one's own territory in a defensive position. That's a scenario Russia will keep in mind.

[1] https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/20...

[2] https://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/us-already-has-low-yi...

[3] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/suwalki-gap-40-mile-l...

Just two points: 1) why would Russia invade bankrupt and dying Baltic states? There's no economical or geostrategic point in this 2) Just proves the point that all USA "allies" are just an expandable cannon fodder to experiment with attacking Russia. It's too dangerous for US to attack Russia directly, so they're planning to grab the heat using hands of Poland or Estonia. Russia will nuke Estonia - fine as long as it's not Washington.

> bankrupt and dying Baltic states

Here's a graph of the gdp/capita for the Baltic states [1] and Russia [2]. I did the math for you: Estonia experienced a compounded growth rate of 6.2%/year, while Russia one of 4.2%/year.

As for your second point, I'm not sure what you are trying to say. It's too dangerous for the US to attack Russia? Why would the US want to attack Russia? What is the indication that the US would have that in mind?

Conversely, to your question why Russia would invade the Baltic states, may I remind you that not that long ago Russia invaded Crimea? Despite signing the Budapest Memorandum that offered security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons [3]. The US signed the same memorandum, and watched powerlessly how Russia invades the sovereign territory of Ukraine and can't do anything to honor its end of the deal.

Well, what's the big fuss over this, you might say? Ukraine is not a NATO member, the US guarantee was somewhat metaphorical. But the Baltic states are NATO members. If Russia manages to deliver the same fait accompli as it did in Crimea, the US prestige is mortally wounded. NATO might as well cease to exist there and then. What's the geostrategic point in this? It's simple: there is no bigger strategic objective for Russia today than to make NATO irrelevant.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=estonia...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=russia+gdp+per+capita

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Baltic states had all their industry destroyed. I don't know about GDP growth, I just know that life there is harsher than in Russia and there's no potential for improvement: Europe and US do not need another potential competitor, and due to their hatred for Russia they broke all the ties to Russia. So they're like a suitcase without a handle: seem too valuable to throw it out but too inconvenient to continue carrying it. Like Ukraine which EU or US certainly doesn't want to feed but they're unable to provide for themselves.

The sure sign of this is that significant portion of their population emigrated to richer European countries, and the remaining population does not reproduce (I assume because there's not enough sustenance to raise kids or no hope for kids to have better future).

Crimea wasn't invaded and Crimea has largely Russian population. It's not a hostile racist nation that Russia would have to feed and always expect to stab in the back. Russian people live in Crimea and they're happy to become part of Russia again (source: I have coworkers and friends from Crimea).

Besides Crimea has a valuable geographic position.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com