We Were Once Masters of the Air: It's High Time to Restore US Air Power
vermilionchina.com
vermilionchina.com
People forget the context. Eisenhower said all this in the days after Stalin died, hoping to convince the new Soviet leadership to disengage from the arms race. It did not work. And Eisenhower had zero qualms about saying something and smoking something else: the US had about 500 nukes when Eisenhower became president and about 20000 when he stepped down.
There is a thesis to be written (if not already existing) on how both Truman and Eisenhower viewed tactical nukes as, well, very large conventional weapons and potentially usable as such on the battlefield, while still viewing strategic nukes as something different.
The thesis would deal with both presidents' military backgrounds affecting their opinions, and how being intimately involved with the discussion of just how much more powerful thermonuclear weapons are than fission weapons affected taking such a nuanced view, an ability that I think has been lost to later generations (I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed).
Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea?
> because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound.
Yes, they are. Pound for pound. But when you get to 20000 nukes, and thousands of megatons, it stops being pound for pound.
> I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed.
I think you are right. If they knew, at least a few would realize that the US could downgrade 90% of its nukes from thermonuclear to fission bombs without diminishing their destructive power. The most numerous warhead in the US arsenal is W76-1, with a yield of 90 kT. It is obviously not know how much comes from the fission core, but it's unlikely that the core is smaller than the core of Fat Man, because of the lower limits of the critical mass of plutonium. The efficiency of the core is certainly much higher than the efficiency of the Fat Man, so it would not surprise me if half of the yield of a W76-1 came from the fission core. And since the destructive power of a bomb is ridiculously sublinear, the difference between a 45 kT and a 90 kT bomb is not that high. The US could retain about 300 fusion bombs, and convert the other few thousands into pure fission bombs and it could be able to fulfill whatever nuclear war goals there were to fulfill. And reduce the stockpile stewardship budget. And gain some moral high ground in the process. And, why not, move the world a bit closer to a world without nuclear weapons.
> Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea?
No. The Eisenhower cut of the defense budget occurred in spring 1953, right after his inauguration. It was not known then that the armistice would occur that summer.
Or as the old saying goes... who's "we", white man?
The assumption that an air war with China will result in a 1:1 trade of aircraft needs more citations. I’m also not sure they were counting the Navy and Marines airframes in the estimate. I am not sold on the need to buy more military aircraft at the time.
Why would China not win this arms race?
Best case, we manage to get a few decent drones for $10m a pop, but we still risk getting shanked by a frickin' mob of Chinese crap, because they don't need to go that far to get into theatre. I dig what Anduril's trying[2] to do with Roadrunner, but it's still too damn expensive - the hard kill mechanism still results in a total loss-of-vehicle.
[1] I.e., quivering mass of overpaid box checkers getting salaried as Analyst IIIs.
[2] There's some whispers, too, that Anduril isn't actually able to operationalize any of their widgets at any sort of scale, but I don't have any inside eyes on this. I DO see, though, that their fab capacity is . . not amazing.
In History, the Germans relied on low-numbers of high technology planes during WW2. They were swamped by thousands of cheaper 'good enough' planes mass-produced by the US and the Soviets.
The US persists on making the same mistake now as the Germans did in the 1940s.
When you are robbed, just don't forget to say that you are against robberies - this will totally work