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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

I would love to know (to the extent that submarine deployments are accessible to the public) what this means in terms of actual change in behavior. We have many subs deployed at all times (already quite capable of targeting multiple locations within Russia) while other subs are being repaired, and others are not yet ready, then even others are being retired.

Is this just all theater, or did we actually move things around/add deployments, and did those actions increase the threat to Russia? My fairly naive guess is that Trump directed the admirals to increase deployments, but the admirals internally just shuffled things a bit without changing our posture significantly. Because the US was already completely prepared for this, to the extent that one can prepare for a first strike or response.

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> many subs deployed at all times

Yeah I guess the point being that by playing those (previously "unknown") deployments as an open hand now you demonstrate strength. My understanding is that there are always a number of mid/long range defensive deployments in the Mediterranean as part of NATO contracts with Spain/Portugal (through AEGIS ballistic air defense systems on destroyers), but no (sea-based) long-range nuclear deployments. So explicitly deploying attack capabilities into a "suitable region" does represent an escalation. Though I'd say it's still pretty much on the (rather) low end of the spectrum of escalatory responses.

Huh. I would have thought (again, not an expert) that Trump would be referring to "defensive" ballistic subs (I normally think of "attack" subs as being the hunter/killers, which try to find the enemy's ballistic subs), and the deployment would be into the baltic (although the mediterranean also makes sense). I guess if you think about it as "US deploys hunter/killer attacks closer to Russian assets" (black sea navy, or near major port cities like Vladivostok, or areas like Crimea or the Russian area near it), since I imagine they have the capability to attack cities, maybe it makes more sense to change their deployment? But in that case, why wouldn't he deploy aircraft carrier groups?

I guess we (the public) will probably never know for sure.

Yeah that's also possible.. my reading was more on the SSBN side, which would be equipped with SLBMs and have a range similar to ICBMs. But "nuclear sub" could also just mean "nuclear-powered" attack sub (SSN), though how those would credibly counter the nuclear threat is less clear to me. The article does mention this as well:

> Trump did not say whether he is positioning conventional or nuclear strike-capable submarines

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