Donald Trump: US must greatly expand nuclear weapons
140 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Tudd;51568762]Well I think it needs to be updated for sure. Maintaining 50 year old nukes is really not something you want to always rely on.
"Expanding" is probably the worst word he could use without looking like we going to go bulk on new nukes.[/QUOTE]
The US nuclear arsenal has been continually upgraded, updated, and enhanced throughout the years as new technology has become available. The only thing that old in the arsenal are the Minuteman IIIs and they're still a few years shy of the fifty year mark, with more than half of them mounting warheads from the eighties and newer
And ICBM are only one part of the US nuclear triad. There's also the eighteen Ohio class subs with full Trident capability, the first of which was completed in the eighties and the last in the nineties. And in addition to that, there's basically the entire United States Air Force with not only the various dedicated strike bombers but a genuinely terrifying variety of launch options for a whole mess of other aircraft
The United States didn't just throw the nuclear option into the corner to gather dust after the Cold War. They are absolutely one of the most terrifyingly cutting edge nations in the world when it comes to nuclear capabilities, and the thought of undoing a [I]lifetime[/I] of work to reduce nuclear tensions by suddenly throwing all those arms treaties out the window and expanding again should chill you to the bone
[editline]22nd December 2016[/editline]
[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Trident_II_missile_image.jpg/497px-Trident_II_missile_image.jpg[/IMG]
This is a UGM-133A Trident II SLBM, and to my mind it represents the pinnacle of US nuclear capability
They're carried by fourteen of the United States' Ohio class submarines. Each one of these subs carries [I]twenty-four[/I] of these missiles. Each one of these missiles can carry up to twelve MIRVs with, depending on the warhead mounted, between 100 and 450 kiloton yields with a ninety meter margin of error at a target more than twelve thousand kilometers away
Just to sort of reinforce my point that the United States absolutely has not been pissing about when it comes to their nuclear capability
[QUOTE=WillerinV1.02;51570810]Very strange, the anti-trump narrative seems to have shifted from "Trumps becoming best friends with Russia, we're all just going to be allies with Russia/a puppet of Russia!" to "Well, nuclear war with Russia seems inevitable now. THANKS TRUMP!"
Now, don't get me wrong, I think Trumps been making some pretty shitty choices so far, and probably won't shape up to be the most amazing president ever. But you guys need to do yourself a favor and calm down, think about some of your anti-trump statements. I don't think a single person here commented on the fact that a few days ago, Trump and Putin besties was the latest anti-trump craze.
[/QUOTE]
Can you believe there are actually sane alternatives between "spineless appeasement" and "nuclear escalation"? Trump swinging unpredictably between the two extremes is bad in itself. You'd have to be blind to nuance to see criticizing this as illogical.
[QUOTE=Vlevs;51571629]Can you believe there are actually sane alternatives between "spineless appeasement" and "nuclear escalation"? Trump swinging unpredictably between the two extremes is bad in itself. You'd have to be blind to nuance to see criticizing this as illogical.[/QUOTE]
Hes not swinging though, the interpretation of his actions are swinging... 256D chess and all
Like everything political, there are two very valid sides to this argument that should be discussed, but very swiftly we've proven again we can't do much more than say 'no you're wrong' to each other
Wooow, can we not please, you insane puppet of a man? Ok look, I understand MAD. I really think that Nuclear Weapons were one of the biggest mistakes that humanity has every made, but they're there now, so that's that. But seriously past a certain point, does it really matter HOW MANY we have?
Russia builds an extra 500, bringing them to 8000, WELL WE NEED 9000 THEN! I mean... do we really, though? Even people all in favor of having a significant nuclear arsenal have to admit, at a certain point, more warheads seem to make little sense, and we are far past that point, it's just political dick-waving punctuated by making an increasingly time consuming and expensive mess to clean up as they need to get dismantled later on.
I mean, in the event, god forbid, of an actual nuclear attack. Can we actually even launch a fraction of those in time? Seriously, we can have certain numbers in subs, in ICBM silos, in other places ready to go, then after they are dispatched we would need to take more out of the stockpiles, install them in whatever weapons were being used to deploy them, and keep going. How many hundreds can be released that way in a reasonable length of time? Certainly not 7000 of the things. At which point, by the way, now you have tons of nukes stockpiled and being moved around for the attacks coming AT US to potentially target and detonate, causing even more destruction here before they could ever be launched, so good job there.
Just because a country has some, doesn't mean another country needs MORE to be "competitive" is what I am saying. Nowhere near all of them could ever be used in an attack, it's a literal arsenal in the thousands, but an EFFECTIVE arsenal in the hundreds. It should really be a quality over quantity thing if you absolutely insist on having them you warmongering fuck.
[QUOTE=Sitkero;51571496]The US nuclear arsenal has been continually upgraded, updated, and enhanced throughout the years as new technology has become available. The only thing that old in the arsenal are the Minuteman IIIs and they're still a few years shy of the fifty year mark, with more than half of them mounting warheads from the eighties and newer
And ICBM are only one part of the US nuclear triad. There's also the eighteen Ohio class subs with full Trident capability, the first of which was completed in the eighties and the last in the nineties. And in addition to that, there's basically the entire United States Air Force with not only the various dedicated strike bombers but a genuinely terrifying variety of launch options for a whole mess of other aircraft
The United States didn't just throw the nuclear option into the corner to gather dust after the Cold War. They are absolutely one of the most terrifyingly cutting edge nations in the world when it comes to nuclear capabilities, and the thought of undoing a [I]lifetime[/I] of work to reduce nuclear tensions by suddenly throwing all those arms treaties out the window and expanding again should chill you to the bone
[editline]22nd December 2016[/editline]
[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Trident_II_missile_image.jpg/497px-Trident_II_missile_image.jpg[/IMG]
This is a UGM-133A Trident II SLBM, and to my mind it represents the pinnacle of US nuclear capability
They're carried by fourteen of the United States' Ohio class submarines. Each one of these subs carries [I]twenty-four[/I] of these missiles. Each one of these missiles can carry up to twelve MIRVs with, depending on the warhead mounted, between 100 and 450 kiloton yields with a ninety meter margin of error at a target more than twelve thousand kilometers away
Just to sort of reinforce my point that the United States absolutely has not been pissing about when it comes to their nuclear capability[/QUOTE]
What I find most terrifying isn't the SLBMs, isn't the fact that a single B52 can carry enough nuclear bombs to obliterate half of a modern European country, isn't the fact that we have enough nuclear tipped ICBMs to obliterate all human civilization inside of 90 minutes.
[t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Peacekeeper_Rail_Garrison_Car_-_Dayton_-_kingsley_-_12-29-08.jpg[/t]
It's that thing.
I know, I know, it looks like a boxcar. [i]It's actually an ICBM silo.[/i] Operation Peacekeeper was basically an idea born in the 80s of putting 50 MGM-118A Peacekeeper missiles on America's vast rail network in nondescript boxcars just like that one, in the idea that they would be available for use if for some reason every other avenue of retaliation were disabled. Had these things been actually put into service we would have nuclear missiles quite literally rolling through every location in this country.
I'd love to have one on my model railroad, but fuck, if Trump ever finds out about the program he's likely going to re-instate it. As much as I'd like to have a model of one, I don't want the real thing trundling around. If you ever see a boxcar rolling around and it's got four bogies instead of two it's probably carrying a cargo that should never be delivered...
[url]http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-nuclear-arms-race-russia-232944[/url]
[QUOTE]The president-elect had alarmed and perplexed some experts and others in Washington when he pronounced, without offering more details, via Twitter on Thursday that the U.S. "must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
He further escalated his call on Friday, telling the MSNBC program "Morning Joe" that [B]he is fine with the country taking part in an "arms race" if it puts the U.S. in a stronger position against foreign adversaries.[/B]
[B]"Let it be an arms race … we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all," Trump said in an off-air conversation on Friday.[/B]
After the remark was reported on MSNBC, though, incoming Trump press secretary Sean Spicer pushed back and insisted that the remarks came from a "private conversation" with "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski. [B]While he told the "Today" Show’s Matt Lauer that "there is not going to be" an arms race, he told CNN that Trump is not going to "take anything off the table," either.[/B][/QUOTE]
(Would this be worth making a separate thread for?)
Trump knows fuckall about the cold war even though he fucKING lIVED THROUGH IT
[QUOTE=TestECull;51568573]In all seriousness, 14,000 warheads is enough destructive power to cause a global extinction event so large that the geological record will bear the scars for billions of years. I'm all for having a few nukes on hand, but fuck me, we already have so many we can extinguish life on Earth in general. [b]Why do we need even more of them?![/b] Why are both countries suddenly building even more?![/QUOTE]
I dont think it matters if you have 10,000 nukes vs 30,000. If they use them we're all dead anyway.
It's just a dick waving contest.
Doesn't Boeing work on the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal?
The president-elect and his party constitute the most dangerous organization to have existed so far in human history, and that's no exaggeration.
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