One thing which worries me: as Russian public image is very bad, the first strike on Russia will look justified for some Western policymakers and the public – if they will be sure that there will be no retaliation. The US and other Western countries in Feb asked all its citizens immediately leave Russia, claiming some obscure terrorism risks. This looks ominous.
Russia has nukes on submarines that (just like the subs of the US, Britain, France, China and India) are invulnerable to first strikes.
Those nukes on Russian subs are “modernized”: Russia has dismantled about 88% of its Soviet-era nuclear bombs and replaced them with new bombs, re-using only the most expensive component, namely, the fissile material.
My point is that there is no way anyone can nuke Russia without massive Russian retaliation, and Washington definitely knows that.
If the US knew of a way to locate subs, then it would worry that Russia or China would figure it out, too, making US subs vulnerable, but the US is building a new model of sub for carrying nuclear-tipped missiles, called the Columbia class. As of 3 weeks ago, construction of this new model of sub continues.. The US plans to spend $110 billion on this new model (which is scheduled to enter service in 2031).
Maybe the US is willing to spend all that money to lull adversaries into a false sense of nuclear security or to trick them into wasting money on sub-launched nuclear-tipped missiles, but that seems unlikely to me, and I know of no instance in which the US pretended to spend billions of dollars on a weapons system for the purpose of deceiving adversaries (which makes sense when you realize that the US military is acutely dependent on Congress for money, Congress members are acutely sensitive to voters, and a large fraction of voters are receptive to arguments that this or that weapons system is a waste of money.)
Also, about 2 thirds of the US’s 1357 “strategic” (capable of incinerating the heart of a major city) nuclear warheads are currently on subs, rather than in missile silos or on bombers, which again would be a strange choice if the US considered it possible that Moscow or Beijing could disable them in a sneak attack (i.e., first strike) -- and if Washington is currently successfully hiding its anti-submarine capability, why would it not worry that Moscow or Beijing is doing the same?
I can provide URLs in support of many of the statements in this comment if there is interest.
I would also be happy to explain why Washington wouldn’t choose to launch a nuclear first strike on Russia even if it could, but that would require a series of posts, not just a comment or 2. In short, although it is natural for most observers (even extremely rational ones) to be perplexed by US government’s actions, the US government is actually highly predictable, at least on decisions as momentous a nuclear war, although it is complicated.
Maybe the US is willing to spend all that money to lull adversaries into a false sense of nuclear security or to trick them into wasting money on sub-launched nuclear-tipped missiles, but that seems unlikely to me, and I know of no instance in which the US pretended to spend billions of dollars on a weapons system for the purpose of deceiving adversaries (which makes sense when you realize that the US military is acutely dependent on Congress for money, Congress members are acutely sensitive to voters, and a large fraction of voters are receptive to arguments that this or that weapons system is a waste of money.)
I think this is a fair description of the space shuttle program, tho it was for purposes of self-deception instead of other-deception. I think it would be more surprising to learn that the USG had noticed that its sub-detection systems could detect their own subs, and thus stop building new subs, than that they were merrily making things that were useless.
[For example, the number of submarines built is set by Congress, specifically the representative for the area economically dependent on submarine manufacturing, and has been higher than the number of subs the Navy would like to use for decades.]
I think it’s not very clarifying to round up to “military matters.” I think the US’s track record there for the last seventy years has not been very impressive, but the thing I specifically care about is the question: “does the USG spend lots of money on things that some part of it knows are a waste of money?”, to which the answer is: “yes, obviously.” Thus an argument that relies on “surely they wouldn’t waste money in this way” is just not in line with the evidence that we see.
If the US knew of a way to locate subs, then it would worry that Russia or China would figure it out, too
There are many conceivable ways to track subs and this is only part of the problem because subs still need to be destroyed after being located. Russia and China combined don’t have enough nuclear attack subs to credibly do this to the US. The US does have enough nuclear attack subs to credibly destroy Russia’s deterrent fleet, if they can be tracked, with attack subs left over to defend our own ballistic missile subs. A primary mission for nuclear attack subs is to shadow nuclear ballistic missile subs. That Russia is (allegedly) developing weapons like Status-6 and Burvestnik suggests they are not satisfied with the ongoing deterrent capability they already have.
Also, about 2 thirds of the US’s 1357 “strategic” (capable of incinerating the heart of a major city) nuclear warheads are currently on subs, rather than in missile silos or on bombers
The number of weapons deployed, and where they are deployed simply isn’t verifiable. Keep in mind that it is widely held, and codified in public law, that use of nuclear weapons by the US including for retaliatory purposes must follow the kind of centralized authorization that could be extremely difficult to guarantee under a surprise nuclear attack. This would open us up to surprise decapitation attack so the probability it’s true in practice is very low.
If the US has submarine locators (or even a theory or a work-in-progress), it has to keep them secret. The DoD or Navy might not want to reveal them to any Representatives. This would prevent them from explaining to those Representatives why submarine budgets should be lowered in favor of something else.
A submarine locator doesn’t stop submarines by itself; you still presumably need to bring ships and/or planes to where the submarines are. If you do this ahead of time and just keep following the enemy subs around, they are likely to notice, and you will lose strategic surprise. The US has a lot of fleet elements and air bases around the world (and allies), so it plausibly has an advantage over its rivals in terms of being able to take out widely dispersed enemy submarines all at once.
Even if others also secretly have submarine locators, there may be an additional anti-sub-locator technology or strategy that the US has developed and hopes its rivals have not, which would keep US submarines relevant. Building a sub-locator might be necessary but not sufficient to building an anti-sub-locator.
Russia has nukes on submarines that (just like the subs of the US, Britain, France, China and India) are invulnerable to first strikes.
Those nukes on Russian subs are “modernized”: Russia has dismantled about 88% of its Soviet-era nuclear bombs and replaced them with new bombs, re-using only the most expensive component, namely, the fissile material.
My point is that there is no way anyone can nuke Russia without massive Russian retaliation, and Washington definitely knows that.
I heard that US has secret way to locate submarines in oceans. Space radars? In that case, they will be all destroyed first.
If the US knew of a way to locate subs, then it would worry that Russia or China would figure it out, too, making US subs vulnerable, but the US is building a new model of sub for carrying nuclear-tipped missiles, called the Columbia class. As of 3 weeks ago, construction of this new model of sub continues.. The US plans to spend $110 billion on this new model (which is scheduled to enter service in 2031).
Maybe the US is willing to spend all that money to lull adversaries into a false sense of nuclear security or to trick them into wasting money on sub-launched nuclear-tipped missiles, but that seems unlikely to me, and I know of no instance in which the US pretended to spend billions of dollars on a weapons system for the purpose of deceiving adversaries (which makes sense when you realize that the US military is acutely dependent on Congress for money, Congress members are acutely sensitive to voters, and a large fraction of voters are receptive to arguments that this or that weapons system is a waste of money.)
Also, about 2 thirds of the US’s 1357 “strategic” (capable of incinerating the heart of a major city) nuclear warheads are currently on subs, rather than in missile silos or on bombers, which again would be a strange choice if the US considered it possible that Moscow or Beijing could disable them in a sneak attack (i.e., first strike) -- and if Washington is currently successfully hiding its anti-submarine capability, why would it not worry that Moscow or Beijing is doing the same?
I can provide URLs in support of many of the statements in this comment if there is interest.
I would also be happy to explain why Washington wouldn’t choose to launch a nuclear first strike on Russia even if it could, but that would require a series of posts, not just a comment or 2. In short, although it is natural for most observers (even extremely rational ones) to be perplexed by US government’s actions, the US government is actually highly predictable, at least on decisions as momentous a nuclear war, although it is complicated.
I think this is a fair description of the space shuttle program, tho it was for purposes of self-deception instead of other-deception. I think it would be more surprising to learn that the USG had noticed that its sub-detection systems could detect their own subs, and thus stop building new subs, than that they were merrily making things that were useless.
[For example, the number of submarines built is set by Congress, specifically the representative for the area economically dependent on submarine manufacturing, and has been higher than the number of subs the Navy would like to use for decades.]
Clearly you believe that the US government is incompetent in military matters, then.
In your opinion, how far back in time does that incompetence go?
I think it’s not very clarifying to round up to “military matters.” I think the US’s track record there for the last seventy years has not been very impressive, but the thing I specifically care about is the question: “does the USG spend lots of money on things that some part of it knows are a waste of money?”, to which the answer is: “yes, obviously.” Thus an argument that relies on “surely they wouldn’t waste money in this way” is just not in line with the evidence that we see.
There are many conceivable ways to track subs and this is only part of the problem because subs still need to be destroyed after being located. Russia and China combined don’t have enough nuclear attack subs to credibly do this to the US. The US does have enough nuclear attack subs to credibly destroy Russia’s deterrent fleet, if they can be tracked, with attack subs left over to defend our own ballistic missile subs. A primary mission for nuclear attack subs is to shadow nuclear ballistic missile subs. That Russia is (allegedly) developing weapons like Status-6 and Burvestnik suggests they are not satisfied with the ongoing deterrent capability they already have.
The number of weapons deployed, and where they are deployed simply isn’t verifiable. Keep in mind that it is widely held, and codified in public law, that use of nuclear weapons by the US including for retaliatory purposes must follow the kind of centralized authorization that could be extremely difficult to guarantee under a surprise nuclear attack. This would open us up to surprise decapitation attack so the probability it’s true in practice is very low.
Epistemic status: wild guessing:
If the US has submarine locators (or even a theory or a work-in-progress), it has to keep them secret. The DoD or Navy might not want to reveal them to any Representatives. This would prevent them from explaining to those Representatives why submarine budgets should be lowered in favor of something else.
A submarine locator doesn’t stop submarines by itself; you still presumably need to bring ships and/or planes to where the submarines are. If you do this ahead of time and just keep following the enemy subs around, they are likely to notice, and you will lose strategic surprise. The US has a lot of fleet elements and air bases around the world (and allies), so it plausibly has an advantage over its rivals in terms of being able to take out widely dispersed enemy submarines all at once.
Even if others also secretly have submarine locators, there may be an additional anti-sub-locator technology or strategy that the US has developed and hopes its rivals have not, which would keep US submarines relevant. Building a sub-locator might be necessary but not sufficient to building an anti-sub-locator.
One also should be able to hit these strategic submarines, so a country has to have a lot of attack submarines.
Anyway, if nuclear war is inevitable, it is better to strike first.