U.S. Nuclear Forces: News and Discussion

Mysterious Missile Launches over Southern California

Some also speculate that the "missile launch" was just a bad angle of a Jet liner taking off.

IronsightSniper wrote:Some also speculate that the "missile launch" was just a bad angle of a Jet liner taking off.

This may be true especially if you compare the efflux of the unknown launch with the real one; the former has a very wispier contrails** rather it should be thick white efflux owing to the presence of Aluminum Oxide ....

**
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/09/national/main7036716.shtml

The nuclear missile that burned in it's silo at Ft. Dix in New Jersey.....what do you think caused it?

At the time Melvin Laird was hammering away on the military (Mcnamara) and what he was doing in the Pentagon....

Do you think Mcnamara and his followers would have purposely burned a nuclear missile in it's silo to punish Nixon's Sec Def Melvin Laird?

Americans never were told of that nuclear missile burning in it's silo until decades later. Was it a political action that resulted in the East Coast receiving fallout from the burning plutonium?


Did a similar missile burn at Polaris Point on Guam at the same time?...that's still a secret?

Who did it? Was it for political purposes against Laird?

I think affirmative action caused it.

Putting idiots into jobs they aren't smart enough to do. Thus why now people working on nukes have firearms aimed at their temples.....like that's going to help!

ha ha ha ha!!


Russia should be worried about the 2 US Submarines fully manned with women.....if that isn't an accident waiting to happen.....it could be the event that triggers all the ICBM's to leave their silo's and mankind to become extinct.

Good of you New Zealand blokes to let US nuclear submarines to finally enter port....pray those girls aren't all having that time of month and accidentally do a live fire instead of an exercise. Russians may see a missile launch towards them from New Zealand and have to launch a counterstrike at you in kind.

The US makes people pay full costs for medications...and many of those medicines are PLACEBO's...even narcotics like Oxycontin.

The US wouldn't have sent the TS Golden Bear or the USS Cleveland to New Zealand unless your country dropped the ban on nuclear ships.

You Government was told of.....imminent firing about to occur.....well actually it's already started.

There will be nuclear vessels in New Zealand within 12 months.....they will have your flag flown over it once one of your Officers steps aboard to take it over while in your area.

Pervius wrote:The nuclear missile that burned in it's silo at Ft. Dix in New Jersey.....what do you think caused it?

A helium tank inside the missile ruptured and caused a fire. It was a BOMARC SAM at McGuire AFB, contained in a launch shelter, not a coffin. I've been to the abandoned launch site, I worked at Ft. Dix for a few years.

GarryB wrote:

Russia should be worried about the 2 US Submarines fully manned with women.....if that isn't an accident waiting to happen.....it could be the event that triggers all the ICBM's to leave their silo's and mankind to become extinct.

Yuri: Sir, the US has gone to Defcon 1 again.

Vladimir: Again? They have been going to Defcon 1 once a month every month for the last 6 months.

Yuri: Do you think it is related to the SSBN Susan B Anthony, and the SSBN Hillary Clinton both being commissioned 6 months ago?

ROFL!

U.S. has 'nuclear superiority' over Russia



22:04 25/10/2011
WASHINGTON, October 25 (RIA Novosti)
Tags: New START Treaty, U.S. Department of State, United States, Russia



Data published by the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday indicates that the United States has some 300 more deployed nuclear weapons than Russia.

According to New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms facts sheet, posted on the State Department’s website, the United States has 822 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers, while Russia has 516.

Russia is also at a disadvantage in the number of warheads on deployed carriers – 1,566 warheads against 1,790 American warheads.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which entered into force on February 5, 2011, commits the United States and the Russian Federation to reduce and limit the number of deployed and non-deployed strategic offensive arms to the agreed aggregate numbers.

Beginning April 6, 2011, inspections under the New START Treaty are regularly conducted in the Russian Federation and the United States with consistent data exchange carried out every six months.

To date, the U.S. has conducted twelve inspections while Russia has conducted eleven inspections. These inspections have taken place at ICBM, SLBM, and heavy bomber bases, storage facilities, conversion or elimination facilities, and test ranges.

http://www.en.ria.ru/world/20111025/168112458.html

Well, we do have a numerical advantage, RIGHT NOW. Nothing nefarious about pointing that out, especially as a public prod to get on with the de-nuking. The point of the treaty is to drawdown both sides so there is no advantage either way. Which, if you ask me, has been a somewhat pointless endeavor insofar as nobody has ever thought to try and get the PRC in on something like this. Although I bet you'd have an easier time getting Israel to sign on to the NPT than getting China to agree to nuclear weapons inspections!

Anyway, the number of deployed warheads doesn't have to equal 1550. A bomber only counts as one warhead (stupid), so if you've got a B-52H with twelve AGM-86Bs, you've got 1 treaty warhead but twelve real warheads. Depending on who you get your source material from, the numbers can be convoluted and confusing. Which is why there are inspection teams, I guess. I was on a START escort team in the USAF for a while, to oversee and escort the Russian inspectors. Probably the most interesting additional duty I ever got voluntold to take part in The best part is that we got a great big tour of our base, looking at the old WSAs and the B-1Bs, getting all sorts of fun info on what the Russians were specifically looking for, like the sealed-off external hardpoints on the Bone. Also, you get 800 total launchers (meaning ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers), but 700 DEPLOYED launchers. Meaning 100 of them can be stockpiled or stored, but not in service. Or, in the case of one of the US ideas, you can simply pull SLBMs out of a few tubes on each SSBN, since there's no limit to missile submarines, and reduce the deployed figure that way.

Russia should also have up to 570 deployed launchers: 378 ICBMs, 76 bombers, and 160 SLBMs. Right now that's 1268 ICBM warheads (10 each on 58 R-36M2s, 6 each on 70 UR-100NUTTHs, 1 each on 241 Topol/Topol-Ms, and 3 each on 9 RS-24s), 76 bomber warheads, and 576 SLBM warheads (3 each on 64 R-29Rs, 4 each on 96 Sinevas). That's a total of up to 1920 assuming everyone is fully armed, but that obviously depends on the accuracy of my figures (and therefore my source material as well). Obviously some weapons have been removed from service that I haven't yet caught onto. Now, the 31st Missile Army should disband soon, removing 30 R-36M2s and 27 Topols, and that will affect all the numbers. But the R-30 (six), Liner (ten), and the new liquid-fuel R-36M2 replacement (ten) are going to be MIRVed, so it'll be interesting to see how this all works out in the end.

Oh, and each side has seven years since he treaty took effect to get down to the required numbers. So calling the US tardy and lazy in drawing down is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Especially since Russia added deployed warheads since the last data release to rise above the 1550 limit...

I would argue that if this article is to speed up compliance then talking about American advantages is going the wrong way about it.

OK, so it's a typical example of the press doing something retarded, proving that press hilarity is most definitely not confined to one hemisphere

...and how Russia is ahead of the US in complying with the treaty

But are they really? You can't look at it in terms of who had what when the treaty was signed, because that was the point of signing it in the first place.

Between February and September (according to the US State Department), the US removed 60 deployed launchers, 10 deployed warheads (I'm guessing, but the disparity there maybe comes from removing missiles that already had warheads taken off, or Ohio SSGN conversions if the timelines match up since each missile tube counts as a launcher), and a reduction of 81 total deployed and non-deployed launchers. The US is still over all of the limits, of course, but again the whole purpose is to get down to a new limit. In the same time frame, Russia removed 5 deployed launchers, but added 29 deployed warheads and 6 deployed/non-deployed launchers (5 might be the ones removed from active status). They're still over the deployed/non-deployed figure, and have now moved over the warhead limit. You could make the argument that the US is going down, but Russia is trending up, just based on those figures.

All this proves is that nothing really means anything until the seven year period to get to 700/1550/800 is up. If one side or the other waits until the last minute to get rid of everything over the limits, then it solely becomes the fault of the people who authored the thing for not incorporating some sort of meaningful timeline or structured plan for the drawdowns.

Seeking Kremlin Engagement, NATO Weighs Next Nuclear Posture Steps
By Elaine M. Grossman
Updated: September 13, 2012 | 2:37 p.m.
September 13, 2012 | 2:22 p.m.

WASHINGTON - Defense and foreign-ministry officials from NATO’s 28 member nations are meeting in the capital of Slovakia this week to quietly explore how they will pursue nuclear deterrence policies embraced last May at an alliance summit in Chicago.

The two-day, closed-door meeting beginning on Thursday comes as alliance leaders and member nations weigh prospects for engaging Russia on sought-after reductions in its mammoth, domestic-based arsenal of nonstrategic nuclear weapons.

To date, Moscow has shown little interest in pulling back or dismantling its tactical atomic arms, despite a widely held view that the warheads have little or no battlefield utility. Nonstrategic or tactical nuclear weapons are typically short-range arms, such as land-based missiles with ranges of less than 300 miles and air- and sea-launched weapons with ranges of less than 400 miles.

NATO this week declined to release an agenda or participant list for the Bratislava forum. Those taking part, though, are senior diplomatic, civilian, and military officials with nuclear policy responsibilities in their member-nation governments or at NATO headquarters, Global Security Newswire has learned.

Several alliance officials and other sources spoke on condition of not being named in this article because they were not authorized to address the matter publicly.

The annual NATO Nuclear Policy Symposium is expected to be little more than an airing of national positions about lingering concerns, as member states wrestle with a pair of competing perspectives laid out at their Chicago meeting, these sources said.

On the one hand, NATO signaled after the May summit that, for now, it would maintain the status quo in its nuclear forces, which it said combine with conventional arms and missiles defense to “meet the criteria for an effective deterrence and defense posture.”

On the other hand, the alliance professed a readiness “to consider further reducing its requirement for nonstrategic nuclear weapons assigned to the alliance.”

The allies said they would contemplate such tactical nuclear reductions “in the context of reciprocal steps by Russia.” NATO drew some barbs for this new proviso, with critics charging the organization had effectively ceded to Russia veto power over how the alliance would manage its own nuclear force levels.

Some longstanding NATO members appear ready to move toward denuclearization, while some newer alliance states do not. Several Baltic and Central European nations are arguing that U.S. nuclear forces in Europe continue to play an important role in warding off threats, and NATO’s consensus-based decision-making process has amplified their voice.

The disparity in views reflects varying levels of confidence among Eastern and Western European allies as to whether NATO conventional forces alone represent a sufficient political and military deterrent to the possibility of a resurgent Russia. Countries closest to Russia’s borders tend to sense most keenly their potential vulnerability.

If NATO takes concrete steps to reduce its reliance on tactical nuclear arms based in Europe -- a possibility the alliance said in Chicago its political body would now study -- the North Atlantic Council must grapple with how member nations would divvy up the resultant burdens for defense, said Hans Kristensen, who directs the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project.

No one is expecting that this week’s confab will come anywhere near resolving internal differences over such weighty questions. So Washington’s interest is in nudging along the discussion and, to a certain extent, allowing all sides to vent steam, a number of issue experts said.

On the sidelines of the conference, though, NATO could make some real headway on a proposed diplomatic package aimed at engaging Russia on tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, according to sources.

Alliance officials appear interested in teeing up proposal specifics for approval by NATO defense ministers during their next gathering in Brussels on Oct. 9 and 10, and by foreign ministers at their next meeting slated for Dec. 4 and 5, also in the Belgian capital.

The focus is on a draft set of transparency and confidence-building measures that NATO intends to propose to Russia that could lend each side greater insight into the other’s tactical nuclear weapons posture in Europe, issue experts said this week.

For the time being, this would be in lieu of negotiations aimed at actually reducing a lopsided standoff in Europe, seen by many in the alliance as a remnant of the Cold War.

Following a number of unilateral reductions over the years, the United States today maintains nearly 200 nonstrategic nuclear-armed B-61 gravity bombs at six bases in five nations: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Russia has an estimated 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons at bases within its own borders, according to independent tallies by nuclear experts Kristensen and Robert Norris.

For its part, France has resisted calls for alliance-wide tactical nuclear reductions, seeking to avoid any uptick in international pressure to cut its own national arsenal of 300 nuclear arms. In the run-up to the Chicago conference, the French government succeeded in limiting the scope of pondered alliance reductions in the organization’s Deterrence and Defense Posture Review to “nuclear weapons assigned to NATO,” or, in other words, U.S. nuclear arms.

As part of a bid to reduce its defense spending, the United Kingdom in June unilaterally committed to chopping 40 warheads from its nuclear stockpile, leaving it with 180 weapons, 120 of which would remain active.

The Kremlin’s limited interest in tactical nuclear reductions stems largely from its reliance on atomic weapons to offset technological and numerical advantages in NATO's conventional military posture, according to officials and experts.

“Since neither side wants to reduce its nonstrategic forces because of disparity or to compensate for conventional inferiority, NATO is now limiting itself to pursuing softer issues such as transparency and confidence-building measures,” Kristensen said at a recent conference in Switzerland. “These are important and worthwhile steps but they will not in and of themselves result in reductions of nonstrategic nuclear weapons.”

Proposed transparency efforts might include declarations of the atomic arms that NATO and Russia have fielded on the continent, as well as possibly their storage locations, according to expert assessments.

Confidence-building steps under possible consideration could include dialogue about nuclear doctrine or perhaps even unilateral actions to relocate or dismantle some of these arms, issue specialists say.

NATO nations have decided, though, that they will not publicize their proposed list ahead of sharing it with the Kremlin, said Steven Pifer of the Brookings Institution. Rather than attempt to score political points, the intent is to discuss the list with Russian leaders in a quiet diplomatic effort to explore which, if any, specific initiatives might be feasible.

The Atlantic partners have decided they do not want to “put the Russians in a corner,” but rather would pursue in good faith the potential for a new cooperative regime, Pifer said in a Tuesday interview.

On the thornier issue of negotiating reciprocal reductions to NATO and Russian nonstrategic nuclear forces, the alliance in 2010 laid the initial groundwork for its own arsenal cuts when it “cleaned out” of its “Strategic Concept” prior references to the tactical warheads as “an essential political and military link” assuring Washington’s commitment to Europe’s defense, Kristensen said.

NATO should not make too much of the Kremlin’s rejection to date of discussing tactical nuclear arms reductions, said Pifer, citing a quip he heard recently: “The Russians are going to say no until they say yes.”

Internal alliance debate continues over whether NATO should accept Moscow’s desired restrictions on its missile defense plans in exchange for pullbacks or reductions in tactical atomic arms.

“I think the Russians are playing a waiting game,” the former U.S. ambassador said, noting that Washington’s plans for ballistic missile defenses could change significantly if Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wins the November election.

In casual remarks heard on a live microphone in Seoul, South Korea, President Obama last March told then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to discuss potential missile defense options “after my election” in November. Former Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin succeeded Medvedev as president in May.

Whether any future arms control deal on missile defenses – viewed unlikely until early next year at the soonest -- might also include nonstrategic offensive weapons has yet to be determined.

Issue experts differ on whether any such grand bargain would be a good idea for the United States and its allies, even if Russia were willing.

“I do not support the U.S. modifying its missile defense plans in Europe to achieve a reduction in Russian [tactical nuclear forces] because I don’t think that gambit is worth it or that it will work,” said Frank Miller, a former Defense policy official now at the Scowcroft Group.

At the same time, he said, “it would take a political decision in Moscow that they want to take a new tack.”

Meantime, NATO is not constrained from taking whatever action it deems necessary, in Miller’s view. The alliance statement about “reciprocity” does not actually preclude the alliance from making any unilateral changes to its deployed atomic forces as it sees fit, rather than await action from Moscow, he said in an interview.

“Do the Russians really care about reciprocating? No,” Miller said. “Do the Russians really care about U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe? No.”

Miller also said the Kremlin is unlikely to be drawn into an agreement in which it would significantly cut its nonstrategic atomic weapons.

“Will Russia be magnanimous and volunteer to reduce [its] forces by 50 percent?” he asked. “No.”

http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/seeking-kremlin-engagement-nato-weighs-next-nuclear-posture-steps-20120913

Nice article, tnx for posting.

Its worth reading.

Your welcome.

Yes while it points out NATO hypocrisy it also shows Russia determination not to disarms tactical nukes or even think about it.

It gives Russia deterrent in front of massive NATO buildup that would most surely occurred.

I believe Russia has more than just 2,000 TNW.

This article would be interesting to read, this was published in 2001.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/conrad01.html