US Strategic Nuclear Policy -- Part 4

[@reptilicus975]

Without a doubt, this is the best documentary on cold war nuclear strategy that i've ever seen. Sort of the documentary i've been looking for. big big big ups to the NSA archive and all involved in this.

[@CarlosMoreno-vf5rw]

the 4 documentaries are a total jewell...priceless. For a lover of these subjects one can just get enough. But this series is a diamond. Five stars. Thanks!!

[@reptilicus975]

I just wish they'd do more of these. Can't get enough of them. We'd probably have fun having a beer together and talking stuff over.

[@Shannon_Lacey]

Now we need part 5, with the resurgence of Russia, the second cold war, and the rise of North Korea and China.

[@LaVictoireEstLaVie]

Resurgent Russia ? You must mean a Russia that has its own national interests and is also capable of implementing these interests and defending them. A Russia that does not follow US orders.

[@DokktorDeth]

Include Trump, maybe?

[@hoorayforhawksbills]

The current thinking going on in the halls of the Pentagon, RAND and MIT are most likely classified. This is what they were doing 20 years ago.

[@MEReif]

Thanks 😊

[@fuffoon]

And lastly, awesome documentary. Although I don't agree with many of the policies, it all gave me a strange, almost morbid fascination of the entire subject since I was a young boy. I feverently read and watch any new unclassified information only for my own knowlegde as a source of banal entertainment. The subject has captivated my interest for 40 plus years.

[@sartainja]

fuffoon Not something most people want to make small talk about at a party. I doubt if it would impress a pretty bowhead airhead blonde.

[@westaylor2444]

Great comment and I must agree...growing up in DC in the 70s and 80s and gaining knowledge of the subject of deterrence and nuclear war made me a frightened young man.lol...I knew that I and all I loved would be incinerated in minutes during a conflict with the USSR. All these years later now, it is both scary and sad just how little things have actually changed.

[@fuffoon]

@@sartainja My experience with airheads is that less is better when it comes to talking about anything. Be mysterious.

[@wizzkidelectronics]

Great series thanks

[@fuffoon]

With all of our weapons modernizations and strategic refinements we were lucky not to scare the paranoid soviet state into a pre-emptive retaliatory first strike. Our deterrent was so overbuilt and staffed that they must have been terrified that we hoped to be capable of winning a nuclear confrontation. We needed a tactical and a strategic deterrent but we went overboard with spending in these areas. I wonder what might have happened if half the funds had been used for education.

[@huskyjerk]

5***** Not boring. Moves well. Revealing.

[@vegass04]

I sometimes miss the simplicity of the Cold war.. We were the good guys, they were the bad guys. We had strong ties with our European allies. We knew who our enemy was.. And look at the world today.. Our President is a traitor. People at his ralyies wear T-shirts that say "Better with Russians then with Democrats". Europe thinks they can't count on us anymore. Sure, we made strides in gay rights and we started to eradicate religion, the root of most evil, but the globalization brought enormous wealth to the super rich while the middle class is vanishing. Yes, times were simpler back then. Hopefully our next President will start to rectify some of the unjust stuff that happened to us in the last 30 years, and especially in the last 4. Lets just hope that the stench of Trump won't linger for another Presidential term...

[@frederickmiles327]

It was always a complex picture. But in many senses from 1948 to 1993 only the USA and USSR were really in the game. After 1963 among the western allies, NATO and ANZUS and Japan, Sweden and Switzerland only the Royal Navy and German Army really were keen to make a serious military effort alongside the USA if all out war came. Most allies only wanted to offer their flag if that and wanted to indicated by their own disarmament and inadequacies that they were totally dependent on the US for defence. As the Soviet developed nuclear and hydrogen bombs, jet bombers and tactical missiles and most of all fast nuclear attack submarines, in 1961-63 the NATO and ANZUS allies largely lost interest in serious arming. The 1991 Iraq was did not prove overwhelming western and US tech. The US degraded a third rate Soviet air defence system which at least did enough damage to prove the allies and US had not much idea what were its good planes. The F-16 was too short ranged , NATOs main striker the Tornado bomber was easily hit and brought down. It was inferior to the long neglected Anglo French Sepcat jaguars..The gulf war did nor see the coalition challenged by Russian nuclear attack and Chinese diesel sub's It is likely has sea superiority in the last decade of the cold war or that the US. Canadian and German army and Royal Marines could ever have held the Russian army during the cold war and even know without using nuclear weapons. The introduction of 45k Mk 48 torpedoes to US sub's in the late 1970s did not remove the threat to the carriers within 4 years if its introduction to the USN SSN attack sub's . The Soviet sub's were better silenced and carrying their own version of the Mk 48

[@fuffoon]

This is all very fascinating stuff, but as real and deadly was the issue, I see a whole other side to the whole thing. I see VIP's who used threat potentials and unknowns to perform grand scale empire building within their respective agencies, designing and equiping for responses that were nonsensicle and utterly useless save for giving everyone on board and bigger hat and higher GS or government executive agent grade. Sure we needed a deterent but it could have been done for a fractional cost

[@CaesarInVa]

Let me get this straight....civilian oversight/authority was surprised that all the warheads were targeted? Have these people NEVER worked with the government before??? The cardinal, immutable and unassailable rule in government operations is to exhaust ALL resources in every fiscal period in order to ask for more resources in the next fiscal period....its called artificial budget expansion, the primary object of which is enhancing organizational influence and power. The more resources that are committed to your agency, bureau, department, etc., the greater your organization's power and influence. And these people were surprised that all the warheads were targeted and that Omaha (i.e., the military) was asking for more??? How the f did you guys get into leadership/decision making positions?!?!?

[@Khatmandude]

In 2022, the deterrence bluff was called.

[@Blackrain4xmas]

Without national will/support and will on the part of American leaders, there is no deterrence. There has been no President since 2003 who has been willing to use nuclear weapons, and that's why other nations are no longer deterred by American nukes. So much has been learned in the past 6yrs. No will=no deterrence=no need to have these dangerous devices

[@litltoosee]

While we're being vaporized, they're arguing symantics

[@TheMaxx111]

I think the nuclear disarmament is the biggest threat to peace we now face. Back when we focused on nuclear war it made smaller conventional wars less likely. This new shift in posture away from nuclear weapons to conventional weapons has led to more wars.

[@rdc121674]

I agree completely. The simple fact of having nuclear weapons at the forefront of peoples thinking whether the latest news is good or bad keeps bad decisions from being made.

[@TheMaxx111]

rdc121674 Not bad for a Ford guy ;)

[@debbest8546]

Joe, you are a fuckstick. Nukes are a liability. Conventional weapons can fill most of their previous roles. Fuck yourself.

[@mrjpb23]

Nice theory but the facts say exactly the opposite. The US has engaged in less intervention abroad since the end of the Cold War and the primary exception, Iraq was ostensibly undertaken because Bush said they might get nuclear weapons and our nuclear weapons wouldn’t act as enough of a deterrent.

[@jc.1191]

I disagree. We had way too many than the job required, probably still do. The maintenance etc. Would have swamped the military budgets.

[@vegass04]

Our complete nuclear weapon systems, coupled with the command & control of those systems, are aging and in urgent need of the complete overhaul. Thankfully Obama has started this much needed series of investments which were long overdue. For example, our ICBM force is made up off the Minuteman III, an upgraded missile that was originally conceived in the 1960s. So much has happened since the 60s and the technology of missiles exploded in this time frame. Our second leg of the nuclear triad, and the most potent and survivable, rests on the Ohio class ballistic missile submarines, filled with Trident SLBMs (submarine launched ballistic missiles), which were designed and put to service from mid 1980s to 1996. Very soon the oldest submarines from the class will have to be retired. And last, but not the least, the third leg of the nuclear triad are the mighty bombers armed with nuclear gravity bombs or with nuclear tipped cruise missiles (B-52 bomber). This role comes down to the B-2 Spirit and an almost 80 year old B-52s that fire a completely outdated cruise missiles called ALCMs (air launched cruise missile) that went into service in 1982. With current state of the art Russian and Chinese surface to air systems it's very hard to imagine that these old strategic bombers and a slow unstealthy cruise missile will have much chance of penetrating those defenses and do some serious damage. Now the good news.. Our nuclear triad is being completely modernized as we speak. This will of course be a multi decade process but the gears are in motion with some of the systems in the high stage of development. First and foremost, the next generation strategic bomber that will replace B-1, B-2 and the B-52 is being developed in top secret by the NOrthrop Grumman, a company who designed and produced the first operational stealth bomber - B-2. Although the information about the future stealth bomber are understandably scarce, US Air force has said that the B-21 Raider is being developed with such technology so it will be able to safely penetrate all existing and projected SAM systems like S-400 and S-500. Next on the program is the development of the next generation of ballistic missile submarines which will replace the Ohio class boomers. This new class, known as the Columbia class, is in the design phase with construction starting in 2021 and first operational deployments in 2031. It's taken for granted of course that the Columbia will be an incredibly capable and advanced submarines, far outstripping anything that currentl roams the oceans or the computers of naval designers in Russia and China. And last but not the least, the Minuteman ICBM replacement has recently been awarded, again to the Northrop Grumman company while Boeing dropped out of the competition. This new ICBM has a working title GBSD or Ground based strategic deterrent. Capabilities of this new ICBM are also not known since the work has just recently started and this leg of the nuclear tried is the least developed. Of course the whole command & control system will be upgraded and replaced, from the silos where ICBMs are kept and which still have floppy disks to generate information, up to the NORAD and airplanes that proceed the information of nuclear attack to our forces... All this is presumed to cost around 1 trillion$ in the next 30 years but given the importance of the nuclear weapons I think it's a small price to pay for the complete security of us and our allies and friends.

[@jc.1191]

As long as they have fresh floppy disks, I think that may be superior. For reliability. I'm unaware of a manufacturer tho, as I recently encountered that issue myself. Floppies may be most survivable, reliable, and resistant to intrusion. Idk for sure tho.

[@ProperLogicalDebate]

If we say we won't hit back than the bully who starts the fight (even by miscalculation) has no fear of getting hurt & will press on (after the Rhineland till he gets to Poland) & be surprised. Too late. The POTUS must be "hard nosed" & believable.

[@jackperry7445]

I think we shouldve used nukes in Afghanistan. Low yield blasts to clear out entire training camps and mountain hideaways

[@jamesblair3036]

What's everybody think now?

[@peternorthrup6274]

I just love all these well educated people that can't figure this out. There jobs depend on this to keep going on. I wish I was paid to keep doing the same thing with no results over and over. It's always about the money. Just 3 M1- Abrams tanks would pay to fix the drug problem in this country. 3 per year. The defence department has such a hold on this country it's unreal. Money. Eishenhower said it right. The same year I was born. And yet nothing has changed. Just sit down and say we are not going to spend anymore money on this. Then fix the problem with the small players. Work together. The US and Russia. Work as a team. It's so funny how these people look. Fools. I'm so glad I'm closer to the end than the beginning. All these years. And nothing. These so called smart people retire and a whole new set of fools step up and do the same thing. Money.

[@WhitefolksT]

@1:51 Peyton Manning

[@ProperLogicalDebate]

There is a problem of fall out on our friends. Especially in Japan but also the Near & Middle East friends. I wonder if a freighter with a nuke that is detected will arrive at it's destination.

[@peternorthrup6274]

A complete waste of money. It's simple. None should be allowed on the planet. I've never seen such a waste of money and resources such as this. How many years now??? These people are supposed to be smart? Just think how the world would be if we took all that money and and put it towards the more important things. Just sit down and get it done. I'm 62. Not one thing has changed. Keep talking. Keep doing nothing. They just make fools of themselves.

[@alingriguta184]

and the sound...????

[@dmac7128]

Reagan is remembered by many as the president who ended the cold war. But in fact it was the Soviets who initiated the move towards detente. In 1985, the Soviet economy started to buckle under the weight of an arms race that the Soviet economy could no longer bear. The Soviet Union had no other choice but to pursue arms reductions. Reagan had the opportunity to eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth but balked at the chance because he would have had to abandon the fantasy of Star Wars which to has yet to proven to work. We are now living with the consequences of that choice with nuclear weapon proliferation

[@dmac7128]

Present your case, enlighten me then

[@MooseMeus]

mhm

[@mrjpb23]

Exactly. The USSR was destined to fail. Their economic engine was simply unable to maintain the authoritarian style of government paired with it, it was only a matter of time.

[@garycooper8687]

The Cold War ended after Reagan was out of office. What he did was hasten the destruction of the Soviet state by a calculated arms race that was initiated to help speed the economic destruction of the Soviet Union.

[@JoshuaNJones]

I don't buy into this theory because it doesn't take into account the other nations besides the US and the USSR who had already developed nuclear weapons. What about China, India, Pakistan or Israel. Given Israel's geographic location and its close proximity to so many whom what nothing other than it's destruction, do you really think Israel would give up its nuclear weapons? I think not.

[@litltoosee]

political mumbojumbo