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I’m doing my part
I’m doing my part
No Todd plz, I already bought the Nokia nGage version!
ICBMs are notoriously difficult to intercept. Nobody realistically has an interception system able to take down enough of them to matter. The problem with old ICBMs is that they’re less survivable if the enemy strikes you first so you need even more warheads and delivery systems to compensate.
Nuclear war planning isn’t as simple as applying a rate of interception or failure to your stock of warheads. You have to plan for eventualities like what happens if you’re subject to a first strike - can you ensure that enough of your own warheads will survive to retaliate? If not, or if your opponent thinks not then your opponent is much more likely to try a first strike.
Modern missiles aren’t just faster or harder to shoot down, they’re also more survivable. Have you noticed that while the Russians and Chinese parade their missiles on big ass trucks, the US doesn’t seem to have any? That’s because there isn’t a road or rail mobile variant of the Minuteman 3. So those MM3s have been sitting in silos only for decades, more than enough time for opponent satellites to pinpoint exactly where they are. On the other hand, a Russian or Chinese missile can drive around their own road or rail systems and be untraceable unless you have real time satellite footage that just happens to catch them moving.
So if your missiles can’t move, you can only protect them by hardening their emplacements and silos. Unfortunately, most American silos are about as old as the missiles in them and were designed to withstand much lesser yields of warheads. Maybe some could be brought up to a newer standard, but building of that scale would also paradoxically tip your opponent off to which missile sites to target first.
Therefore, if you’re in a position where you aren’t convinced your own missiles will survive a first strike, your only move to maintain deterence is new missiles or more missiles (or both). Contracts were passed out for new missile designs around 2017 but it seems like nothing has come to fruition. Therefore the only other option is to build more warheads so that they can be fired from planes and other systems instead.
This leads on to the next point which is that warheads are not all necessarily sitting on missiles read to go at all times. Most of the time they’re in central stockpiles that are easier to guard and maintain and are only parcelled out to units in times of heightened nuclear tension. A modern nuclear power has more platforms that can deliver nukes than actual nukes themselves - the whole point of a nuclear triad (ICBMs, planes, subs) is to ensure maximal redundancy so that no one type of attack can destroy all delivery systems.
Hence, a nuclear war planner has to figure out how many ICBMs and warheads are likely to survive a first strike, then figure out how many warheads are needed to put on planes and ships and subs for a counter strike. If the US military is thimking it needs more warheads, then one major reason could be that it’s realized it’s delivery platforms are not as survivable as predicted.
America has a lot of warheads but its delivery systems are relatively behind Russian and Chinese systems. For instance, the current US land/silo based missiles are Minuteman 3s, which were first built in the 1970s. Even with upgrades, they are generally understood to be inferior to much more recent Russian Yars and Chinese Dong Feng missiles.
That said, increasing the number of warheads doesn’t really help in terms of that deficiency so the between the lines conclusion is that the new American missile systems have hit such snags that the military is considering making up the deficiency with numbers of warheads.
Maybe Todd Howard?
“Anyway, liberal democracy is the best because I get to choose the bad faith actor who will fuck me over.”
They are parroting Russian propaganda.
As a LLM (Leninist Language Model), I am programmed to parrot Russian propaganda at all times from the basement of the FSB Building in Lubyanka Square.
Beep Bloop.
I’m not sure if you’re calling Putin a stupid man that is easily manipulated or incompetent. No politician ever in their lives did anything in good faith, Putin included. You must be very naive to think that.
Very cool that the argument boils down to “of course we were going to trick you, you are stupid for being tricked.” I guess the lesson the world should learn is to never trust a Euroid and to respond to European peace overtures with uncompromising force.
No doubt. Russia placed too much faith in the OSCE and France and Germany approaching the process in good faith. Merkel later came out and said that the Minsk process was just a time-buying exercise so that NATO could arm Ukraine as a proxy against Russia.
Ukraine, of course, knew that it was being armed and trained and had the carrot of NATO and EU membership dangled before it. Circling back to the original point, the fact that Ukraine was being armed and trained at such a rate is good evidence that Ukraine absolutely knew what was about to happen.
Skill issue. Were I the Ukrainians I simply would have negotiated a better treaty.
forgot to ask Ukraine
After how many Minsk Agreements mediated by the OSCE would you consider Ukraine properly “asked”?
Ukraine: “I consent.”
Denmark: “I consent.”
Russia: “Was there somebody you forgot to ask?”
The myth of consentual flights of F-16s into Russian territory.
In evil totalitarian China, you can be banned from buying high speed rail tickets if you default on your loans.
In good democratic freedom America, you can be denied all forms of air travel because your name happens to resemble one that’s on a secret list.
As an Asian: I have never once met a single other Asian who thinks the pooh meme is racist.
Extremely interesting that the people who say this always start with “As an Asian” and not “As a Chinese person”. Being Asian doesn’t give you any special experience on Sinophobia just as being a Frenchman or a Brit doesn’t give a person any special experience on anti-Ziganism or European Islamaphobia (except maybe as a perpetrator).
Europe when violating China’s sovereignty for a hundred years: “Hahahaha this rules! I love sowing, I will live forever by the sword!”
Europe when China violates its sovereignty: “Noooooo this sucks! Why do I have to reap what I sowed?! Nobody could have forseen that I would also die by the sword!”
If someone was preparing food for you, would you be satisfied if you saw them go to the toilet and then just wipe their hands with a piece of paper instead of washing their hands?
I feel like Sweden should cop at least as much shit as Switzerland does for the Nazi gold.
Never ask a woman her age.
Never ask a man his salary.
Never ask a Swede which country’s military they propped up by selling iron ore to between 1939 and 1945.
Please America. Please scuttle NAFTA over your dinosaur pickup truck industry. Nothing would be funnier.