What is the Role for Nuclear Weapons

[The Scotsman]

The fact is they aren't that expensive to maintain.

.... what do you consider "not expensive"? Are you just talking of the life extension programmes or the upgrades or the infra-structure upgrade programmes?

What about the serious deterioration in the quality, training and retention of personnel within the various services? There has also been a huge deficiency within the Air Force in terms of mission readiness, focus, expertise and even discipline, how much will it cost to rectify this? All of these have to be addressed and cost money and can only be leached from the overall DOD budget.

The focus of US DOD budgetary pressure is on the maintenance of troops, equipment and infrastructure within Afghanistan and Iraq - almost to the point of disregard for other less associated structures such as the stockpiled weapons for example. Life extention programmes, upgrade programmes, staff, training, infrastructure etc. etc. are being put back, downgraded or outright cancelled so I think just looking at the pure "maintenance cost" is not realistic as it does note give a proper picture of the poor shape of the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

 

[Ronaldus Magnus]

if you actuly think Japan relates to today and nukes...then you should just sit on the side and let the rest talk...nukes when only one has them, vs a word with many nation with them...is not the same...

Your special but I'll look past that.....If you think that other countries have the same missile defense as well as the same nuclear capabilities as us then maybe you should "sit on the side." The superior don't stay that way by lowering their standards to match that of its enemies. You people live in this ignorant little dream world. I'm surprised that your name is pocketfullofshells.......seems like that would be too "suggestively violent" for you and your lib pals. In regards to the maintenance of nuclear weapons the average budget is 35 billion dollars for nuclear weapons and weapons related programs. Only 4 billion goes into Operation and Maintenance. This is from a study by the Brookings Institute, and I will gladly provide the link in my next post. We spent more bailing out companies than we do on the maintaining of Nuclear Weapons.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

Your special but I'll look past that.....If you think that other countries have the same missile defense as well as the same nuclear capabilities as us then maybe you should "sit on the side." The superior don't stay that way by lowering their standards to match that of its enemies. You people live in this ignorant little dream world. I'm surprised that your name is pocketfullofshells.......seems like that would be too "suggestively violent" for you and your lib pals. In regards to the maintenance of nuclear weapons the average budget is 35 billion dollars for nuclear weapons and weapons related programs. Only 4 billion goes into Operation and Maintenance. This is from a study by the Brookings Institute, and I will gladly provide the link in my next post. We spent more bailing out companies than we do on the maintaining of Nuclear Weapons.

again, did not say they did...but they in fact can. guess what this debate is not about today only..

 

[Mr. Shaman]

relay how much do they cost to store, secure, and maintain...I ask becuse since you made that statement I would guess you know...

C'mon, Goober.....answer the question.​

 

[laymen]

As a big stick thats the roll of nukes.

I'm certain that I will witness the detonation of a nuclear device upon a population of some major city in my life time, probably India attacking Pakistan or vice versa.

After the fact a new reality will set in, as a new generation of people will become vividly exposed to the devastation and loss of life unlike anything anyone has witnessed before...... The media will play a crucial roll in relaying the pictures of the devastation around the world.

Only after this tragedy will Governments policies shift to display the absolute zero tolerance toward so called rogue states and their possession of said nukes. At which point a military standoff will ensue until said rogue states agree to relinquish the capability or face immediate annihilation.

Success is determined by how well one manages criss, not whether or not you eliminate criss, for there will always be criss and we should always be prepared to deal with it.

 

[AgainstTheMachine]

Layman - I hope you are wrong ... but my hunch of a nuke going off would be Iran against Israel.

 

[laymen]

Quite the contrary, I think Israel will be proactive in that respect and if you take into account the new gov. under Benjiman Netinyaho, Israel striking Iran may be the first incident.

 

[AgainstTheMachine]

Quite the contrary, I think Israel will be proactive in that respect and if you take into account the new gov. under Benjiman Netinyaho, Israel striking Iran may be the first incident.

you may well be correct ... look at the rest of the world!

17 year old kid shot his 70 year old grandmother with a shotgun when she woke up while he was trying to rob a safe under her bed. That happened just this morning.

Lets face it ... the WHOLE world is quickly falling off the deep end and it is progressively getting worse and picking up speed doing so!

 

[Ronaldus Magnus]

C'mon, Goober.....answer the question.​

Read the entire post for a second time. I did answer the question for the cost of maintaining the nukes. Your reading comprehension is getting worse. Might I suggest an Adult continuing education class on the subject at your local community college.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Read the entire post for a second time. I did answer the question for the cost of maintaining the nukes. Your reading comprehension is getting worse. Might I suggest an Adult continuing education class on the subject at your local community college.

RM, why do you keep paying attention to Mr ShamMan?

Ignore him and he'll go away.

Please.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

RM, why do you keep paying attention to Mr ShamMan?

Ignore him and he'll go away.

Please.

your still here.....

 

[jimitheretard]

Hey wait! Who's in charge of the options? Howcum there is only three? What about option #4?
Option #4. Design a Nuke Umbrella. It would render everybody's nuke ineffective. Then no bad guys could blow up good guys! We know good guys never blow up bad guys without a good reason. So then the good guys could go back to doing whatever they were doing before somebody frightened them. And if bad guys frightened them anyway, the good guys could just kill them in ordinary ways. Or maybe just capture them and put them in an extremely expensive and just penal colony. But when there gets to be too many bad guys, the good guts would have to spend lots of time and money developing a weapon that could get by the magic Nuke Umbrella.
Option #5. Let's just kill all the bad guys right now and then get naked!

 

[BigRob]

Hey wait! Who's in charge of the options? Howcum there is only three? What about option #4?
Option #4. Design a Nuke Umbrella. It would render everybody's nuke ineffective. Then no bad guys could blow up good guys! We know good guys never blow up bad guys without a good reason. So then the good guys could go back to doing whatever they were doing before somebody frightened them. And if bad guys frightened them anyway, the good guys could just kill them in ordinary ways. Or maybe just capture them and put them in an extremely expensive and just penal colony. But when there gets to be too many bad guys, the good guts would have to spend lots of time and money developing a weapon that could get by the magic Nuke Umbrella.
Option #5. Let's just kill all the bad guys right now and then get naked!

There are only three options because that is what I felt offered the most practical sense given the state of the world and our current technology.

If someone can invent a "nuclear umbrella" then I am all for it, but that is only a very small part of the picture. That still will not defend against backpack bombs or suitcase bombs. Personally, I am more worried about a biological attack than a nuclear attack from a terror group.

I'll take your option 5.

 

[BigRob]

.... what do you consider "not expensive"? Are you just talking of the life extension programmes or the upgrades or the infra-structure upgrade programmes?

What about the serious deterioration in the quality, training and retention of personnel within the various services? There has also been a huge deficiency within the Air Force in terms of mission readiness, focus, expertise and even discipline, how much will it cost to rectify this? All of these have to be addressed and cost money and can only be leached from the overall DOD budget.

The focus of US DOD budgetary pressure is on the maintenance of troops, equipment and infrastructure within Afghanistan and Iraq - almost to the point of disregard for other less associated structures such as the stockpiled weapons for example. Life extention programmes, upgrade programmes, staff, training, infrastructure etc. etc. are being put back, downgraded or outright cancelled so I think just looking at the pure "maintenance cost" is not realistic as it does note give a proper picture of the poor shape of the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

Well stated. Right now the US nuclear stockpile is in dire need of upgrade in my opinion. There are even concerns among scholars that our nuclear weapons really do not even work anymore. (in the technical sense) The validity of this argument is what it is, but we have not produced a new warhead in almost 20 years, and given the average shelf life of a warhead, we will start to see a lot more money (relative term) being spent on maintaining and upgraded. The RRW program was a good start in my view, but that has been all but killed under Obama (and under the 110th Congress).

Really, in my view, we need to be ensuring that our weapons work, are reliable, and secure. If we cannot do that, then we will have some serious problems.

Someone mentioned Japan, and I think it is worth noting that the Japanese are making serious first steps toward getting their own nuclear weapon. Japan is one of our best allies, and this move that is gathering a lot of support in Japan, should be a clear signal that our nuclear posture, or at the very least the reliability of our nuclear umbrella, has come into serious question.

 

[The Scotsman]

Only 4 billion goes into Operation and Maintenance.

As I understand it the annual allocation under the stockpile stewardship plans within the DOD budget is around $1.8Bn - something like that? Anyway that's pretty irrelevent based on various DOD phase reviews undertaken over the last few years which show a dreadful deterioration in the operational readiness in the actual stockpiles (across the piste) and competence. I would suggest that whatever the figure is it is not near enough and thus conclude that nuclear weapons are not a cheap and easy deterent to have.