I understand. I think I said as much earlier, when I said if CA as a whole agreed not to pay federal taxes, then maybe they would start shooting. “They” meaning the Feds.
JZ
There’s a difference between having and siezing. North Korea might have two weapons of their own. Trying to sieze a US government nuke would be… suicide, to put it lightly.
Check your own link again. First of all, it has two. Second, neither one is a manufacturing plant. Both are research labs. I’m not denying that CA might have the odd bomb sitting around outside of an Air Force or Naval base… but the state itself doesn’t make them, nor would the state have a delivery system.
No, just the ones who don’t pay their taxes.
What does he have to do with California? To the best of my knowledge he doesn’t have a nuke (if he’s alive). If he does, I’m reasonably sure he didn’t build it in California.
-Psi Cop
Fort Ord closed nearly a decade ago.
California could go the hippie way and follow india’s passive resistance. No military conflict but no computer chips, no movies, no stealth reserach…
Presently, if california were a country, it would have the 7th highest GNP on this earth. Taking that much out of the US economy would be enuf incentive for negotiation for secession.
As far as california having no nukes, does everyone really believe that the US does not store or stage these things in california? We may not have any icbm silos hidden amongst our marijuana but we have enuf tactical and strategic nuclear ordinance to rival India, Pakistan and Israel combined. The titan rockets are made here too. How many nuclear aircraft carriers have homeports in san diego and san francisco?
Indeed, California would have a gigantic GNP (GDP is actually more accurate in this case though – they’re not the same) if they were a country. That alone would be incentive not to ever let it go from the Union. Unless you think removing that large of a chunk of the GDP is good business sense. As for nukes, why would they be stored in California instead of the vast tracks of Federal land in other states like Nevada and Utah?
Hey, that would be a good reason for California to rebel. Then the federal government could come in and torch all the marijuana fields while restoring order. Not a bad idea. But who is the “we” that has the nuclear ordinence? The US government, I presume, since no one else in the United States owns or has posession of a nuke? But again, as I said, why on earth is California suddenly the repository for US nuclear weapons? Let’s see some evidence of this.
Well, I presume you meant this as rhetorical. Allow me to answer anyway. We have no carriers in San Francisco. There are three in San Diego – USS Nimitz, USS John C. Stennis, and USS Constellation. The latter two are currently underway. I don’t know about Nimitz. Also note that the Constellation isn’t nuclear powered, if that’s what you were referring to. In context, I presume you meant carriers that had nuclear weapon abaoard – something that is officially unknown to the public at large for any given carrier. Just for comparison purposes… four carriers are based in Norfolk (VA), one in Newport News (VA), one in Bremerton (WA), one in Everett (WA), one in Mayport (FL), and one in Japan.
You didn’t ask, but I have no doubt that you’d bring up subs next. There are no ballistic missile submarines based anywhere in California. There are 6 Los Angeles class attack subs in San Diego: USS Bremerton, USS Portsmouth, USS Houston, USS Salt Lake City, USS Helena, and USS Jefferson City.
That said, why on earth would they matter? The navy is responsible for the federal government only. Just because San Diego happens to be the most convenient port of call doesn’t automatically mean the warships belong to California. Every sailor on board the Nimitz, for example, is loyal to the navy and the federal government. Frankly, I doubt that many of them came from California anyway.
Note: Ship homeport information came from the relevent pages of the Navy Fact File.
-Psi Cop
California dint just suddenly become the repository ofr nuclear weapons, we are a staging area. In times of peace, we may have a few just on its way to somewhere else or waiting to be loaded on some ship or bomber.
The point is that they are there and they can be “nationalized” as the PC term or be captured to be more accurate. Naturally this would mean involving US military personnel friendly to the idea of secession. It may not all work but we have a target rich environment. I am merey hypothesizing as to the feasibility of takover. Didnt say it was easy or that it would work. It was all a lot of supposition. But then again history is full of nations gaining independence against all odds. It is not impossible to secede from the USA.
I did. That cite says also in CA, the Sandia lab site develops transportation and storage systems for nuclear weapons; assesses nuclear weapons safety, security and control and helps train military personnel in the assembly and maintenance of completed weapons. The title on the main page of that link says “Map of the United States Active Nuclear Weapons Facilities”. They then list seven locations, with two of them being in CA. For the one in Livermore is says: “Conducts research, development and testing activities associated with all phases of the nuclear weapons life-cycle…”So even if it isn’t a production facility, I think it would be hard for them to be involved in “all phases of the nuclear weapons life-cycle” without having some. That same cite has links by clicking on to them that list all of the locations of nuclear weapons, but I couldn’t get any of the pages to open. I found another cite that says Other facilities, such as the Oxnard Facility, Salton Sea Test Base, and the Sandia National Laboratory in California were used for research, development, production, and maintenance of nuclear weapons. It said the majority of the sites in CA are being remediated by the Office of Environmental Management, so not sure if they are still there.
What does he have to do with California? To the best of my knowledge he doesn’t have a nuke (if he’s alive). If he does, I’m reasonably sure he didn’t build it in California.
I mentioned bin Laden to show how a weasel like him can cause a great deal of things to happen. It’s the irony of thinking CA couldn’t possibly acquire any of these kind of weapons if it was to become a rogue state. I can’t imagine an outlaw state not acquiring some of them when it was on their own soil.
JZ
Why on earth would we move nuclear weapons to California for a staging area? Nukes delivered via missile don’t need to be moved a few hundred miles closer. Ships are mobile on their own. Air Force bases are scattered randomly, but we don’t need to move planes and nukes closer. B-2s, for example, fly out of Oklahoma, no matter where they’re going. They don’t move to California whenever they need to make a run on something. There’s no reason to be moving any nukes to California that I can think of. Why exactly do you think they’re being moved?
Nationalized, captured, it’s all the same thing in the end. I knew what you were talking about. The point is that they’re managed and defended by federal troops. State loyalties in the military haven’t existed widespread since the Civil War. There are still units that take pride in their state of operations, of course, but they don’t have the same fanatical loyalty to state alone. In my asessment, there’s as much of a chance of high-ranking officers deciding to rebel against the United States as there is the chance the US would let California go peacefully.
Well, nothing is impossible. Even 2+2 can equal 5 for “sufficiently high values of two.” But we’re talking in the realm of probability. I think that was answered back in the Civil War. Once you’ve entered the contract, you’re in.
As I said, there are two places (in California – I guess I didn’t specify that). Again, neither of them are manufacturing facilities. You said, I quote "According to this map CA has several places that make nuclear weapons. " I say again, it does not. Your map showed two research facilities, neither of which “makes” nukes. I stand by my statement. I also added that they’d probably have the odd nuke lying around – because they are labs – but probably not ready-to-drop bombs and warheads.
Your second cite is quite a bit more creditable, being from the DoE. However, if you read the fine text of all those sites, you get places such as “Oakland Operations Center” and “Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.” Only five of the places there deal with nuclear power and atomics, and two of them are the previous two sites from your first cite. The other three are all commercial places (Rockwell, GE, and General Atomics). I doubt they leave nukes lying around.
On bin Laden… there’s quite a large difference between an individual terrorist leader and the government of a state. For example, the state has public oversight. Now it could probably go about acquiring weapons some time after secession, but not quickly enough to even give the US pause.
-Psi Cop
Whoops, I read your point wrong for that last paragraph. Apologies. I thought you were still talking about California making weapons on its own. Acquiring weapons on their own soil, I have no doubt they’d do. But it would be a bloodbath – they’d literally have to kill all the officers and men defending those complexes. If they actually launched a military assault on a nuclear weapon storage facility, the consequences would be disasterous. As in every member of the attack being stood up against a wall and shot 12 hours later when the government came in and took it back.
-Psi Cop
If the South had won the war, that would have answered it in a different way too. We can talk more than the realm of probability though. We can talk about other history. Who would have ever thought in its day that the Roman Empire would fall? America in its infancy breaking from Britain to declare its independence? If America was to have a serious or complete economic collapse, that could easily start the process. Ask Russia about that.
Again, neither of them are manufacturing facilities. You said, I quote "According to this map CA has several places that make nuclear weapons. " I say again, it does not. Your map showed two research facilities, neither of which “makes” nukes. I stand by my statement.
Actually your original statement was taking both sides at the same time. Here’s the original: California doesn’t have missiles. They may have bombs sitting around somewhere in the state (I don’t know for sure), but then again, they may not.
They may, but they may not. Okay…
You’ve also stated that state does not have a delivery system. So when the Sandia labs says it “develops transportation and storage systems for nuclear weapons” that to you means what? And when that other site says also of Sandia labs that it is “used for research, development, production, and maintenance of nuclear weapons”, none of this qualifies to you as making nuclear weapons?
JZ
According to this 1995 report, the US has thousands of nuclear weapons. This cite lists the locations of what states have nuclear weapons and CA is on it. It shows one site having 100 nuclear warheads.
JZ
If the South had won the war, we likely wouldn’t be having this debate. I would have grown up in school being taught that the south was evil, and you would have been brought up (assuming you grew up in Texas as well as live there now) being told how you had broken from the “evil north.” However, the south did lose. In my opinion, it was inevitable. Only the ineptness of northern generals didn’t win the war right away. But this isn’t a civil war debate, so…
The Roman Empire took a thousand years to fall. But one can argue that it is inevitable that everything will eventually fall. Name me one thing that will stand forever on earth? I’ll go forward a few billion years to the destruction of life on the planet. Name me an empire that won’t fall? I’ll go forward to the Big Crunch and say that eventually everything will fall. But 200 years into the history of the Roman Empire, they could say “It will never fall,” and for all practical purposes they would have been right. 800 years is a long time.
America broke away for a variety of reasons… one of which was the distance from the “mother land,” while another war was being fought. Never underestimate the impact of technology on history – the communications and response ability we have today means rebellion is harder and harder.
America did have a serious economic collapse before World War II. The Great Depression had an unemployment rate of 25%… that means one in four membesr of the workforce was not employed and not earning wages. That’s about as serious as a depression gets without a total infrastructure collapse. There was no talk of a state leaving the union during that period, or any suggestion that the US would be better broken up.
Russian history is quite interesting, but I believe you are talking about the Soviet Union. Russia’s economic crash has been very bad for them, yes, but Russia is still one nation. The Soviet Union was a group of nations that hated each other. Ukrainians had Russians. The Polish hate the Russians. They also hate the Lithuanians. 40 years of enforced togetherness does not an uber-nation make.
I think you’re misunderstanding my original quote on missiles and bombs. I said they didn’t have the capability to manufacture weapons. I also said they may have random weapons lying around. They also might not. I admit that I don’t know where nukes are based; I only have educated guesses as to where they are.
Delivery system = bomber or missile in this case. I’m discounting “shove it in a truck and drive it to the destination.” Neither is made by Sandia – and even if it were, there are no silos in California. It would take the construction of an independant missile launching system. As for the making of weapons, I just go directly to the source: Sandia National Laboratories. I can’t find any specific statement in there that says “We do not assemble final stage nuclear weapons,” but I can find statements like:
Notice the “non-nuclear components” part.
The closest I can find is:
The list after the “:” is irrelevent to this post. I’ll admit it does have a heavy hand in design and production of nuclear weapon components… but they have nothing to indicate they build whole bombs. So yes, none of this qualifies to me as making nuclear weapons. Parts, yes. Whole bombs, no.
Also note that Sandia is a National lab. Federal government employees. I doubt they’d start assembling nukes for a rebel state.
-Psi Cop
Ooops. :smack: Shows how long I’ve been out of the military and how often I make it to California.
I thought it was Missouri. They have some B-2’s in Oklahoma, too?
Why do I hesitate to search the Internet for locations of US military installations? Why do I think someone will come to my house and confiscate my computer if I do one too many such searches? Oh yeah, Ashcroft and Poindexter. No chilling effect here…no siree.
Well, the first problem with that cite is that it happens to be eight years old. While this 2001 issue from the same site doesn’t provide the same level of detail, it doesn’t mention California once. I’m not entirely satisfied however, with any answers I’ve found doing a Google search. The DoE is quite unhelpful in telling me where nukes are actually stored (probably a good precaution), and I can’t find any other authoritative source to give me an answer. I’ve seen estimates from 400 something to zero.
It’s all sort of beside the point though. Remember that I admitted that Federal Air Force bases probably had nukes in California… but to get them, you’d have to launch an all out assualt on the base. And if I thought my base was in danger of being lost, I’d saddle up the B52s, stuff as many nukes as I could into them and say “Go land in Nevada with these.” It’s the presence of random nukes at labs that I’m questioning. There might be some, there might not.
-Psi Cop
Heh. The location of US Military installations is quite public. Myself, I use www.navy.mil and www.af.mil as my two primary references. Speaking of which, here’s the page on B-2 Spirits. It says that Whiteman Air Force Base is the operating base for our 21 B-2 bombers. And whoops… it is indeed in Missouri. I knew they were in a state around that region of the US, so when I glanced at the page to confirm, I quickly read it as Tinker AFB in Oklahoma… which is where depot maintinence responsibility is based.
In case you might find it useful, the B-1B Lancer is our other “newer” bomber, which we have 72 of. The webpage doesn’t give an operational base, so I presume they’re stationed at a couple places around the country (72 is too many to have at one base anyway).
We have 85 B-52 Stratofortresses, with nine in reserve. As with the Lancers, no central location is stated. I know these are based at varying locations around the US.
Regardless of the bomber, though, they can fly gigantic distances quite easily. Mid-air refueling is standard of procedure these days.
-Psi Cop
I don’t remember but perhaps you did, you seemed to be equivocating with some of this stuff though. Your prior post to this also said:
I think you’re misunderstanding my original quote on missiles and bombs. I said they didn’t have the capability to manufacture weapons. I also said they may have random weapons lying around. They also might not. I admit that I don’t know where nukes are based; I only have educated guesses as to where they are.
Now in an earlier post you also said this:
As for nuclear missiles… try again. There ain’t any missiles in CA except those on board any sub that happens to be parked in a naval base.
It’s hard to know what your position is when you keep doing this. In a post after that one, you backed down from such a strong statement to post this: California doesn’t have missiles. They may have bombs sitting around somewhere in the state (I don’t know for sure), but then again, they may not.
You wonder why I misunderstand you?
JZ
All right, fine. I’ll break it down into simple, easy to understand statements.
There are no nuclear missiles in California, except on any SSBN that might happen to put into port. That was my first strong statement. Tell me where, exactly, I backed down from saying there were no missiles in CA?
The last quote of mine you posted says there are no missiles. Established. It then admits that I have no clue if there are bombs in California – either on an AFB or in a lab. A bomb is quite different from a missile. ICBMs have global capability under their own propulsion. A bomb requires an alternate delivery method – such as a bomber.
The first statement you quoted (but the most recent) says that California does not have the capability to manufacture nuclear arms. It reiterates the fact I don’t know if there are bombs in California or not. I admit this openly.
When you take into account that a bomb is different from a missile, where are you seeing a conflict?
As an aside, this is turning into a nitpicking argument instead of a debate. Sheesh. I try to add factual statements to the discussion (no missiles, no manufacturing capability) and get jumped upon. Let’s try and turn this back into a debate on California and Secession instead of a General Question of “How many nukes (if any) does California have?”
-Psi Cop
Just a question: How reliant on federal emergency disaster funds has California been in the past during major natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, floods, and mudslides?
Oh yeah???
Just for that, we’re gonna STAY!!!
