Here’s a link to the story that doesn’t require going through X (formerly Twitter):
I see this allegedly occurred at Mar-A-Lago, so any new charges will probably be filed in Florida – though not necessarily as a superseding indictment. Could be a new case altogether. I do hope so.
It reminds me of Kid Rock and those maps of North Korea. “Am I supposed to be in on this shit?“
Thinking of this bit of 2018 news for reasons unknowable…
I love the last bit from the Trump spokesperson handwaving it all away because Trump is a big believer in “transparency.”
Sounds right to me. I hate it when I’m trying to buy a used nuclear sub on Craigslist and the seller doesn’t give the full specs.
“It was owned by a little old lady who only used it to blow up her church on Sundays.”
If Trump gave the specs on U.S. submarines to someone he was trying to sell them to, wouldn’t anyone in their right mind believe him?
If you know how big the submarine is and you know how big the missiles are, it seems like a fairly straightforward math problem to figure out how many there could possibly be. And Tom Clancy described US subs having to tail Russian subs at a more discrete distance due to “Crazy Ivan” turns all the way back in 1985 or so (whenever The Hunt for Red October was published). Regardless of the actual numbers, I think the answer is if the sub is carrying one or more missiles, it is enough to ruin one’s entire day. Regarding the follow distance I think it would be equal to about half the amount of time it would take a Russian sonar operator to say “torpedo in the water”. Nonetheless, if these are secrets that are not supposed to be repeated by people in the know, Trump has once again fucked up. Got to love that about Trump. Whatever bad thing you think he has done, it is actually worse.
Trump doesn’t even know how big his own apartment is.
I’m sure our enemies, and probably even our allies, have teams of experts (real experts, not Trumpian “experts”) poring over every scrap of information they can get to try to understand our military capabilities. I’d just be surprised if Trump didn’t take the opportunity to creatively interpret the specs he shared.
Not that that excuses Trump breaching national security. I just figure that some foreign intelligence service heard Trump’s claims and had a good laugh among themselves.
It’s not a question of knowing how many missiles a boat is capable of carrying. That’s a simple matter of counting hatches. What he allegedly divulged was:
It’s not even a question of knowing how many warheads a boat is capable of carrying. For a variety of reasons, not all missiles necessarily have their full complement of warheads and not all tubes are necessarily loaded. I was a Nuclear Weapons Launch Officer and I didn’t routinely know how many warheads we had on board or how they were distributed. I probably could have found out, but it wasn’t common knowledge.
Even on an SSBN, we stuck to the Navy’s coy “while this vessel is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard this vessel”.
As I said elsewhere, I am in a committed relationship with a woman who was born and raised in the Soviet Union, in the Ukraine SSR, and who identifies as a Republican.
This morning, we had the following conversation:
“Imagine if Leonid Brezhnev retired as head of the Politburo.”
“OK”
“And let’s say he had a meeting with an East German industrialist.”
“I don’t know why he would do so…”
“Well, let’s assume this for the sake of this discussion.”
(nods)
“And in this meeting, he told the East German state secrets about the Soviet Union’s nuclear submarines, specifically how many nuclear weapons they carry and how close they can get to American subs without the Americans knowing they are there. And the guy went around, blabbing these secrets to dozens of people. What would the Soviet response be?”
“We would never know that this happened.”
“True. But what should be the Soviet response be?”
“Oh, he would die. Likely of a heart attack.”
“Really?”
“Well, that’s what we would be told. But if he were a traitor in this way, spilling state secrets, his life would be very short. Why do you ask?”
So I told her about the story, finishing with “and I’m glad you said he was a traitor, because he is.”
How’d that turn out? Have her views changed on Trump’s keeping classified documents, obstructing justice, and sharing State secrets, directly or indirectly, with enemy agents?
Tangent: Having been born in Ukraine, what are her views on the war?
This is a subject worthy of its own thread. Is there one out there already?
“If Russia and CHY-na don’t know how many bombs we have on each sub, how will they know to be afraid of us? I’m SAVING the United States!”
If I interpret your SO’s response correctly, we should whack the Australian blabbermouth, instead of the former President/traitor.
No worries, everyone. I heard it reported that the billionaire only told 40 or so other people.
My fault, I didn’t make it clear that we were talking about Brezhnev.
Actually, yes, in a manner of speaking:
Now we have a better idea as to why this happened in 2021:
Craigslist boats section:
“Soviet era Typhoon-class ballistic missile sub, w/caterpillar drive. Sonar as-new, used for one ping only. No scuttlers.”
Hey! The SubFax report says the sonar was used twice for one ping only. I’m gonna need a discount off the asking…