# Let's talk about Russia's (probably poorly maintained) 6,000 nuclear warheads **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion\ **Created:** [March 19, 2022, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321 "2022-03-19T01:21:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/1 "2022-03-19T01:21:59Z")
This war has shown that Russia’s military is a hodgepodge mess of corruption, shoddy maintenance, cutting of corners and all-around sloppiness and ineptitude. If their tires are bursting from not being maintained, and convoys needed ice-cream-truck-like vehicles for resupply, one has to question how well Russia’s stockpile of 6,000 nukes is maintained. Nuclear maintenance is extremely expensive and troublesome. I don’t know the intricate details well (it would take Stranger on a Train to do that for us) but there should be serious question as to how well the Russians are doing it. It’s probable that no more than a fraction of their arsenal is even usable (although even a fraction would still be MAD-catastrophe.) How much of the nuke-maintenance budget is being siphoned off by corrupt officers towards personal ends? Even more troubling, how lax may the security be, and what are the chances of someone selling a nuke on the black market in the upcoming decades? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/2 "2022-03-19T02:41:00Z")
I don’t believe the breakup of the USSR had any nuclear weapons get into the wrong hands. As you point out, even if a small percentage of them work, they are still capable of MAD. ---
**Author:** ![Kedikat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kedikat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kedikat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/3 "2022-03-19T04:16:12Z")
At this particular time, I would take reports of Russian military faults or perfections with many grains of salt. Regarding the Russian nuclear system, maintenance and readiness is hard to tell for sure. But I suspect it would be at a top level in comparison to less critical military systems. In most large organizations there are varying levels of sloppiness and maybe actual corruption. But by their nature, some are more resistant to this. Nuclear missile systems, and the command of them will always be under tighter scrutiny and stricter methods than tire rotation. Not sure if the missiles are always fueled. But if they are, then lax maintenance can show up in drastic failures. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/4 "2022-03-19T05:04:45Z")
> [@Kedikat](#): > > At this particular time, I would take reports of Russian military faults or perfections with many grains of salt. I don’t know about this part. We can see these faults directly out on the battlefield. We’re not relying on reports. If Russia could do better, they would be. I think it’s reasonable to wonder if the same level of corruption and lack of consequential oversight applies to Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Especially because of MAD: corrupt individuals would think that, since the bombs would never be used, they’d not get found out. But I also agree that, if anything would be under higher scrutiny, it would be the nuclear program, and that we can’t afford to make assumptions. I don’t think selling them on the black market is a huge risk, though, because said nukes would only have value if you tell people you have them. The smaller the arsenal, the more their value would be in being a deterrent, not in actual use. (And even in the largest arsenals, their value is already mostly in being a deterrent.) ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/5 "2022-03-19T17:46:43Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I don’t think selling them on the black market is a huge risk, though, because said nukes would only have value if you tell people you have them. If you are a state that wants nukes to keep others from invading you, yes. If you are a terrorist who wants to blow shit up to make some sort of political statement, it’s better that no one knows you have it until it goes off. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/6 "2022-03-19T19:13:20Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Nuclear maintenance is extremely expensive and troublesome Very much so. Eight years ago I visited [F.E. Warren AFB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_E._Warren_Air_Force_Base) for a week. The _entire base_ is dedicated to overseeing our MMIII missiles. They spend lots of money every year to ensure they’re in proper working order. Spent some time in one of the silos. The complexity and level of engineering is far greater than what you might think. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/7 "2022-03-19T19:52:23Z")
I’ve been wondering this, too. The poor maintenance we’ve been seeing has been in the portion of the military that everyone intended to actually use. By contrast, everyone who has nukes knows that if they ever use any of them, they’re dead. Nobody ever actually intends to use nukes, and there’s therefore no value in actually having them. What value they have isn’t in having them, it’s in everyone knowing you have them, whether that knowledge is correct or not. I could see a master disseminator of misinformation like Putin deciding that it was cheaper to just let the arsenal go to pot, while maintaining the pretext that it was still functional. And I could see him starting to worry, in the current situation, that his bluff will be called. And if he were worried about someone calling his bluff, then I’d expect him to be acting a lot like he is now, with clearly-ludicrous bluster (as opposed to plausible bluster, like threatening to use nukes). ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/8 "2022-03-19T21:42:32Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I don’t believe the breakup of the USSR had any nuclear weapons get into the wrong hands. Depends on what you mean by “the wrong hands”. There have been several instances of nuclear materials winding up in the hands of people who had no idea what they held, with tragic results. [From the 1980’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents#1980s) [From the 1990’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents#1990s) [From the 2000’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents#2000s) [From the 2010’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents#2010s) Apparently being a metal scrapper is one of the higher risk activities for this sort of thing. And that’s just the “orphan source” list. Really, it’s a wonder no terror group has tried to weaponize stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/9 "2022-03-19T22:22:37Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Really, it’s a wonder no terror group has tried to weaponize stuff like that. probably due to a combined sourcing and logistics complexity … and again, the relevancy lies in everybody knowing you got it … not so much in using it ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2022, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/10 "2022-03-19T23:12:37Z")
If their system was in really bad shape, wouldn’t some of our [New START](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_START) inspectors notice? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/11 "2022-03-20T03:35:06Z")
According to this, it costs about $60 billion a year to maintain the US nuclear arsenal > **[Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2021 to 2030](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57240)** > > Notes Notes Unless this report indicates otherwise, all of the years referred to are federal fiscal years, which run from October 1 to September 30 and are designated by the calendar year in which they end. Numbers in the text and tables may not add... I’m not sure what all would ‘need’ to be funded if they were only concerned with ICBMs and not with submarines and bombers, however that article states that ICBMs alone cost about 8 billion a year minimum to maintain. But I’m sure its well into the billions annually. Russias military budget for most of the 90s was barely 10 billion a year total, after the year 2000 or so it slowly grew to 60 billion a year. Also isn’t there a part that has to be replaced every 10 years or the bomb stops working? According to this, France spends 3.4 billion euros a year maintaining their nuclear stockpile of about 300 bombs, and it’ll go up to 6 billion a year by 2025. > **[Can France Still Afford Nuclear Weapons?](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/can-france-still-afford-nuclear-weapons-18315)** > > An important debate.  These figures seem to imply it costs about ~10 million a year to maintain each nuclear weapon (US has about 6000 nuclear weapons, spends 60 billion. France has 300 nuclear weapons, spends about 3-6 billion euros). ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/12 "2022-03-20T05:01:29Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > > > I don’t believe the breakup of the USSR had any nuclear weapons get into the wrong hands. > > Depends on what you mean by “the wrong hands”. There have been several instances of nuclear materials winding up in the hands of people who had no idea what they held, with tragic results. Notwithstanding how tragic many of those incidents were, nuclear materials do not equate to nuclear weapons, materials from nuclear weapons, or materials suitable for nuclear weapons. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/13 "2022-03-20T07:27:30Z")
I have a fuzzy memory of reading about the poor conditions of Soviet missile silos back during one of the arms reductions treaties. IIRC, quite a few of the missiles the Soviets agreed to get rid of were quite possibly useless anyway because they had a problem keeping the silos from flooding repeatedly. It was a long time ago and as I said I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but for some reason it’s always stuck in my head. > [@Velocity](#): > > Nuclear maintenance is extremely expensive and troublesome. I don’t know the intricate details well (it would take Stranger on a Train to do that for us) but there should be serious question as to how well the Russians are doing it. You could always call out to him. @Stranger_On_A_Train ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/14 "2022-03-20T10:49:27Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Also isn’t there a part that has to be replaced every 10 years or the bomb stops working? You mean tritium? Half-life is 12.3 years, so it must be replenished. So it must be produced in a nuclear reactor; perhaps there is some verified production data… ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/15 "2022-03-20T13:01:16Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > The complexity and level of engineering is far greater than what you might think. I went into an abandoned missile silo about 45 years ago. Me and three buddies. One of the hatches to get down to it had not been welded shut. Yes it was huge with tunnels leading off all over the place. Very, very creepy. Getting off subject though. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2022, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-russias-probably-poorly-maintained-6-000-nuclear-warheads/961321/16 "2022-03-20T13:08:57Z")
When I was in grad school in the late 90s, I wrote a paper on the Soviet submarine fleet. At the time, the Russians were letting their older nuclear subs sink in place in the North Sea as the seawater acted as coolant for the decaying reactors. That was almost 25 years ago and it doesn’t seem like their maintenance plans have improved.