The usually given figures are much greater than that:
UGM-133 Trident II - Wikipedia
Range (exact is classified):
Full load: ~7,600 kilometres (4,700 mi)[52]
Reduced load: ~12,000 kilometres (7,500 mi)
TFG’s statement is a nothing burger. There are 18 Trident armed SSBNs in service. More than two of them are always deployed in “appropriate regions” to glass Russia.
Trump publicly threatened “shock and awe” sanctions against Russia within ten days.
Worst case, he’s-not-that-stupid-or-is-he scenario is he orders a missile launch from a sub as a “show of force” to land somewhere in mid ocean and that triggers something really, really bad. Yeah, I may be talking out my butt but nothing is beyond Trump’s lunacy. I would think the Navy would never actually order such an action.
“The Navy” cannot launch or use a nuclear weapon without presidential authorization, or even launch conventional weapons at or in threat to another country without at least direction from the Secretary of Defense (except in defense or in the context of pre-existing operational orders.)
I would like to think that if Trump ordered the launch of an SLBM as a show of force, some saner head would step in and persuade him of the folly of that act but there are increasing few of those in the senior chain of command and none in the White House that I can see.
Stranger
Honestly, he probably just drew some circles on a map with his Hurricane Sharpie and said “I want boats here and here”… they told him “yes sir” and then left the room and just continued with whatever tasking was already assigned.
(I work closely with our cognizant program office at NAVSEA and one of the keys to ensuring progress is to tell them what they need to do and make them believe it was their idea. This is equally likely.)
The only way to keep a program moving is to convince the home office that what you are doing is what they wanted you to do, anyway and then taking just enough input the they think they ‘had an impact’. It is the skill that every NCO learns in managing junior officers to keep them out of the way of things getting done.
Stranger
Yeah, after leaving the Navy (where we generally tried to have a plan) and working on the contractor side I quickly determined that there are a lot of people who aren’t paying attention to the words coming out of their own mouths, they just want to feel like they’re participating.
I’d go to weekly planning meetings and reviews where I’d get conflicting information from week to week and marching orders that were diametrically opposed. I finally learned that as long as you achieve the desired result no one is going to care how you got there because they probably aren’t going to remember what the plan was anyway.
Yes. Dmitry Medvedev cares. He needs to present himself to the West as someone less reliable than one Vladimir Putin if he wants to avoid being thrown out of a window. All plausible Russian Presidential candidates need to do this.
Keeping the power requires eliminating the threats, both external or internal. Now what makes one dangerous is not so much an intention as the capacity. For this reason, if I were to name a particular personality I see as in potential danger, that would be Dmitry Medvedev
As a person of above average intelligence, Medvedev sees this and self eliminates himself preventively. That is a smart thing to do. Reputational self damage made him less of a threat → allowed him to live. I wonder whether this little trick will suffice in the future
I’ve wondered about this too. Some totally anonymous person has to decide every morning before the security briefing how much info to hide from Trump . It’s scary.
I was very surprised when the attack on Iran happened. It must have taken several days– to plan, to move the B2 bombers, to move refueling planes into position over various countries, etc, –and I assumed that Trump could never keep it secret. But somehow, when it really mattered, Trump kept his mouth shut.
Not a totally anonymous person; the President’s Daily Brief is an intelligence summary coordinated through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and typically given by a CIA briefer from a small pool of designated officers. (Despite the term ‘Daily’ most Presidents have requested and received it on less frequent intervals or only by exception, preferring to have their staff of the National Security Council or others read the brief and inform them on critical matters; Bill Clinton, for instance, only received a handful of in-person briefings in his entire eight year tenure.) The military generally briefs the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the NSC, and they decide what needs executive attention. Nobody hides anything (well, maybe Hegseth does) but they are selective in what is presented and how it is emphasized or not because out of a 12-ish hour day (less for Trump, of course) they might get a total of twenty or thirty minutes unless the nation is in an imminent national security crisis.
I’m morally certain that extensive and detailed plans for this have been drafted and regularly updated since at least the George W. Bush administration. Putting the assets in place for a potential call-up is a logistical challenge but the one thing the US military really excels at is logistics even if they can’t win impossible wars against intransigent insurgents or keep the Naval fleet it good maintenance. I’m pretty sure all the chess pieces were in place before Trump made (or was persuaded to make) they actual call because nobody trusts Trump to keep quiet or stay on the same course for more than a couple days at a time.
Stranger