Where does the obsession about the US nuclear stockpile and it's current state come from?

[Flyer]

@Ravenman

But back to the OP’s question about “OMG we don’t know if our nuclear weapons work!!11!” fears. IMHO, it’s irrational. Every year since 1995, a group of senior government officials, backed up by the foremost nuclear labs, must certify that our nuclear weapons provide a credible deterrent without underground testing. It has been so certified each year since then.

OP, if your conservative friends/family assert that our nuclear weapons maybe don’t work, they are calling all the various Secretaries of Defense, Secretaries of Energy, Commanders of Strategic Command, Los Alamos Lab, Sandia Lab, Lawrence Livermore Lab, and various others involved in advisory capacitities (such as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and the Chief of Naval Operations of the U.S. Navy) for the past two decades a bunch of liars.

Now, you should ask your interlocutors what’s more likely: that all of those officials and scientists have kept up a lie, through multiple Republican and Democratic Administrations; or that they don’t know what they are talking about?

See my earlier post.

What we’re saying is that they are potentially very foolish to simply ASSUME that the nukes will work, simply because a simulation says that they will work.

[spifflog]

@Flyer

See my earlier post.

What we’re saying is that they are potentially very foolish to simply ASSUME that the nukes will work, simply because a simulation says that they will work.

And what we’re saying is that this is 1960’s technology that has been tested and tested and tested. And for you to ASSUME that the military doesn’t test the components of these and upgrade them periodically and just leaves them there untouched and collecting dust decade after decade is very foolish.

[XT]

@Flyer

See my earlier post.

What we’re saying is that they are potentially very foolish to simply ASSUME that the nukes will work, simply because a simulation says that they will work.

This is exactly the argument being made to me last weekend. Almost word for word in that second sentence and repeated by most of the conservatives in the discussion.

@Ravenman

OP, if your conservative friends/family assert that our nuclear weapons maybe don’t work, they are calling all the various Secretaries of Defense, Secretaries of Energy, Commanders of Strategic Command, Los Alamos Lab, Sandia Lab, Lawrence Livermore Lab, and various others involved in advisory capacitities (such as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and the Chief of Naval Operations of the U.S. Navy) for the past two decades a bunch of liars.

Trust me, I tried. I made basically this same argument, though I put emphasis on Los Alamos and Sandia since they are local to my state and several of the people in the discussion either work there or have contracts there. See Flyer’s second sentence quoted above for the main response.

I know what they are saying is wrong. I made that point many times in the discussion. What I was wondering is where it’s coming from, since while it’s a subject I’ve spent a few idle hours looking into in the past (usually for debates on this board), it’s not something I think is on most people’s radar. Yet, nearly every conservative in the discussion was saying basically the same thing.

[AK84]

The return of Great power competition has infact caught the US off guard. The US did cut back drastically on nuclear weapons development and modernisation in the 1990’s. And that is now seen by many as a mistake. That said, I can’t recall the things raised in the OP ever being mentioned,

I think the OP’s acquiantances have misunderstood some articles they have read or extoplated issues in one area on to the other.

War On The Rocks has publishedexcellent pieces from multiple viewpoints on this issue., as an aside

[VinylTurnip]

If we have enough to make a pile out of them, that seems like plenty.

[JohnT]

@HurricaneDitka

I hope this doesn’t come across as a hijack, but I’m curious (and there seem to be some knowledgeable posters here that might know the answer): could we launch a ICBM far enough away from Earth that we could test the warhead (detonate it) without any of the harmful effects (EMP, radiation, etc) of traditional tests affecting Earth or our satellites?

And release General Zod? Are you crazy?

[Ravenman]

@Flyer

See my earlier post.

What we’re saying is that they are potentially very foolish to simply ASSUME that the nukes will work, simply because a simulation says that they will work.

Well, when it comes down to an argument about physics, and we have on one side a ton of PhD scientists and engineers with centuries’ worth of combined experience in the precise field under discussion, not to mention probably the expertise of some Nobel laureates; and on the other side is a cute aphorism…

In this age of Trump, I guess we go with the catchy phrase? This is what you’re saying? Because all those eggheads are “potentially very foolish” in the face of a clever turn of phrase, I guess?

[XT]

@Ravenman

Well, when it comes down to an argument about physics, and we have on one side a ton of PhD scientists and engineers with centuries’ worth of combined experience in the precise field under discussion, not to mention probably the expertise of some Nobel laureates; and on the other side is a cute aphorism…

In this age of Trump, I guess we go with the catchy phrase? This is what you’re saying? Because all those eggheads are “potentially very foolish” in the face of a clever turn of phrase, I guess?

The part I really have a hard time understanding is, if the US (who spends more than anyone else on their nukes from a year in and year out annual operational cost perspective) has all these issues, how are Russia and China leaping ahead? Wouldn’t they be under the same exact constraints? Wouldn’t they be using similar ‘simulations’ (I know this is a bad word, hopefully the mods will understand) to both test their own stockpiles as well as develop new bombs (though why they would need or want to is also a mystery to me, unless we are talking about a bomb with longer shelf life or easier storage or something along those lines). How do the Russians and Chinese do this with less money and the same constraints that the US has?? Do they have better physicists and engineers, are they innately superior or are they secretly doing physical testing in other dimensions or alternative pocket universes…or, perhaps they have better lizardmen hybrids than us that can test them on their own home planets? I really don’t get it.

I also don’t get this distrust of ‘simulations’, especially with respect to a technology that is older than most 'dopers on this board (older than me, and I’m considered passably old in many quarters :p) and that has been extensively tested for decades before the ban. Hell, the North Koreans managed to put one together to test in 2006 on what the US would considered a fraction of a shoe string budget, and even assuming they had Chinese help it would have been using Chinese simulations, since they don’t do active testing either (though they may have access to better engineers/scientists or better lizardmen hybrids). Where is this coming from, to get back to the central theme of this thread? Who is creating and propagating this seemingly silly meme??

[k9bfriender]

@XT

I also don’t get this distrust of ‘simulations’, especially with respect to a technology that is older than most 'dopers on this board (older than me, and I’m considered passably old in many quarters :p) and that has been extensively tested for decades before the ban.

If nothing else, the first atomic bomb used was never tested. The “simulations” that were run on slide rules guaranteed it would work.

The other early bomb was tested, sure, but it worked pretty much exactly as the engineers thought it would.

Then we got data from dozens more atomic detonations. We understand the physics really well. There were a few surprises along the way (who knew that both isotopes of lithium would contribute to the reaction?), but those are all worked out at this point.

Unless we are developing something using new fissionable materials, like U233 or some fissionable transuranics, there really is nothing new to be learned by actually detonating a bomb.

[Ravenman]

@XT

Who is creating and propagating this seemingly silly meme??

I think that’s perfectly clear: Trump has talked a lot about the military generally, and nuclear weapons in particular, as being the proper yardstick to measure one’s dick.

Trump has also made comments to the effect of, the rebuilding of our nuclear arsenal really began some time shortly after he was elected. In actuality, that process started several years ago, and is slowly ramping up, but really nothing terribly remarkable has happened (or at least has been accelerated) in the last 14 months.

I’ve made this comment before, but Trump’s comments are again like the pronouncement of the fly riding on the axle of a speeding chariot: “My, what a dust I do raise!”

[k9bfriender]

@Ravenman

I’ve made this comment before, but Trump’s comments are again like the pronouncement of the fly riding on the axle of a speeding chariot: “My, what a dust I do raise!”

I appreciate you making it again. I must have missed the first time around, and it made me chuckle.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@Ravenman

I think that’s perfectly clear: Trump has talked a lot about the military generally, and nuclear weapons in particular, as being the proper yardstick to measure one’s dick.

I think you are giving him far too much credit for having a coherent policy about either nuclear weapons or the size of his penis. Here is what Trump actually said in response to a question about his priority in the nuclear triad: “I think, for me, nuclear, the power, the devastation, is very important to me.” And it isn’t as if this was some kind of momentary stumble; he has a long history of making ambiguous and contradictory statements about the purpose and use of nuclear weapons.

An eight year old could make a more coherent statement about our strategic nuclear deterrent than Donald Trump can. And the hypothetical second grader would probably be more reliable with that authority than Trump.

Stranger

[Ravenman]

It never occurred to me that a metaphorical dick measuring contest is too sophisticated a concept for the President to grasp, but your points are well taken.