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How Do We Know the Nukes Still Work?:
Though the treaty explicitly banning all nuclear weapons tests has not yet entered into force, the United States has not detonated a nuclear weapon since 1992. The American nuclear strategy still relies on the nuclear weapons working, but without full-scale tests, the Department of Energy's National Labs now operate the Stockpile Stewardship program, which relies on theory, simulations, and experiments to deliver annual weapons assessments to the federal government.
[...] "The [Stockpile Stewardship program] has gone through a number of administrations, and the Defense Department hasn't said that we have to go back to testing," Victor "Vic" Reis, former assistant secretary of energy for defense programs at the Department of Energy and one of the program's architects, told Gizmodo. "We understand enough of what's happening with the current stockpile of weapons—they're safe and reliable."
Reis teamed up with senior scientists and military personnel to draft a program that could validate the performance of the weapons and simulate the effects of aging on the weapons and their safety—what he called Science Based Stockpile Stewardship. [...] However, there wasn't nearly enough computing capacity to run all of the required simulations. Fortunately, Reis had previously been the director of DARPA and convinced a manager there to lead what would become the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, a program that would significantly increase the computing power available to the weapons labs. Today, the Stockpile Stewardship program operates on a three-pillared approach, combining theory, simulation, and experiment, and runs mainly out of those three labs as well as the Nevada National Security Site.
[...] Understanding how the weapons age is a crucial component to the simulations. "There's a whole aspect of what happens to various materials and how they interact with metals, or with components of the devices themselves, that's all aging. We have no data on what happens when something is 40 years old," Irene Qualters, associate laboratory director for simulation and computation at Los Alamos National Lab, told Gizmodo.
[...] Reis told Gizmodo that he thinks the strategy should last at least another generation. The U.S. has found an effective workaround to true nuclear testing—it's not quite as showy as nuking ships in the Pacific, but scientists each year report to Congress with 100 percent confidence that the nuclear arsenal is reliable.
"But beyond 20 to 25 years, who knows," Reis said. Future politicians will eventually have to decide what to do about the aging nuclear arsenal.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday May 15 2020, @05:27PM (3 children)
If MAD didn't work on Christian fanatics we would already be dead, but because we are not all dead it must work. In the same light it worked for the godless Soviets because again, we are not all dead. So far it appears to work for the Muhammadans and the Hindu/Sikhs because India/Pakistan have not killed eachother yet. I imagine the Islamic Republic of Iran would be fine with nukes because they aren't retarded, although I wouldn't trust the Saudis. The Isrealies have so far not used theirs on Iran, although if the Jews were so inclined now would be the perfect time because their enemy has not yet reached parity.
Tldr people are people regardless of their belief system and with that comes radicalization. Every belief has its radical parts and some have a greater number than others, but all of them have less than they used to.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday May 15 2020, @05:42PM (1 child)
Beware the small sample size of people capable of launching nukes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Friday May 15 2020, @06:53PM
Since I posted that I have been reading about applications of the Madman Theory for foreign policy both its successes and failures because I had not done so in a while. Nixon/Kissinger is of course the most well known failure of the theory when he tried to apply it in Vietnam to force the Soviets hand, based on his comments elsewhere he probably based it on what he felt was a successful application by Eisenhower to end the Korean war and by Khrushchev in the Cuban missile crisis. More recently we saw Trump try to use it with North Korea. It works out fine unless they call your bluff and you don't act. The CCP was unsure on how Ike would act and JFK did not know how Khrushchev would act. The Russian's called Nixon/Kissinger's bluff because they did not think it possible that men like Nixon or Kissinger could actually be insane, and that Nixon, a Quaker, would never actually kick off a larger conflict. Trump's gamble was interesting and worked in bringing the North to the table, but when he had to switch roles from the stick to the carrot to the stick and back down it faltered. As Trump had said in public, a conflict is impossible because we could do nothing to protect Seoul. Bolton was useful but when they left the second conference without a deal the whole thing was over.
The second conference was very interesting where Bolton tried to scare Kim and it appeared to work but Kim/his generals must have remembered that they still had power over Seoul. For those that might not recall it was when Trump and Kim were on camera standing around talking about the possibilities, Kim appeared to dislike whatever was being discussed and his body language showed dismissal. Bolton appeared out of nowhere and told Trump something along the lines of "we do have the other option", it was hard to hear but after the translator related it to Kim you could see his face turn pale and he was vehement to talk again. Bolton is perfect for that role, absolute evil, absolute warmonger, NK has a absolute hatred for him for good reason, but the other side of that is that because Bolton was involved nothing we say could ever be relied on.
An interesting point about Nixon/Kissinger's application, is that they felt because they had a long run of being seen as intelligent and stable by the CCCP leadership they would come across as "fed up with the whole thing and gone mad". That could work with those two, but could never work with Bolton.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:49AM
Counterpoints:
1) To date (at least, I hope this still holds...) we don't have the kind of stark, staring-at-your-left-ear, drooling-a-bit fanatic in charge. We're coming uncomfortably close though, and the Dominionists have infiltrated the government apparatus to a disturbing degree; I for one believe the rot is fatal and pervasive.
2) As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, sorry, but this is one of those cases where the eeeeeeebil atheists have the upper hand: as they do not believe in a kingdom come to be blown to, they are less likely to blow everything to kingdom come. Sure, we may get a complete nihilist in charge at some point in one of those scary scary atheist regimes, but none of them are going to believe it'd be a positive good to wipe out this world in favor of the next.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...