I would strongly disagree that nuclear weapons are any sort of existential risk. There aren’t nearly enough to wipe out humanity directly, and haven’t ever been, and nuclear winter risk is massively overblown, for reasons I explain in the link I just added to the post.
“You know, the nuclear weapons threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952.”
This, I would disagree with quite strongly. The nuclear threat has changed several times since then. At that point, arsenals were quite limited. By the late 50s, the US had a huge arsenal, but delivery was by bombers only. The arrival of the ICBM meant that warning times dropped from hours to minutes, which had all sorts of impacts, but the early ICBMs took a while to launch. At about the same time, you see SSBNs, which make it a lot harder to squish the enemy’s deterrent. And since the end of the Cold War, you see a massive decrease in arsenals worldwide.
I agree nuclear winter risk is overblown and I’m glad to see more EAs discussing that. But I think you’re also overrating the survivability of SSBNs, especially non-American ones. They are not a One Weird Trick, Just Add Water for unassailable second strike capability, with upkeep/maintenance only being one aspect of that. Geography plays a huge role in how useful they are, with the US deciding to base most of its warheads on SSBNs because they have the most favourable conditions for them (unrestricted access to and naval dominance of two oceans). In contrast, Russia has much less room to play with (mainly some parts of the Arctic ocean) and suitable ports to deploy the subs from, and China’s situation is even worse. The seas surrounding it have unfavourable bathymetry (very shallow) and the only paths to open ocean are chokepoints.[1] It’s not as hard to detect a submarine as one might think, otherwise noise-quieting measures like pumpjets, reactor cooling design and tiles as you mentioned wouldn’t be such a huge deal. Most importantly, the US has a large fleet of advanced attack subs (SSNs) the others lack, which pose an enormous threat to SSBNs. They could pick up a tail without knowing it and be destroyed before they can launch their missiles.[2]
OTOH American SSBNs should be fine at least for the time being as long as they don’t do anything stupid like try to sneak up close to another country. But emerging technologies like Magnetic Anomaly Detectors and such will make concealing SSBNs even more difficult and increase reliance on land-based forces in the future.
In fact from what I know about Chinese nuclear strategy, SSBNs aren’t expected to play a major role in the nuclear force at least until Taiwan is taken and the first island chain is broken, granting unrestricted access to the Pacific.
Which is why the concept of “bastion operations” was developed, a sanitized area of water close to the coast where SSBNs can operate relatively safely, supported by friendly air and naval ASW assets to keep hostile SSNs out. Yes China and Russia can do this but it’s still suboptimal for many reasons.
In retrospect, I should have been more clear in my claim on submarine invulnerability, which was mostly meant to apply to the sort of thing you could reliably do during an attempt to preemptively take out a nuclear arsenal. And yes, obviously more to the US than elsewhere. But note that the link you provide is to an SSN, not an SSBN, and MAD is not a new technology. The first deployment of that I’m aware of was to guard the Straits of Gibraltar in WWII, and if anything it’s being phased out these days.
I would strongly disagree that nuclear weapons are any sort of existential risk.
Ok, I suppose that’s a useful semantic clarification. I agree they don’t pose an X risk to humanity, but they do pose an X risk to modern civilization.
Sorry, but the nuclear threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952. It would only take about 50 nukes to destroy America’s largest cities, which would collapse the food distribution system, leading to mass starvation, social and political chaos.
If you have a gun pointed at my head, it doesn’t matter how big or small the gun is, how many guns you have, and all of that.
There’s no meaningful difference between the Russians having 50 nukes, 1500 nukes, 5000 nukes, or 5 million nukes. Once they have 50, X risk to America is in play. As example, North Korea will soon have enough nukes to demolish America. They just need to get the long range delivery systems working.
All these fancy calculations the experts love to make are really meaningless, they’re mostly just attempts to position themselves as experts.
>Sorry, but the nuclear threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952.
This simply isn’t true. Even if we take your claim that it would only take 50 nukes to destroy America’s largest cities at face value and that that in turn would be enough to destroy the US, in 1952, the Soviets had only 50 nukes total, and very limited capability to deliver them to targets in US. Most would instead be going to Europe, and a lot of them wouldn’t go off because the planes carrying them would be shot down. And this is pre-H-bomb, so you’re going to need more than 50 bombs to do the same destruction that you could do with 50 today. (And to be clear, I don’t accept that 50 bombs is nearly enough to pose an X-risk to America.)
>As example, North Korea will soon have enough nukes to demolish America. They just need to get the long range delivery systems working.
China has cut them off at six missiles, which are aimed at cities where US decision-makers and their families live.
I would strongly disagree that nuclear weapons are any sort of existential risk. There aren’t nearly enough to wipe out humanity directly, and haven’t ever been, and nuclear winter risk is massively overblown, for reasons I explain in the link I just added to the post.
“You know, the nuclear weapons threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952.”
This, I would disagree with quite strongly. The nuclear threat has changed several times since then. At that point, arsenals were quite limited. By the late 50s, the US had a huge arsenal, but delivery was by bombers only. The arrival of the ICBM meant that warning times dropped from hours to minutes, which had all sorts of impacts, but the early ICBMs took a while to launch. At about the same time, you see SSBNs, which make it a lot harder to squish the enemy’s deterrent. And since the end of the Cold War, you see a massive decrease in arsenals worldwide.
I agree nuclear winter risk is overblown and I’m glad to see more EAs discussing that. But I think you’re also overrating the survivability of SSBNs, especially non-American ones. They are not a One Weird Trick, Just Add Water for unassailable second strike capability, with upkeep/maintenance only being one aspect of that. Geography plays a huge role in how useful they are, with the US deciding to base most of its warheads on SSBNs because they have the most favourable conditions for them (unrestricted access to and naval dominance of two oceans). In contrast, Russia has much less room to play with (mainly some parts of the Arctic ocean) and suitable ports to deploy the subs from, and China’s situation is even worse. The seas surrounding it have unfavourable bathymetry (very shallow) and the only paths to open ocean are chokepoints.[1] It’s not as hard to detect a submarine as one might think, otherwise noise-quieting measures like pumpjets, reactor cooling design and tiles as you mentioned wouldn’t be such a huge deal. Most importantly, the US has a large fleet of advanced attack subs (SSNs) the others lack, which pose an enormous threat to SSBNs. They could pick up a tail without knowing it and be destroyed before they can launch their missiles.[2]
OTOH American SSBNs should be fine at least for the time being as long as they don’t do anything stupid like try to sneak up close to another country. But emerging technologies like Magnetic Anomaly Detectors and such will make concealing SSBNs even more difficult and increase reliance on land-based forces in the future.
In fact from what I know about Chinese nuclear strategy, SSBNs aren’t expected to play a major role in the nuclear force at least until Taiwan is taken and the first island chain is broken, granting unrestricted access to the Pacific.
Which is why the concept of “bastion operations” was developed, a sanitized area of water close to the coast where SSBNs can operate relatively safely, supported by friendly air and naval ASW assets to keep hostile SSNs out. Yes China and Russia can do this but it’s still suboptimal for many reasons.
In retrospect, I should have been more clear in my claim on submarine invulnerability, which was mostly meant to apply to the sort of thing you could reliably do during an attempt to preemptively take out a nuclear arsenal. And yes, obviously more to the US than elsewhere. But note that the link you provide is to an SSN, not an SSBN, and MAD is not a new technology. The first deployment of that I’m aware of was to guard the Straits of Gibraltar in WWII, and if anything it’s being phased out these days.
Ok, I suppose that’s a useful semantic clarification. I agree they don’t pose an X risk to humanity, but they do pose an X risk to modern civilization.
Sorry, but the nuclear threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952. It would only take about 50 nukes to destroy America’s largest cities, which would collapse the food distribution system, leading to mass starvation, social and political chaos.
If you have a gun pointed at my head, it doesn’t matter how big or small the gun is, how many guns you have, and all of that.
There’s no meaningful difference between the Russians having 50 nukes, 1500 nukes, 5000 nukes, or 5 million nukes. Once they have 50, X risk to America is in play. As example, North Korea will soon have enough nukes to demolish America. They just need to get the long range delivery systems working.
All these fancy calculations the experts love to make are really meaningless, they’re mostly just attempts to position themselves as experts.
>Sorry, but the nuclear threat has not meaningfully changed since the day I was born in 1952.
This simply isn’t true. Even if we take your claim that it would only take 50 nukes to destroy America’s largest cities at face value and that that in turn would be enough to destroy the US, in 1952, the Soviets had only 50 nukes total, and very limited capability to deliver them to targets in US. Most would instead be going to Europe, and a lot of them wouldn’t go off because the planes carrying them would be shot down. And this is pre-H-bomb, so you’re going to need more than 50 bombs to do the same destruction that you could do with 50 today. (And to be clear, I don’t accept that 50 bombs is nearly enough to pose an X-risk to America.)
>As example, North Korea will soon have enough nukes to demolish America. They just need to get the long range delivery systems working.
China has cut them off at six missiles, which are aimed at cities where US decision-makers and their families live.