Current Affairs Ukraine

[Ivo]

Yes, then the US.

1. Russia — 6,257 (1,458 active, 3039 available, 1,760 retired)
2. United States — 5,550 (1,389 active, 2,361 available, 1,800 retired)
3. China — 350 available (actively expanding nuclear arsenal)
4. France — 290 available
5. United Kingdom — 225 available
6. Pakistan — 165 available
7. India — 156 available
8. Israel — 90 available
9. North Korea — 40-50 available (estimated)

Wonder what the difference is between active and available?

 

[Simon Buttle]

Wonder what the difference is between active and available?

Think active means they are ready to go at anytime and available are the ones that need to be primed/prepped first. It said on the News before that those planes that the RAF have been chasing away yesterday and today were long range nuclear bombers.

 

[FrenchDarrenBent]

I have an idea. Give everybody nuclear weapons. Then nobody can mess with anybody else or there's total annihilation of both states.

Peace... At last.

 

[peteblue]

Why don't we just say "we don't want you to invade Ukraine and if you do we will use our nuclear weapons..."? Isn't that what they're supposed to be for? I mean America et al are massing forces in the region, so they must be planning for a possible military intervention.

The USA are sending over a few thousand troops to NATO countries, more as a symbolic gesture than a military move. If the Ukraine were already in NATO, Putin would not have his troops ready to invade. But they are not, and this Is what Putin is playing on and taking advantage of……

 

[Martin Alvito]

Maybe one of the hawks could help me with this, but aren't we told that no one messes with the west because we have a nuclear deterrent? If so, surely Russia isn't going to mess with the west because we have a nuclear deterrent? Or is that all a very costly bluff because no one really wants nuclear obliteration?

Our security commitment to Ukraine is ambiguous at best. We (and Russia) agreed to respect their borders. That's it. We're not kicking off WWIII over this. If Russia's armies were amassed on the border of Poland or the Baltic republics, we might. Russia has never seen fit to find out if we in fact mean business with NATO.

If we believed that nuclear deterrence would hold in all circumstances, we would have clear commitments to Ukraine and the ROC, because we would know for a fact that those commitments would never be tested. The existence of ambiguous security commitments shows that we don't believe nuclear deterrence is ironclad.

You know the whole thing is weird when Erdogan, of all people, is offering to mediate. About the only way it could get weirder is if Milosevic came back from the dead and made the same offer.

I have an idea. Give everybody nuclear weapons. Then nobody can mess with anybody else or there's total annihilation of both states.

Peace... At last.

You and Kenneth Waltz both. I think Scott Sagan is right, personally. Humans + nukes = errors. There's the time we lost a B-52 and almost nuked North Carolina by accident, the time when Schlesinger and Kissinger effectively took the nuclear football away from Nixon, the time we put training tapes into the NORAD computers and nearly nuked the Soviets because we didn't realize that we had put training tapes in...and we only know about that last one because a senator just so happened to be under Cheyenne Mountain at the time. There's plenty of other examples.

 

[Dymak]

We need to hurry up and nuke Russia before they nuke us!

 

[hirons11]

We need to hurry up and nuke Russia before they nuke us!

Do you recommend this before or after the Brentford game?

 

[peteblue]

Do you recommend this before or after the Brentford game?

I for one want to see how our Frank does, so after, please Mr Putin……

 

[Runub]

I for one want to see how our Frank does, so after, please Mr Putin……

Would be typical that….all the pieces finally fall together for Everton and Putin nukes us

 

[hirons11]

I for one want to see how our Frank does, so after, please Mr Putin……

I’m thinking as long as we stay in the FA Cup and outside the relegation zone then keep the fingers that be off the red button.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Why don't we just say "we don't want you to invade Ukraine and if you do we will use our nuclear weapons..."? Isn't that what they're supposed to be for? I mean America et al are massing forces in the region, so they must be planning for a possible military intervention.

Because we're not willing to use our nuclear weapons for this purpose, and aren't willing to bluff.

The NATO umbrella has a good bit more credibility due to the longevity of the alliance and the deep economic ties. It is doubtful that things would escalate to a thermonuclear exchange right off the bat. Many of our war plans during the Cold War involved the use of tactical nukes against Soviet armored divisions to head off their advantage on the ground.

The Germans never, ever liked this.

IMO we are moving troops into the region to head off possible provocations further westward, and put ourselves in a position to ask Moscow, "Are you really sure about this?" if, say, some armor crosses a border to gain a tactical advantage.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Think active means they are ready to go at anytime and available are the ones that need to be primed/prepped first. It said on the News before that those planes that the RAF have been chasing away yesterday and today were long range nuclear bombers.

Close.

An "active" warhead is ready to be deployed. It's not necessarily attached to a fueled ICBM, in a shorter-range launcher or strapped to a plane, though some of them are at times. The submarine-based stuff is the easiest to get prepared and offers the shortest opposing response time, which is why both sides invest so much time and money in knowing where the boomers are.

An "inactive" warhead is in a storage facility somewhere. If we wanted to use it, we would need something to strap it to. START runs out four years from now. The odds of its renewal are not great. Nukes are expensive to build and expensive to dismantle, so both sides largely sat on their warheads. Odds are that when that treaty runs out, both sides will start strapping them to the appropriate delivery mechanisms.

 

[PhilM]

Because we're not willing to use our nuclear weapons for this purpose, and aren't willing to bluff.

The NATO umbrella has a good bit more credibility due to the longevity of the alliance and the deep economic ties. It is doubtful that things would escalate to a thermonuclear exchange right off the bat. Many of our war plans during the Cold War involved the use of tactical nukes against Soviet armored divisions to head off their advantage on the ground.

The Germans never, ever liked this.

IMO we are moving troops into the region to head off possible provocations further westward, and put ourselves in a position to ask Moscow, "Are you really sure about this?" if, say, some armor crosses a border to gain a tactical advantage.

The BOAR was never equipped with the latest technology or best trained troops for this very reason: they knew if the Russians didn't nuke them, we might have.

 

[peteblue]

The BOAR was never equipped with the latest technology or best trained troops for this very reason: they knew if the Russians didn't nuke them, we might have.

I think you meant BAOR ……

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

The BOAR was never equipped with the latest technology or best trained troops for this very reason: they knew if the Russians didn't nuke them, we might have.