The Vineyard of the Saker: Nuclear apples and oranges

I just realized that I forgot to make something clear in my latest post about Russian and US nuclear capabilities: a lot of the current debate about a possible US nuclear attack on Russia is a case of comparing apples and oranges. Let me explain.

My posts dismissing the possibility of a US nuclear attack on Russia are based only on two things:

a) a certitude that any such attack would result in the complete obliteration of the USA.
b) the working hypothesis that the US is a "rational actor".

If you carefully read the writings of those who are warning about a UN nuclear attack on Russia, they fall into two very different categories:

Group A: they say that a nuclear war in unwinnable (Paul Craig Roberts is one of them) but that the US leaders are deluding themselves.

Group B: they say that the US has the capability to strike Russia and not be obliterated in a retaliatory strike.

I do not disagree with Group A. I don't necessarily agree either. My purely subjective feeling is that the US "deep state" will not risk it all on such a dangerous move and that the top US military comment would not go along with such an insane plan even if ordered. But I am not a psychic, a psychologist, a psychiatrist or somebody with any kind of access to the US leadership. I don't know what they are thinking today. The closest I have ever been to the US elites was in the late 1980s early 1990s - a very long time ago. So I do not know for a fact that the US is still a "rational actor". Maybe they have all gone completely insane as a consequence of a massive overdose of imperial hubris. Could be.

It is Group B which I categorically disagree with. All I am saying is that there is no conceivable scenario under which the US could strike Russia without risking unacceptable retaliatory damage if only because the current Russian nuclear deterrent is much stronger than the US one and that this will remain true for the foreseeable future.

So let's not compare apples and oranges, rational scenarios and those based on the hypothesis that one side has gone completely insane. Force planning and psychiatry are different sciences :-)

Kind regards,

The Saker

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Nuclear apples and oranges

The Vineyard of the Saker: Short reminder about US and Russian nuclear weapons

A recent article in the LA Times caught my eye yesterday. It's title was "$40-billion missile defense system proves unreliable". I urge you to read the full article but the bottom line here is simple: the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, is a catastrophic failure. Basically, the system is useless and would not even work against a (totally hypothetical) Iranian or North Korean strike with primitive missiles. And it's not like there are just a few technological kinks which need fixing here or there - the entire system was mis-designed from day 1, just like the latest tri-service "flying brick" the F-35. Billions of dollars wasted for nothing except making the folks in the US military-industrial complex rich, very rich. I hope to write up one day a full analysis of why a country which in the past has produced absolutely world class military hardware and weapons systems (like the WWII Jeep or the F-16) is now systematically producing hugely expensive crap, but that is not my purpose today. Today I want to remind you all of a few basic facts:

1) The entire US nuclear arsenal is hopelessly outdated, especially it's land-based component which is over 30 years old and whose B-1 and B-2 bombers which cannot deliver cruise missiles and whose "stealth" capabilities are no match for Russian air defense systems. The only part of the US nuclear triad which is more or less in good shape are the US Navy boomers.
2) The US GMD cannot even intercept primitive ballistic missiles.
3) Russia has recently deployed brand new mobile land-based (SS-27, SS-29) and sea based ballistic missiles (R-29RMU2, RSM-56) which are designed to be able to evade future ABM systems.

Please keep that in mind when you hear all this talk about a US first strike on Russia. What is happening now is a typical self-feeding rumor which somebody started (dunno who) and who get's picked up by more and more people who then end up quoting each other as a proof of the thesis. So my advice to you is this: the next time you come across an article suggesting that the US is about to nuke Russia (or some variation thereof), see if the author offers a plausible scenario of how this could be done. This scenario should not just mention some vague "Star Wars" like "secret" technologies (like nukes in space) but mention existing, tested and deployed systems.

There are enough real reasons to be discouraged, disgusted, worried and outright despondent about the world we live in and there really is no need to add a completely artificial nuclear scare to this.

My 2cts.

The Saker

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Short reminder about US and Russian nuclear weapons

The Vineyard of the Saker: Why the US-Russian nuclear balance is as solid as ever

Ok. Today I am going to address the nuclear threat canard one last time. After that, I will just ignore this topic which, frankly, is a waste of time. Here are two comments which were recently posted on the blog:

• "Security experts in the U.S. do not agree that Russia has a credible nuclear deterrent. The story is that the Russian nuclear force is in disrepair and that the U.S. can easily destroy most of what is left. They may be wrong--but that's what seems to be the thinking by at least some officials. "
• "How exactly do YOU know that the US military knows that a successful nuclear first strike against Russia is impossible? So far, Saker, you have basically merely claimed this without providing any serious evidence whatsoever."

Both of these comments are typical of the kind of nonsense which have flooded in blogosphere in the recent times. The first one quotes "experts" who speak about the state of disrepair of the Russian nuclear forces. The second one hints at some secret capability which would make a first-strike possible. I will address both.

The state of disrepair of the Russian nuclear forces

This is an old canard which really had it's days of glory during the Eltsin years when, indeed, so much stuff in Russia was in an advanced state of disrepair that it sounded very plausible. The Air Force was in disrepair, the Navy was in disrepair, the Land Forces were in disrepair and, frankly, all of Russia was in a total disrepair. I even had Russian friends who were telling me that if Eltsin pressed on the button all the Russian ICBMs would basically explode in their silos (mind you, friends with PhDs in physics!). It was all nonsense. How do we know it?

Because during the 1990s and later Russia often fired missile which had reached the end of their life cycle, that was a part of the normal readiness test program. In one case a submerged Russian nuclear submarine even ripple-fired its full complement of missiles (I forgot the date, but it's on YouTube - I am sure somebody can post the link to that test). As far as I know, this is the only case in history of a "boomer" firing its full load of missiles in one volley (correct me if I am wrong). Every single time the missiles worked. As far as I know (again, correct me if I am wrong) the only failed launches were during the testing of the new "Bulava" SLBM which was a real pain to develop and which had to be redesigned several times. By the way, now the system works and, for all their efforts and pain, the Russians now have the newest and most advanced SLBM on the planet. So why did these systems work so well?

Two things: the extraordinary quality of the Soviet engineers and the very rigorous quality control system of the Soviet nuclear forces. I cannot go in detail here, but the fact is that the folks who worked on these systems were in a different league all together and even during the Eltins years they managed to keep the Russian nuclear weapons in working condition. The Russian deterrence system was also in total disarray - the early warning radars were gone to the newly independent Republics, the early warning satellites were reaching the end of their lives and no new ones were sent up, the Russian military secrets were exported to the USA by the ton - and yet even in these horrible circumstances the Russians never let their weapon of last resort (intercontinental nukes) go offline. Even at the peak of the "democratic horror" of Eltsin and his oligarchs, the US knew that Russia could - and would - strike back if attacked.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Why the US-Russian nuclear balance is as solid as ever