What would be so terrible about Ukraine becoming a neutral country like Austria after WWII?
> If the West fails to meet its security demands, Moscow could take measures like placing nuclear missiles close to the U.S. coastline, Russian officials have hinted.
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>In an apparent reference to the American capital, he [Putin] added: “The flight time to reach those who give the orders will also be five minutes.”
Russia has nuclear ballistic missile submarines. As long as the Kremlin considers them to not be detectable, they can already place nuclear missiles close to the US coastline. They can launch the missiles at depressed trajectories to decrease time until target. This isn’t something new.
> SLBMs (sea-launched ballistic missiles) flown on depressed trajectories would have short flight times, comparable to escape times of bombers and launch times of ICBMs, thus raising the possibility of short time-of-flight (STOF) nuclear attacks. We assess the depressed trajectory (DT) capability of existing SLBMs by calculating the flight times, atmospheric loading on the booster, reentry heating on the reentry vehicle (RV), and degradation of accuracy for a DT SLBM. We find that current US and CIS SLBMs flown on depressed trajectories would have the capability to attack bomber bases at ranges of up to about 2,000 kilometers, and possibly at ranges up to 3,000 kilometers. To target bombers based furthest inland, a new high-velocity booster might be required, and attacking hardened targets would require a maneuvering RV (MaRV).
That is, from a US standpoint, Russia already has warheads functionally at the coastline with the ability to quickly hit Washington, DC.
*googles for how many subs are at sea at any one time*
>The Navy’s 14 *Ohio*-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) carry Trident II D5 SLBMs. The D5 SLBM will be replaced in 2017 by “D5LE” missiles with greater longevity, accuracy, and flexibility. The D5LE will arm the Ohio-class submarines until the end of their service life in 2042. Of the 14 submarines, 12 are considered operational; however minor repairs and an overhaul rotation mean that only 8-10 are at sea at any given time.
So on the US side, you’re talking 8 to 10 *Ohio*-class submarines. Each carry 24 Trident SLBMs. Each Trident SLBM carries 14 warheads. That’s an aggregate capacity of something like 2,688 warheads with a yield of 100 kilotons each. That’s what’s on the table even if we assume that Russia manages to destroy all land- and air-based and all not-at-sea sea-based US nuclear weapons in a surprise attack. Unless Russia can detect and kill those submarines prior to their counterlaunch, Russia being willing to perform a surprise launch against the US means Russia needs to be willing to absorb a counterstrike from those submarines. It is unlikely that the Kremlin will consider this an acceptable cost.
Deterrence today doesn’t rely on acting within a long flight time.
For Russia to be able to hit the US and walk away, it would need to possess [first-strike capability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-emptive_nuclear_strike) against the US, the ability to destroy the US nuclear arsenal — including the submarine-based weapons — in its initial strike. It is unlikely that Russia possesses this capability today. If Russia *did* possess such a capability, my guess is that one of two things would be true, neither of which we have seen.
* Russia would have been open about this capability and demonstrated the mechanisms that comprise it in a way verifiable to the US, so that the first-strike capability could be used for leverage.
* Russia would have not indicated the ability and simply kept it as an ace up the sleeve to use without warning (and would not be threatening to station submarines offshore and leaking that information).
Russia is unlikely to actually release information about where they are stationing their ballistic missile submarines, as it would increase risk that the US could locate them, defeating the purpose of having the submarines hidden and the weapons on submarines in the first place.
Not only that, as long as the US cannot verify the location of Russia’s ballistic missile submarines (again, verifying the location would render the purpose of using SLBMs irrelevant, so that won’t be an option), it’s useless for Russia to use the stationing of their submarines for leverage purposes; there’d be no way for the US to know that Russia was conforming to any agreement where it agreed to keep the subs away from the US’s coastline.
So I’m going to go with this being public theater, probably for the benefit of the Russian public. Maybe to try to get a reaction elsewhere.
I’m thinking if Russia uses nukes the rest of the world would be too scared to even react.
3 comments
What would be so terrible about Ukraine becoming a neutral country like Austria after WWII?
> If the West fails to meet its security demands, Moscow could take measures like placing nuclear missiles close to the U.S. coastline, Russian officials have hinted.
–
>In an apparent reference to the American capital, he [Putin] added: “The flight time to reach those who give the orders will also be five minutes.”
Russia has nuclear ballistic missile submarines. As long as the Kremlin considers them to not be detectable, they can already place nuclear missiles close to the US coastline. They can launch the missiles at depressed trajectories to decrease time until target. This isn’t something new.
*googles*
Here’s a paper from 1992.
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6597947-depressed-trajectory-slbms-technical-evaluation-arms-control-possibilities
> SLBMs (sea-launched ballistic missiles) flown on depressed trajectories would have short flight times, comparable to escape times of bombers and launch times of ICBMs, thus raising the possibility of short time-of-flight (STOF) nuclear attacks. We assess the depressed trajectory (DT) capability of existing SLBMs by calculating the flight times, atmospheric loading on the booster, reentry heating on the reentry vehicle (RV), and degradation of accuracy for a DT SLBM. We find that current US and CIS SLBMs flown on depressed trajectories would have the capability to attack bomber bases at ranges of up to about 2,000 kilometers, and possibly at ranges up to 3,000 kilometers. To target bombers based furthest inland, a new high-velocity booster might be required, and attacking hardened targets would require a maneuvering RV (MaRV).
That is, from a US standpoint, Russia already has warheads functionally at the coastline with the ability to quickly hit Washington, DC.
*googles for how many subs are at sea at any one time*
https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/united-states-nuclear/
>The Navy’s 14 *Ohio*-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) carry Trident II D5 SLBMs. The D5 SLBM will be replaced in 2017 by “D5LE” missiles with greater longevity, accuracy, and flexibility. The D5LE will arm the Ohio-class submarines until the end of their service life in 2042. Of the 14 submarines, 12 are considered operational; however minor repairs and an overhaul rotation mean that only 8-10 are at sea at any given time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II
So on the US side, you’re talking 8 to 10 *Ohio*-class submarines. Each carry 24 Trident SLBMs. Each Trident SLBM carries 14 warheads. That’s an aggregate capacity of something like 2,688 warheads with a yield of 100 kilotons each. That’s what’s on the table even if we assume that Russia manages to destroy all land- and air-based and all not-at-sea sea-based US nuclear weapons in a surprise attack. Unless Russia can detect and kill those submarines prior to their counterlaunch, Russia being willing to perform a surprise launch against the US means Russia needs to be willing to absorb a counterstrike from those submarines. It is unlikely that the Kremlin will consider this an acceptable cost.
Deterrence today doesn’t rely on acting within a long flight time.
For Russia to be able to hit the US and walk away, it would need to possess [first-strike capability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-emptive_nuclear_strike) against the US, the ability to destroy the US nuclear arsenal — including the submarine-based weapons — in its initial strike. It is unlikely that Russia possesses this capability today. If Russia *did* possess such a capability, my guess is that one of two things would be true, neither of which we have seen.
* Russia would have been open about this capability and demonstrated the mechanisms that comprise it in a way verifiable to the US, so that the first-strike capability could be used for leverage.
* Russia would have not indicated the ability and simply kept it as an ace up the sleeve to use without warning (and would not be threatening to station submarines offshore and leaking that information).
Russia is unlikely to actually release information about where they are stationing their ballistic missile submarines, as it would increase risk that the US could locate them, defeating the purpose of having the submarines hidden and the weapons on submarines in the first place.
Not only that, as long as the US cannot verify the location of Russia’s ballistic missile submarines (again, verifying the location would render the purpose of using SLBMs irrelevant, so that won’t be an option), it’s useless for Russia to use the stationing of their submarines for leverage purposes; there’d be no way for the US to know that Russia was conforming to any agreement where it agreed to keep the subs away from the US’s coastline.
So I’m going to go with this being public theater, probably for the benefit of the Russian public. Maybe to try to get a reaction elsewhere.
I’m thinking if Russia uses nukes the rest of the world would be too scared to even react.