US Nuclear Weapons Testing To Resume For First Time in Over 30 Years (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0179915502
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/10/30/155217/us-nuclear-weapons-testing-to-resume-for-first-time-in-over-30-years
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzq2p0yk4o
> President Trump has directed the Department of War to [2]restart nuclear weapons testing . The directive appears to be a counter measure to rival nations catching up with the US. The last US nuclear test was an underground test, on September 23, 1992, in Nevada.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~hadleyburg
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzq2p0yk4o
Ah yes (Score:3, Funny)
Nobel prize candidate cheeto claims to be the most peaceful president and wants to set up nukes.
Re:Ah yes (Score:4)
Ukraine handed over its nukes after the fall of the soviet union. So peaceful there.
Re: (Score:1)
> Ukraine handed over its nukes after the fall of the soviet union. So peaceful there.
They also received assurances from both the US and Russia about economic and security support in exchange for giving up the weapons. Those assurances did not age well.
Re: (Score:3)
By letting Ukraine fall to Russia that is exactly the message that is being sent. "Get your own nukes or a stronger country will invade and the rest of world will not stop in to stop it"
Re: (Score:2)
Just compare how America treats Middle-East countries they know don't have nukes to North Korea (who either does or is bluffing extremely well).
Re: Ah yes (Score:2)
They got security guarantees from US, UK and Russia for doing it. So US and UK should defend them right now...
Re: (Score:2)
I'm willing to bet high dollars there'd be no Ukraine war going on right now if Ukraine hadn't given up their nuclear weapons. The reality is nuclear weapons are such a terrible, destructive weapon that they bring peace. The Cuban Missile Crisis hammered that home to the world.
Re: (Score:2)
That makes the assumption there'd be a Ukraine at all.
It would have upped the pressure for Russia to take Ukraine before they got the nukes working.
Maybe Russia was too much a mess to do it by that time, maybe not.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure how old you are, but I remember going through this time period quite vividly. The people who knew how to launch the nukes were in proximity to the nukes. There were also mobile launchers all over the place (Watch the movie Spies Like Us to see what one would loo like). You can also watch "Lord of War", which gives a pretty good description of what was going on in the just collapsed USSR. The entire thing fell apart, so you are right that all of the various Soviet republics, including russia, we
Re: (Score:2)
That mess is what made Putin getting elected possible.
At least it lead to an election. Under the USSR, you'd have no say what-so-ever WRT to the people controlling you.
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Exactly! Here in civilized countries we choose our dictators.
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> It would have upped the pressure for Russia to take Ukraine before they got the nukes working.
The nukes were already working, when Ukraine got independent in 1992. They were the old Soviet nukes which happened to be located on Ukrainian territory. In the Budapest agreement, Ukraine voluntarily transferred their nukes to Russia in exchange for Russian warranty to respect Ukrainian autonomy, which President Putin broke in 2014, when he occupied Crimea and staged an uprising in Eastern Ukraine.
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The context is that nukes actually bring peace because of how terrible they are. It's known as MAD (mutually assured destruction). MAD has brought a level of relative peace that hasn't existed ever in the history of mankind.
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> The reality is nuclear weapons are such a terrible, destructive weapon that they bring peace. The Cuban Missile Crisis hammered that home to the world.
The lesson of world history where nukes are concerned is best explained by survivorship bias.
Does anyone know how? (Score:2)
Even if the people who know how didn't move on over the last few decades, surely they would have been fired some time in the last few months as part of the overall effort to weaken the US economy, health, and defenses.
Is there anyone left who knows how to do the job? Can they be hired back , after the Epstein shutdown is over?
Awesome! (Score:5, Funny)
I was starting to think the levels of existential dread were starting to deplete a little. You can only keep yourself amped up over an existential threat for as long as it takes for it to become the norm. It was about time we found a way to stoke those flames again.
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i think his strategy is the madman theory playing out and its all intentional.
Fearmongering headlines for the win (Score:5, Insightful)
First, the president, per usual, doesn't really understand what he's talking about - DOD doesn't do nuclear tests, DOE does that. However, he may have just been sloppy in his language (what else is new), as he clearly related it to the "tests" of other countries, which have been tests of _weapon systems_, not warheads. The US tests weapon systems that can deliver nuclear weapons _all the time_ - even if you restrict that to nuclear-only systems like SLBMs and ICBMs. It will not have been 30 years since we tested such a system - it will have been barely over a month (the US tested 4 Trident D5LE missiles in late september).
This benefits Russia and China (Score:2)
Testing of nuclear weapons among the major nuclear powers tapered off with the end of the Cold War and the international norm against testing creates a real disincentive to test, even in well contained, underground scenarios.
Back when testing wasn't so taboo the United States had a HUGE advantage in terms of the measurement and recording of test data. That advantage stemmed from computing advantages which have since ebbed. Normalizing live testing gives Russia and China an opportunity to catch up with tha
Re: (Score:2)
I imagine it benefits China but not Russia. I seriously doubt Russia's stockpile is in better shape than the US. The only variable is how much data Russia has gotten from assisting NK testing.
What does this mean? (Score:2)
> Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis
The Russians and the Chinese are not firing off nukes. I hope this is about delivery vehicles and not underground nuclear detonations. Being handicapped to numerical simulation and nonproliferation treaty workarounds (e.g. NIF) hurts other countries more than it hurts the US.
Sorry, which department? (Score:4, Informative)
> President Trump has directed the Department of War...
I know the President and warrior-bro Hegseth like to pretend otherwise, but it's still actually called the Department of Defense. Actually changing the name would require passing a law. Wasting [1]hundreds of millions [the-independent.com] to change the signs and letterhead doesn't count.
[1] https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-department-of-war-executive-order-cost-b2821593.html
Mixed emotions (Score:2)
From a proliferation and environmental standpoint I think it is a shame... but from an engineering perspective it is necessary if we are going to continue to rely on the arsenal. The question is if it will be dick waving or fundamental engineering testing.
FTFY (Score:2)
> President Trump has directed the Department of Defense to restart nuclear weapons testing. The directive appears to be a counter measure to rival nations catching up with the US. The last US nuclear test was an underground test, on September 23, 1992, in Nevada.
Gaumont already moving (Score:2)
This is great, Gaumont is already looking for actors, the script is already there and being polished
The action happens mostly in France where the unwilling hero, a scientist really, finds himself having to track a giant frog that eats people instead of being eaten by them !
I don't have all the details, but he will be helped by some mysterious gringo james-bondesque guy in this task.
Turns out, the giant creature is the result of some terrible mutation of some otherwise inoffensive and delicious frog beca
Good (Score:1, Insightful)
They're very old and we don't know if they still work.
Re: (Score:1)
Sounds like you're volunteering your property.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
> They're very old and we don't know if they still work.
Since the point of nuclear weapons is to keep them as a threat of massive retaliation, the important thing is to make sure that the opponents don't know whether they don't work.
If you ever have to use them... they failed to do their job.
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That has nothing to do with this. Things like bullets and warheads expire all the time for the US military, that's why we make replacements for them.
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Nobody is making replacement warheads in the US.
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Doh, you're correct. Bad assumption by me there. Never the less we are regularly refurbishing our current stock.
Plus, we would have to detonate a lot of warheads to get a proper idea on how all our old 20th century warheads are doing, particularly since from what I'm seeing there are 7 different designs for them. Each would need to be tested multiple times to get a proper idea on what the status of all of them is. Even with underground testing that's a rather concerning amount of radiation released into the
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Pit production at Los Alamos is about 1/year. A new facility should be ready by 2027 in Aiken, SC that can produce 30-50 pits per year.
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Why do people assume this means detonating nukes?
This is Trump, why do people assume this isn't just a negotiating tactic?
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Because Democrats are cats and he's the world's largest laser pointer.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Because not every single thing he says can or should be just handwaved "oh it's just a negotiating tactic". At some point the fucking President of the United States should be able to speak clearly. Why is global diplomacy being negotiated on Truth Social posts?
We need to stop covering for his stupidity. Stop being scared of "TDS" because the people who will accuse of that will do it over anything at all and have used it to normalize absolutely dogshit and stupid things like this.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Because of people saving that, he got elected again. The US voters wanted less immigrants and financial stability. But they didn't want trade wars and tariffs increasing inflation - but he said he would do it, and they voted him in anyway, because they were so used to him saying all kinds of things, but he actually believes in much of it.
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I wholeheartedly agree - the only way to know for sure that a nuclear warhead works is to test it. Therefore, we should test all of our warheads just to be safe.