Of course, I’d prefer not to find out, but I think it’s a worthy thought exercise to consider whether, based on what we know about Russian military corruption and shoddy maintenance, these things still function.
I've had this discussion at various times over the last year or two.
As you note it isn't just the warheads that are an issue, there's also the delivery missiles and those are not even close to reliable. We know that Russia sees significant numbers of missiles fail to launch correctly (or at all) fail to go in the right direction for long enough etc. There are so many things that have to work perfectly to get a nuke to explode more or less on target with a proper bang. The launch has to work, the missile has to go in the right direction, the various bits of the trigger have to activate at precisely the right times and the actual fission bomb material has to actually be fissionable and not swapped out for DU and sold to the Norks or Iranians. I don't know what the chances of each are but there's a long chain of things that have to go perfectly and as you note Russia has a history of corruption and shoddy maintenance so the probability that each fails is moderately high. Maybe the cummulative probability of no failures (i.e. successful boom) is 50%, maybe it is 70%, maybe it is 20%. We just don't know. More critically no one in Russia knows either.
A dud nuke launch is absolutely a disaster for Russia. If a nuke is detected as being launched and it then fails to explode properly over somewhere that is a plausible target then Russia's nuclear deterrence threat goes up in smoke because, as you point out, Russia has only one option after that and that is mass launch using the calculation that at least some of them will work. The issue here is that Russian nuke crews will know that a mass launch is happening and may decide not to obey orders because they can see how they and everyone they love gets killed by the return mass strike.
A smart Putin (and he probably is this smart) can do enough of the same calculation to figure that it is better to threaten retaliation rather than actually try and do some
I have been thinking exactly this for a while. I hope our intelligence services can detect a frantic campaign of quality checks in Russia to sort functional from non-functional nukes. I would bet good money that such a project was started at least a year ago.
Imagine the embarrassment of Putin launching a nuke that fizzles. It would require some expensive “broken arrow” cleanup by NATO, but no extensive damage.
Obviously we don’t want a nuclear exchange. I honestly doubt that Putin wants one either. It would destroy his precious Russia along with all their targets.
If all else fails, we can hope the current Russian officers in control of their nukes have the same sanity that saved the world at least twice from Soviet forces launching attacks in error.
On the other hand, there apparently is reason to believe that the Soviet era Dead Hand doomsday system is still active…
It’s all scary as hell and makes me wonder if it really is the solution to Fermi’s Paradox.
Super-interesting article. I'm leaning more to the rust and theft theory than you are 🙏 I do worry about what type of nukes they have, exactly. Old cold-war nukes? I'm told modern ones can destroy smaller targets with less radioactive collateral damage. Is that correct, and would the russians have those? I have no doubt our espionage people know more than us. I wonder if they've noticed an uptick in purchases of materials necessary for nuclear weapons from Russia or other russia-friendly states.
I'd be happy to bet the farm that Pootie hasn't already tried a tactical nuke in Kerson/Ukraine/Godonlyknows because a failure there and it's bluff certified/game over.
Well, I also agree with this premise, but I also see Boeing Astronauts stranded, so perhaps they may feel the same about us. They seem to get people into space, so it may be where they put their focus, as it's not about the slaughter of their own soldiers, which of course, they have always been very good at. If you cannot control the kill chain with multitudes, you may be able to do it with a button. Well written as always!
The amount of corruption in a specific area depends on the risks and reward. When it comes to tritium, the risk of getting caught is very low - it is not at all easy to check that it has been done - and the rewards are high.
But it only takes a few to work to be very very bad.
The tactical nukes do not require anywhere near the same amount of maintenance, so probably a lot more of them are functional. And these are the ones most likely to be used.
I've had this discussion at various times over the last year or two.
As you note it isn't just the warheads that are an issue, there's also the delivery missiles and those are not even close to reliable. We know that Russia sees significant numbers of missiles fail to launch correctly (or at all) fail to go in the right direction for long enough etc. There are so many things that have to work perfectly to get a nuke to explode more or less on target with a proper bang. The launch has to work, the missile has to go in the right direction, the various bits of the trigger have to activate at precisely the right times and the actual fission bomb material has to actually be fissionable and not swapped out for DU and sold to the Norks or Iranians. I don't know what the chances of each are but there's a long chain of things that have to go perfectly and as you note Russia has a history of corruption and shoddy maintenance so the probability that each fails is moderately high. Maybe the cummulative probability of no failures (i.e. successful boom) is 50%, maybe it is 70%, maybe it is 20%. We just don't know. More critically no one in Russia knows either.
A dud nuke launch is absolutely a disaster for Russia. If a nuke is detected as being launched and it then fails to explode properly over somewhere that is a plausible target then Russia's nuclear deterrence threat goes up in smoke because, as you point out, Russia has only one option after that and that is mass launch using the calculation that at least some of them will work. The issue here is that Russian nuke crews will know that a mass launch is happening and may decide not to obey orders because they can see how they and everyone they love gets killed by the return mass strike.
A smart Putin (and he probably is this smart) can do enough of the same calculation to figure that it is better to threaten retaliation rather than actually try and do some
I have been thinking exactly this for a while. I hope our intelligence services can detect a frantic campaign of quality checks in Russia to sort functional from non-functional nukes. I would bet good money that such a project was started at least a year ago.
Imagine the embarrassment of Putin launching a nuke that fizzles. It would require some expensive “broken arrow” cleanup by NATO, but no extensive damage.
Obviously we don’t want a nuclear exchange. I honestly doubt that Putin wants one either. It would destroy his precious Russia along with all their targets.
If all else fails, we can hope the current Russian officers in control of their nukes have the same sanity that saved the world at least twice from Soviet forces launching attacks in error.
On the other hand, there apparently is reason to believe that the Soviet era Dead Hand doomsday system is still active…
It’s all scary as hell and makes me wonder if it really is the solution to Fermi’s Paradox.
Super-interesting article. I'm leaning more to the rust and theft theory than you are 🙏 I do worry about what type of nukes they have, exactly. Old cold-war nukes? I'm told modern ones can destroy smaller targets with less radioactive collateral damage. Is that correct, and would the russians have those? I have no doubt our espionage people know more than us. I wonder if they've noticed an uptick in purchases of materials necessary for nuclear weapons from Russia or other russia-friendly states.
I'd be happy to bet the farm that Pootie hasn't already tried a tactical nuke in Kerson/Ukraine/Godonlyknows because a failure there and it's bluff certified/game over.
Well, I also agree with this premise, but I also see Boeing Astronauts stranded, so perhaps they may feel the same about us. They seem to get people into space, so it may be where they put their focus, as it's not about the slaughter of their own soldiers, which of course, they have always been very good at. If you cannot control the kill chain with multitudes, you may be able to do it with a button. Well written as always!
The amount of corruption in a specific area depends on the risks and reward. When it comes to tritium, the risk of getting caught is very low - it is not at all easy to check that it has been done - and the rewards are high.
But it only takes a few to work to be very very bad.
The tactical nukes do not require anywhere near the same amount of maintenance, so probably a lot more of them are functional. And these are the ones most likely to be used.
“After us - silence”
Yikes!