February 5, 2020

US New Low-Yield Nukes Also To Be Aimed at China

See "China" two-thirds the way down.

US Government funded RadioFreeEuropeRadioLiberty February 5, 2020 reports:

“U.S. Deploys New, Low-Yield Nuclear Submarine Warhead To Deter Russia”

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Navy announced it has put into operation a low-yield, nuclear ballistic missile aboard a submarine [called submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)] as it seeks to deter adversaries like Russia.

This supplemental capability strengthens deterrence and provides the United States a prompt, more survivable low-yield strategic weapon; supports our commitment to extended deterrence,” Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood said in a statement on Feb. 4.

The administration of President Donald Trump first announced its intention to deploy the W76-2 low-yield weapon in February 2018 after a review concluded there was a perception of a gap in U.S. deterrence capabilities.

The Nuclear Posture Review concluded that Russia has a strategy known as "escalate to de-escalate," in which the Kremlin would use or threaten to use low-yield nuclear weapons in a limited conventional conflict in Europe to compel the United States and NATO to back down.

"Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear to lower the threshold for Moscow's first-use of nuclear weapons," the 2018 review said.

Democrats in the House of Representatives criticized the deployment of the W76-2 as “dangerous” and said the Pentagon has refused to answer Congressional questions about the weapon.

“The deployment of this warhead does nothing to make Americans safer. Instead, this destabilizing deployment further increases the potential for miscalculation during a crisis,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (Democrat-Washington) said in a statement.

Russia would not be able to determine if a weapon launched from a nuclear submarine is low-yield or not, adversaries say.

[Some define the upper limit of "low-yield" as "50 kilotons"].

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) [January 29, 2020 estimated] the W76-2 has an explosive yield of about five kilotons [equivalent to the explosive energy released by five thousand tonnes of TNTcompared with 90 kilotons for the W76-1. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of about 15 kilotons. 

The United States already has about 1,000 low-yield, nuclear weapons that can be delivered by fighter jets, FAS said. Advocates for the new submarine-based weapon say that the fighters might not be able to penetrate Russian air space.

FAS said that despite the focus on deploying the weapon to deter Russian aggression, the real target “is much more likely” to be North Korea or Iran.”

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FAS further commentedJanuary 29, 2020:

“The first ballistic missile submarine scheduled to deploy with the new warhead was the USSTennessee (SSBN-734), which deployed from Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia [USA] during the final weeks of 2019 for a deterrent patrol in the Atlantic Ocean.... We estimate that one or two of the 20 missiles on the USS Tennessee and subsequent subs will be armed with the W76-2, either singly or carrying multiple warheads...The National Security Strategy and the NPR both describe a role for nuclear weapons against “non-nuclear strategic attacks, and large-scale conventional aggression.” [hence, so far not nuclear armed Iran becomes a possible target].

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Pete Comment

As well as intending Russia, North Korea and Iran as targets the US also may have China in mind. China may see no US equivalent to its new (probably low-yield) DF-21D anti-ship ballitic missile and DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missile. China may hope the US would hesitate to use standard higher yield 90 kiloton SLBM warheads to retaliate against DF-21D and DF-26 missiles based 100s kms inland on the Chinese mainland. US low-yield SLBMs would provide a proportionate rather than escalating US response.

China may assume that low-yield "carrier killing" DF-21D ballistic missiles may only need 5 kilotons yield to destroy US Nimitz or Ford class carriers - at the same time detroying some escort vessels in the carrier group.

Another emerging Chinese low-yield candidate may be the DF-26 with sufficient range to be "Guam busting" . Perhaps one destroying the US Naval Base Guam which hosts nuclear Submarine Squadron 15 (with 4 US SSNs). Another DF-26 might destroy the nuclear bomber capable Andersen Air Force Base on Guam which hosts B-2s (temporarily), B-1Bs and B-52s more permanently.

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Low-yield concepts overlap with the "limited nuclear strike" concept that the US explored in the 1970s but then was rejected by the Carter Administration. 

The Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 2012 reported :

"THAT America could launch a limited nuclear strike against Russia was a fashionable belief in US strategic theory of the 1970s. Policymakers thought that if Cold War tensions boiled over, they could hit selected Soviet targets in a way that controlled further escalation and forced Moscow to back down."

"Among the first targets would be the other side's command and control centres - its eyes and ears. Once blinded, a superpower - consisting of real people responding with human instincts - would not distinguish a ''controlled'' strike from a full-scale attack and would retaliate with everything it had."


Pete Comment

But that Sydney Morning Herald was written before North Korea became a nuclear threat and Iran a potential nuclear threat. Also China had not developed (likely) low-yield DF-21D and DF-26 ballistic missiles. 

Pete

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Pete,

Can this be of interest Time for corvettes for the Royal Australian Navy

/Kjell


ghalibkabir said...

Hi Pete,

I fervently hope the Chinese think better than to assume 'low yield weapons against a Ford class carrier' will elicit a 'proportional US response'... or heaven forbid they come up with a mind boggling scheme to destroy 4 SSNs at Guam at one go

That is the thing about nuclear weapons. there is nothing called a tactical nuke. it may be there in books, but no such thing exists in reality...

as I mentioned in some of my earlier posts, the very use or a serious unsaid intent to deploy say a DF-21D with a single digit kT yield warhead will not occur in isolation. Things must be pretty awful already in such an eventuality.

Furthermore, the US or any nation hit by a nuke attack will not do 'proportional' retaliation, it is a rubicon that is never crossed or crossed with the full knowledge
that such a step will invite massive retaliation. China is very strong, but I seriously doubt if the PLAAN/PLAAF top brass thinks precipitating a situation involving the destruction of a 100,000 ton nuclear carrier is a wise thing to do (even in war).

For the same reason, I think the employment of low yield nukes on an US SSN is a needlessly provocative and ultimately futile gesture. It is quite hard to conceive of a situation or any ORBAT that claims such a thing to be feasible. As things stand, China will still get pulped if it goes toe to toe with the US and we might as well kiss civilization good bye..

The US House Armed Services committee seems to have appreciated this issue better than that drongo squatting in the WH or for that matter, his gormless knaves in the senate.

Happy/Thankful to be disproved on my theory or taught to the contrary..

Pete said...

Hi /Kjell [at February 6, 2020 at 7:47 AM]

For whatever reason the author of https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/time-for-corvettes-for-the-royal-australian-navy/ is ignoring Australia's corvette sized Arafura-class offshore patrol vessel (OPV) under development - with 12 to be built.

See https://www.navy.gov.au/fleet/ships-boats-craft/future/opv . Two are being built in Adelaide and then 10 in the Perth area.

Later Arafura OPVs can be upgunned and mount missiles if need be or retrofitting can take place.

Regards

Pete

Pete said...

Hi ghalibkabir [at February 6, 2020 at 8:19 PM]

All through the Cold War the 3 major powers US, Soviet-Russia and China exercised proportional responses in such places as the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Each side was aware of eg:

- Soviet pilots flying "North Korean" jets against US jetfighters
- US forces fought a limited war against Chinese forces in Korea without spreading the war into China
- Soviet crews manning and coordinating Soviet supplied SAMs against US aircraft in the Vietnam War

Given the Korean examples I think most of the US low-yield posturing is directed at North Korea.

Also the posturing is to remind Iran that if Iran goea to the huge effort ("eats grass") to develop nukes it may just make Iran more of a nuclear target rather than strengthening Iran agaist regime change.

But you're right about China. China may well try to achieve nuclear parity with the US over the next 30 years. So China won't go to all that effort only to be limited by non-existent "low-yield rules".

Pete

ghalibkabir said...

my point was limited to the fact that the concept of 'proportional response' against a so called 'tactical or low yield battlefield' nuke strike is non-existent. That too any direct nuke-strike of any yield against a strategic asset like a CVN or a SSN base will elicit a 'pulp the b*st*ds' response.

Against conventional pin pricks, your point above is valid, ala NK or Vietnam by the USSR, the US response was also conventional (Chemical warfare..erm we will let that be).. ditto by India against pakistan and the US against the Soviets in Afghan in the late 1980s...


With Iran or NK, I don't know... NK has called trumpy's bluff many times over and the Iranians won't blink and I think the Saudis and Israelis will find a nuclear attack in their neighborhood to be unpalatable. No one wants a ruined Iran with instability radiating into pakistan in the east and the fertile crescent in the west (as if it needed any more ruining than has been already visited upon it)

China: The Chinese already have a huge range of yields to choose from, from < 20 kT to 20-100 kT to a MIRV standard 150 kT to over a 1 MT, that parity is already there or nearly there with the US.. they are matched missile to missile be it CJ-10 to BGM-109 or DF-41 to Trident DII

But the point remains, how will they use it in a way that yields an overall net positive result? and that too against an adversary like the US? the answer has to be a Nyet for now

a tactical strike by China will invite a much bigger US retaliation
a strategic strike will invite a global civilization ending retaliation.

All this nuclear 'viagra' making is useless if the aim is to create a 'well endowed' strategic strike policy 'eunuch' (an oxymoron if one ever existed)

Sad to see the world has learnt nothing from the Cold War or drawn the exact wrong lessons.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pete

As many Chinese as there are, one might as well go big or go home. For one, the delivery vehicle is the same whether it is large yield or small yield and the warheads are the same size. So, as you pointed out, the response will probably be full scale retaliation.

Secondly, you want that firepower to kill as many Chinese as possible so they don't invade your shores. I'm not sure why we are downsizing unless it's to make more delivery vehicles because the bang probably isn't worth the buck when all is considered even though as you pointed out the idea is to kill their command structures while leaving most of their society intact.

I would have thought the smaller warheads would be used with purpose built delivery vehicles rather than as part of a MIRV cluster on a Trident missile, something like a Tomahawk cruise missile or IRBM. Possibly it just shows a further deterioration of the
US in matters of policy and strategic thinking.

Pete said...

Hi ghalibkabir [at February 7, 2020 at 2:49 PM]

Yes. Lets hope its all talk and posturing (by the US) rather than an expectation that nuclear war can be limited.

Pete

Pete said...

Hi Anonymous [at February 7, 2020 at 6:18 PM]

Contrary to my previous statements...

Indeed, there's that everpresent risk that nuclear armed target country "A" cannot discriminate between 10 kT warheads approaching and 100 kT or even higher yield warheads.

That is no matter whether the delivery vehicle approaching "A" is a Trident MIRV, Tomahawk, SRBM, MRBM, IRBM, ICBM MIRV or B-2 delivered freefall nuclear bombs.

Even if the first impact on "A" is "merely" 10 kT there is no guaranteed that subsequent impacts will be limited to 10 kT.

Regards

Pete

ghalibkabir said...

With trump it is all about the old texan adage 'all hat and no cattle'... if it comes to crunch time and the adversary is a stout chap, he will back down quietly (like all school yard bullies). Against a hapless iraq or a syria or a yemen.. the braggadocio will be in full flow

it is a bi-polar world (hopefully not in the mental sense and only the US-Chinese sense) and the US is no longer the unchallenged numero uno

the next 30-40 years might see the post WW-2 order undergo some re-arrangements at least...the UK likely reduced to a even more hapless/gormless US poodle with the security council seat coming into play as the UK substantially weakens in geopolitical terms.

One hopes a combination of long term stagflation, income inequality exacerbation and climate problems etc etc do not lead to wars over water, rare metals and all...

War in the next few decades is a real possibility and it is a pity humans are rather like their primate ancestors in this respect...prone to meaningless conflict from time to time

Pete said...

Hi ghalibkabir

I can only add to your February 11, 2020 at 2:47 PM comments.

Trumps erratic nature puts all on edge - inside and outside the US.

I would say its a tri-polar world (US, China and Russia). Russia due to Russia's still large nuclear weapons stockpile and Putin's skill at power politics generally and gaming an implausibly beholden Trump in particular. India may become the fourth leg in a "quad-polar" world in 2-3 decades.

More international wars, more civil war and mass refugee flows due to too many people, competing for limited resources and air + water pollution further constraining those limited resource levels. Two "resources" being healthy/unpolluted food and healthy places for Chinese to live (eg. in Australia and NZ).

UK and France falling behind the other P5 security councils members. And falling behind India.

From chimps ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War ) and 3 odd million years of human history mini-wars have grown larger.

Pete

Pete said...

Hi again ghalibkabir

Here's a funny:

"Statement from [Trump's] Press Secretary Announcing President Donald J. Trump’s Upcoming Travel to India"

Issued on: February 10, 2020 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-announcing-president-donald-j-trumps-upcoming-travel-india/

"President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will visit India on February 24 – 25, 2020. The President and The First Lady will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad, which is in Prime Minister Modi’s home state of Gujarat and played such an important role in Mahatma Gandhi’s life and leadership of the Indian independence movement. During a phone call over the weekend, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi agreed the trip will further strengthen the United States-India strategic partnership and highlight the strong and enduring bonds between the American and Indian people."

Pete Comment

Notwithstanding the Press Release I doubt Trump has even heard of Mahatma Gandhi. If Mahatma Gandhi were living today in the US I'm sure Trump would consider him a socialist-liberal subversive and would have locked Mahatma Gandhi up.

ghalibkabir said...

RE: your February 12, 2020 at 7:42 PM Comment
trump will not be familiar with M K Gandhi's 1920s quote : Mahatma Gandhi — 'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.'

This was specifically directed at the cultural genocide carried out by aggressive missionaries who still continue to preach intolerance in India.

One look at fake religious louts mike pence, trump, Australia's very own morrison etc. only confirms the variations of the above he wrote at least 6 times between 1921 and 1939. He was fiercely against proselytization and the 'cultural orphaning' of Indians.

PS: Gandhi like most Gujaratis comes from a state known for entrepreneurship. He was overall center-right and would have pragmatically leaned 'left' on a few matters. He was unabashedly pro-business and was indeed assassinated on 30/01/1948 at the house of noted industrialist Ghanshyam Das Birla (Birla is as hallowed a name as Tata and Ambani).

He was no socialist in the true sense of the word (as much as the congress party may have tried to rewrite that legacy since the 1960s and continue to flog lies in his name)

Reading his original words is something almost no one does including India's 'famed' 'pseudo-intellectual liberals' aka 'Lutyens Gang' who blather/'pontificate' to others 24x7. Oddly enough he fits the definition of secular hindu nationalist till this day (something that was also a bone of contention with jinnah in the 1930s-1940s)..

May be grade 8 to 10 history and civics textbooks ought to be made compulsory reading for all these drongos who exhibit the worst sort of ignorance on a T-Rex scale.

Pete said...

Hi ghalibkabir

Mahatma Gandhi may have something there. So many "Christians" - such as those who enjoy political power and the gold encrusted fixtures of the Vatican - forget Christ's message of poverty.

Our own "Scotty from Marketing" Morrison is an angel compared to Trump.

About Pence I don't know. Its difficult to tell if he's alive or a mannequin escapee from Madame Tussauds.

On Mahatma Gandhi my views were mainly governed by Western revisionism (conveyed by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi_(film) ) which projected him as a saint like, Dhoti wearing organiser of "peasants, farmers, and urban labourers" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi ) against British (though not US) imperialism.

But as you say the reality is much more complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi#Principles,_practices_and_beliefs

Yes it pays to read what leaders or the famous actually said or wrote rather than politically revised views.

So as you say even Indian revisionism painted him as a socialist "He was no socialist in the true sense of the word (as much as the congress party may have tried to rewrite that legacy since the 1960s and continue to flog lies in his name)"

When Trump (and his current supermodel) visits in a weeks time
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-announcing-president-donald-j-trumps-upcoming-travel-india/ Trump will paint India as a fighting in WWII shoulder-to-shoulder with America, with the implication that India is ever reliant on American leadership, rather than a country that was, and is, non-aligned.

BTW: To the Australianism "drongo" can be added nong, galah and twerp :)

Pete