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Subject: Nuclear Weapons Industry and Levels of Deterrent
Roman    10/2/2004 8:38:22 PM
The main part of my question involves nuclear weapons industry. An excellent response on this was provided to a similar question of mine by french_stratege perhaps a year or so ago and I deeply regrett not archiving the thread, because now it has dissappeared... In any case, I will definitely archive this one! So... what is the minimum level nuclear and other industry you need to manufacture nuclear weapons through all levels of production (from mining the material to actual weaponization)? What about the manpower requirements (how many nuclear engineers, technicians and other personnel would be needed?) and costs? How long would such an industry take to build up? Would this differ if pure fusion weapons became viable? What do you think would be a viable minimum nuclear deterrent? How about a limited nuclear deterrent and a maximum nuclear deterrent? How much do you think would these deterrents cost to build and maintain and what would the manpower requirements be? How quickly could these levels of deterrence be built-up provided the nuclear industry was already there? Would this differ if pure fusion weapons became viable?
 
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french stratege    RE:Nuclear Weapons Industry and Levels of Deterrent    10/3/2004 12:14:51 AM
OVERVIEW: Roman it depends the level of your industry. If you have an industry at the level of germany or Japan only specific development relative to nuclear weapons have to be made aside also development to make an ICBM. As I said in a previous post R&D for an ICBM and a warhead can be estimated of a minimum of 15 Billion$: for a 12000 km mobile ICBM plus a single boosted fission device of 500 kt plus decoys, prior to a pure hardened thermonuclear warhead. An ICBM should be mobile to avoid premptive attack. However it could be possible to make hidden deep silos in a country were population is severely controled and secrecy preserved.You would build the silo under a supposed normal house or building and assemble it locally (in 2 or 3 part for example) to avoid detection by satellites.Indeed you would need to transport elements in a normal civilian truck preferably under bas weather condition.A simple explosive charge would remove the roof of the house prior launching. Minimum level of deterence would be at least 100 ICBM with one nuke and an other mean of delivery shorter range to be launched from a sub (SSK or SSN) or a ship (an civilian foreign ship under Liberian pavilion for example), or from a plane.It would be a tactical, 2 or single stage missile similar to a Pershing 1, or a cruise missile or a stato supersonic missile like ASMP or Yackhont.You could buy some abroad with classical warheads and modify them, or add a 1 billion minimal program. Why 100: because you need a counterforce strategy to be credible.Example: You want to deter a power: you need to strike some of its major assets like military bases for a first strike, then some major industrial targets , and keep some of your missile to avoid reprisal on population.Example with US: military bases: early warning radar, major airfield, military harbors, space base like Cap caneveral, major military bases. industrial targets: Boeing, or Lockeed Martin plants, Intel plants, oil refineries, etc.. you can warn your ennemy to avoid to kill to much people few hours before striking. Population: 40 warheads: LA:8, New York and Chicago: 6, SanFrancisco and Washington:3, Boston Detroit Houston Dallas: 2, San Diego, Pittsburg, Denver, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphie: 6 for a minimum to destroy significant amount of elite , knowledge and recovery capacities.And I would add few universities: texas A&M, Princeton, Cornell .. which are outside previous town. I would better to have 200 warheads including tactical to take count or attrition and to hit more targets. BUILDING we have here 5 problem apart get funding: Make the technology base Make the industrial base Make the bomb Make the ICBM Preserve secrecy A good point (?) is that today technology lower overall R&D costs by a magnitude thanks to GPS, advance in civilian machine tools and numerical computing. Why?Because previously you have to get (for ICBM) a gravitational and high atmospheric model which means to launched 2 dedicated satellites (France have done that with Starlette and Cactus): one for gravitational field the other with high precision accelerometer to understand the drag induced by remaining atmosphere from 80 km to 800. The other need was for testing with high precision radar and telemetry.With GPS you suppress these needs.I don't mention using GPS for missile guidance because we would assume a pure inertial guidance. An good point is ability to get some experts from former Russia, Ukraine or US (yes!) with good money (but beware of secrecy). A bad point is that you need technologies and materials which are severely controled as people knows their possible purpose: ex: maraging steel, beryllium alloys, Ti-6-2-4-6, Inconel 718, Krytrons, vacuum pump, electron welding machine, XRay ultraspeed camera etc.. A clever policy would be to launch a civilian space program to hide your ICBM development. And to participate to international nuclear energy or science program to acquire knowledge like CERN or ITER fusion reactor. For the nukes you need fissile materials and so even more special materials like Berylium, Zirconium etc..So an extensive material/chemical industry and processing The point here would be to get some reactor on civilian purpose for energy like PWR to avoid concerns and to procure slight enriched uranium, materials, control equipment and knowledge. A civilian research reactor is usefull but raise suspicion. Next post:Make the technology base!
 
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bsl    RE:Force of 100   10/3/2004 9:34:35 PM
Minimum level of deterrent of what, against whom? If we're talking of a European country deterring a Russia, then that may be a reasonable figure. If we're talking about a Japan or South Korea deterring what China is becomming, it may be a bit short. If we're talking about a South Korea deterring a North Korea, it's either much more than necessary, or entirelly inappropriate, depending on whether the people calling the shots in NK comform with our ideas of "rational actors" or "flaming loons". All of which assumes an intelligently designed force structure which anticipates attempts to pre-empt.
 
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Roman    RE:Nuclear Weapons Industry and Levels of Deterrent    10/4/2004 12:52:54 AM
Thank you French_Stratege - I am very grateful you are taking the time to make such detailed and interesting response. :) I am looking forward to the future posts! :) BTW: So if you think minimum deterrence is about 100 or 200 ICBMs with single warheads each + one other shorter range delivery system, what would you consider limited deterrence and maximum deterrence to be?
 
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Roman    RE:Force of 100   10/4/2004 12:55:01 AM
Bsl, well, you are correct that it is context sensitive, but I think a general level of minimum deterrence can be established and that is what french_stratege was talking about. Also, do you really think 100-200 ICBMs would be insufficient as a minimum deterrent against China? How many would you think would be needed? I think the above-mentioned level would likely suffice.
 
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Roman    RE:Nuclear Weapons Industry and Levels of Deterrent - french_stratege   3/4/2006 12:53:32 PM
Hello F_S! I know it has been a while since this thread was last active, but I am still interested in the topic, so if you have the time and inclination, I would certainly enjoy if you continued the posts as you outlined. I am sure I would not be the only one to appreciate it - I am certain I am not the only one who enjoys reading your level-headed analysis of requirements for effective military industries.
 
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