Button.
Button.
WHo's got the button?

yup, i feel safe.

Big deal. Several of these are done at each nuke base multiple times a year.

Say what you want, but they're all a waste of money anyways.
What's the expiration one one of these missiles anyways?

I heard it only takes the launching of 200 nuclear warheads to destroy majority of the entire world. I heard USA alone has over 20,000 nuclear warheads. If you ask me, that's so much overkill, its just plain asinine.

nashBridges: Actually, after reading the article I'm comforted somewhat

Me too. There are literally dozens of layers of security and safeguards surrounding American nuclear weapons. We're talking about incidents where the outermost one or two layers were breached.

Do we still have the receipts?

/When that check clears, we're goin' in, man!

I have this image in my head of a guy with a clipboard full of tick marks standing in front of an empty shelf with a frown on his face.

I guess in reality it is not so much the finished warheads that they are concerend about but bits and parts that got lost in the system while being shuffeled around from place to place. Then again if they did came up short when counting nukes I seriously doubt they would tell anyone about it.

It also reminds of this old The Onion story: Report: Nuclear Arsenal 'Pretty Much' Accounted For.

pvd021: I heard it only takes the launching of 200 nuclear warheads to destroy majority of the entire world

You heard wrong.

pvd021: I heard USA alone has over 20,000 nuclear warheads

Again, you heard wrong.

pvd021: If you ask me, that's so much overkill, its just plain asinine


Your mistaken numbers aside, I agree keeping so many nukes is stupid, but keep in mind we've been steadily reducing our numbers since the end of the Cold War. Decommissioning nukes is a slow, painstaking process. The total current stockpile is 4,075 active, 5,535 total (the difference being those in the process of decomissioning). That's still enough to seriously screw with the global climate, but it's unlikely to kill everyone on Earth or anywhere close to it. The Cold War peak for the US was 32,193 warheads in 1966, to put it in perspective. That was probably enough to approach the sort of global cataclysm you're thinking of, though the reality is that in the event of a war not all of those would have been detonated.

pvd021: Say what you want, but they're all a waste of money anyways.
What's the expiration one one of these missiles anyways?

I heard it only takes the launching of 200 nuclear warheads to destroy majority of the entire world. I heard USA alone has over 20,000 nuclear warheads. If you ask me, that's so much overkill, its just plain asinine.


The 200-warhead-to-destruction thing is semi-valid if you mean 200 MIRV'd missiles. Most MIRVs had about 10 warheads, I believe, during peak tensions.

As to expiration date, a wild guess would be about 10 million years. For the warhead. At least the thermonuclear material inside. Or did you mean the missile itself? I know the fuel was good almost indefinitely.

One of our SNUKES is missing?!

OMFG!! Maybe someone snatched it!

Someone go check Helldawg's snizz!

Take a team, it aint gonna be pretty!

And I can trace my history
Down one generation to my home . . .

I swear I remember Bush talking about the dangers of this same shiat when he was running for POTUS. Obviously it was about stupid Ukraine or something, not USA! USA! USA!

The WMDs aren't gone, Bush just passed them off to his allies in Iran to get past the US weapons inspecters. There's no reason not to invade. Our intelligence is sound.

HighOnCraic: And I can trace my history
Down one generation to my home . . .

HOC Blinded me with 80's pop-cultured references.

Ooh ooh ooh!

He blinded me with Dolby!!

Nice manoeuvre!

Though it would be highly amusing if the Iranian UN ambassador used this as an excuse to demand IAEA inspectors be allowed into the US.

Gyrfalcon: The 200-warhead-to-destruction thing is semi-valid if you mean 200 MIRV'd missiles. Most MIRVs had about 10 warheads, I believe, during peak tensions.

As to expiration date, a wild guess would be about 10 million years. For the warhead. At least the thermonuclear material inside. Or did you mean the missile itself? I know the fuel was good almost indefinitely.


Were were missiles with 10 reentry vehicles but most were Navy and had quite small yields. The Peacekeeper had 10 that could pack more of a punch. Most missile had 1,2, and 3 warheads. The single warhead ICBM could pack quite a punch depending on the warhead you were talking about. This is all U.S. arsenal of course.


Nuclear weapons must be maintained constantly or their capable yield can be *significantly* reduced after a few short years. In addition, the weapon itself is a very complex mechanical and chemical device. The longer it sits without inspection and upkeep of certain critical components, the greater the chance of failure.

Great. We're getting as bad as Russia.

First they had those nuclear cruise missiles that got flown across the country and ended up at a base where they were about to ship off to the middle east and they caught them. Then we have the triggers that get sent to Taiwan.

Seriously you'd think there would be some redundant fail safes built into the nuclear hardware inventory system wouldn't you?

quatchi

Don't get me started.

/I can reach into your homes
//like an itch in your headphones
///you can't turn it up

quatchi

But don't sweat it, the little girl from Daktari loves you.

/Bad pun + obscure 60s reference FTW

nashBridges:
The Russians are losing warheads and they aren't doing inventories. At least we're closer to being on the ball.

You know what they say. "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." mind you now that I think about it I guess close would count for nukes too. So I guess that is alright then.

20,000 dead Kurds would like to affirm that Saddam Hussein did, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction --poison gas, specifically-- and was not shy about using the stuff.

Remove all Republicans: pvd021: I heard it only takes the launching of 200 nuclear warheads to destroy majority of the entire world. I heard USA alone has over 20,000 nuclear warheads. If you ask me, that's so much overkill, its just plain asinine.

The only reason was to funnel plenty to old retarded Ronnie Raegun's buddies. The entire military exists for that reason. There really isn't a good reason we need a standing army anyway.

What century are you living in?

/We kinda abandoned that line of thought sometime in 1941.

The Earth's entire nuclear stockpile, while impressive, couldn't wipe out 100% of all life. Though it could make it miserable for a long while. I shake my head that people believe 200 nukes can wipe out all life. I think someone watched Buck Rogers too much as a kid.

And as stated before, you're talking about an intricate chemical explosion that is designed to compress a precision built nuclear core to cause a fission reaction. Those things aren't going to last forever.

TheGreyPiper: We kinda abandoned that line of thought sometime in 1941

We've had a standing army in some form since the War of 1812.


In 1917 (and again in 1940 when the peacetime draft was started) we abandoned the traditional idea of a standing army for self-defense into a huge, military-industrial army used to be deployed all over the world.

And the reason we have so many is because one of the few ways to effectively take out a missile silo is with a nuke.

So not only do you need enough to seriously hurt the other guy, they need to survive to launch the second-strike.

Switching to SLBMs means we can have fewer nukes, as they are more survivable.

Ain't MAD great??

TheGreyPiper: 20,000 dead Kurds would like to affirm that Saddam Hussein did, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction --poison gas, specifically-- and was not shy about using the stuff.

And in other news from the late 1980s, McDonalds has opened its first franchise in Moscow. I've heard rumours that the Berlin Wall may come down any day, now...

UberDave: GThe Peacekeeper had 10 that could pack more of a punch. Most missile had 1,2, and 3 warheads.

The Peacekeeper? Really? Geez... let's just be honest for once. We'll start by bringing back the Secretary of War.

lolmao666: TheGreyPiper: 20,000 dead Kurds would like to affirm that Saddam Hussein did, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction --poison gas, specifically-- and was not shy about using the stuff.

Yeah sure, when he has US backing.

In 1988. Not in 2003. Clinton and the UN disarmed him.

Feel safer now?

/farking killers