UN US withdraws from intermediate range nuke treaty - Which will be released first, Fallout 76 or Fallout IRL?

Paging Dr. Strangelove.

Trump says US will withdraw from nuclear arms treaty with Russia

• President says: ‘We are going to terminate the agreement’
• John Bolton had been pushing for withdrawal from INF treaty

Donald Trump in Nevada Saturday. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Donald Trump said on Saturday the US will “terminate” a nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

The Guardian reported on Friday that Trump’s third national security adviser, John Bolton, was pushing for a US withdrawal from the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty (INF), which the US says Russia has been violating with the development of a new cruise missile.

Speaking to reporters in Nevada after a campaign rally on Saturday, Trump said: “Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years and I don’t know why President Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out.

“We’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and do weapons and we’re not allowed to. We’re the ones that have stayed in the agreement and we’ve honoured the agreement but Russia has not unfortunately honoured the agreement so we’re going to terminate the agreement, we’re going to pull out.”

Such a move would be a sharp break from US arms control policy. Former US officials told the Guardian this week Bolton was blocking talks on extending another treaty with Russia, New Start, which was signed in 2010 and is due to expire in 2021.

Asked on Saturday to clarify, the president said the US will “have to develop those weapons”. He also drew in China.

“Unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they all come to us and they say, ‘Let’s all of us get smart and let’s none of us develop those weapons,’” he said, “but if Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it and we’re adhering to the agreement, that’s unacceptable. So we have a tremendous amount of money to play with with our military.”

He added: “Russia has not adhered to the agreement, so we are going to terminate the agreement and we are going to develop the weapons. If we get smart and if others get smart, and say ‘Let’s not develop these horrible nuclear weapons,’ I would be extremely happy with that.

“But as long as somebody’s violating that agreement then we’re not going to be the only ones to adhere to it.”

Start digging that fallout shelter, boys.

 

[Poiseon]

It's even more terrifying for the majority of the world nuclear powers too as their capital cities are within 100km from some form of coast.

Yes indeed. I've always wondered why the US didn't move the capital a bit farther inland. We waste so much money on so much shit you'd think we could splurge some sheckles for a more defensible capital.

 

[CWCissey]

Yes indeed. I've always wondered why the US didn't move the capital a bit farther inland. We waste so much money on so much shit you'd think we could splurge some sheckles for a more defensible capital.

It's a historical thing. Philly was too far north so it got moved to DC to appease the Confederates. I guess the Yankees just can't be arsed to move all that government infrastructure elsewhere.

 

[ES 148]

I have never understood nuclear deterrence from a moral standpoint. Practically, it works like a Mexican standoff. But you aren't pointing the 'gun' at another person, you're pointing it at untold millions, the vast majority of whom are innocent of whatever perceived crime you're killing them for. Surely, if it's just defensive, all the time spent developing nuclear weapons technology should be spent developing and implementing defense systems?
The answer is that it isn't just deterrence. It's a weapon you can use to destroy your enemy, developed under the pretense that you're defending yourself from them. Nuclear weapons politics are a farcical attempt to disguise the lust for power inherent in humanity as countries become more and more capable of destroying the planet.

TL;DR, all weapons are for babies, but nuclear weapons are just bigger weapons for bigger babies

 

[mindlessobserver]

It's a historical thing. Philly was too far north so it got moved to DC to appease the Confederates. I guess the Yankees just can't be arsed to move all that government infrastructure elsewhere.

Actually, the story of why DC is where it is is a combination of political corruption and necessity (Ironic). The Constitution required a sovereign federal region where no State had authority. There was genuine fear at the time that if a State (like Pennsylvania) got a bee in its bonnet, they could prevent Congress from meeting. The issue then presented where to put the district. None of the States wanted to give up a city of their own as tribute, which meant an entirely new city would have to be built. Then came the issue of where to put it. It had to be along a river with access to the ocean, because that was the most reliable transit of the time. Anywhere else would cause unneeded delay for the government.

Enter George Washington who just so happened to own land on the Virginia side of where DC is. He wanted the government to buy it off him, and also put a new city near his plantations which would mean extra shekels. Maryland also had a useless patch of swamp across the river they did not particularily care about. So the government went with Washington's plan. He sold it his land for a fast buck, and the rest was taken from the few rednecks who lived in the area. After that they hired a French architect name L'Enfant to design his dream city and away they went. There were some pretty funny stories about irate farmers in the area bitching about "some well dressed french fop saying something called Massachusettes Avenue was going to go through my tobacco field".

Worked out for everyone in the end. Washington got his shekels, and L'enfant is buried in Arlington cemetery looking out over his city.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I have never understood nuclear deterrence from a moral standpoint. Practically, it works like a Mexican standoff. But you aren't pointing the 'gun' at another person, you're pointing it at untold millions, the vast majority of whom are innocent of whatever perceived crime you're killing them for. Surely, if it's just defensive, all the time spent developing nuclear weapons technology should be spent developing and implementing defense systems?
The answer is that it isn't just deterrence. It's a weapon you can use to destroy your enemy, developed under the pretense that you're defending yourself from them. Nuclear weapons politics are a farcical attempt to disguise the lust for power inherent in humanity as countries become more and more capable of destroying the planet.

TL;DR, all weapons are for babies, but nuclear weapons are just bigger weapons for bigger babies

The main argument against comprehensive missile defense systems employed in the Cold War is that once they started coming online the Russians would see their chance evaporating and launch everything to avoid a slow defeat. Well ok there were other arguments, but that was the only decent one. Hopefully we'll revisit this again. Logical arguments can seem pretty immoral once the situations get weird like this.

Interestingly, we are by treaty allowed to comprehensively shield one site in the country. But we never did it due to protests from communist spies peace activists.

 

[idosometimes]

Intermediate range nuclear forces, by definition, can't hit America or Russia from the other. This is for express flights from Seoul to Vladivostok or Beijing, or from Fulda to Minsk.

It does not work like that. What essentially prevents nuclear war right now is intermediate range nuclear weapons on submarines (SLBMs) as they ensure nuclear survivability. IRBM and SLBM are similar and even same weapons family. The US may be able to take out Russia's nuclear assets in middle of nowhere, but US will lose at least every population center on the west coast if it does. Russia can blow up North Dakota or wherever the US has its nuclear arsenal with a modern ICBM that can travel anywhere on earth, but the US has nuclear armed submarines putzing around the oceans that can and will provide "second strike" capabilities in the event every part of land-based nuclear arsenal is destroyed.

This is why the US, China, and Russia cannot use nuclear weapons against each other. ICBMs are only a small part of destroying enemy. Intermediate range weapons are about second strike capabilities so you can get them as bad as they got you. No matter how bad they get you.

Surely, if it's just defensive, all the time spent developing nuclear weapons technology should be spent developing and implementing defense systems?

If missile defense was easy, then every country would have a defense system that can defeat ICMBs. No one does. Not the Russians. Not the US. Not China. No one. Every stage of missile flight presents serious challenges to defending against them. Current systems focus on kinetic interceptors (hitting a bullet with a bullet) during terminal phase. They fail in controlled tests. Imagine use when you have to wait to actually decide which object is warhead before launching several of them in the hopes of stop explode-death. Working system does not eliminate saturation problem as you are firing multiple kill vehicles for each target.

Targeting missiles in other phases of flight present different problems.

 

[Iceland Heavy]

I have never understood nuclear deterrence from a moral standpoint. Practically, it works like a Mexican standoff. But you aren't pointing the 'gun' at another person, you're pointing it at untold millions, the vast majority of whom are innocent of whatever perceived crime you're killing them for. Surely, if it's just defensive, all the time spent developing nuclear weapons technology should be spent developing and implementing defense systems?
The answer is that it isn't just deterrence. It's a weapon you can use to destroy your enemy, developed under the pretense that you're defending yourself from them. Nuclear weapons politics are a farcical attempt to disguise the lust for power inherent in humanity as countries become more and more capable of destroying the planet.

TL;DR, all weapons are for babies, but nuclear weapons are just bigger weapons for bigger babies

Missile defense is seen as destabilizing and restricted under treaty because the limited systems in place now mean more warheads are required per target and a theoretically comprehensive system would render one side completely impotent; it's why SDI in the 80s was so controversial.

The main argument against comprehensive missile defense systems employed in the Cold War is that once they started coming online the Russians would see their chance evaporating and launch everything to avoid a slow defeat. Well ok there were other arguments, but that was the only decent one. Hopefully we'll revisit this again. Logical arguments can seem pretty immoral once the situations get weird like this.

Interestingly, we are by treaty allowed to comprehensively shield one site in the country. But we never did it due to protests from communist spies peace activists.

That would've been the Safeguard system, but it had significant political and practical issues which made it unfeasible for city-wide deployment. When the ABM treaty was signed it was only briefly built to cover missile silos in North Dakota and quietly shut down. The Russians elected to deploy theirs in Moscow and those are still operational now.

 

[Friendly_AI]

And another song to enjoy the Fallout.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

That would've been the Safeguard system, but it had significant political and practical issues which made it unfeasible for city-wide deployment. When the ABM treaty was signed it was only briefly built to cover missile silos in North Dakota and quietly shut down. The Russians elected to deploy theirs in Moscow and those are still operational now.

Ironically you'd protect more cities using it to defend missile silos than any one city due to the multiplier effect on the number of enemy missiles required to hurt our capabilities, but good luck selling that to the public.

 

[Nacho Man Randy Salsa]

I had a dream a week ago about a nuke going off, I saw the mushroom cloud and everything. I really hope that wasn't some kind of prophecy.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Yes indeed. I've always wondered why the US didn't move the capital a bit farther inland. We waste so much money on so much shit you'd think we could splurge some sheckles for a more defensible capital.

It doesn't matter now anyway since anyone with any power has the ability to hit any target on the planet regardless of distance or terrain.

 

[Iceland Heavy]

It doesn't matter now anyway since anyone with any power has the ability to hit any target on the planet regardless of distance or terrain.

It does matter a bit, an ICBM from the middle of Siberia isn't going to have much of an appreciable difference in the travel time to DC as opposed to say, Omaha. But a submarine a hundred miles away could shoot its entire payload at DC on a depressed trajectory and it'd have maybe 5 minutes of warning compared to 30.

 

[ICametoLurk]

Frankly I wouldn't start armchairing until the Putin-Trump meeting in Paris in November. I wouldn't be surprised if they start a new nuclear agreement, which Putin has said he wants to explicitly pursue during the meeting. The INF was broken, but even some of the pro-American nuclear experts (Vipin Narang and Ankit Panda iirc) have made the case that there's still good opportunity to recover.

Also you guys don't know that China never agreed to it. Way back in 2014 they had 1,600 offensive ballistic and cruise missiles whose very nature is so strategically destabilizing that Russia decided to outlaw them with the INF Treaty some 25 years ago.

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

Frankly I wouldn't start armchairing until the Putin-Trump meeting in Paris in November. I wouldn't be surprised if they start a new nuclear agreement, which Putin has said he wants to explicitly pursue during the meeting. The INF was broken, but even some of the pro-American nuclear experts (Vipin Narang and Ankit Panda iirc) have made the case that there's still good opportunity to recover.

Agreed.

The original INF treaty happened when the USSR deployed SS-20 intermediate range missiles to Europe. The US responded with Pershing and Ground Launched Cruise Missiles. After that the INF treaty eliminated both sides intermediate range missiles.

Fast forward to now. Russia has deployed missiles the US claims violate the treaty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty#Alleged_violations

Both countries allege the other has violated the treaty. The US accused Russia of violating treaty terms by testing the SSC-8 cruise missile in 2008.[38] The accusation was brought up again in 2014[39][40] and 2017.[38][41] In 2013, reports came out that Russia had tested and planned to continue testing two missiles in ways that could violate the terms of the treaty: the SS-25 road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile and the newer RS-26 ICBM.[42]

Russia argues that the American decision to establish bases capable of launching Tomahawk missiles in Poland and Romania is a violation of the treaty.[43][44][45][46] Russia also states that the US prevalent usage of armed UAVs such as the MQ-9 Reaper also violates the INF Treaty.[47]

So Trump pulled out. However it's hard to see he'd be all that enthusiastic at deploying US intermediate range missiles in Europe to protect ungrateful Eurotrash. I suspect he's pulling out of the INF treaty in order to put pressure on Russia to sign up to a new treaty and for both sides to eliminate missiles the other side considers to be violating INF.

So no more SS-25/RS-26 on the Russian side and I suspect the Tomahawk launchers in Poland and Romania will also be removed.

 

[Fork Cartel]

Tfw everyone in this thread memeing that nuclear apocalypse is inbound.

As if we’d be so lucky to have someone put us out of our misery. The real reason is probably something boring and banal like ‘we needed new treaty.’

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

The biggest problem with the current treaty is simple: There are multiple nuclear capable nations, beyond the Norks, that are not signatories to it. With Iran working toward nuclear missiles, Pakistan and India having nukes and probably having purchased hardware to deliver IRM and SRM weapons to one another, with new technology in use by Russia and the US, it might be a good time to bring everyone back to the table.

France, England, Germany, the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, maybe even Iran to prevent them from having missiles that can rapidly hit their enemies.

Russia never abides by treaties if they think they can get away with it (and they always think they can get away with it), China isn't part of it, and the US is getting fucked over by it in the UAV field and not having a counter to the Russian's new systems.

 

[CWCissey]

France, England, Germany, the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, maybe even Iran to prevent them from having missiles that can rapidly hit their enemies.

The Germans don't have nukes, they just host American missiles.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I have never understood nuclear deterrence from a moral standpoint. Practically, it works like a Mexican standoff. But you aren't pointing the 'gun' at another person, you're pointing it at untold millions, the vast majority of whom are innocent of whatever perceived crime you're killing them for. Surely, if it's just defensive, all the time spent developing nuclear weapons technology should be spent developing and implementing defense systems?
The answer is that it isn't just deterrence. It's a weapon you can use to destroy your enemy, developed under the pretense that you're defending yourself from them. Nuclear weapons politics are a farcical attempt to disguise the lust for power inherent in humanity as countries become more and more capable of destroying the planet.

TL;DR, all weapons are for babies, but nuclear weapons are just bigger weapons for bigger babies

Nukes are an offensive weapon or even a first strike weapon as long as you're the only one that has them.
With other nations being armed with nukes, they become a deterrent. In case of a nuclear exchange there's 2 prime targets:
1) Make the other bastard lose more infrastructure and military assets than you yourself lose
2) Retain 2nd and 3rd strike capabilities.

Protection of anything else is irrelevant and many zones are considered dumping grounds. I once read that there was a defensive strategy in the US where the idea was to blow up nukes over the east coast to destroy incoming soviet nukes before they reach the core land where the ICBM silos are hidden. So, in other words: Places like New York or Boston would be damaged by US nukes going off in high altitudes to protect military assets further downrange.

It's also weird to put any kind of moral perspective into this. It's war. That is by definition amoral. It's just that we've escalated war technologies to a point where losing doesn't mean a few villages get torched by soldiers and cattle is stolen, but rather we can set fire to entire nations within a few minutes at a single press of a button.

France, England, Germany, the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, maybe even Iran to prevent them from having missiles that can rapidly hit their enemies.

>Germany
We're already banned from having nukes afaik. Carriers too. Technically, it's a miracle we're even allowed to have our own military, though their main purpose during the cold war was to slow down any soviet attack long enough so the NATO nukes would hit on german soil instead of french soil.
A key aspect of Post WW2 strategic thinking in the US was to retain control of the Rhine valley, since that is seen as a crucial area to hold on to mainland Europe. Losing that area to the Ruskie would deal a heavy blow to US interests and its safety.

The Germans don't have nukes, they just host American missiles.

And even that is controversial as fuck. Technically, nukes are forbidden on german soil, however american bases are not considered german soil. Then there's nukes in german bases and such, that weren't supposed to be there, but were kept there anyway.
Knew a guy who was a soldier in the 80s, he once told me that they had a special bunker with "secret" things stockpiled and everyone knew that it was the place where the US nukes were kept. According to him, they had the order of defending that bunker in case of a war, and overseeing attack planes being restocked with bombs when they return - but their base colonel told them the very moment the planes roll unto the runway with their first batch, every soldier should just haul ass away from the base, since it's going to be a prime target for ballistic missiles anyway.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I once read that there was a defensive strategy in the US where the idea was to blow up nukes over the east coast to destroy incoming soviet nukes before they reach the core land where the ICBM silos are hidden. So, in other words: Places like New York or Boston would be damaged by US nukes going off in high altitudes to protect military assets further downrange.

It was Canada that would have high altitude nukes detonated over it to protect silos in the mid west.

Because fuck Canada.