The United States truly has an “incredible” weapon system, capable of shifting the balance of deterrence and strategies in the various regional scenarios of confrontation with Russia and China (and beyond). And a synergistic mix between the development of carriers and the low-load W76-2 warhead, which can be launched from supersonic ballistic missiles or even, in the future, from a space super-drone. Word of Davide Urso , expert in geopolitics, nuclear strategies and energy. Formiche.net reached him to really understand the credibility of Donald Trump ‘s words in the anticipations of the book Rage dedicated to his presidency. The tycoon allegedly confided to reporter Bob Woodwardto have “a nuclear system… a weapon that no one has ever had before in this country; we have something that has never been seen and heard: we have something that Putin and Xi have never known about; what we have is incredible “. What idea does he have about the revelations about
Trump’s incredible gun. Solita shot.
My idea is that it’s not a shot. Certainly there may be deliberate propaganda in the use of words, but what Trump said is essentially true. Obviously it is not just a new nuclear warhead, which is not true, but a weapon system, that is, a joint union between warhead and transport carrier. That the United States has developed an advanced and absolutely plausible and truthful one. Let’s start with the vector.
It can basically be of two types. The first concerns the SSBN-734 or similar submarine-launched ballistic missiles. They go above Mach5 and, compared to long-range bombers, submarines increase its unpredictability by reducing vision, which clearly persists in aircraft. The second type seems to me more futuristic, but still credible within a few years. It’s about the X-37B space mega-drone. It can stay in orbit for two years and, if connected with the ability to miniaturize the warheads, it could strike at any time from space, remaining a long time on alert, as long as it maintains adequate temperatures and pressure inside it to transport the payload. And what about the header
The modernization of a new newspaper has already started with Obama. In 2015, a report from the Pentagon and the Washington Strategic Studies Center pushed for low-yeld warheads, that is, with less explosive load. This became more important with the Nuclear Posture Review, released in February 2018 by the Trump administration. In that document there are key words at a strategic level. It is asked to “help counter any misperception of exploitable gaps in the United States’ regional deterrence capacity.” Reading them well, they open two scenarios that make Trump’s words to Woodward credible, namely the regional need for Trump’s foreign policy and the exploitable gaps related to perception. Despite the term “perception,” these were real gaps in the US.Explain to us better.
The United States did not have a nuclear “prompt” capability that was reliable and unpredictable in regional scenarios. Precisely for this reason it was necessary for them to deploy, between bases in Europe, NATO commitments, overseas deployments and ships, all with enormous costs of men and materials; the result was costly and complicated regional deterrence. With Donald Trump’s foreign policy, regional deterrence has become more important. The president is not interested in being the global sheriff, but in developing deterrence there where it suits the US strategically and economically. Hence the need to eliminate the perception of gaps and, at the same time, to develop capacities in support of regional foreign policy.Hence, therefore, the low-yeld warheads. Yes
. Without inventing anything. The warhead in question is the W76-2, where the “2” indicates a second model. The first was very similar, loaded on Trident missiles. The evolution was complex but important. For the W76-2 the secondary thermonuclear was canceled, thus making production faster. The maximum explosive load is eight kilotons. It can be deployed on medium to long range or very long range ballistic missiles and on the new hypersonic carriers. These missiles have much more unpredictable return trajectories, and have thus allowed the Americans to overcome their historical problem, namely the predictability of launch and return carriers (the most delicate), which cannot be canceled even with electromagnetic or physical baits.And this changes the balance
Yes. The Russian strategy in the first place, but also North Korean and in some respects Iranian, and that of the “escalate-to-deescalate”, based on low-load tactical nuclear warheads, useful for telling the enemy “I can attack you at any time” , therefore discouraging the opponent from responding with a nuclear counter-attack and thus forcing the reduction or end of the conflict. It is a kind of control of the degree of hostilities based on coercive threats, especially including limited nuclear power. The United States never resorted to this strategy, as it used NATO’s dual-use aircraft capabilities and its own long-range bombers; this was the combination chosen as the best strategy to counter regional deterrence. Now they have completely overturned this strategy. The United States has equipped itself with its own “escalate to de-escalate”, purely strategic but also tactical, since the W76-2 allows prompt response. It means having a deterrence strategy that combines a tactical weapon system on strategic vectors.More credible
Yes, because it costs less, is produced more quickly and moves on a very fast vector. In addition, the smaller payload allows for multiple header loading. It is very similar to what happened during the Cold War, except that it is a Cold War 4.0, made by raising the nuclear threshold, but reducing the risk that nuclear can be used. Russia, for example, by lowering yield increased its nuclear threshold, but at the same time also increased the possibility of its use. In this case, however, the United States increases the threshold, but reduces the risk of its use. Because
Because we are talking about a tactical warhead on strategic vectors. The United States does not want to resort to first use (despite having the capacity). In this way, the enemy knows full well that any activity would be destroyed in hypersonic times by American regional deterrence. Russia did not have this system and the risk was (as in the case of North Korea on the other hand) an attack-and-response. Now the attack is of lesser risk because the response is hypersonic and will never be seen, arriving at Mach5 from a submarine, with a return trajectory and, perhaps in the future, even from space orbit. But it is true, as Trump would have said, that Russia and China have no idea what this “incredible” weapon is.
The others are not developing similar technologies.
In 2015 the Obama administration started the improvement of the W76-1 for two enemies: Russia (99%) and Iran (only 1% given the agreement on nuclear power and the foreign policy of rapprochement with Tehran) . Then, with the Trump administration, the number of enemies increased (China and North Korea were added, as well as Iran) and attention was focused even more on regional deterrence. None of the competitors in question today has an equal joint capacity of a W76-2 on carriers of this magnitude. It is a very advanced strategic-tactical union at unique speed and unpredictability. Not that others aren’t developing them, but I don’t think anyone will have a similar prompt response capability in the next few years. Or rather, no one (except insanity, however always to be taken into consideration) will ever have the ardor to attempt an attack.Between Saudi Arabia which would like its nuclear weapon, Iran which confirms collaboration with Russia in the apparently civil field, the rise of China and the end of the control treaties, we are witnessing a new race to the atomic weapon.
The race has never stopped. The arms control system and the treaties in force are essentially based on the objective of preventing non-nuclear states (Nws) from equipping themselves with nuclear weapons. There is nowhere written the intention of the nuclear states (Nws, five officers, and three other unofficial ones) to zero their capabilities. Instead, it aims to maintain a number of strategic and tactical warheads that allow the world to stay in balance. Besides the number, moreover, there is the continuous modernization of warheads and carriers, never stopped. Finally, there is the development of super-conventional weapons that have nuclear-like impact and threat capabilities. The greater the number of super-conventional, the lower the need for nuclear power. The rest is propaganda.Ultimately, the United States really does have an “incredible” weapon
not in the sense of non-credible, but in the sense of an extraordinarily advanced system. It is the fruit of billions and billions of investments since 2008, aimed at reducing an existing (and not only perceived) gap so as to discourage the tactical nuclear capabilities of any possible adversary.
