I personally don’t believe Putin believes Russia has a single viable nuke remaining in it’s arsenal.
My primary evidence for this suspicion is that for all Putin’s consistent nuclear sabre rattling, he’s never done the one thing that would really rattle the sabre: conduct a nuclear weapons test. If he had a nuke to test he would have tested it just to scare off the West.
The text of the matter is that building a nuclear bomb really isn’t that difficult. A reasonably well funded university physics department anywhere in the world could probably build one. Having a nuclear weapons program is another matter. That’s orders of magnitude more difficult and more expensive. Honestly, I would be really surprised if the USA had half of the viable nuclear weapons it claims. Much less Russia.
People in the west who have access to classified information are acting like the think Russia’s nukes work. We also know that at the fall of the soviet union the people who lead the nuke programs got more power. As such I think Russia has working nukes - if there is any decay in the program it would have started at most 2 years ago - not long enough for there to be many failures.
That is different from sabre rattling - they get plenty of propaganda value from a threat that they are unlikely to use. They are well aware that launching a nuke means they and all their loved ones die (it is unlikely more than a few thousand humans would survive the result), so they are unlikely to use their nukes, but reminding everyone they have them is helpful. And they have a few deranged people (likely everyone) that we can’t assume they won’t.
The decay in their institutions started much earlier than 2 years ago. At my most generous, it started immediately after the fall of the USSR. But the truth is that a culture of grift has existed in Russian culture for centuries. The Soviets were just as guilty of it as the Czars were and the current oligarchy is now.
Decay is always lumpy. In general you are correct, but this topic isn’t the general state of Russia, but the state of their nuclear program. By all reports that program has done much better than the typical program.
The level of faking in all reports inside the Russia’s governmental apparatus is astonishing, though.
I cannot understand how they could avoid that regarding their nuclear weapons program when the faked reports are such an integral part of their system of governance.
If you don’t fake reports, you get fired by Putin for being inconsistent with the other aides.
The bribery of Ukrainian officials was the most important among Putin’s military projects, and Putin failed to recognize that even that project’s documents were all faked. Whoever has faked any documents regarding the nuclear program has received a lot of respect from Putin, and given more influence in the program. Since 1999, Putin has been hand-picking people who fake reports and replaced others with them.
The more important the project, the more Putin influences who is allowed to take part in it. And Putin has managed to fuck up his things big time by trusting fakers extremely strongly and assuming the others are giving diverging data because of disloyalty.
If something in the Russia is going haywire, then a project important to Putin, such as the nuclear weapons program is.
I paid a visit to the Smithsonian Atomic Testing Museum not too long ago. I was surprised to learn that Hydrogen bombs actually need regular maintenance to perform as advertised. Its not the case where anyone can build an H bomb (fusion weapon), sit it on a shelf for decades, and expect it to work when used.
For many the Tritium gas (the specific type of Hydrogen) has to be replaced/replenished in each warhead ever 2 to 6 years for the H part of the H bomb to be viable. Now, there’s also the smaller A bomb portion (fission) of the weapon (Uranium and/or Plutonium) that is used to trigger the H bomb. Russia has been pretty horrible with maintaining is military stockpiles. I’m guessing this neglect extends into their nuclear stockpiles too.
So we’re asking the question of “will a Russian H bomb work or not when used?”, which I’m not sure is quite the right question. My internet informed thought is the A bomb portion will probably still work, but the H bomb portion is unlikely to work for most Russian nukes. A bombs (like Hiroshima/Nagasaki) would still be devastating weapons, but not nearly the damage/destruction/loss of life that H bombs would.
The USA has published refurb actions against the US nuclear stockpile. Part of the main reason the USA was so enthusiastic about the nuclear reduction treaties is that it lowered the costs of maintenance on our nukes because the agreements meant we’d have fewer warheads in inventory to maintain. We’ve seen no such maintenance records or spending from Russia for the same.
Which makes me wonder if their nukes even work. Heavy water has really high resale value.
I personally don’t believe Putin believes Russia has a single viable nuke remaining in it’s arsenal.
My primary evidence for this suspicion is that for all Putin’s consistent nuclear sabre rattling, he’s never done the one thing that would really rattle the sabre: conduct a nuclear weapons test. If he had a nuke to test he would have tested it just to scare off the West.
The text of the matter is that building a nuclear bomb really isn’t that difficult. A reasonably well funded university physics department anywhere in the world could probably build one. Having a nuclear weapons program is another matter. That’s orders of magnitude more difficult and more expensive. Honestly, I would be really surprised if the USA had half of the viable nuclear weapons it claims. Much less Russia.
People in the west who have access to classified information are acting like the think Russia’s nukes work. We also know that at the fall of the soviet union the people who lead the nuke programs got more power. As such I think Russia has working nukes - if there is any decay in the program it would have started at most 2 years ago - not long enough for there to be many failures.
That is different from sabre rattling - they get plenty of propaganda value from a threat that they are unlikely to use. They are well aware that launching a nuke means they and all their loved ones die (it is unlikely more than a few thousand humans would survive the result), so they are unlikely to use their nukes, but reminding everyone they have them is helpful. And they have a few deranged people (likely everyone) that we can’t assume they won’t.
The decay in their institutions started much earlier than 2 years ago. At my most generous, it started immediately after the fall of the USSR. But the truth is that a culture of grift has existed in Russian culture for centuries. The Soviets were just as guilty of it as the Czars were and the current oligarchy is now.
Decay is always lumpy. In general you are correct, but this topic isn’t the general state of Russia, but the state of their nuclear program. By all reports that program has done much better than the typical program.
The level of faking in all reports inside the Russia’s governmental apparatus is astonishing, though.
I cannot understand how they could avoid that regarding their nuclear weapons program when the faked reports are such an integral part of their system of governance.
If you don’t fake reports, you get fired by Putin for being inconsistent with the other aides.
The bribery of Ukrainian officials was the most important among Putin’s military projects, and Putin failed to recognize that even that project’s documents were all faked. Whoever has faked any documents regarding the nuclear program has received a lot of respect from Putin, and given more influence in the program. Since 1999, Putin has been hand-picking people who fake reports and replaced others with them.
The more important the project, the more Putin influences who is allowed to take part in it. And Putin has managed to fuck up his things big time by trusting fakers extremely strongly and assuming the others are giving diverging data because of disloyalty.
If something in the Russia is going haywire, then a project important to Putin, such as the nuclear weapons program is.
I paid a visit to the Smithsonian Atomic Testing Museum not too long ago. I was surprised to learn that Hydrogen bombs actually need regular maintenance to perform as advertised. Its not the case where anyone can build an H bomb (fusion weapon), sit it on a shelf for decades, and expect it to work when used.
For many the Tritium gas (the specific type of Hydrogen) has to be replaced/replenished in each warhead ever 2 to 6 years for the H part of the H bomb to be viable. Now, there’s also the smaller A bomb portion (fission) of the weapon (Uranium and/or Plutonium) that is used to trigger the H bomb. Russia has been pretty horrible with maintaining is military stockpiles. I’m guessing this neglect extends into their nuclear stockpiles too.
So we’re asking the question of “will a Russian H bomb work or not when used?”, which I’m not sure is quite the right question. My internet informed thought is the A bomb portion will probably still work, but the H bomb portion is unlikely to work for most Russian nukes. A bombs (like Hiroshima/Nagasaki) would still be devastating weapons, but not nearly the damage/destruction/loss of life that H bombs would.
The USA has published refurb actions against the US nuclear stockpile. Part of the main reason the USA was so enthusiastic about the nuclear reduction treaties is that it lowered the costs of maintenance on our nukes because the agreements meant we’d have fewer warheads in inventory to maintain. We’ve seen no such maintenance records or spending from Russia for the same.