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Graeme Wall

On 19/03/2012 13:01, d wrote:
On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:27:31 +0000
Graeme wrote:
If the west hadn't had nukes russia would have rolled across western europe
long ago.

Possibly, I've come across Russians in the Soviet era who argued that if
they didn't have nukes the west would have rolled across them long ago.

Unlikely. Western europe wouldn't have had the will and the yanks had
other things to worry about. The soviets however were forever sabre rattling.

Unlikely from our perspective I agree but that is not the way the
Russians saw it. Also the Soviets, for the most part, didn't actually
want to invade Western Europe, they wanted the eastern European states
they controlled as a cordon sanitaire between the motherland and the
hostile west.

Also given its a de factor

Perhaps you mean de facto...

Pointing out typos? Come on , you can do better...

You might have meant 'a factor' and then changed the sentence, I was
just checking.

dictatorship that threat hasn't
completely disappeared and who knows who'll end up running it when Putin
finally falls off his perch.

Currently the Russian nuclear weaponry is a greater danger to the
Russians than to anybody else.

In what sense? Self detonation or just theft?

Deterioration, they can't actually afford to maintain the equipment, see
all the articles about the problems the Russians are having with their
nuclear submarines for instance.

And then there are unpredictable states such as iran, north korea etc.

Neither of which is a direct threat to the UK, being far more obsessed

Yet. Admittedly north korea is only ever likely to be a threat to asia
but Iran looks like its going to become a real problem real soon.

My own opinion is it is just sabre rattling as far as Israel is
concerned. After all the Iranians can't nuke Jerusalem, it is just as
much an Islamic holy city as it is a Christian and Jewish one. They
might target Tel Aviv but that runs the real risk of also hitting the
Gaza strip which wouldn't do their pro-Palestinian credibility any good.
The greater danger is that they might attack Riyadh over the
Shia-Sunni split. Especially as they know the Saudis don't have nukes.

After all even one missile has 12 MIRVs. Once you've targeted Tehran,
or Pyongyang, what are you going to do with the other 11 warheads?

Target other cities. I'm not saying thats right ...

Why? There is no possible rational for targeting anything other than
the capital city.

Also you launch an SLBM against Tehran from the middle of the Atlantic
and the Russians are going to get very jumpy! By the time they've
confirmed the flight path they may well have already ordered a
retaliatory strike just in case.

Which is why they would be told first as currenly happens with all missile
tests and initiation of conflict.

You just have to hope they'll believe you. Only needs someone in Moscow
to be paranoid. I agree it's not very likely but it has to be born in
mind. Also, as the current paralysis over Syria demonstrates, you
wouldn't necessarily want to tell the Russians what you were up to in
advance.

A far better and more cost effective solution is to use submarine
launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

Cheaper certainly, but cruise missiles are slow and can be shot down.

If the first one doesn't get through, fire another. It would be mixed
up in a salvo of conventional missiles anyway. Also if the Iranians
shoot down the nuke and it detonates over the city anyway you've
achieved your objective, After all it's not a point target weapon is it.

But the precautions have to be proportionate to the threat. I note you
ignore what is likely to be the biggest threats in the nuclear world,
Pakistan and India, especially the former.

Fair point. If pakistan goes the way of afghanistan we've got real problems.
India I'm not too worried about right now. For all its problems its a
pretty stable country.

India is not the problem, it is the target. Not sure what you mean
about if Pakistan goes the way of Afghanistan, Pakistan is actually the
sponsor of the problems in Afghanistan.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail