In one of the previous publications, the topic of the US nuclear arsenal and its successful negative growth and negative development was disclosed in sufficient detail. But many people probably have a question: how, in fact, the shining city on the hill and the only (and unique) superpower came to such a life, having lost the ability to produce nuclear weapons for a significant period? Let's try, as a first approximation, to consider the most likely answer to this question. Of course, the author does not pretend to be absolute truth and may well miss something.
A nuclear arsenal and a nuclear weapons complex are like potatoes. If you do not start to fight pests in time, they will devour the entire field. You will not sort out the potatoes that have begun to rot - everything in the cellar will rot. Everything must be done continuously and thoughtfully, otherwise trouble will come. Only nuclear weapons and a nuclear weapons complex are much more complicated and dangerous.
Nuclear and thermonuclear (and now mainly thermonuclear) weapons have a very clear, and very difficult and very long technological production cycle. This cycle is continuous - this is a prerequisite. And it makes it possible to very inflexible, but regulate the volume of output. And exactly the same clear cycle should be in its maintenance, storage, maintenance of combat readiness, repair and modernization and reassembly of ammunition. And the most important thing is that this cycle is continuous, like the cycle of steel production, for example. And the possibilities of adjusting the volume of work are also very limited. That is, there are upper and lower levels, but they are not so far from each other, and it is impossible to sharply increase the volumes, as with the production of nuclear weapons.
And God forbid to break this rhythm and the integrity of the cycle. Failures, whether in the production process, or in the process of storage, maintenance, modernization, reassembly of ammunition, will first lead to the accumulation of problems with the degradation of the arsenal, and then the quantity turns into quality. And degradation is increasing at a dramatically increased rate, including with the production itself. With the US nuclear complex and nuclear arsenal, this transition took place around 2003-2004. This can be seen, by the way, in this picture (which was already given in the article "US nuclear arsenal. Up the stairs leading down"), where just from this period a quantitative collapse in the number of charges in the arsenal began. In general, the well-established mechanism of the nuclear weapons complex malfunctioned, then the malfunctions began to intensify and creep out in different places, resonant vibrations began and destruction began and the impossibility of ultimately producing nuclear weapons "from scratch" - only modernizations, and quite limited ones. And the restoration now requires many years of work, hard work, and not writing on Twitter and speeches from the podium and plans that do not fit either with each other or with the real state of affairs.
As you can see, after the initial mass reductions in the early 90s, the size of the arsenal changed little, and in the 2003-2005 region. "the process went" much faster.
And what led to this result? After the collapse of the USSR, the USA decided that they had caught God not only by the beard, but also for not allowing him to become a goddess, and now they can reap the benefits for eternity. Moreover, not only the layman was convinced of this with vigorous little books about "Pax Americana" and "The End of History", but the ruling circles themselves believed in it. And they continue to believe that they "won the Cold War" (where, in fact, one of the participants simply did not go out to the next battle), and now everyone owes them for this life, like land to a barren collective farm. And Russia should even more so. "Russia should (fill in the necessary)." Remember the hysteria of Mrs. Samantha Power with the late Ambassador Churkin - all this is expressed in her. Americans believed in their exclusivity for a long time, and temporary successes after 1991. strengthened them in this faith, or rather, in this heresy. In general, as Comrade Stalin said, "dizziness with success" set in.
This affected not only the nuclear weapons complex, but it affected it more than much else. In addition, just before the collapse of the Union, the START-1 Treaty was concluded, forcing the parties to reduce their strategic nuclear forces by 50%, and also "gentlemen's" agreements were concluded (because they did not provide for control procedures, unlike START) on the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) by half. Moreover, the Americans liked cutting TNW so much that they did not stop at half, and could not stop at two-thirds, and then there was no way to stop and were reduced to half a thousand B-61 bombs, which strongly resembles a broken trough. Russia, however, also did not stop halfway, but kept its TNW arsenal at a decent level and continues to improve it. However, our arsenal was much more solid initially, and there are enough "friends" on the same continent with us.
The beginning of such a massive reduction in nuclear arsenals led to a sharp reduction in the financial ration, a halt in the production of new ammunition (where to make new ones, there would be time for everything that is needed, dismantled and destroyed). Again, in Russia it was the same, but the safety margin turned out to be much higher - thanks to the USSR. And one more circumstance played a role - we had an urgent need to create new ammunition, firstly, due to the obsolescence of part of the arsenal we needed in the future, and secondly, the conclusion, in fact, of the enslaving START-2 Treaty (a typical example of Kozyrev's "Atlanticist diplomacy ") forced to invest in the development of ammunition that would comply with this agreement. The fact that this Treaty was never ratified was a very pleasant bonus, to be sure.
But in the United States, their nuclear industry cut the tendons on the legs specifically, so that the patient could walk immediately only for himself. And yet another blow was struck by the insidious Russians - with their "HEU-LEU" deal, which in the United States was considered a successful embodiment of the principle of "deceiving a fool by four fists." And in our country this deal has been attacked for so many years by both patriotic guards and various colors of hysteria on war and near-nuclear topics, they say, how is it possible, we will be left without weapon-grade uranium (and not even close), as cheaply as possible (and what about to do it, if it is not needed - salt?), why help the enemy and so on. I think many people remember these publications and speeches. But when the deal was terminated by the Russian Federation, it became clear that "HEU-LEU" became a classic addiction of the client to heroin (when first "friends" give free injections, then "for inexpensive", and then - the claw got stuck and the whole bird was gone) … More precisely, for cheap uranium. This was probably not so conceived, but sometimes stupidity is a much stronger weapon than cunning and deceit.
But it so happened that the American nuclear patient on a cheap uranium needle from Russia, after the termination of the deal, ended up not only in "withdrawal", but almost dying. True, this was a blow to the peaceful atom of the United States, mainly, but it also affected the military component, in particular, because these components are interconnected. And, what is very important - on the scientific part. In fact, funding has ceased both for the development of new nuclear weapons (although some improvement and subcritical experiments are being carried out by the Americans), and for scientific issues related to this, as well as with nuclear energy in general. Although not all - for example, the improvement of boat reactors is quite successful for itself.
The problems of the peaceful atom in the United States greatly delight the French, who, in general, have a much better situation. And us, of course, too. Although the French also have problems, and we will find them in Rosatom. And if you listen to those working there - and even more so the situation will not seem very healthy, but here is the point - any structure strives to maintain a state of calm, therefore no one will ever be satisfied with the results of the reform of the system, being a part of it. Only time will tell if there was any point in reforming at all. This is how it happened with the reform of the RF Armed Forces - in the end, albeit not immediately, it turned out quite successfully. But about medicine, for example, the author does not have such confidence - but we'll see.
Again, based on a heretical belief in the "only superpower", "exclusive nation" and other dregs, a new military doctrine was adopted, proclaiming the actual withdrawal from nuclear weapons as one of the most important instruments of superpower power. Instead, the thesis was proclaimed about "wars of a new generation", with the predominance of high-precision weapons, supposedly capable of replacing even nuclear, as well as air operations. In fact, it was the Douai Doctrine in a new wrapper. Time has shown that this thesis works only against a relatively weak adversary, and how it works against a real adversary - it has shown the recent strike on Syria and its brilliant failure.
Moreover, inflating the effectiveness and importance of the WTO (it is impossible not to notice that the WTO is indeed a good and necessary weapon, but the solution of strategic tasks with the help of it against a real strong adversary is possible either in combination with nuclear weapons, or on a limited scale), as in PR campaigns, and in assessing the results of real military campaigns, ran counter to both reality and those developments that went both in the nuclear and non-nuclear fields in Russia, as well as in China and other potential adversaries. Regarding the gap between real efficiency and the desired one - in Desert Storm, the effectiveness of American aviation was exactly four times less than the minimum required for the operability of the concepts of "Air-ground operation (battle) and" Combating second echelons (reserves) ", developed in attempts to come up with an antidote to the Soviet military machine in Europe. This is under almost hothouse conditions of use and resistance. The Americans instead began to develop new concepts, such as "network-centric war" and others, based on no less shaky assumptions. However, it cannot be said that these concepts of meaning do not have - not at all, but they are definitely not the panacea they are presented with.
The Americans, in addition, made stupid unrealizable predictions about the future of the strategic nuclear forces and the Russian nuclear weapons complex in general. According to these forecasts, written in the early 2000s, by 2015. the Russian Federation could have left about 150 charges placed on the carriers of the strategic nuclear forces (charges, not carriers)! Some analysts mercifully assigned us a thousand and a half charges along with tactical ones. In general, the Americans willingly believed their own analysts and "cut off" funding for the previously sacred nuclear cow, which almost sentenced her. Hence the persistent desire to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and hide behind a weak missile defense system from the even weaker strategic nuclear forces of the Russian Federation - but what has this led to now? In addition, there is, in fact, no workable missile defense system, but Russia will have a missile defense system, and there are systems that can penetrate any of the most unrealistic missile defense systems, and even by hypersound, we also outperformed the enemy, although again the USA started the race here. An inadequate assessment of the reality and capabilities of rivals and adversaries - that's what it is.
In addition, in the 1990s and 2000s, Americans behaved in the world like "orderlies of the forest" (wolves), and we know that wolves usually attack only weak, sick animals, since there are almost always enough of them. So why do they need the development of nuclear instruments, which are needed for those who cannot be classified as weak and sick? Moreover, they seem to sit quietly and do not protrude?
Besides, we really were sick and weak for a long time, and it seemed to them that we would not make it out. And then, when they were already recovering, they quite successfully concealed their progress in recovery and their real intentions and developments. And the "intelligence community" of the United States, in general, has decently degraded over this quarter of a century, along with all the power structures, so it could not recognize the real picture. There was probably data, but there was no one to assemble the puzzle from the pieces correctly. About the degradation of power structures - you remember the rhetoric, and the personalities themselves who led the United States in the 80s, at least for years, and compare with those who were recently or are sitting in the same posts now - ambassadors, permanent representatives, secretaries of state, generals and other audience. And compare the speeches and arguments of both of them - with the current ones, sometimes there is a feeling that it is not from Washington broadcasting, but from Kiev, the level of "shiza" is already very similar.
Well, and one more aspect - on nuclear weapons and everything connected with them, a very limited number of corporations, as well as related politicians, Pentagon generals, lobbyists and other rascals, could "cut budgets". This is a very narrow circle in comparison with the rest of the US military-industrial complex, and besides, the nuclear piece of the general budget cake was relatively small at the best of times. On the rest of the cake, "mastering the funds" is much more profitable, more pleasant and more convenient. All the more, if you start, relying on the thesis of the many times increased combat effectiveness (overestimating it shamelessly), you begin to inflate the prices of any military products.
Moreover, all this "American massacre" of the nuclear weapons complex and everything connected with it took place at a very difficult moment for America's nuclear arsenal. A change of generations of nuclear weapons, as well as carriers, was just right. And it was postponed - and for a long time. And if we managed to get out more or less with the carriers, where due to the really high modernization potential and excellent performance characteristics of the product (like the Trident-2 SLBM), and where - due to the obsolescence of solutions that made it relatively easy to replace the stages and a number of other components, then the focus did not work with charges. Saving on matches and candles led to an avalanche process of degradation and write-off and disposal of charges. It is possible to modernize the charges, but not in all aspects, but much that was required later - they have already forgotten how to do it. You can learn again - but this is time and money, and much more time and money than it once was for the first time, because modern technologies are expensive and complex. The second "Manhattan Project" with the current price tags and "budget master" will be extremely expensive, complex and time-consuming. Therefore, in the plans, the restoration of the ability to produce is worth only in 12-14 years, and there, perhaps, it will work out more. And it is unlikely that it will turn out faster than the plans, although this should not soothe our military-political leadership - we need to rearm at the same pace in all aspects!
The Americans can also say a special "thank you" to their designers, when developing a number of systems that made unfortunate mistakes that led to the rapid removal from service as a number of carriers - the air-based AGM-129 CD was removed from service and disposed of along with the charges, and the much older AGM -86 serves and will continue to serve, the MX ICBMs were also removed from service much earlier than they could, and not only in the START-1 Treaty this is the case, etc. A similar story happened with a number of charges - including problems with a number of very important alloys and materials, problems identified with the reliability of a number of types of warheads. Well, and also such a moment that the service capacity was limited, and the types of ammunition that already needed to get to the corresponding lines and to the corresponding shops often turned out to be much more than places. Which led to the write-off of a number of types that I wanted to keep. In general, the same avalanche-like process of growing problems.
This is how this somewhat paradoxical, at first glance, but natural situation has developed, when the "only" and "exclusive" superpower has lost the ability to reproduce one of the primary sexual characteristics of this very superpower. Even if it is temporary, but for a long enough time.
Could something like this happen to Russia in the 90s? Yes, it could. And even it should have happened. But, fortunately, the margin of safety turned out to be higher, and at first a number of needs kept the nuclear complex afloat, and then, even in the then power elite, an understanding began to appear that, first of all, the nuclear sword and nuclear shield are the factor that did not allow the Russian Federation those years to turn into post-Maidan Ukraine, where Biden sat in the place of the head of state and handed out instructions to the slaves. Or even to some Libya. And after the aggression against Yugoslavia, the country slowly but surely began to wake up and realize the full depth of our depths, and that somehow it is necessary to get out of there. Since about those years, Russia's nuclear weapons complex has not been idle.
Well, maybe God also helped us, but he helps only those who are able to help themselves. We were able to. And what the Americans can do - time will tell.
