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Originally Posted by Bulgaroctonus
I have many questions regarding the Iran issue. However, I would like to discuss one specific point. Many people have said that bombing will not work.
However, could not the U.S. use nuclear weapons? We could use long-range, but low-yield weapons to hit their suspected facility sites. For example, a 120 Kiloton bomb (10 times Hiroshima) could definitely take out an underground bunker. If more power is needed, we can go up to standard issue, at least 1 megaton and above.
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Hi Bulgaroctonus,
OOE is correct in his assesment that the use of nuclear weapons would be an unsavory prospect at best.
I would like to point out that 120 kt yield is a pretty big bang.
One problem to consider about using nuclear weapons in Iran is the prevailing winds.
AFAIK, the contingency plan for subterranean, hardened targets has until recently been to deploy a B53 weapon in a laydown, delay mode. Even though there is a so called "clean" variant of the B53, one would think that a at the stated yield range a ground burst would create a significant amount of fallout.
The problem is that the communications, emergency prepardness and civil defense capabilities of Iran and neighboring countries are distinctly lacking in robustness (lets use the problems associated with earthquakes in the region as a benchmark). This would significantly exasperate the collateral damage caused by radioactive fallout to citizens in Iran and neighboring countries, some of which are considered friendly.
The B53 was being phased out towards the end of the last decade in favor of the earth penetrating variant of the B61 known as the Mod 11. The B61-11 is a dial a yield weapon with a yield range on the order of the 1 to 350 kt (not exactly sure, but this figure is representative of the B61 family in general).
The B61-11 is certainly a much more realistic option than your idea for using megaton yield weapons but I am still skeptical that secondary effects may not be an issue. However, the B61-11 may not be fully developed and deployed just yet which brings us back to conventional earth penetrating weapons.
The existing US earth penetrating weapons are combat proven and have a CEP that would make the power of nuclear explosvies unneccessary for the proposed targets but the essential problem still remains: what targets to strike and when. Without this information firmly in hand, striking directly at the Iranian nuclear program is a haphazard proposition at best.
I have an alternative idea that might be more suitable for a forcible preemption of the Iranian nuclear program.
The business of refining nuclear fuel and some of the associated operations is a particularly electricity intensive affair. It strikes me that the thing to do in an Iranian scenario is to strike at grid elements that are proximal to suspected nuclear facilities.
The advantages of such an strategy are many. For example:
First of all, those targets are likely to be less well defended than the nuclear facilities themselves.
Secondly, there is a wide lattitude of options to strike them. They could be hit clandestinely by cyberattack or old fashinoned sabotage, possibly using dissident groups or other proxies for an element of deniability early in the crisis.
Grid elements could be targetted at low risk with standoff weapons such as the TLAM from submarines in the Arabian Gulf or Indian Ocean with little warning or defense. If the conflict escelates to a bigger exchange, widespread air attacks against Iranian electricity production could be perpetrated.
Third, the Iranian government would be under pressure from its own people to get the lights back on and keep them on. It is amazing how much government legitmacy has historically been shown to be dependent on the ability to supply electricity
! This would reduce the political and physical resources of the regime to pursue its weapons efforts.
Finally, the US has some neato keeno goodies specifically designed to target and damage power generation capacity and associated grid elements and they are the shiznet.
The problem with nuclear weapons in general is that they are too powerful to be of any meaningful military utility under most circumstances. IMO, the US should dismantle some of its weapons and redeploy the fuel in something along the lines of the old Mk54.
With an itty bitty implosion core, the Mk54 as deployed as the M388 system weighed around 75 pounds and had two yield selections of 10 t and 20 t (about 1/50 th of a kt max). Update with GPS guidance, cram as many as will fit into a B52 and just have the thing circle high above theatre dispensing as neccessary to make things cease to exist on the demand of spotting authority. I digressed...
Probably the best case against deploying nuclear weapons against the Iranians is what history showed us happened after the last combat deployment of these systems: it percipitated an arms race which lead us to exactly the proliferation mess we are currently in. If the US used nuclear weapons against Iran, it would doubtlessly spur others to obtain some sort of detterent capability and the whole concept of squaring off with the Iranians in the first place is counterproliferation.
Well, that is my case against using nuclear weapons against the Iranians. I will defer to the knowledgable, proffessional WAB military contingent for correction or reinforcement on the matter.
Regards,
William