Where to hide your nuclear missile submarine? (opens in new tab)

The US is peculiar with its nuclear policy in trying to guarantee immediate response, by contrast say the UK only has nuclear submarines at sea, and it's expected that there'll be nothing like an immediate response, rather the captains of those submarines will find out who nuked the UK and respond.

So the answer for deterrence purposes is you don't need to nuke anyone right away, immediate response is only one layer of the onion when it comes to nuclear deterrence.

You cannot nuke anybody, and you have no possibility of defense neither. That's why those cold war nuclear games were over, as soon as the Russian's had their subs, and the US had Incilik.

The only openly hostile country with SLBMs is Russia.

So Russia is probably the best choice.

IIRC both have about 60 subs and Russia is back at their post-1991 strength.

See the recent WaPo article about them mapping undersea cables.

Per the long standing tradition in western diplomacy, blame the russians. You might not know why but they will know.

It's assumed that a submarine can travel in the ocean for long periods without detection. I don't know whether this is still considered to be true by military strategists, but it's a large part of the motivation behind having nuclear-armed submarines in the first place.

A submarine is at least pretty stealthy, but the heat signature of a missile launch is impossible to hide.

Another way to look at it: the satellite systems described in the article (SBIRS and DSP) are optimised for early detection of a launch. So when considering the deficiencies of those systems, it's correct to consider a hypothetical adversary who optimises for the opposite.

You want to minimise the adversary's chance to put in place proper evacuation or countermeasures.

presumably the reason you would have IR satellites looking for launch plumes in the middle of the ocean is in fact to detect submarine-based launches

It has been speculated Pakistan is already playing with tactical nukes and using unmarked vehicles to move them around the country, because they fear the USA will disarm them ala the bin Ladin raid on a larger scale. They already do not move nuclear materials in armed convoys because that would make them stand out and a target for anyone in a pretty divided country so they use unmarked vehicles. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/the-all...

You should not be nuked because those are real questions. I think we have organizations (not legal) which kill anybody attempting the variations of what you describe.

We sleep soundly because there exist men willing to do inhuman things to ensure our security. It's unpleasant until compared to the other options. That's what genuine heroism is like. When Putin is praising that organization he is thinking of something like this. We live very sheltered lives I think.

You're probably down voted because actual discussion would lead to the Samson Option.

I wonder if you could social engineer that. So when you start 'asking for a friend' you don't go with the major item that makes someone think 'wow this must be for him'. You start with lesser items and over time build up to the thing you want 'for the friend'. Hence tenderizing the target and making them less likely to question why you are asking. Because they already 'know you'.

I was trying to explain to my wife the concept. The example that I used was the person who wants the retail store password. They don't call the store and say over the phone 'hey I am at the Global Mall Store and forgot my password can I have yours?'. Immediate red flag. They start with something simpler and build a reputation as legit. Something like 'hey I am at the Global Mall Store are they saying you have to work until 7pm on Christmas also?' [1]

[1] Then follow that up with other requests over weeks finally culminating the 'password' question.

In fairness, nothing ruins Christmas faster than the kids stumbling across the nuclear missile submarine you bought them.

You honestly think that such a "rogue nuclear power with active concentration camps" couldn't figure this out on their own?

In that case, I hope we're also embargoing Tom Clancy, Michael DiMercurio, and Patrick Robinson paperbacks from said rogue state.

Which rogue nuclear power with active concentration camps do you have in mind? The USA?