Most of them are, to be honest, I mean I don't know if Russian SSBN doctrine has changed since the Cold War, but IIRC the old plan was a mixture of under ice ops and a bastion. That's pretty resilient, but anything coming out of the barn usually gets tagged and probably followed. Same goes for US boats. They may be quiet, but they all have to enter and exit port at some point. The key is losing the tail or preferably not getting one in the first place. I mean there's a reason that ASW vessels usually beat the waters around SSBN ports. Get the boomer out of the port and into the open sea un-molested and you've got room to play with.

Land and air based deployments are different, the US has a pretty good system with Chrome Dome, but they can be intercepted. ICBMs can be hit in the silos if you can get a missile to them before the launch order is given, or you can intercept them with ABMs, although counter-measures and counter-counter-measure systems are always being created. Does Moscow still have that excellent ring of nuclear ABMs? The Russians were very good at that back in the day.

In short, strategic surprise counts for a lot, which is why there are spy satellites all over the place and why they're generally left alone. You start taking out the enemies satellites then you reduce their early warning time, you do that and they will think that you're getting ready to strike and will strike you first.

France:
- SSBNs
- air launched missiles (still in service?)

UK:
- SSBNs

US:
- SSBNs
- silo based ICBMs
- gravity bombs

Russia:
- SSBNs
- silo based ICBMs
- mobile ICBMs (both road and rail)
- gravity bombs
- air launched missiles (still in service?)

Russia's is most survivable in my opinion. U.S. was developing mobile system (Midgetman), but cancelled it at end of Cold War. Notable also is that many Russian land based systems still use MIRVed warheads instead of single ones as in U.S. Minuteman currently does.

You got it a bit wrong, US maintains nuclear ALCMs, we no longer have rail mobile ICBM.

About surprise attack - we have both the air defenses against a cruise missile attack for the nuclear triad bases (in the form of SAMs) and new EW means (OTH radar for detecting cruise missile attacks and low altitude stealth bombers).

While having a triad and various other measures does not make our nuclear deterent invincible - it makes it survivable enough to guarantee second strike capability. This makes it very stable.

The problem with the British deterent is the same as with the most other arms of the British military - it lacks mass to be independently viable/credible.

Who care what DT tweets I am more interested when he becomes President. Will he deliver his pledges to the everyday American who are fed up? Well next year he will have to put one's money where one's mouth is.

Those pesky midterm elections are in two years and history has shown that the citizens are not patient. Unless the GOP shows actual benefits fast, we will have a repeat of what happened to Obama.

Promises may get you the presidency, but results get you congress.

France does still have Air launched nuclear cruise missiles with the ASMP, and will probably upgrade to the ASMP-A at some point. There's about sixty or so in service. Their missiles are also MIRV'd, as are our Tridents IIRC (well, technically they're American Tridents but British warheads), and the US still has warheads for its cruise missiles too. I must admit though that I did not know about the single warhead on the Minuteman IIIs, now that is interesting. I guess perhaps the logic is to have many missiles with single warheads (to keep under the limits of various treaties) and spread them out rather than a few missiles with multiple warheads and run the risk of them being taken out in the silo. :hmmm:

British warheads use US made critical components :)

Wise thoughts there Platapus ... it's going to be an interesting run for the money the next two years or shall we say the power curve. The republicans have hindered the democrats with Obama as the president for a long time now.

Right or wrong the only thing that can stop Trump now is a DNC House and Senate. :yep:

Having the Executive and both houses of congress is a blessing and a curse

It is a blessing in that the GOP can get pretty much anything they want
The curse is that they will have no one to blame when things don't go quite as expected.

In politics it may be more advantageous to have someone to blame than to have freedom of action.

Soon-to-be-gone Obama waved his feeble fist at Russia again today.

We'll know this is serious when Russia shuts down the US space program.

No need to worry about the Ruskies shutting down NASA...

Trump and the GOP Bible-thumpers (not a rock group name) will most likely attend to that effort...



<O>

It all depends on how much Trump's businesses are involved in the space program.

If he has holdings, I am sure it will be a "national priority". If not....

Good point. As far as I have seen, his holdings are very much in real estate and little else; however, some of the Trump cronies may have holdings that could be affected by a trimmed down NASA; then, again, if Trump does as other GOP POTUS have done in the past in order to boost economics figures and pursues increased Defense program spending, which is far more lucrative than NASA spending, and Trump or his cronies have holdings in Defense or Defense-related technologies, NASA may lose out...

The other issue is the animus with which the religious GOP Far Right holds against science in general: it's hard to sell blind faith when science inconveniently keeps finding facts. The odd thing about science, and intellectual pursuits, in general, is how whenever an extreme political or religious regime takes over a society, one of the first measures they take is the suppression, if not actual elimination, of the more open educated or scientific segments of a society; the Nazis did so in Germany and the Bolsheviks did so in the Soviet Union. Any system or regime that so fears those capable of possibly disputing or disproving the tenets of the system or regime, rests on a very slim foundation. This is why the Founding Fathers, all of whom could be deemed intellectuals, saw fit to make freedom of speech and the press as the No. 1 priority when writing the Constitution...



<O>

This is just an odd thought (I have a lot of those)

What if Presidet Obama is thinking of running again in four years?
Actually the race will start in 2018 just about the same time that President Obama may be thinking that the House and the Senate could be retaken by the democrat's and introduce a bill that would allow him to run for another term after he has sat one out.

Now his taunting POTUS elect Trump that he could've won in the last election (pissing off Hillary at the same time I hear) makes more sense.

Yep! I think Obama's ego is getting some play here :yep:

I think you might want to read up on what he means by Russia shutting down the U.S. space program. Doesnt have anything to do with shutting down the Department, Trump, bible thumpers or cronies. :roll:

NASA's budget is already trimmed to the point that it must totally rely on the Russians to get U.S. astronauts into space. So, unless you are willing to invest a substantial sum of money into NASA or have the patience to wait for private enterprise to develope vehicles. The Russians being the only source of transportation for U.S. astronauts are very capable of shutting down the U.S. space program (not NASA).