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Concerns abouts US nuclear weapons based in Turkey

Just thought I'd note this part.

Instead Ankara has continued into the north of Syria to claim territory and target Kurdish militias who have been forced to side with America's enemies in the Syrian government to avoid complete destruction.

This should be

Instead Ankara has continued into the north of Syria to claim territory and target Kurdish militias who have turned to their traditional allies in the Syrian government to avoid complete destruction by anti-Assad groups who used to be supported by the United States but now are working for Turkey.
 
So, we're finally gonna see the reboot of the Ottoman Empire?
 
Pence: "Yo, Turkey! How about a ceasefire?"
Sultan: "Very well. We agree..."
Pence: "Hey, 'Murica! Got us a win for diplomacy, y'all!"
Sultan: "...but we will keep your nuclear weapons."
Pence: "Well... fuck."
 
Saw this in SB, the thing is that this is a not-news item. Those nukes are still stored in the US base in Turkey, under lock and key, and the PAL locks make sure that even if -somehow- Erdogan tried to take them by force they're no more than expensive paperweights at best, fancy dirty bombs at worst. The moment the Turks try to get those nukes, that would get the Med Fleet right at Turkey's doorstep with a very angry face, with the US military telling Trump and Co to fuck off when they try to force them to allow Erdogan the nukes.
 
The moment the Turks try to get those nukes, that would get the Med Fleet right at Turkey's doorstep with a very angry face, with the US military telling Trump and Co to fuck off when they try to force them to allow Erdogan the nukes.
Yes, because that is what we have learned from the last near-three years. All of those hard men have stood up to Trumpie... any day now.

GOP has been spineless. Departments of the administration have caved to his insane policies. Those tough generals advised him so well that they are all fired while Trumpie remains. He is already picking the pockets of the armed forces to build his useless fucking wall. But I'm sure that now will certainly be the time that the revolution will come and the military will mutiny against the Commander in Chief.

Yes, I am certain that the mad panic means absolutely nothing, everything is perfectly fine. Nothing to see here. Total non-issue, the forum nerds have deemed it so despite the reports to the contrary from withing the government itself, and who would you rather trust as a source?
 
It seems that The Sultan does not want to make the mistake the last Turk did when nukes and Turkey was involed.
 
Saw this in SB, the thing is that this is a not-news item. Those nukes are still stored in the US base in Turkey, under lock and key, and the PAL locks make sure that even if -somehow- Erdogan tried to take them by force they're no more than expensive paperweights at best, fancy dirty bombs at worst. The moment the Turks try to get those nukes, that would get the Med Fleet right at Turkey's doorstep with a very angry face, with the US military telling Trump and Co to fuck off when they try to force them to allow Erdogan the nukes.

You think the US military would disobey an order from the US president, and that this is good?

I swear, some people seem to have gotten themselves to think that the US military is full of MSNBC viewers or something and that Trump support is some kind of fringe position.. HINT: no
 
I'm far more concerned about this than some PAL-protected Cold War-era gravity bombs:

 
Edited the thread title to reflect the actual situation.
 
Nuclear bombs slowly degrade over time, as the fissionable material breaks down. How long have those bombs been sitting there?
 
Nuclear bombs slowly degrade over time, as the fissionable material breaks down. How long have those bombs been sitting there?
Don't know but there likely to be removed from Turkey sooner or later for upgrades and maintenance which had already been pushed back at least once.
 
Scenario: a county aspiring to have it's own nuclear deterrent gets it's eager paws on a bunch of American warheads.

Which would be the easier option?

1) Work out how to hack/bypass the electronic protection system so as to be able to detonate the warheads
2) Dismantle the warheads, and use the plutonium to build new bombs.
 
Scenario: a county aspiring to have it's own nuclear deterrent gets it's eager paws on a bunch of American warheads.

Which would be the easier option?

1) Work out how to hack/bypass the electronic protection system so as to be able to detonate the warheads
2) Dismantle the warheads, and use the plutonium to build new bombs.
Probably the first option but the thing is trying to take them would mean storming a US military base or joint one as is the case with Incirlik which would be an act of war and a shit ton of sanctions and well even Turkey is not that stupid.
 
Probably the first option but the thing is trying to take them would mean storming a US military base or joint one as is the case with Incirlik which would be an act of war and a shit ton of sanctions and well even Turkey is not that stupid.

Yeah, well, obviously.
 
By far the hardest part of making a nuclear bomb is getting the fissile material. Everything else is pretty much well-understood physics and engineering, most of it even publicly available. Well, ok, the guidance system is not trivial, but let's compare the warhead/bomb only. ... While I simply don't know how strong PAL security actually is, and most of that information is almost certainly classified, I wouldn't count it as obvious that hacking it is easier than making a bomb given a supply of plutonium, especially since you'd have also have a ready-made design just from dismantling them.
 
Nuclear bombs slowly degrade over time, as the fissionable material breaks down. How long have those bombs been sitting there?
Pu-239 half life is 24,000 years, meaning the cores of those bombs will be OK for the next thousand years.
 
Not necessarily. Plutonium can chemically degrade (it's even pyrophoric in certain forms), and corrodes in a variety of ways. The warhead is ideally a sealed environment, but that doesn't necessarily remain so over such timeframes, and even when sealed, there's a some internal chemistry going on.
 
Not necessarily. Plutonium can chemically degrade (it's even pyrophoric in certain forms), and corrodes in a variety of ways. The warhead is ideally a sealed environment, but that doesn't necessarily remain so over such timeframes, and even when sealed, there's a some internal chemistry going on.
That's true, but do those chemical changes (which would affect mainly the electrons, right?) in any meaningful way affect the core's ability to splinter? Could the Pu-239 mass take in so much different material, that it would lose the density necessary to achieve supercriticality?
I'm not a physicist and certainly not a chemist, but I'd be more afraid for the explosives used to compress the core, and of course the electronics...
 
That's true, but do those chemical changes (which would affect mainly the electrons, right?) in any meaningful way affect the core's ability to splinter? Could the Pu-239 mass take in so much different material, that it would lose the density necessary to achieve supercriticality?
Corrosion of the pit (core) can alter its geometry, which affects its ability to achieve supercriticality. The W47 and W45 had problems in this regard. It's enough for the military to take seriously even on the time-scale of decades, so I'd expect it to be much worse over millennia.

I'm not a physicist and certainly not a chemist, but I'd be more afraid for the explosives used to compress the core, and of course the electronics...
That's certainly true, especially in the context of re-purposing material from other bombs.
 
Modern nuclear weapons use tritium boost for the fission part (this is called boosted fission, using some fusion reactions as a way to increase the yield of the fission stage) before the main fusion part, which obviously uses tritium as well, and its half-life is 12.3 years. That means you regularly have to maintain the devices to keep them at their planned yield, or you suddenly get very inefficient ones. As for breaking the PAL? Effing LOL. That system is what you obtain when you give tens of millions to electronics and software engineers and tell them to be the most devious and unforgivable assholes one can be with their field, then do the same thing cooperating with other countries' engineers, because the one thing all nuclear-armed countries agree upon is that a nuclear device should not be used without legitimate orders. You don't bypass it.
 
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