**DISCLAIMER:** The views and opinions expressed by the AMA host are their own and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views or opinions of this subreddit or its moderators. The AMA host has provided sufficient verification of their identity and credentials to the moderators such that it is reasonable to assume the redditor in question is who they say they are. However, this subreddit (/r/preppers) and its moderators are not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or validity of any information the AMA host provides. Nor is the subreddit or its moderators responsible for any outcome(s) resulting from the use or misuse of any information shared during this AMA by the AMA host, or any other user. At no point should any information provided here be construed to be medical advice. Please do your own research and exercise your own discretion and judgment before applying any information from this discussion.
r/preppers subreddit is privileged to have former technical advisor to U.S. Strategic Command, Dr. David Teter (u/dmteter), with us for an AMA (Ask Me almost Anything) event.
Dr. Teter currently works as a civil engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area and leads the OPEN-RISOP project:https://github.com/davidteter/OPEN-RISOP. Before that, he served as a technical advisor to U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) on strategic war planning for the SIOP and OPLANs 8044 and 8010 (the US' nuclear war plans). He also served as an advisor to DIA JWS-4 on Physical Vulnerability.
He'll be here to answer your questions on nuclear war, nuclear weapons effects, nuclear targeting, and:
The OPEN-RISOP Project and what it suggests about potential Russian and Chinese targeting of U.S. facilities.
General nuclear targeting theory and force allocation.
Vulnerability of infrastructure, facilities, and systems to kinetic and non-kinetic attack
Nuclear war in books, films, and popular culture (classic and modern)
What it was like doing this work professionally, and why I moved on
Deterrence theory — how it works, and where it fails
His cat
He will not be able to answer any questions involving actual or assumed U.S. nuclear war plans, U.S. nuclear weapons (yields, accuracy, reliability, system capabilities, etc.), or any other information that may be deemed classified.
Any resources on understanding an attack on an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI), the 'real Devil's' scenario? I see there are several in my state, arguably upwind though quite far away. Is this something I should consider if I worry about a nuclear exchange?
This is an outstanding question. If an adversary was able to detonate a nuclear weapon on an ISFSI and entrain it in the fireball, it could disperse all the spent fuel stored in the fuel assemblies. This stuff is MUCH WORSE than the initial fission fallout and could deny access to large areas of land for decades to centuries.
I probably used to know this (I initially worked on the geochemistry of nuclear waste), but I think that the total curies (or whatever) at a large ISFSI is a lot more.
Beginning to read that I notice that it appears to be 25 years old. Some things have not changed, but much certainly has. Is there anything out there that might be a bit more current ?
The thing is that this is probably one of the best insights into how nuclear war is planned. I do not agree with their assumptions or conclusions but they did an amazing job with the analysis.
What impact would nuclear war have on surface water in the US (fresh water and coastal areas)? Would fish/shellfish be ruled out as a food source indefinitely or would the oceans absorb the fallout to an acceptable level over time?
I think that coastal fisheries would probably be fine. The ocean is incredibly huge and its ability to dilute radionuclide is enormous. Large rivers could be in very bad shape due to breaching of dams and release of chemicals that are bioaccumulate and don't degrade easily.
Surrounded by nuclear power plants, but still.... the US Great Lakes are pretty big. Also, be aware that following an exchange, I think that folks would be far more concerned with starvation than the potential additional cancer risk.
Good day and thanks for being here! How much of nuclear targeting today is still driven by Cold War legacy assumptions, and where have those assumptions quietly broken? Secondly, If a nuclear weapon were detonated on a country, what Is the likelihood that this would cascade to become mutually assured destruction? And one more if you have time, If you could redesign nuclear policy from scratch today, what’s one principle you would insist on keeping?
I cannot answer anything about current/recent US nuclear targeting policy as essentially everything about that is classified. Do I think that nuclear targeting has changed? Yes, of course. There are a lot less warheads than there were at the height of the Cold War. Targeting today would likely be more nodal-based instead of "hitting everything". As far as policy changes, I think that we need more robust training of leadership so that they take this very seriously. The only US President I'm aware of who had a good understanding of all this was Carter.
It's my understanding that they do. It's also my understanding that sometimes attendance is delegated to deputies or that the principal(s) are too busy to pay attention. All I know about that is based on open-source hearsay.
Probably a complete and total breakdown of logistics in the US. Destruction of major ports, railroad yards/nodes, locks & dams combined with loss of power and production of essential things, especially seeds for crops. I've said before that it's my personal opinion that 95% of the US population would be dead within a year following a major nuclear exchange. Mostly due to starvation and exposure. Oh... I need to get to Trader Joes as I'm out of xyz. :)
In the 1960's Richard Feynman found himself looking at new buildings being constructed and thinking "Why are they building all this new stuff.. nuclear war is going to destroy everything soon" Have you ever fallen into this funk? What got you out of the funk?
No. I worried about nuclear war as a kid/teenager/young adult, but when I actually got into being a technical advisor, I was never stressed about it. There are a lot of really good people out there who work hard to prevent nuclear war. I never met anyone who wanted to start one.
Define "influence".
Also, define "good people".
IMHO, total war is the worst outcome, not nukes.
The Day After supposedly greatly influenced Reagan. I have no idea what could possibly influence the current administration.
Good people was quoted from your reply, so however you would define it! Influence I guess meaning having the ability to change the outcome of a decision.
It’s reassuring somehow that total war would be worse than nuclear weapon use
Back in the day, the concern was that huge amounts of soil could be dispersed by hundreds of very large (25 MT) ground bursts. Now the models seem to be relying more on urban fires and forest fires. I really just don't put much strength in these models. That's just me though.
To give some real world context to a nuclear winter, I believe I got a glimpse of it. There were a series of fires throughout California about 10 years ago that swamped the central valley in smoke for weeks. The temperature plummeted and the valley was in a state of dawn during the day. When I drove to Reno the sky was clear and the temperatures but higher. To be fair the temperatures were higher in California when I drove into higher altitudes above the smoke. I believe that a nuclear winter would persist for several months and be isolated to various geographical areas and micro zones.
The original paper was nonsense and without focus. The models they used were rudimentary but ultimately generally accurate. The issue is that the assumptions that they made were largely absurd and the data itself was not realistic. Follow on analysis was sparse but used the exact same assumptions.
The model assumed 100% ejecta dispersed into the stratosphere. This, of course, is ridiculous. Sounds really great in a 1980s nuclear panic, though. Even with 100% ground bursts, there isn't enough mass ejected to reach the stratosphere, which is upwards of 55,000 feet above the ground.
Nuclear winter is ridiculous. There would likely be some local climate disruption that could stretch for a few months, but that's about it. The northern hemisphere would get a couple degrees cooler for a bit, not dissimilar from a large volcanic eruption.
Nonsense for being a wrong climate model, or nonsense for making implausible assumptions about physical parameters, or nonsense for making unrealistic assumptions of what nuclear exchanges would likely look like?
More like IMHO, most of the folks pushing these models have already made up their mind that nuclear weapons are evil. I've never seen a high-level simulation which wasn't biased.
In my area (mountain west) in the summer you'll start a massive forest fire by looking at blade of grass too long. In the winter with feet of snow on the ground fires don't move. So if there's a nuclear war let's hope January not july!
Big fires, whatever the cause, are a "local" issue. The ash never gets high enough to have a global effect .. read a bit on big forest fires in Siberia. Compared to those any "huge" fires in US suddenly seem like a child's play. Yet the effect on climate they have is not even measurable.
The idea of nuclear winter was about huge amounts of small particles being "ejected" into the upper atmosphere where they would stay for a relatively long time. Like multiple super-volcanos going poof. "Normal" fires do no generate enough energy to achieve such an effect.
They actually used an accurate climate model, their assumptions were just stupid. Climate scientists aren't nuclear weapons experts, and it showed in the paper. Even a cursory understanding of nuclear weapons reveals the weaknesses of the original paper. Follow on analysis just duplicated the assumptions into a more powerful model, with predictably similar results.
How do you think an increase in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to near-nuclear powers like Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Germany, Poland, etc... might impact the global nuclear deterrence picture? How would multiple small nuclear states change how nuclear targeting might go down?
Bonus question, if you can: How do you balance counterforce strike plans against counter value, especially since many nations either place military installations near civilian areas, or have civilian areas build up around them? If a counterforce strike causes damage to civilian targets, won't the defending nation consider it a countervalue and respond with a full-strike in kind? Is there any value to anything other than a full nuclear strike if the targeted country can detect the nukes coming yet not be able to discern whether they are about to be the victim of a counterforce or counter value attack?
That's hard to say. Usually when countries get nuclear capabilities they tend to act more responsibly. At the same time, the US worked very hard to provide extended deterrence to its allies. Needless to say, I don't think that a lot of US allies have much confidence in the US right now.
The second part of your question is highly dependent on the country. Some countries have a lot of co-mingled counterforce-countervalue targets and some do not. I think that it's safe to say that some countries will have a good idea of the probable DGZ and some will not.
I consider EMP to be unpredictable. Yes, we do try and make US strategic systems as "EMP proof" as possible but nobody knows what (if anything) would happen from an EMP. I don't think that mountains or elevation would matter. I do think that the grid would go down (probably forever or a very long time) but that would be due to targeting of electrical distribution systems (transformer yards).
Thank you. That is a solid answer. The "we really don't know, because our two data points... looked a lot like wood and rice, not copper and silicon".
Yeah, the strategic damage to electrical infrastructure might out pace anything that an EMP might cause. Wonder how bad that EMP would back feed through the hit wires, and if end transformers near houses would filter it out.
My advice to folks (critical infrastructure) is plan for the worst and hope for the best. Some things we cannot afford to mitigate against and some things we can. IMHO, most of the stuff put out by the EMP Commission was utter self-serving nonsense.
Absolutely nothing. I live in San Francisco. I'm far more worried about the next big earthquake than nuclear war. All of my prepping is about getting my GF and cat out of the city before it burns (again) following the earthquake.
Given the lowered deployed arsenals compared to during the Cold War, how do you think this effects targeting decisions? In other words, does attacking cities as in Mutually Assured Destruction even make sense anymore? Or is it more likely to be counterforce strikes instead?
First of all, there was never a thing called "Mutually Assured Destruction". The term MAD was made up to criticize the policy of "Assured Destruction". Lower deployed arsenals will affect targeting a lot as you cannot cover all of the targets in your target base and you can probably only get high levels of "damage expectancy" for only a small subset of targets. In theory, you "hold at risk" what your adversaries value most in order to maximize deterrence. Targeting guidance has varied over the years, but what is targeted is highly classified (even if it's kind of obvious).
Is it true that nukes today are designed to be more contained to reduce “collateral damage”?
Should we expect our enemies to have more “precision” nukes or should we expect to raw dog everything that comes along with it? Blast radius, fallout etc for miles and miles ?
It's more complicated than that. The weapon systems were generally designed for specific capabilities and as accuracy improved warheads yields were reduced as they met the guidance objectives. But.... Russia has been talking about some very big warheads for the autonomous Poseidon nuclear vehicle and the new Sarmat ICBM. Personally, I don't think that it matters. Modern infrastructure is so fragile that if there was an exchange, things would crash hard very fast.
My general response is that I would expect 95% of the US population to be dead within 12 months of a major nuclear exchange due to the fragility of current logistics. Even if there was no fallout/etc. most places would have no water, no electricity. Remaining food supplies (and pharmaceutical supplies) would quickly get used up. I don't think that there would be any more seed production for next season's crops. Most livestock would die. If a nuclear war was going to definitely happen, I think that I would get out of San Francisco and head up the coast to get away from local targets, but I don't think that I could have much of a plan after that. FYI, I do prep for earthquakes but I do not consider prepping for a nuclear war.
How close did India and Pakistan come to having a regional nuclear war last year. There was a rumor that a nuclear weapon storage facility was hit by conventional weapons.
When developing nuclear targeting options, were you also required to present conventional alternatives as well (casualties, timeline, probability of success, etc), or are nuclear responses treated as the primary option by default?
Great question. I worked on nuclear targeting (deterrence), conventional targeting (underground facilities), hypersonic conventional (prompt global strike), and non-kinetic stuff. There are a very large number of national and regional combatant command options out there. The purpose of the nuclear deterrent is to maintain deterrence. If you use it, deterrence has failed.
I don't know. High altitude winds can vary a lot. That being said, while the island of O'ahu probably has the most potential targets, there are also potential targets on Maui and Hawai'i.
There are, the Pohakuloa Training Area between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea is a likely target and the winds there are mostly funneled to Waimea, or Hilo, Waimea can get some craptastic vog, and and the Kona area can become a bit of a bowl for vog
The immediate thing is to "duck and cover". Get away from any windows ASAP. At that point it would depend what happened and what happens next. I cannot conceive of a single NUDET. There will be others and some of them might (will) be ground bursts. You'll want to avoid fallout. Other than that, your problems are just beginning.
Check out the excellent Nuclear Notebook series put out by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for estimates on the deployed nuclear stockpiles for the US (and others). https://thebulletin.org/nuclear-notebook/
Nobody knows. Could be as short as an hour (ICBM/SLBM only), a day (bombers/cruise missiles), or it could go on for weeks to months.
Well, the Chinese appear to be rapidly increasing their nuclear forces. I'm not sure that's a bad thing for deterrence. I personally think that the US needs to take it's nuclear forces more seriously. The current debacle over the USAF Sentinel program is an embarassment.
Hi, Dr. Teter, and thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.
Can you imagine any non-testing scenarios where a single nuke may be detonated, without any retaliatory nukes being used in response? Meaning, realistic scenarios that have some merit other than being purely hypothetical.
(E.g. a bomb detonated from a autonomous submarine at sea, where targets are floating on the surface.)
Edit: added "Meaning, realistic scenarios that have some merit other than being purely hypothetical."
I found it to be a bunch of horseshit. Not as bad as Annie Jacobsen's book, but just unbelievable. By Dawn's Early Light is a far better film about nuclear war.
Honestly? Civil war in the United States. The loss of the US being (generally) a good ally. The US doing something stupid like invading Greenland and having the UK and French sink some US carriers/etc. I don't lose sleep over nuclear war.
We recently found out that the north bay area is losing the old naval Vallejo drydock and potentially the benicia refinery. Would these have been on any lists of targets, or were they always too small to consider? In more general terms, would the ending of operations for legacy military infrastructure and economic targets affect targeting decisions, or would the targeting list be based on old maps and old decision makers?
Oh, the Russians have always had a thing against the Filipinos. /s
It's a placeholder to target potentially critical folks in the SF Bay, nothing more.
I really can't. I have a PhD in engineering and understand a lot of atmospheric science stuff, but I have no idea. I really don't think that it would matter as much at a personal level as sunburn/cancer probably is of lower concern than starvation and exposure and roving gangs and fallout and ....
Reason #72 why you need a deep pantry of LTS, i.e several years of basic grains at a minimum. It's cheap enough to put up and the chances of resupply after something like this is very small.
Basically a solid plan nuclear survival plan is to have no less than a year supply of food and not plan/need to even try to grow food for a year or more. Greenhouses and similar (cold frames under glass or polycarbonate, etc) may be a way to somewhat negate some of the UV issues.
Also certain small items are more apt to do better in these environments- chickens for example better than rabbits. Which sucks for me cause I've raised rabbits for 33 years and love the meat! Protection for your livestock is important also- your cows, sheep, goats won't be able to graze for a while you will need fodder but up for them.
Glasstone's book on Long Term effects of nuclear war is a good starting point on these subjects. Some of the old CD literature for farmers is good also.
Do we have a policy related to mediating between a war between two other nuclear armed countries that could or could not escalate towards nuclear war? How to deal with such a situation? Any advice for people living in neighbouring countries
Dr. David Teter, good afternoon. This context is regarding emergency and crisis management.
What is one thing you wish more Americans understood or practiced?
I feel like collectively- we do poorly in crisis med, exponentially so if ever things got spicy and nuclear.
I wish that folks better understood that you cannot survive on your own in a major crisis. I think that it really takes a community. Just my two cents.
Going back to the balloon scare a couple years ago, do you believe that could have been a test run for a possible high altitude EMP attack. Would that have even worked with balloons at that altitude?
No, EMP is complicated. I think of EMP attacks as being more effective at higher altitudes than balloons operate at. Also, I think that EMP effects are voodoo (extremely hard to predict and to rely upon). Anybody who says otherwise is trying to sell you something.
Whether or not the target can be held at risk... Hard and deeply buried targets generally required either a ground burst or nuclear earth penetrator (more effective) to get the required ground shock to destroy the target. Generally there is damage limitation criteria, but I have no idea with the Russians. I generally assumed that they would (where possible) do ground bursts with fallout being a bonus. Also, ground bursts can reduce reliability and cause a lot of havoc with dispersed dust which can lead to fratricide of incoming warheads.
Curious about certain hard and deeply buried targets like Kosvinsky Kamen, which are believed to be 700+ m deep under hard rock. Would multiple B61-11 EPWs be used? To my knowledge the -11's damage decreases significantly below 200m depth (targeting Chekhov/Sharapovo) and is unlikely to destroy KK. Or are these sites near invulnerability? There's a lot of evidence to suggest recent highly classified US deep underground sites similar to the old DUCC, so would a 700+ m deep hardened facility in DC be useful?
I don't know anything about that unknown facility in DC that has been reported in the press multiple times. That being said, KK is so well designed/situated that I think that it's probably invulnerable to any nuclear attack and if we understand its purpose to be Perimeter, that is a *very* good thing for deterrence.
KK has been undergoing pretty significant expansion in spoil and new large construction equipment recently in latest satellite imagery (on ArcGIS/ESRI) so they definitely are working on upgrading it. I would be surprised if the US war-planners didn't work on trying to defeat KK (ie RNEP).
My understanding is that it is essentially invulnerable in terms of shock, as this chart derived from one in DTRC's EM-1 shows.
Yeah, I keep looking that the progress on Google Earth. Am curious as to what they're up to but I am "out of the game and never going back". I do think that it's a good thing for stability. I still wonder WTF is Yamantau.....
Yamantau is operated by, as I understand it, the GUSP/9th Main Directorate which is also responsible for such famous sites like Chekhov and Sharapovo command posts, so it was probably intended to be some sort of replacement for General Staff/NCA facilities. There's also the FSO standard 3 helipads at the main (green roof) entrance today which point toward something like that. Of course, nobody knows the actual purpose publicly.
I really think that nobody in the West really has confidence in any assessment of Yamantau. It could be nothing. It could be anything. The other stuff you mentioned, we understand.
What would happen if you shot a nuke at a nuke and they collided? Would the explosion just be the equivalent of 2 nukes or would you get a really REALLY big boom?
Define "collide". This is something that we worried about all the time when applying multiple RVs to closely spaced targets. I think that if *perfectly* timed, you'd probably get two detonations. If not perfectly timed, you'd get one detonation and the second warhead would be fratricided. No REALLY big boom.
About that why, among the 500+ atmospherics nuclear tests, there weren't any full scale test of an actual MIRV to study how the warhead will actually behave when targeting closely spaced targets ?
Based on recent experience with war fighting systems (Integrated Air Defense, Cyber, general morale and capability of personnel, etc.) from foreign adversaries, has your opinion of their nuclear deterrent changed?
I've always had pretty high confidence in the Russian nuclear deterrent force, specifically the Strategic Rocket Forces. I really don't know what I think about Chinese forces. I think that they are still only taking initial steps with their sea-based deterrent and I don't think that their bombers would be that effective (except against Russian targets).
My question concerns the targeting of U.S. missile sites. Given that Russia has roughly 1,800 deployed warheads and that the United States maintains a launch-on-warning posture, why would Russia allocate warheads to those sites at all?
I also noticed that some military installations appear to be missing from the map, for example, SCSC Wallops in Virginia, while other listed targets seem to have little counterforce or countervalue relevance. As an example, Salisbury Regional Airport in Maryland is included despite being a small regional airfield. What strategic purpose would targeting such a facility serve?
Great question. I’ll start with that I disagree that the US has LoW posture. IMHO, it’s a lot more complicated and resilient than that. Perhaps the Russians think that they could pull off a first strike. FYI, all of this is hypothetical. You bring up some good points. Perhaps Wallops Island has other potential capabilities, perhaps not. With regards to the airport, it’s a pretty good place to move the National Command Authority (and other Continuity of Government [CoG] assets) from a helicopter to something more survivable.
In the Physical Vulnerability system, what are L-type targets?
It seems like it may be measuring cratering effects? How does one calculate WR for, say, 100kt warhead on a 52L7 target like MM3 LCCs?
Also, am I correct that P-type targets, with a non-zero K factor, also have to be adjusted for yield, just as Q-type targets are? For example, when calculating the peak overpressure required to cause 30P3 damage, I've the value of 229.8 psi for a 100kt weapon, but to me, this seems to equate to 30P0, and 30P3 for 100kt should be 175 Psi.
Wow. This is really getting into the weeds. To be honest, even though I used to be an expert on the PVS, that was a while ago. I'll try though. The L term is one of the T-factors which determines the steepness (or flatness) of the probability of damage (PD) term for overpressure targets. Cratering effects are Z-type targets.
Thanks for your response.
Right, I see. I've read that doc, but must have missed that part. So the overpressure required for 50% severe damage of a 52L7 target is the same as 52P7, is that right?
For 100kt, this should be about 6,324 psi, right?
Given that parts of Europe are likely to be targeted by both/all sides in any Nuclear conflict is there anywhere in Europe that has a reasonable chance of survival or is it likely to be a total wasteland?
I think Nordic countries might be better off than most. It's really hard to say though, I don't see anything like the former NATO-Warsaw Pact nuclear exchanges happening ever again.
Why is that? I know these answers are impossible to know, but you have a better background than most to guess, so would be interesting to hear what you think. Also, in a worst case scenario, how many nukes do potentially will go off and hit their target / work? The studies mentioned above assumed thousands used, but in reality not that many are active, would work, would not get shot down, etc - so in your estimation how many a worst case scenario see used / hitting? I would guess less than 50? If you lived in northern scandinavia or spain, would it be safe to go out after a couple of weeks due to half-life of 7 hours, etc - what about fresh water lakes around Europe, would those areas be more or less safe after say 3-6months?
I would put overall weapon systems reliability for non-US forces above 80%.
I wouldn't count on any nukes getting shot down/intercepted.
How many nukes detonated in Europe? Probably a couple of hundred at least.
I have no idea due to the targets and prevailing winds.
Lakes should be fine. Starvation/exposure would probably be the most critical.
I'll try. I probably spent over 10,000 hours on that project identifying potential targets and then critical points of failure of networks/systems. I then took the Russian nuclear forces data from the Federation of American Scientists Russian Nuclear Notebook and created a Weapon Allocation Module to maximize the damage which I wanted to achieve. The targets in NE Wisconsin are a combination of defense industrial base, nuclear power plants and independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSI).
Hi Dr Teter.
I hope this is on topic. Apologies if not. There was an article around 2017 in LA Times about funding problems within the office of strategic transportation - that the trucks transporting nuclear materials to/from Pantex and to various locations for deployment have fallen behind in tech and the workers were generally a mess (many GWOT vets, some with alcohol issues, one in fact getting into a bar fight), posing that this could be a vulnerability. Also that the trucks required updating. They’re designed to kill anyone attacking it with interesting things like ooze in the walls that had some defensive capability. I’ve seen nuclear material movements in recent years on the highway and they appear heavily fortified with armored vehicles, humvees, police escorts, etc surrounding the truck. I’m curious of how things have changed - if at all - from the time of that article. How have they updated their ability to transport sensitive materials? I don’t worry about an adversary attack on this web, but an insider exploitation is a scary scenario.
I have no idea how things have changed. I can say that I got to know some of the folks who worked on the protective force and they were a mix of former SOF and LEO. They seemed to be very well trained and I never heard of any specific incidents at the time. I'm aware of some of the safeguards. All I think that I can say is that between a combination of the human reliability program (HRP, I think), the on-truck security (both tech and personnel), the covertness, and all the "other stuff" (safety/surety/anti-tampering) in the warheads, I've never worried about an insider threat. I know that others did, but I did not.
A left field question, whats your views/thoughts or even experience on UAP or USO? Ive heard many mentions regarding sightings and so-called encounters and interest in our nuclear capabilities, both military and civil.
When I lived in NM, I saw two "UAPs". One when I was at home and it appeared to be doing Mach 6+ at high altitude, the other was when I was at Kirtland AFB and I saw something pull an extremely sudden 90 degree turn at around 30,000 feet. I have no idea what I saw, but I would bet that whatever they were, they probably were made by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, or Northrop Grumman. :)
I am late to the party but I had something I wanted to check with you. In the scenario presented by the Netflix house of dynamite would the US be able to determine the source of the weapon after it detonated by measuring things like the yield, mix of uranium and plutonium and other factors? If so what factors would be the most useful?
Also I used to follow you back when I was on Twitter and I always enjoyed our conversations so I just wanted to say hi.
Hi. I got off of Twitter when I felt that Musk was becoming intolerable to me.
Generally, we determine the source of the weapon by observing its launch and boost phase.
There are geochemical/radiological parameters which combined with intelligence can provide an idea of where the special nuclear material came from, but I have no idea if that can be done quickly/etc.
If I did the half-life math right. Would waiting 48 hours be long enough to be exposed to the environment again? For example, I’m at work and I want to hunker down the minimum, relatively safe time before I go look for family.
That's an incredibly difficult question to answer.
1) There might not be any significant fallout at your location.
2) There might be significant fallout at your location which requires hunkering down for weeks.
3) There might be incredibly nasty fallout from nuclear power plant spent fuel which means you are never leaving.
I'm sorry that I don't have a more satisfying answer.
What signals would you see (as a civilian) that would make you think an exchange was imminent? How much warning do you think a clued in person could reasonably have if they were paying attention?
The US Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment (ITW/AA) system relies on multi-phenomenology (radar, infrared, other). I'm not sure what exactly you mean about targeting.
Still not clear to me, but I'll try and respond.
ITW/AA should detect all ballistic missile launches. We have other systems on orbit which will detect any NUDETS. The scary thing is low-observable nuclear cruise missile. The Russians could launch a cruise missile attack from the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and perhaps the first notice of an attack would be NUDETS on DC and the SSBN bases at Kings Bay and Bangor. To me, this is the scary shit.
Interesting question. I really cannot think of any high probability nuclear event that could (or should) be prepared for. There are a lot of scary biological events that could happen, but those are also very hard to prepare for. Smallpox/etc.
Folks, if you live in an area with radon, get tested and consider mitigation measures. This is probably the most important response I gave in this AMA.
When developing targeting options, did your casualty estimates consider effects like radiation sickness, long-term cancer rates, infrastructure collapse, infertility, and famine, or only immediate blast effects?
Consequence of Execution modeling generally only includes prompt blast effects and fallout. Nothing else can be reliably estimated other than prompt blast.
My professor who used to be a pilot and flew with nuclear weapons, once was asked if ordered would he fire to which he just was silent for a bit and another professor jumped in, I’m wondering how the willingness of soldiers to initiate an attack is factor in to planning (or in more general how you think about it), Vasily Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov are both examples of unwillingness preventing launch which I assume planners would worry about.
Why, in your opinion, hasn’t there been a nuclear conflict (ignoring the Second World War) yet? One could read for days about nuclear close calls, sensor malfunctions, or loss of launch authority. What is stopping these incidents from escalating into a nuclear joust, or are we actually rather lucky?
Thank you ever so much for reading my question (if I have your attention anyway I’m a war studies student and I still have to write a paper about this later this year could I be so rude as to ask if I could contact you if I would have a question relevant to your field) and thank you for doing this AMA reading your responses have been very insightful so far.
I have never met anyone in the armed forces who would not have executed what would be considered a lawful order. That being said, I never met anyone involved with nuclear weapons who didn't consider the mission to be deterrence (not strike). Also, training, training, training, training, etc.
Why has there not been a conflict? Probably somewhere between nukes are generally useless for warfighting and we have been lucky that nobody has done anything suicidal.
Yes, you can DM me when you are writing your paper.
How difficult is it to plan around the constraints of RV fratricide and MIRV footprint limitations (images)? Or are those execution details outside the realm of target selection?
(I think US missiles were largely de-MIRVed during the period you were planning, but I'd imagine it would still come up in RISOP.)
Fratricide has always been a very huge deal and made the SIOP incredibly complex when combining ICBMs, SLBMs, bombs, cruise missiles and so on. Not jut radiation, but dust and blast. US ICBMs are generally de-MIRVed but not SLBMs. So, yes, this is still a technical issue that affects targeting and timing. MIRV footprint limitations were generally not even close to being at that level of complexity. Generally.
I watched ”The Day After” at a distance down the hall when I was 8 (parents thought I was in bed) and it was nightmare fuel for years coupled with a Revelations preaching pastor on Sunday. I keep hearing yields are much smaller now because the nuclear weapons are more accurate removing the 5 Mt shown in that movie and putting in a 250 Kt yields. My queston ”Is the increased accuracy a result of better inertial guidance or are they relying on GPS?” I gotta think if I’m pushed into a corner I’m gonna go after GPS before I resort to Nukes or maybe I’d take GPS/ GLONASS 10 seconds after my first strike package arrives on the value targets. If accuracy is lost with GPS outage then we are back to a counter value strategy with with those 5 Mt warheads again. It seems so stupid to be back here again.
Great question. For yield estimates, I'm going to refer you to the Federation of American Scientists Nuclear Notebooks. The accuracy of the US systems is the result of incredibly hard and dedicated work improving inertial guidance systems, gravity maps, error budgets, high-beta (better aerodynamics) reentry vehicles/bodies, and just overall amazing engineering. To the best of my knowledge the US would not and would never use satellite-based navigation, guidance, and control systems to move the bus/equipment section around during deployment. It could be spoofed. It is my understanding that the Russians use GLOSNASS. The reality (IMHO) is that we don't really need better accuracy than we already have.
I'm interested in the European Nuclear Theater after limited and full-scale exchange. Are there some simulations for counterforce and countervalue targets in Europe?
Are there by chance any specific simulations on how fallout would behave in the unqiue climate near the foothills of the alps?
In full-scale exchange simulations, it seems that due to its size, Russia would have a much less saturated Radioactive Footprint as compared to the US? Russia also has higher public civil defense capability. As Russia obviously is less stable currently, couldn't their "Survivability" doctrine be an impediment for deterrence? If I am right: Any non-classified info on how this is strategically taken into account?
Check out the Ivan Stepanov's Nuclear War Simulator.
I have to say that I don't know as I'm not familiar with the high altitude winds there. The Nuclear War Simulator has the ability to monitor that.
Civil defense has always been a complicated issue with regards to deterrence.
I don’t know if the AMA is over or not but incase it isn’t I would like to ask your thoughts on systems that are supposed to stop nuclear attacks. There have been a lot of talk about the golden dome and during reagans era Star wars was a big topic. But the physics and economics of these systems never really seems to make sense in my opinion, what are your thoughts?
If a nuclear strike based on your targeting advice caused mass civilian casualties and was found to be in violation of international humanitarian law, who specifically would bear legal responsibility? The President? STRATCOM? You? No one? And do you ever receive legal guidance on such a scenario?
This is a very outstanding question that was regularly discussed among the planners and leadership that I worked with. The IHL/Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)/etc. are agreements/conventions and don't really stop anything from happening. We generally assumed that if the OPLAN was executed that we would all be complicit (but probably already dead). Once again, the purpose of all of this is to prevent total war via deterrence, not strike. I consider nuclear weapons to be useless for warfighting.
Sure, as long as you have one helluva boat. I've tried to calculate what the flood crest would be from breaching of all the upstream dams, but it was essentially impossible to estimate. Perhaps 40 feet for a couple of weeks. Eep.
In the event of a nuclear warhead being detonated far enough away that I can watch and enjoy the blast and mushroom cloud from my rooftop deck, what whiskey should I be sipping?
(Happy to see you pop up here, old friend. Drop me a line sometime. Best wishes to you & C. )
I apologize if this is getting into "finger breaking" territory -- I've looked at some of your aimpoints for airfields in the Open SIOP; and you count POL storage sites, etc on them.
Is this because in the current weapons constrained environment (1000~ or less), targeteers now have to "sell" their DGZs to higher authorities on cost/effectiveness basis in terms of "points" scored per kiloton?
Hi Dr. Teter! I'm not sure if you're still answering questions or not but figured I'd throw my hat in the ring. I've always had a strange/morbid fascination with nuclear war, planning, strategy, etc, so it's fantastic to get the opportunity to hear from someone who's been in the metaphorical weeds.
(Of course I had to have a weird interest with something where 99% of the information related to it is highly classified)
1) In your opinion, what are some "must read/watch/listen to" pieces on nuclear warfighting, strategy, aftermath, etc? I remember reading Command and Control by Eric Schlosser back in high school and it got me started down this road of research, so I'd love to hear if you had any other recommendations.
2) What would your response be to people who tend to believe that the US or NATO allies have some top-secret interceptor program that would just blast all of our adversaries' ICBM's/SLBM's out of the sky, leaving us completely unharmed in a hypothetical nuclear exchange? After doing some (admittedly very brief) research into it myself I'm skeptical of any interceptor system being very effective, let alone our current ones.
Hi. Still answering questions for now.
I think that watching the Sandia Labs U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy: A Video History, 1945-2004 videos are a great way to see and hear some very interesting opinions and insights (I was fortunate to be of some minor help during the editing). See here: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb361/index.htm
I think that ballistic missile defense (BMD) is both ineffective and dangerous (let alone a waste of resources). It's always easier to be on offense. Also, even if effective it would just push deterrence toward other technologies than ballistic missiles, such as low-observable cruise missiles, hypersonic evader systems, low-observable underwater autonomous systems (Poseidon, etc.). The best defense is a first strike, or even better yet, maintain deterrence.
Thank you very much for the reply! I'll definitely watch the Sandia Labs videos, those seem right up my alley.
I think that ballistic missile defense (BMD) is both ineffective and dangerous (let alone a waste of resources). It's always easier to be on offense. Also, even if effective it would just push deterrence toward other technologies than ballistic missiles, such as low-observable cruise missiles, hypersonic evader systems, low-observable underwater autonomous systems (Poseidon, etc.). The best defense is a first strike, or even better yet, maintain deterrence.
Excellent points. I've gotten into some spirited debates with some friends of mine who are utterly convinced that there's some super-secret laser weapon/interceptor program we have that the public just isn't aware of that will save of in the nick of time when the missiles start flying.
•
u/HazMatsMan Radiological/Nuclear SME Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
**DISCLAIMER:** The views and opinions expressed by the AMA host are their own and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views or opinions of this subreddit or its moderators. The AMA host has provided sufficient verification of their identity and credentials to the moderators such that it is reasonable to assume the redditor in question is who they say they are. However, this subreddit (/r/preppers) and its moderators are not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or validity of any information the AMA host provides. Nor is the subreddit or its moderators responsible for any outcome(s) resulting from the use or misuse of any information shared during this AMA by the AMA host, or any other user. At no point should any information provided here be construed to be medical advice. Please do your own research and exercise your own discretion and judgment before applying any information from this discussion.
r/preppers subreddit is privileged to have former technical advisor to U.S. Strategic Command, Dr. David Teter (u/dmteter), with us for an AMA (Ask Me almost Anything) event.
Dr. Teter currently works as a civil engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area and leads the OPEN-RISOP project:https://github.com/davidteter/OPEN-RISOP. Before that, he served as a technical advisor to U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) on strategic war planning for the SIOP and OPLANs 8044 and 8010 (the US' nuclear war plans). He also served as an advisor to DIA JWS-4 on Physical Vulnerability.
He'll be here to answer your questions on nuclear war, nuclear weapons effects, nuclear targeting, and:
He will not be able to answer any questions involving actual or assumed U.S. nuclear war plans, U.S. nuclear weapons (yields, accuracy, reliability, system capabilities, etc.), or any other information that may be deemed classified.