Tag: nuclear submarines

Sea Monsters Threaten the World With Their Tridents

Guest Post by Edward Curtin

Sometimes you wake up from a dream to realize it is telling you to pay close attention to the depth of its message, especially when it is linked to what you have been thinking about for days.  I have just come up from a dream in which I went down to the cellar of the house I grew up in because the basement light was on and the back cellar door had been opened by a mysterious man who stood outside.

I will spare you additional details or an interpretation, except to say that my daytime thoughts concerned the media spectacle surrounding the Titan submersible that imploded two miles down in the ocean’s cellar while trying to give its passengers a view of the wreck of the Titanic, the “unsinkable” ship nicknamed “the Millionaire’s Special.”  The ship that no one could sink except an ice cube in the drink that swallowed it.

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Did Russia Just “Gently” Threaten The USA?

Authored by The Saker,

Interesting stuff today.  A major Russian TV channel just aired a report about Putin meeting with his top military commanders.  I don’t have the time to translate what Putin said word for word, but basically he said that the USA had refused every single Russian offer to negotiate about the US anti-missile system in Europe and that while the US had initially promised that the real target of this system was Iran, now that the Iranian nuclear issue had been solved, the US was still deploying the system.  Putin added that the US was clearly attempting to change the world’s military balance.  And then the Russian footage showed this:

 

Status6

 

According to the Kremlin, it was a mistakenly leaked secret document.  And just to make sure that everybody got it, RT wrote a full article in English about this in an article entitled “‘Assured unacceptable damage’: Russian TV accidentally leaks secret ‘nuclear torpedo’ design“. According to RT

The presentation slide titled “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” showed some drawings of a new nuclear submarine weapons system. It is apparently designed to bypass NATO radars and any existing missile defense systems, while also causing heavy damage to “important economic facilities” along the enemy’s coastal regions. The footnote to the slide stated that Status-6 is intended to cause “assured unacceptable damage” to an adversary force. Its detonation “in the area of the enemy coast” would result in “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that the region would not be used for “military, economic, business or other activity” for a “long time.” According to the blurred information provided in the slide, the system represents a massive torpedo, designated as “self-propelled underwater vehicle,” with a range of up to 10 thousand kilometers and capable of operating at a depth of up to 1,000 meters.

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WARFARE STATE WASTE

I rail about the welfare state every day. But the warfare state is just as bad. The government just spent 3 months worth of foodstamps for 47 million people on 10 submarines we absolutely do not need. But the neo-cons have the balls to say we are gutting the military. Maybe some of these billions could be better spent taking care of the injured and dying veterans from the previous wars of choice waged on behalf of the corporate interests. In case you were wondering, this is what Eisenhower was talking about in his military industrial complex speech.

Guest Post by David Stockman

Pouring Keynesian Waste Into Davy Jones’ Locker: Yesterday’s $18 Billion “Upside Surprise”

The algos were raging yesterday morning because April durable goods orders were up by an unexpected 0.8%. Well, yes they were: The US Navy inked a gigantic $18 billion order for 10 new nuclear-powered attack submarines during the month. Consequently, the actual 0.8% decline in industrial orders was transformed into a swell “upside” surprise.

 

U.S. Navy

U.S. Navy placed a record order in April for killer subs. 

But folks, the US Warfare State doesn’t need no more stinking nuclear attack submarines. It already has more than 70 in service, and several more beyond yesterday’s huge order were already in the pipeline.

The reason we don’t need them— beyond the vast redundancy in firepower already extant— is that attack submarines have one primary mission. Namely, to kill nuclear-powered submarines carrying the ICBMs of hostile powers who may have them aimed at US cities.

Here’s the deal. China has just three ICBM capable submarines which have a range under 5,000 miles and which have never been deployed in the blue water; and Russia’s rusting legacy fleet of 10 subs left over from the cold war (that would be the one which ended a quarter century ago) is basically mothballed in port.

During the most recent year, the Russian Navy’s operating tempo was so anemic as to amount to one SSBN submarine on the water at any given time. So even though they theoretically have 160 submarine launched ballistic missiles on their 10 ships compared to 656 for the US, 90% of Russia’s SLBMs could never be launched.

Stated differently, during the peak of the cold-war in 1983, the Soviet Navy conducted 105 patrols compared to 5 in 2012.  Yet back then we have far fewer attack subs on the water and what we had were far less lethal than today’s US fleet. Stated differently, the 70 attack subs we already have are advanced technology killers purchased at the peak of the Reagan build-up— and at a time after the current Russian fleet of aging SSBNs were already on the water!

Since the strategic nuclear stand-off ended decades ago, the attack submarine fleet has been given an additional mission to serve as a deterrent against surface ships and especially aircraft carrier battle groups of hostile industrial powers. Needless to say, China has one re-conditioned nuclear aircraft carrier it bought second-hand from the Ukraine!  And Russia has one, and yes, it too patrols the languid waters of its homeport.

So the 10 new attack submarine order announced yesterday is just mindless waste. The order amounts to a preposterous exercise in military Keynesianism that adds nothing to the security and safety of the American people, but will result in the drastic waste of fiscal resources in a nation that is already drifting rapidly toward insolvency.

This modern day exercises in sub-sea pyramid building, however, does smoke out the abysmal economic ignorance of the so-called financial press. The writer of the story below, one Jeffry Bartash, had no trouble with the idea that pouring steel and electronics into Davy Jones’ locker was a sign that the American economy is coming back to life.

By Jeffry Bartash at Market Watch

U.S. nuclear subs surfaced in a big way in the April durable-goods report. A record Navy construction contract powered a 0.8% gain in durable-goods orders last month when Wall Street was actually expecting a 0.8% drop.

In April, the Navy inked a $17.6 billion contract for 10 nuclear-powered attack submarines. Contractors General Dynamics Electric Boat   and Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding  will handle construction. The deal could reach as high as $17.8 billion under certain conditions.

The huge contract led to a 39% increase in defense orders in April, using seasonally adjusted numbers. Orders for defense capital goods rose to $12.89 billion from $9.3 billion in March and $7.8 billion in February.

Of course, the subs won’t all be built right away, so the benefits to the economy will be spread out over the next five years.

The boom in demand for military equipment spruced up an otherwise drab durable-goods report. Booking for big-ticket U.S. goods actually fell in April if defense is excluded. Orders often fall in the first month of a new quarter….

Click here for complete article:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2014/05/27/this-one-order-made-durable-goods-bookings-grow-in-april/

– Jeffry Bartash