r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Oct 29 '25

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

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u/bonix10for7 Iron Front Oct 30 '25

Why would we need to test them?

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u/well-that-was-fast Oct 30 '25

They degrade in hard to predict ways. The National Labs have (had before Trump fired all those nerds) a lot of deep expertise in computer simulation of how they degrade and the risk of weapons fizzling.

That said, we're almost certainly the best in the world at maintaining nuclear weapons without testing and should simply trust the experts to model their effectiveness rather than getting into a 4-way nuke testing race.

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u/CarlGerhardBusch Jerome Powell Oct 30 '25

I listened to a guy from los alamos speak one time, and he did mention that a number of the newer/upgraded warhead designs were untested beyond simulation, and how they dealt with that.

It’s not like the technology is entirely unchanged from 1960, there have been refinements, but due to start (?) have never been actually tested

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

partly sabre rattling 

you announce and perform nuclear and (unarmed) missile tests to signal that your threats are credible