Comments on: J Rood On “Conventional Nuclear” Weapons https://totalwonkerr.net/2008/12/18/j-rood-on-conventional-nuclear-weapons/ Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:56:19 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: anon https://totalwonkerr.net/2008/12/18/j-rood-on-conventional-nuclear-weapons/#comment-668 Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:56:19 +0000 http://www.totalwonkerr.net/j-rood-on-conventional-nuclear-weapons/#comment-668 The confusion that reigns is not in the press pool, but in Rood’s head. Since he doesn’t really know anything about START and the Moscow Treaty, he can’t understand the Russian position here. Russia wants a new Treaty to count, as START did, the warheads that could be carried on all strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, even if those had been converted to carry conventional weapons (some bombers, maybe some Trident missiles). In other words, you count the missile and multiply by the designated warhead number. This would capture and count any Trident missiles we had converted to conventional delivery vehicles. The U.S., and Rood, want to use the Moscow Treaty rule, where we just declare a total number of deployed nuclear warheads, without reference to delivery vehicles at all. You don’t count anything, you just declare. That way, we can leave out stuff we don’t want to count.

So, if you avoid the shorthand, the dispute is over how you deal with strategic nuclear delivery vehicles that might carry conventional warheads. They count ‘em, we don’t.

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