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He says it a few paragraphs in: “To give a sense of how strange this is, here is the only “officially sanctioned” way to represent a multistage thermonuclear w
by matthewmcg 2y ago
He says it a few paragraphs in:
“To give a sense of how strange this is, here is the only “officially sanctioned” way to represent a multistage thermonuclear weapon, according to US Department of Energy guidance since the 1990s:
Figure 13.9, “Unclassified Illustration of a Staged Weapon
(Source: TCG-NAS-2, March 1997),” from the Nuclear Matters Handbook 2020 (Revised), published by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters.
Two circles in a box, maybe inside of a reentry vehicle. That’s it. Nothing that gives any actual sense of size, location, materials, physicality.”
- gnfargbl 2y agoIf the story here is that the US DoE is now implicitly confirming common public-domain knowledge that can be found immediately on Wikipedia then sure, that's a story of minor interest. That story is nothing like the title of the blog, though!
- lazide 2y agospeculation can be found on Wikipedia, perhaps accurate speculation, perhaps not. DoE contractors leaking details that confirm that speculation would indeed be a big deal, and might well save adversaries some real time and mistakes they’d otherwise make.
- fragmede 2y agoOr it's a psyop designed to make adversaries waste their time on a design that couldn't work.
- lazide 2y agoSpooks man, goddamn spooks!
- why_only_15 2y agoIn the post he mentions why he thinks this is unlikely and is not a thing the US has done previously.
- fragmede 2y agothat's exactly what a CIA plant trying to get adversaries to buy into this drawing as being feasible to waste their time would say
- bathtub365 2y agoOne thing to keep in mind is that the author’s interest lies in the nature of nuclear secrecy, and not necessarily the secrets themselves. It’s a subtle distinction but I think explains why the author finds the fact that this type of diagram was officially released by a national lab interesting, even if the information has previously made its way to the public domain in other unofficial ways.
- snowwrestler 2y agoUnless he is actually employed in the classification process inside these agencies, he does not know everything that is officially sanctioned. It’s all guesswork, from the outside.
- why_only_15 2y agoTo some degree this is true, but he’s also FOIA’d documents that describe what’s officially sanctioned.
- nativeit 2y agoThat’s kind of the point isn’t it?