France is presumably on cruise control due to their stockpile downsizing in the 90s. They aren’t in a hurry but they also can’t ignore it. Other smaller arsenals (Israel, India, Pakistan, DPRK) can eek by as you say. But there’s a key role in NWS arms control that hasn’t been fully explored. - ThreadSky

tayloraloy.bsky.social • 3 days ago

France is presumably on cruise control due to their stockpile downsizing in the 90s. They aren’t in a hurry but they also can’t ignore it. Other smaller arsenals (Israel, India, Pakistan, DPRK) can eek by as you say. But there’s a key role in NWS arms control that hasn’t been fully explored.

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tayloraloy.bsky.social•3 days ago

Some of this sentiment is rooted in Kalinowski’s highly technical and sober analysis, and some of it is admittedly just “vibes” that motivates me to stick with it as a potential nonpro lever we haven’t tried pulling yet.

And thanks for the diss nod!

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ah, yeah this is an avenue I don't think about as much (vertical proliferation). I think you'd run into headaches where the major powers don't want controls or oversight on their defense tritium, because the amount of T you go thru in a year might imply things about exact arsenal size and/or...

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•3 days ago

... T bottle replacement frequency, and you could make inferences about weapon reliability from that.

tayloraloy.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yep. Touchy area.

My favorite data point is that the “Super” T calculations from the 1940s on the ENIAC are still Restricted Data.

Just an amount of T for a hypothetical weapon that was soon after deemed unworkable. We aren’t allowed to know that.

gbruhaug.bsky.social•3 days ago

The French are restarting T production this year apparently. Not a shocker given half lives, plus they will supposedly start doing DT at LMJ soon enough. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/nuclear-weapons-france-to-restart-tritium-production-with-edf/

tayloraloy.bsky.social•3 days ago

I’ve taken a provocative cue from that in my latest piece:

gbruhaug.bsky.social•3 days ago

It’s an interesting argument, but the weapons states could also always withdraw the approval for the IAEA to come in. Plus lying about tritium is a lot easier given the small amounts needed. “Oh yeah Ms Inspector, we only had one burnable lithium rod loaded..”

tayloraloy.bsky.social•3 days ago

The primary advantage for this approach for NWS is that international nonpro norms could be recalibrated to make military T production in civilian reactors less controversial. NWS can do what they want, but irreversibly decommissioning military production reactors capable of T/Pu is harder to fake.

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