Canada should join the (nuclear) big leagues

[Kirkhill]

Why does that matter? Unlike some of the junior members of the nuclear club, who principally want to deter (or destroy) their immediate (next door) neighbour(s), the UK's sights are aimed farther away. So ensuring that a delivery system will be available should the need arise is paramount. The only way to place your ready to fire weapons in a secret location (safe from pre-emptive destruction) and close to the potential target (less time to react) is to make it mobile. At present, the most dependable way (for a country the physical size of the UK) to accomplish that is by SSBN. So that is the cost of being in the nuclear deterrence business.

Agreed that given the size of the UK hiding nukes on shore is hard therefore the SSBN is their best option.

There are two other strategies. Both available to Canada.

In China they are building lots of silos in remote places. More silos than they need for the number of missiles they have. Now they could be planning on making more warheads and missiles. In the meantime they are making it harder to figure out which silos are loaded.

The US has done something similar. They have also trialled the notion of keeping launchers on the move by rail and road.

Given that today we can buy a 40 foot seacan with a Mk70 PDS loaded with 4 Tomahawks (nuclear capable with 2500 km range), or the same seacan with a folded MQ-58 UAV/CCA (600 lb internal payload and 600 more on each of its wings and 5600 km range), then I suggest we could make it very difficult for any enemy to keep up with the shell game and figure out which ship, port, base, parking lot, train or truck is a threat.

 

[Kirkhill]

Others above have noted the extreme cost of a nuclear weapons program. As a ballpark estimate (yes, I more or less made up these numbers) I would think $50B - $100B to build the infrastructure and $50B per year after that. Please consider:

• need to design, build, staff and operate a uranium enrichment facility.
• need to design, build, staff and operate a weapons manufacturing facility.
• need infrastructure to store, transport, maintain and deploy nuclear weapons.
• need a delivery mechanism for the nuclear weapons.

The security requirements alone will be a huge cost.

Management of radioactive waste produced from uranium processing and manufacturing will be a huge effort.

Are you considering the effect of a country of Small Modular Reactors and the possibility of breeder reactors to both harvest energy and manage the waste?

 

[Eaglelord17]

Others above have noted the extreme cost of a nuclear weapons program. As a ballpark estimate (yes, I more or less made up these numbers) I would think $50B - $100B to build the infrastructure and $50B per year after that. Please consider:

• need to design, build, staff and operate a uranium enrichment facility.
• need to design, build, staff and operate a weapons manufacturing facility.
• need infrastructure to store, transport, maintain and deploy nuclear weapons.
• need a delivery mechanism for the nuclear weapons.

The security requirements alone will be a huge cost.

Management of radioactive waste produced from uranium processing and manufacturing will be a huge effort.

You are assuming we need to be in the business of doing it all.

Say for example if we were to buy nukes from the US and/or Britain we wouldn't be starting from scratch, we would be going towards the end. In such a scenario we wouldn't need a uranium enrichment facility or a weapons manufacturing facility. We also wouldn't need to develop the delivery mechanism.

Yes we would need infrastructure to store, transport, maintain, and deploy but we wouldn't need to be involved in the other parts. I am sure a ally would love to have us subsidize their program which would allow them to invest more in other areas.

 

[GR66]

So what would be the purpose of Canadian nuclear weapons?

Is there any situation where we would consider a Canadian first-strike against a non-nuclear nation? Is there any non-nuclear nation that poses an existential threat to Canada such that we'd feel the need to respond with nuclear weapons?

Would we consider a Canadian first-strike against a nuclear nation (Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, etc.) knowing that it would certainly result in a nuclear response? Which of these nuclear nations pose a conventional existential threat to Canada such that we'd feel the need to respond with nuclear weapons, again knowing that would result in nuclear retaliation?

Do we foresee a scenario where any of these nuclear nations would launch a first-strike against Canada that doesn't include a general nuclear exchange that includes the United States? In that case wouldn't our nukes essentially just be "bouncing the rubble" in a mass extinction event?

The only country that could realistically be potentially be deterred from an existential conventional attack on Canada by our possessing nuclear weapons would be the United States. Despite the current political climate between our two countries is that really where we want to spend a huge portion of our defence budget - defending ourselves from the country that is our largest trading partner, with whom we have extremely close cultural ties, with which we have the World's longest undefended border and with whom we have a bi-national military command in NORAD?

IF the US were to make the decision to invade Canada would we realistically nuke Washington, New York, LA, Dallas, etc. with the probability that they would likely hit Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, etc. in retaliation...that of course assuming that the US wouldn't take our nukes in to their calculations and seek to destroy those weapons in a first strike?

I'll say a hard no to Canada getting nuclear weapons. I don't see any positive purpose and they would be a huge expense that would take away from actual productive defence spending that we could do instead. The less nuclear weapons there are in the World the better as far as I'm concerned.

 

[AmmoTech90]

One of our RSS staff was previously posted to Comox as part of the security detachment for them. All the nukes were US owned and use authorized by them as I recall. On the East Coast I think Greenwood held them, but not sure on that.

The Voodoo's also could carry the Genie nuclear air to air missile, not sure if they were stored up here?

https://comoxairforcemuseum.ca/wp-content/uploads/AirParkGuidebookENG-_2024.pdf

Thanks for the update. Yep, we held Genies (here), Honest John warheads (in Germany), Bomarcs (here), and gravity bombs (Germany).

 

[The Bread Guy]

Does that money go to nuclear warheads or does it go to nuclear subs?

Sticking a nuclear device on top of an in service cruise missile is a very different proposition to designing, building, crewing, operating and maintaining a fleet of SSBNs.

The article is talking speficially about warheads/delivery devices - although some would say Canada getting nuclear-powered subs would make it a "nuclear military" (like the Aussies getting nuke subs without getting the missiles). Or at least as nuclear as AUS's navy.