There's a nice internet tool which draws circles around a point on a map. Normal paper maps always have distortions so drawing a perfect circle on them doesn't represent an actual radius on the real earth. This is what happens if you draw a circle of 11,100 km with its centre on the Great Lakes:
 |
| source link |
Now why would ANYONE draw such a radius around the Great Lakes?
hint #1: 11,100 km is the unconfirmed range of Trident II SLBMs*
hint #2: the area of the Great Lakes is 241.106 square kilometres
hint #3: only the USA and its ally Canada can access the Great Lakes with warships or helicopters
S O
P.S: The PR China has likely less than 200 nuclear warheads deployed. 200 non-SLBM nuclear warheads would be plenty deterrence against it.
*: I've seen the figure of 12,000 km as well.
.
*: I've seen the figure of 12,000 km as well.
2 things that need to be considered.
ReplyDelete1) The Rush-Bagot treaty makes the great lakes a DMZ, and it holds great symbolic significance for both Canada and the USA (even if there was a lot of kabuki to keep the spirit of it alive during WW2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush%E2%80%93Bagot_Treaty
2) You'd need different platforms to launch the trident missiles, since Ohio class boats draft 10.8m and the locks on the Saint Lawrence Seaway (that controls access to the great lakes) has a draft of 7.9m. This is a temporary thing since upgrades will allow Panamax ships (11m draft) by 2030
1) I heard about that treaty before, but I'm sure it could be cancelled in agreement. Besides, there's plenty evidence that the United States don't really care about treaty obligations anyway.
Deletehttp://plowshareforge.blogspot.de/2012/12/win-bar-bet.html
2) That was actually the point. There's no need for super-expensive nuclear ballistic missiles submarines. A multitude of conventional simplified (but still shock-hardened) submarines with 4 erectable Trident launchers would do the trick. The Russians could do something similar in the Caspian Sea, but they already have rail- and road-mobile ICBMs. The PR Chinese have few SSBNs, but cannot trust them (too loud). So somehow they evidently can deter nuclear attacks with land-based forces.
More about nuclear subs in a few days.
In response to 1, I was aware of the ships, as well as war production of Corvettes in the Great Lakes, but in all cases that I'm aware of, all naval ships in the lakes didn't have functional weapons nor ammunition until they hit the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
DeleteThats why I called it Kabuki, they kept to the spirit while violating the letter of the law.