2026-04-01
Can drone swarms destroy nuclear facilities?
Disclaimer
- Quick Note
- Contains politically sensitive info
Main
- In wars so far, we have already seen drone swarms being used to destroy petrochemical refineries. Drones are good for attacks of this kind, you can easy smuggle them (for instance inside a truck) to the perimeter of any building complex. Once you're at the perimeter, they can be released to autononomously target specific locations or people. Or ofcourse, they can just carpet bomb the place (but this requires smuggling large quantities of explosive material, which is harder).
- If even petrochemical refineries are not safe, what makes uranium centrifuges any safer? What makes jets carrying atomic bombs on standby any safer? They are safe only if they're inside an actual reinforced concrete bunker. They are not safe in the open. Barbed wire is not sufficient to protect you because the first round of drones can bomb that, and the second record of drones can enter.
- I assume all nuclear-armed countries have missile silos and bunkers made out of reinforced concrete, and they keep nukes on standby inside these. So I don't expect any country to lose nuclear capability completely, just due to surprise drone attacks. I do think drone attacks on nuclear facilities might increase response time, increase chaos (fog-of-war) and worsen enemy decision-making, and so on.
See also: Stefania Maurizie on security of nuclear weapons facilities in Italy. This is in pre-drone era, but still generally convinces me of my prior that there are literal trillion dollar bills lying on the ground even in such domains, don't apply a base rate or EMH to predict that no such change is possible.
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