What to do about U.S. nukes in Turkey?

In Popular Mechanics, Joe Pappalardo writes about the 50 nuclear weapons the U.S. has at an airbase in Turkey.

The first thing to consider when contemplating any heist is the loot. At the center of the stage here are B61 nuclear bombs. Designed in 1963, these have what’s known as a variable yield; set a dial on the various versions and you get a blast as small as .3 kilotons or as high as 340 kt. For some scale, the U.S. dropped a 15 kt bomb on Hiroshima.

The bombs are sleek but heavy. They are each 11 feet long, and 13 inches thick, and weigh about 700 pounds. There are 25 underground secure vaults called Weapons Security Storage Systems dug into the ground inside aircraft protective shelters. Each W3 can hold up to four of these nuclear weapons, but there are only 50 at Incirlik, according to a report this week from The New York Times and confirmed by President Donald Trump's tweets.

The location of tactical nuclear weapons in aircraft shelters is part of the Cold War legacy, when airplanes remained on alert to drop tactical nukes on any Soviet hordes advancing along its southern flank. But today, no warplanes at Incirlik these days are even capable of carrying the nukes.

...Geopolitics, not strategy, kept the B61 bombs in place in Turkey. Now the situation on the ground is changing, as Turkey has defied the U.S. and pushed into Syria, attacking (now-former) U.S. allies and even bracketing U.S. advisor positions with artillery fire. To further complicate things, Incirlik is only 70 miles from the Syrian border, leading to questions over the security of the nuclear bombs.

But can you even set off a stolen nuke? It’s not easy — but that is not the only risk that a rogue nuke poses.

...Even if the Turks don’t talk about them, the nuclear weapons in Incirlik are on the table as bargaining chips in a dangerous geopolitical game between regional and global powers. The irony is that these weapons, located abroad to reassure an ally against a threat that no longer exists, are now a source of such destabilization and friction.

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