(Reuters) Britain says Huawei ‘shortcomings’ expose new telecom networks risks and (Financial Times) Huawei caves in to UK security demands.

GCHQ are congratulating themselves on their due diligence. Quoting,

Senior UK security officials have repeatedly stressed that their concerns are related to technical deficiencies and not the company’s Chinese origins or any evidence of espionage or malicious activity.

It surprises that the astute heads at GCHQ would segment the Huawei threat in such an ostrich-like manner — if an ostrich could segment. It reminds me of the tongue-twister, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

This kind of segmenting, with burial of one of the segments, is probably due to British exposure to China economic pressure. As I am not a party to the funeral, let’s spell it out. The Huawei threat has two parts, both enabled by the nature of integrated circuit design and testing:

• Visible at the pins of the chip, as errors of protocol. This includes vulnerabilities in key exchange protocols, and the existence of chip-states that should be disallowed. These fall into the loose category of the 71% of a chip that can be tested through the external terminals. (I think this is due to Karpovsky.)
• Buried in the chip firmware/gate arrays, invisible at the external pins of the chip. This is feasible when chips are made by a supplier affiliated with the Chinese state, such as Huawei, because the combinatorics makes testing impossible even with a  test duration on the order of the age of the universe.

Both exploits have advantages:

• With use of the visible exploit, the attacker’s identity can frequently be concealed, or at least reduced in certainty. It’s frequently the case that multiple attack vectors can exploit the same protocol vulnerability.
• The invisible exploit is activated by codes that are so improbable that, if detected, they point with perfect certainty to the maker of the chip. (Is there a way around this? Read down.)

Can a chip die be scanned, perhaps by a synchrotron light source, to recover the mask and completely analyze the functionality? As Huawei becomes self-sufficient in chips, reference masks will become unavailable. As chip geometries continue to shrink, with the move to 3D, scanning  becomes a very hard problem.

There remains one question. Exploits of the second type, if discovered, seem to inextricably implicate the attacker. With the application of great cleverness, is there a way to disguise this?  I think there is. Think spread-spectrum and slow data rates.

GCHQ, you may think you’ve done due diligence, but this is an error. Think of what we can do, and in your imagination, go one better.

The readership indicators for Providing for the Common Defense; Report of National Defense Strategy Commission, Part 1and  Part 2 suggest that undermining the report is not a pleasant concept.  This is sometimes happens when speaking truth to power. It’s not pleasant to me either.

The U.S. military needs not only the best weapons but also the best circumstances in which to fight. This acquires urgency with the pending fact that in coming years, we may face a potential adversary with greater industrial capacity than our own. This has not occurred since the American Revolutionary War, which was a defense on native soil. It was not the case in World War II, when U.S. industrial capacity alone vastly exceeded that of the entire Axis.

To say that defense of the China seas will become nonviable is not the same as to say we should acknowledge the compromised international status of those seas. It is the consequence of the choice of regional nations to advance economic integration with China in spite of competing territorial claims. It’s something to work around, if not through.

Remarkably, China sliced off a sliver of Philippine territory without deflecting a trajectory away from the U.S. towards China. Empty bellies take precedence, and there are plenty in Asia who want to be part of the China miracle, national sovereignty be damned.

The real battle involves soft power. There seems to be a new awareness that even in SE Asia,  marketing of the U.S. as an alternative involves client economic opportunity first, with client security a distant second. This is precisely the game China has been  playing  for 20 years. Now we’re playing catch up.

We’ll continue with Markov chains and the Kolmogorov equation in a bit.

We continue from  Providing for the Common Defense; Report of National Defense Strategy Commission, Part 1. Our goal is to undermine it.

The report consists of findings, not arguments against a hypothetical assertion that current defense allocations are sufficient. The geopolitical goals are also stated, not argued. These come out of a broad consensus that is wrong in certain areas. Wrong, not because the goals are not worthy, but because no reasonable, sustainable projection of power could achieve them.  One of these goals, maintenance of the international status of the China seas,  forces an exposed flank.

This is not the fault of military science. It is the result of a consensus that compels nonviable commitments. There is an honorable exception in the reluctance to commit U.S. soldiers in land battle. But the game of deterrence can be as deadly with sudden, greater casualties. The  authors of “Providing for…” are committed to a game of chance. Such games can be studied with rigor, with a demonstration later in this series.

Arguments come in different quality grades:

• In the lowest category reside arguments about religion, politics, and the rights of man. The issues are supremely important, but data is not analyzed by anything resembling science.
• The social sciences and psychology are in the next  category. These fields make use of data in a scientific way, but produce conclusions that are consistent only in their inconsistency.
• Medicine is in the middle, a mix of modern miracles and pseudoscience. Application and abuse of the scientific method.
• The physical sciences are close to the top, with rigorous application of the scientific method. Argument remains an intermediate phase,  reduced by the method to an essential residual of doubt.
• The pinnacle is occupied by mathematics, which is not a science. It has an advantage over  the others, because it is about itself.  Instead of arguments, we have proofs. Kurt Gödel showed there is a flaw. But it’s the best we can do.

Military science has highs and lows.  The design and simulation of weapon systems is highly scientific. But strategy and command retain highly intuitive inputs. The military have a “can-do” attitude, an essential in the fight. But it provides no brake on the tendency of geopolitical strategists to build risk into policy.

Since “Providing for…” proclaims goals, it can’t be contradicted by antithesis. That results in shouting matches.  But there is an alternative. It’s common experience to choose between two opposing arguments that do not intersect. You choose the one that “sounds better.” If not due to prejudice, you have chosen the argument that appears to be of higher quality.

To argue against “Providing for…”, on the same low level, we would have to issue our own contradicting proclamations.  Instead,  we provide a better argument, meaning, we move up the list. Our argument will take the form of an objection, in the form of a problem that cannot be circumvented. It has roots in a subject that came to prominence in World War II, Operations Research.’

“OR” seems to have gone missing  in current discussions. I find no reference to it in the papers think tanks are currently pushing. Perhaps this is because OR was developed in the UK to solve problems for which there is already operational data, not hypothetical ones that may arise from bad strategy.

If you want to know, statistically,  how many tanks an Apache helicopter will destroy before being destroyed itself, that’s an OR problem. (The answer is about 21.)  Ship convoy strategy, developed during the Battle of the Atlantic, is a classic. The slightest, indirect reference to OR in “Providing for…”  is the note of inadequate inventory of certain precision guided munitions. The stockpile is ludicrously low, perhaps 1/20 of a reasonable number. It is low because unlike dumb bombs, smart weapons have a shelf life and require expensive periodic overhaul.

Although not historically used for the purpose, OR can also be used to identify problems, consequences of strategy, that are not remediable. This we shall shortly do. In the meantime, have a look at Pivot To Asia; Force Projection, Part 3. It’s about power projection. We will elevate the argument above  “Providing for…”  by drawing on OR.

There’s gonna be some math, but it will be accompanied by a wordy, intuitive explanation, so as to make the math somewhat optional. We’re going to use the Kolmogorov equation on Markov chains. It’s going to be highly portable, so you can take it around to your math buddies for 2nd, 3rd, and nth opinions. If you are math inclined, the calc can be done on multiple cocktail napkins.

It will be a little sand in the gears. It might be fun to take your stack of napkins around to policy meetings, wave them and say, “But this calculation shows we can’t do it”, and enjoy the mute stares.

Don’t worry, I got your back.

Why do some people try so hard to be good, not just in acts of historical import, but in their manner with every person they meet? In search of the reason, some look upwards. But Jacob’s Ladder is something we see only in our dreams. In our more lucid moments, we see the perfection of the cosmos, but not moral guidance.

My personal observation is that the guide to being an exemplary person is not to be found by looking up.   It comes from within. This connects with modern physics. In space-time,  space of 4 dimensions,  everything that was and will be exists. Our consciousness, which exists only in the instantaneous moment, extends to infinity in both directions.

In 4-space, each of us becomes an author of pages in the 4-dimensional Book-of-the-Universe, which could be viewed in the leisure time of a being who occupies 5 or more dimensions. Some of us want to write the best book we can.

I dedicate Jacob’s Ladder, a simple painting, to George H.W. Bush, who was a very serious author.

With the passing of George Bush, we have lost an honorable man.

Honorable man quotes.

The Daily Beast is most informative: Putin’s Navy Attacks Ukraine Gunboats and Hands Trump a New Crisis He’d Like to Ignore.

The transit of the Kerch Strait was announced in advance. (Wikipedia, Sea of Azov), “In September 2018, Ukraine announced the intention to add navy ships and further ground forces along the coast of the Sea of Azov, with the ships based at Berdyansk.”

Points:

• The gunboats were newly built in Ukraine. This implies long-term intent, not political theater.
• After seizure of the Ukraine, and prior to the new gunboats, the Ukrainian navy had few boats appropriate for “showing the flag” in the Sea of Azov.
• The Ukrainian mission was not routine, though similar events may have occurred since 9/24/2018. (Unverified source,To Inform is to Influence): Russians Harass Ukrainian Navy Units in Azov Sea and Black Sea (IMINT)
• The  transit was an attempt by Ukraine to reestablish the norm formalized by the 2003 Russia-Ukraine treaty guaranteeing dual use of the Sea of Azov.

We have a bias against the Russian version because the Kerch Strait became a disputed area as a consequence of the illegal Russian seizure of the Crimea. The  seizure of Ukraine vessels  compounds  previous aggression.

But for prediction of the consequences, we have to (temporarily) take the Russian point of view. They point out that Crimea was gifted by Russia to Ukraine in 1954. Had Russia not committed further aggression against Ukraine, this historical fact might have been the basis of a settlement.

The prediction is that this does not presage a Russian invasion. Neither is it a “political stunt” by Petro Poroshenko. It is a sad consequence of a changed reality based on Russian aggression:

• The Ukrainian desire to reinforce a right they, and the West in general, think they have, by a freedom-of-navigation transit similar in purpose to U.S. transits in the South China Sea.
• A possible mine sweeping (or mine laying) role (read down.)
• The Russian desire to reinforce their belief of the status of Crimea, which implies that the Kerch Strait is no longer an international body of water. Frustration with the stalled Minsk Protocol may also figure.
• Prior Russian aggression in Ukraine has been stealthy. It would be contrary to this pattern, with no apparent purpose, to telegraph an offensive.

Does the Ukrainian “mosquito boat” navy have an essential purpose, other than to show the flag?  An assertion has been made: Ukrainian naval base in Azov Sea to counter mine threat. Quoting,

Ukraine’s naval base, which is to be set in the Sea of Azov by the end of the year in Berdyansk (Zaporizhia region), will counter mine threat, as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Navy Andriy Ryzhenko told Hromadske.

“The main task of the base is to protect the ports of the Azov Sea and provide security of shipping, which means carrying out anti-mine measures. It’s a priority direction of the development of the naval forces,” he said.

This interesting assertion has not been corroborated. Alternatively, the Ukraine boats may have the purpose of laying mines. Ex-Navy commander suggests mining Azov Sea to prevent Russia’s attack.

With grave concern for the defense of the U.S., the purpose of this series is to constructively undermine the report (download (pdf): Providing for the Common Defense; The Assessment of the National Defense Strategy Commission.) The report contains substitutions of sentiment for reason. We will explore why the substitutions occur, consequences, and possible  remedies. By undermining, we stimulate  debate over optimization of limited resources.

Even before biologists discovered DNA,  they concluded that life is a process. This replaced the earlier belief that life was inhabited by some mysterious vital force that distinguished it from the inanimate. A high point of the report is the emphasis that war fighting is also a process, not merely a collection of assets arrayed for the destruction of those of the enemy. From page 42, (see also p68)

Throughout our work, we found that DOD struggled to link objectives to operational concepts to capabilities to programs and resources. ...It hampers the Secretary’s ability to design, assess, and implement the NDS...

This   is seemingly the easiest to solve, with the highest likely ROI. The report correctly notes that it is only one facet of the problem, which depends upon many other capital-intensive factors.

Undermining the report of the Commission could have several basic strategies:

• Contradiction the assertion of deficiencies.
• Greater priorities in the non defense budget.
• Priority of the national debt.
• Errors of logic.
• Recommendations are  non-actionable in form.

For simplicity, let’s start with just the last two points.  Simplicity is hard to find.

Contributor Andrew Krepinevich offers an opinion of dissent from certain aspects of the report, “Additional Views… “(p72-75), which include  errors of logic and non-actionable recommendations. Confusing “operational challenge” with “capability” may seem a small thing to the nonspecialist reader. But this fuzzy confusion is symptomatic of one of report’s several major defects. Without exception, every conceivable area of weapons technology and deployment is identified as requiring more investment.  The report possibly leaves out raincoats, rubbers, and umbrellas.

Since the report is a public document, and Krepinevich says it so well, there is no need to paraphrase. Quoting,

Simply put, the Commission would do well to follow its own advice before advancing recommendations regarding the size, structure, mix, and posture of U.S. forces and their capabilities. As the Commission states:

"Specifically, the Department needs a rigorous force development plan that connects its investment strategy with its key priorities of winning in conflict and competing effectively with China and Russia. That plan must have a clear force sizing construct to illuminate
the strategy’s ambition and risks. Such a force development architecture should provide answers to the following questions:"

Krepinevich quotes the Commission’s questions of page 42, about objectives, operational concepts, regional considerations, multi-theater (more than one war at a time), the meaning of deterrence, and how priorities relate. He goes on to write,

Other than stating the obvious—it’s better to have more military capability than less—no analytic support is presented as to why these particular forces and capabilities are more deserving of priority than others.

This is startling, given that the Commission criticizes the Department for its lack of analytic rigor. As the Commission states with respect to DOD’s ability to make informed decisions with respect to defense priorities.

In summary, it seems profoundly unhelpful for the Commission to state the analytic foundation required for DOD to make informed choices regarding defense priorities, and then proceed to ignore it in advancing priorities of its own.

Put another way, the recommendations of the report are mostly non-actionable, other than to throw money at the problem.

Since the authors of the report are intelligent people who hold advanced degrees, is there something special about the problem of defense that resists brainpower? David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest chronicles the failure of intellectual brilliance in the context of the Vietnam War. As a warning of historical reprise, it is invaluable. Of a land war in Asia, it is identical.

The astute reader will note that our undermining effort is so far completely secular. Without referral to any particular assertion, the authority of the report weakens. The report may remain entirely valid, but we are enabled to look for alternatives. Let’s continue to explore why intellect has failed so often. The report inspires fear. Why?

Since the 70’s, the use of computers in simulation has steadily grown. Physical gadgets, designed by computer, are simulated in the computer before they are made, predicting how they will perform before they are even built. For a system-in-a-box, such as a nuclear warhead, it works very well. In weather forecasting, moderately well. Other systems are inherently chaotic. For these, simulation works poorly.  For hypersonic vehicles, there is no substitute for flight. Simulations of the human body are so poor, doctors keep changing their minds about what we should eat.

This uncertainty affects our understanding of weapons systems. The performance of a weapon system:

• may be very well known by future projection, but inexplicable to nonspecialists.  Example: the F-35 plane.
•  against an adversary may be in question. Lacking information obtainable only by espionage, it may always be in question, regardless of the qualities of the weapon.
• against an adversary may be well known, but impossible to explain to nonspecialists in a credible way, or revealing secrets that are the essence of superiority. “We know why it will prevail, but we can’t tell you.”
• may be known to be deficient, with remedy available.
• may be known to be deficient, with no possible remedy.

The above are distinguished by gaps,  unknowns, and what Donald Rumsfeld calls the “unknown unknowns.” The gaps are filled by fear.

Since the 1960’s, the press, Congress, the military, and even exalted think tanks such as RAND have miscategorized programs in both ways, successful as unsuccessful, and the reverse. I have a list in my head; it seems equally divided.  Public memory is short, but you may remember that the F-35 was originally pegged by some “authorities”, including RAND, as a failure.  A recent fly-off hints it may be comparable to the F-22. (Investors Business Daily)

The reasons an apparently inferior airplane could perform in a superior manner cannot be explained without reference to classified performance data. To release the data would destroy the advantage. The audience that could understand that data is small. Lawmakers are not significantly different from the general population unless they happen to have engineering degrees. Most do not. Government is, after all, a social endeavor, about people, not machines. This problem permeates debate about defense.

Since the intended audience is challenged by a problem that defeated the best and the brightest, the report resorts to the universal chord,  fear. This does not mean it is irrelevant. But as fear lacks authority, we might take Fichte/Hegel’s advice: call it a thesis. Think thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

The report stops short of antithesis.  To attempt synthesis here would be foolish. But by undermining, we open the way.

To be continued shortly.

(CBS) U.S. military might “struggle to win, or perhaps lose” war with China or Russia, report says.

Now that we’ve had fun with Agatha Christie, I will soon bore you to tears with (pdf) Providing for the Common Defense; The Assessment of the National Defense Strategy Commission.

The assessment of military deficiencies is correct, but the implication that remediation solves our problems, in the absence of geopolitical realignment, is false.

It’s a depressing topic, but dwarfs the importance of the monthly murder mystery.

Via CNN, since it has no paywall, CIA has concluded Saudi crown prince ordered journalist’s killing: Washington Post. Quoting,

The Post, citing people familiar with the matter, said the CIA reached its conclusions after examining multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother, Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi….Khalid told Khashoggi he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so, the Post said…The newspaper, citing people familiar with the call, said it was not clear if Khalid knew Khashoggi would be killed but that he made the call at his brother’s direction.

In Khashoggi Killing a Rogue Op? Saudi Renaissance, I wrote,

(CNN)Saudi former diplomat called ‘pivotal’ in Khashoggi’s apparent killing. Did Saudi intelligence officer and diplomat Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb have a case of double vision,  deciding himself to murder Khashoggi? Or was it Prince Salman’s decision? Given Salman’s age, either is possible. It is possible that Prince Salman enabled Mutreb, without actually approving the deed. The recent suppression of dissent, which has dismayed supporters of the prince, could have given Mutreb his inspiration to murder.

Open source cannot compete with U.S.  signals intelligence. But the quality of the given explanation is poor.  For the open source enthusiast, this is an opportunity to study nuances.

Absent additional information, which may exist, the phone calls shows only Prince Salman’s awareness that Khashoggi would visit the consulate.  The implication of the phone calls requires an additional predicate, such as Salman’s desire to murder Khashoggi, or to kidnap him. The dispatch of the “kill team” does not directly follow from the phone call. Yet C.I.A. conclusion may be valid, relying on information that cannot be released. Fact may be presented as opinion, with reasons other than the actual, to cloak clandestine methods and sources.

For the intelligence community, protection of methods and sources is paramount. Even if it is desirable that the end product be made public, these considerations frequently intervene. The C.I.A. conclusion has possible basis in three general areas:

• C.I.A ‘s  team of Prince Salman’s specialists have developed a composite behavioral model over many years, from multiple sources, including signals and humint. This cannot be part of the public statement.
• Signals intelligence that cannot be disclosed shows that Salman gave the order to kill.
• Poor analysis. This is unlikely. The C.I.A. does not pay analysts to present prejudice as considered opinion.

The same ambiguity presents in Poisoned Door Handle Hints at High-Level Plot to Kill Spy, U.K. Officials Say.  Quoting the NY Times,

This operation is seen as so risky and sensitive that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin, according to officials who have been briefed on the early findings of the inquiry.

Quoting (NY Times, 9/18) U.K. Charges 2 Men in Novichok Poisoning, Saying They’re Russian Agents,

“This was not a rogue operation,” she said. “It was almost certainly also approved outside the G.R.U. at a senior level of the Russian state.”

This may be true, obtained from methods and sources, that cannot be disclosed, but as with the Khashoggi murder, the given reasoning is weak. In both cases, the element of competence of the perpetrators, expected from a nation-state, was missing. Khashoggi’s killers were unfamiliar with the bugging of consulates. The Soviet Union had a wide variety of assassination weapons and poison applicators, yet Skripal’s assassins lacked a specialized applicator for Novichok, relying instead on a modified perfume bottle, contaminating multiple locations in Salisbury and London. For a serviceable tool design, see Poisoned Door Handle Hints at High-Level Plot to Kill Spy, U.K. Officials Say.

The fascination with the whodunit aspects distracts us from important matters. All nations have savagery in their past, but for some, the past is more recent than others. Although Joseph Stalin is not noted as a moralist, he did say, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

Five men may lose their heads so Salman can save his. Yet monsters with unknown faces wait in the wings to take his place.  This results from the judgment of barbarity by our own exalted standards.

The direct reason for withdrawal is discussed in The New Russian Cruise Missile – Geopolitical Implications. The INF treaty is discussed in (Arms Control Association) The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at a Glance .

The Russian side is presented by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov’s comment on anti-Russia attacks by the US over the INF Treaty. Quoting,

The Americans have repeatedly alleged that we are going beyond the framework of the INF Treaty that bans land deployment of cruise missiles with a range from 500 to 5,500 kilometres. But there is an interesting commonality with the notorious claims about “Russian meddling in US elections,” since they provide no real evidence. The only specific mentioned is the index of a Russian missile research project with a range much shorter than the claim suggests. Incidentally, the US can easily see this on its satellite images during field tests.

The above is contaminated with bullshit  denials of election meddling, but let’s consider the topical points. Quoting Russia,

“The only specific mentioned is the index of a Russian missile research project with a range much shorter than the claim suggests.”

The only known deployment of the cruise missile in question is at Kapustin Yar. With a range less than 500 km, it would reach only targets in Russia.  Quoting further,

“For example, one can plainly see launchers at the US antimissile base in Deveselu, Romania, whose specifications enable them to launch not only interceptor missiles but also strike missiles like Tomahawks.”

U.S.  vertical launch systems,  the MK41 and MK57, when in shipboard configuration, have the ability to fire both the SM-3 missile interceptor deployed in Romania and the Tomahawk. While the VLS systems deployed in Romania can physically accommodate the Tomahawk, a significant defense contract would be required for system compatibility. The Russian claim of violation refers not to a deployment, or capability, but to an undeployed potentiality.

Since U.S. suspicions of the SSC-8 date to 2013, the INF violations are actually a legacy of the Obama Administration.  It is likely that Russian adventurism is the consequence of a certain slackness in U.S. policy towards Russia that accompanied the war on terror. Following withdrawal from the treaty, the  planned U.S. response is something like a modernized, or stealth BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile.  Two interests conflict:

• The desire to, in military terms, counter  the threat of the SSC-8 with one of similar characteristics, similar in role to the BGM-109G.
• Political stability in Europe. The last  intermediate range nuclear weapon deployed in Europe was the Pershing II intermediate range ballistic missile. From 1981 on, the deployment (Wikipedia) catalyzed European antinuclear sentiment, challenging the solidarity of NATO. Quoting, “Two-thirds of West Germans opposed the deployment, according to a Gallup poll from November 1983.” Similar sentiments were associated with the BGM-109G.

Europeans are sensitive because Europe is so small. We  gain some illogical peace of mind with the thought that the U.S. land based deterrent is scattered in empty parts of the Midwest, where practically nobody lives. A ground launched cruise missile deployment to Europe would be like having our missiles in New Jersey.

The positive result of the five year Pershing deployment was the now abrogated  INF treaty. The missile was bargained away for a worthy cause. For a reprise of this history, Europeans would have to be at least as receptive to a new BGM-109G as they were of the Pershing II. Europeans are hospitable towards missile defense. This does not mean they will be as hospitable to a new offensive nuclear weapon.

There seems to be a principle of symmetry, requiring that we have equality or superiority of forces in every category. The SSC-8 is a cruise missile; therefore it requires a cruise missile  to balance it. This deserves challenge. The principle may exist only because bargaining is facilitated by similar bargaining chips.

The asymmetric option is a response in weapon  systems qualitatively different from the  Russian cruise missile.  There are so many U.S. weapons programs scraping for bucks that the alternatives are endless.

This might be a time for outside-the-box thinking. Some European states, at least Poland, might like to have nukes of their own, joining the U.K. and France, which have had their own for many years. Rather than fester as  a U.S. versus Europe issue, as the BGM-109G replacement might, political discord becomes internal to that state.  A degree of control over the nukes could be accomplished by EU oversight of  substances such as tritium, and maintenance facilities.

Take heart, brave Poles! Poland is Not Yet Lost. You can have your own nukes as foot warmers.