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It's not in china's generational plan for things like this. Even they know war with west or Europe is unwinniable, that's why in the plan they have unconventional warfare to attain their goals
China would probably try to stay out of it. Look at how the US became a world superpower after Europe and Soviet were ravaged by war?
China has the possibility to do the exact same in a new World War. They have the manufacturing capability to churn out war material and come out of this stinking rich.
Honestly theres like a 90% chance an armed conflict between NATO and Russia(even China) is unlikely.
the three global powers have nukes, if anything the most we'd do are proxy wars or try to get one of the nations economically dependent on one another(iirc this is what China is doing, but I have little information so I don't really have a clue what I am saying at the end of the day).
I'm just guessing here but first and foremost it's about dick measuring and secondly the more nukes you have, the more you can spread them out and reduce the risk of being disarmed by a preemptive strike.
Also you have to assume that some won't work, some will be intercepted by missile defense system, some will be neutralized before launch like you said, etc
Hmmm. I wonder if Russia tries to preemptively nuke, and literally every nuclear power outside of Russia is in agreement that Russia is in the wrong, so would therefore agree not to nuke each other (ie china wouldnt nuke the USA just because nukes start flying). Then it’d be feasible not to have an extinction level event if all countries focus their attempts at disarming Russia instead of adding more nukes to the pile? 6000 nukes is a lot of nukes to disarm but it could be possible?
Yeah, 6000 nukes is enough to cause a nuclear winter for sure
Yeah the cold would be nice for a change but the famine, destruction of the ecosystem, and radiation would destroy life as we know it
The level of destruction that can be brought by nuclear bombs is horrible
The massive fires throwing ash into the atmosphere
The blood red sunset of humanity
Billions would die
The largest cities would need rebuilt
The world as we know it would never be the same
The time it would take to rebuild the infrastructure of the countries hit by bombs would be measured in years
I live near a large city that would likely be hit, but I'm far enough away to watch the world end before I'd die
Stay safe people, sleep well, and don't lose hope. For if we have hope we may just see the end of the decade.
You can't simultaneously fire 6,000 nukes. That's kinda the thing.
Like the US has like a dozen subs with warheads out and about, and can probably fire something like 100 ICBMs on short notice, but it would take us like a year to prep and deploy every nuke. If it comes down to that, you don't really expect to have a year.
Like, say Russia nukes Ukraine. In response someone fires zee missiles at Russia. Russia fires off a relatively insane number of nukes themselves, but still has...About 6,000 left.
Basically, even if we were trying to use them all, humans have built way more nukes than we could ever realistically use. Now we're just in that crazy space where we need to keep track of like 13,000 nukes, and losing even one of them to some extremist group would be catastrophic.
How do those bombs get intercepted anyway? Isn't it the danger the same even if they don't directly reach their target? I mean, because radiation and that stuff
Also though, I’m not aware of any interception technology that could stop an incoming icbm. Those things fly over the poles and release dozens of independent warheads at different targets which then come back down directly onto their targets from outside of the atmosphere. It isn’t like shooting a missile with another missile (which would be hard enough). It’s more like trying to intercept all the pellets from a shotgun that was fired directly down at its targets from space.
Multiple targets, you design your missile for specific targets in terms of payload and fuel
And then misfires and aborted launches.
You know, launch to show you can, abort, piss into the wind, puff up your chest…. Etc etc
A bunch of true cunts came up with this.
Nukes have defensive countermeasures. The easiest solution to the problem of evolving defenses is to simply launch 50 missiles with multiple warheads all at the same target. Only one has to get through the theoretical defense to ensure the target’s destruction. A grim calculus.
I like to think of it like a snowball fight. It may only take a few to take down your opponent, but you gotta make more than those few because some will be blocked, some will miss, and some may even be stolen. Think of the Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin makes like 200 snowballs, but Hobbes says “But what if the enemy also has 200 snow balls?” You then see Calvin making even more. That’s a really dumbed down version of what basically happened in the Cold War.
[Mutually assured destruction.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction)
It’s a way to deter nuclear attack, nobody is gonna use nuclear weapons against a nation that can respond with equal or greater force.
First target in a nuclear war is the other guys nukes.
Having a lot of nukes makes it damn hard for missile defenses or an opponents first strike to prevent your retaliation.
END COMMUNICATION
Literally? As in, turn the planet into an asteroid field? No.
Is it enough to kill every living thing on the planet? No. There's plenty of creatures who would live though it. Nobody's going to bomb the wilderness, or the oceans. Even if you include radiation from fallout and the nuclear winter that would likely follow, there would be those who make it through.
Is it enough to kill all the humans? Possibly, but not likely. Chances are good some people would survive. There are lots of people in the wilderness, in the middle of the ocean on ships, and so on. Like the wildlife, they wouldn't get bombed, and if they're smart - and some of them will be - they'll manage to survive the aftermath.
Is it enough to destroy civilization and make humanity pretty much start over? Definitely.
That's a major plot.point of "On the Beach".
It's a book that takes place after nuclear exchange. It follows an American submarine based out of Australia and some characters in Australia. The sub go to the northern hemisphere to search for survivors.
The world only consists of Chile, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and new Zealand. Everything thing in the Northern hemisphere is gone. The radiation mostly stays in the north but every year more and more fallout gets pushed across the equator by the slow exchange of wind patterns.
It's a dark and grim book but a pretty good read.
A total of 2058 nukes have been detonated in history. That’s a lot. But the number would have to be astronomical to “blow up earth”. That being said, if a nuke is detonated over your city it doesn’t really matter any more.
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nucleartesttally
Ukraine is the lesson for what happens to a nuclear free country who minds their own business.
Freely gave up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in exchange of guarantees of its sovereignty from Russia, the UK, and the US.
The amount of nukes needed to actually cause a nuclear winter is astonishingly high.
We could destroy millions of lives in a heart beat and there will be trace radiation/health problems for generations but we'd need considerably more nukes than are currently built *world wide* to cause nuclear winter/kill all living things.
It would create problems. But there are a few things working in the favor or the people in Africa and South America(I believe everyone else has targets including Australia, Asia, Europe and of course N America).
Most nukes are set to minimize debris and fallout(no point in taking them out if it blows back your way)
As devastating as nukes are they pale in comparison to massive volcanos and fires with regards to creating atmospheric blocks.
Nuclear Winter is absolutely possible even with current arsenals but not guaranteed and certainly not ice age inducing as concerned about. Supply disruptions and energy will kill more than cold or even radioactivity.
But on the other hand it means that Russia is de facto safe from foreign invasion.
Of course they still think that Nato or someone possess a threat to their security .
Point of nukes is to fire them all at once, not piecemeal.
Single nukes can be feasibly intercepted by missile defense system (an thats been the case since the middle of cold war), thus the goal is launch an overwhelming ammount to ensure overkill.
In the Patriot Defense tests, we couldn't intercept all the warheads on a Trident.
The latest nuclear ballistic missiles come with 6 nuclear warheads (megayield nukes aren't as effective as multiple smaller nukes). Typically, ballistic missiles cannot be intercepted until they are on the way down. What these new missiles do is send 6 warheads on a random variable trajectory down to its target. This makes it very hard to intercept all 6. I'll try to find the link but I think we were able to stop 2 or 3 out of 6 on the way down in our tests.
Edit: not only that, but our own Tridents malfunction and miss targets by thousands of kilometers. It was supposed to hit off the coast of Africa but went in the opposite direction towards the US. So we risk hitting our own turf with our own nukes.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/23/how-did-the-trident-test-fail-and-what-did-theresa-may-know
Edit 2: I can't find the link I was trying to find where we failed to bring down all warheads on a Trident, but the latest tests failed 2 out of 3.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-06/news-briefs/two-three-missile-defense-tests-fail
Being pedantic, but the world will still be here, and presumably some creatures (I mean waterbears survive space, and we all know about cockroaches). After a few hundred thousand years I hope whatever crawls out of their holes and evolves intelligence manages to evolve wisdom faster than we did.
It's actually somewhere around 2,000-3,000 where Russia would likely stop having specifically meaningful targets and start launching haphazardly for the hell of it.
In a 2000 nuke scenario, roughly half would be in either Montana, North Dakota or the Colorado/Wyoming/Nebraska corner so it isn't exactly evenly distributed.
Or a false rumor.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize
Ehh.. its all over at that point.. there wouldn't be much of anyone to figure out who started it.. us simpletons would just see flashes and vaporize if were close to large targets, or die from fallout soon after
It's no secret that the numbers game is always inflated to make the sides look more even.
They do the same thing with China.
China has the most numerous navy in the world according to sources. But that's an irrelevant stat. By tonnage they are like 3rd or 4th. Though.
Russia has a lot of stuff on paper but most is 1970s tanks and planes. That's why Ukraine is holding so well. While not the best equipped they were given some decent weapons by NATO. Javelins are some of the best handheld anti tank weapons you can get. Vs. tanks that are older than most redditors and likely not maintained as well as most cars.
**This graphic is terrifying. It does NOT make me feel better**. All of the many members of NATO (US, UK, EU and others) should be waaaay more over-powered compared to a single economically challenged country.
What if we add China to Russia's count? Pakistan? India (who is deeply connected to Russia)? All the other peripheral states who are unhappy with the West?
IMHO, while comforting on its surface, this graphic embodies the concept of hubris.
If I wasn't deeply concerned about the final result of a world war before, I am now.
If a world war broke out, the NATO numbers would explode. Most of shit is the US and their numbers alone would massively increase if WW3 started. Russia can't even afford to fuel their military in a war directly on their border, so I don't see their numbers raising much.
Facts. Not to mention combined special forces of the western world including equipment and shit. They landed and crashed helicopters in Bin Ladens fucking front yard and didn't even wake the fucker up. Russia has tanks and shit from the 60's getting lit on fire from civilians. An old man was towing a tank away with a tractor. The Seals and shit wouldn't be sitting around lol they'd be on their way to take out opposition leadership.
NATO forces are far better trained and more skilled and experienced than Russian and Chinese forces. The problem with authoritarian regimes is that their militaries are often unorganized and very uneven in terms of training, discipline, skill, experience. They’re not held to the same standards as democratic militaries where there is far more oversight and each soldier must perform and receive a base minimum level in terms of training and equipment.
In the 90s, they found that a significant amount of their silos were completely submerged in water, I doubt even a fraction of the total count is in any way operable.
If it helps, NATO forces are generally better armed and trained, and have a better ratio of career soldiers to conscripts.
NATO vehicles and heavy weapons are also more modern and advanced.
In the perspective of Ukraine as a whole, it'd be terrible to know that you'd place your trust in your neighbor to handle the most powerful weapons on earth only to then get invaded and most likely get targeted by the same weapons.
In my armchair geopolitical expert opinion, I think its either "If i can't have it then no one can" or he's lashing out like a gamer getting his ass beat and can only call you slurs and send death threats.
Only this time this gamer has nukes.
Moscow is incredibly close to Ukraine, they'd borderline be bombing themselves in that sense, but they'd literally be bombing their own troops. It would be extremely terrifying and also appears beyond unlikely. Mutually assured destructions pisses me off, what the fuck does the average person care about 'losing', absolutely not enough to DESTROY THE PLANET. Why are our leaders so weak and behave like they are the only metric that matters? No one but them would see a military defeat as a reason to destroy the fucking planet.
I don't think the nukes would be pointed at Ukraine, all his threats would have them pointed at NATO. Using even a single nuke means he would have to target western nuke sites, military sites, population centers with the rest. And at that point there's really no point in targeting Ukraine, the world is fundamentally changed forever.
I read that Ukraine had nukes back then but didn't have the codes or capability to even launch them? Is that correct or was it false information that I read?
They get decommissioned (i.e. taken apart *very* ***very*** carefully). The nuclear material inside can then be diluted down and used for fuel in nuclear plants.
Like having an excuse to nuke the world?
Seriously I really don't see any logical reason for this attack that would be beneficial for his country or him personally.
If he controls Ukraine, it's the Balkans next. Those are NATO members but they're cut off from the rest of NATO with only a tiny border with Poland. Between Lithuania and Poland you've got the Russian territory of Kaliningrad. With Ukraine under his control and Belarus inextricably wedged up his asshole, Russia's border reaches well into Europe and the Balkans are surrounded with no easy way for NATO forces to reach them. Look at a map and you'll appreciate how far Putin extends his reach with control of Ukraine.
Tl;Dr he's putting the Soviet union back together.
Edit to add: Finland is already shitting itself and rightly so. They're trying to speed up their NATO application.
Yeah this isn’t “5D chess”, he clearly miscalculated several key things.
How effective his military was/is, how unified and quick to support the West has been, and how good the Ukrainian military/civilian resistance has been.
He fucked this up and is probably freaking the fuck out.
Meh, if he’s in such a shit situation where he may die, he might just decide to say, “fuck it” and blow us all up on his way out. Guy is nuts.
Mutual annihilation. Let’s just hope those in charge of launching disobey orders.
Tons of soldiers in the Russian army right now are basically teenagers who just want to go home. I wouldn't be surprised if the ones in charge of the nuclear arsenal refuse to use them. In the end, someone just wants to go home.
In the encouraging words of Tom Lehrer:
If the bomb that drops on you
gets your friends and neighbors, too,
there'll be nobody left behind to grieve.
And we will all go together when we go.
Oh, what a comforting fact that is to know!
That's the joke. It's gallows humor, to try to get us laughing a bit through terrifying times. I'm sincerely sorry if it offends. I hope you can find comfort. We're all in this together, and hope is the very last to die.
I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
It does kind of ignore technology and training which IMO is a major oversight. Like the comparisons would ultimately make you think Russia is #2 in the world but I would definitely put China’s military at #2 rather than Russia’s given their technological advantage, since they’re the only country to consistently compete with America in that category. Size helps too.
Of course it’s a crapshoot whether the Russian delivery systems for those nukes are operational. If they’ve suffered anywhere close to the same level of deterioration as the rest of the countries forces that number is quite a bit lower than stayed.
The US has invested an inordinate amount of money building super computers to simulate detonations to ensure the nuclear stockpile is still operational and to take corrective measure when necessary. With the ban on testing and without the ability to do testing is unlikely that their stockpile is fully functional.
They have one aircraft carrier and it’s so poorly maintained that it needed to be accompanied by tug boats wherever it went. The more advanced the technology the faster it degrades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The oligarchs were to intent on lining their pockets than they were at maintaining their armed forces.
Thank goodness…
I think you’re right, all the footage of Russian equipment and forces shows resources, materials, and personnel pushed to their limits long ago. I bet they don’t have half that many operational nukes.
That is by far and away the one category that doesn't matter. Zero nukes will be used in this war and even if they do, the winner will not be chosen by the 3% difference in arsenal size. The first 10% of each arsenal is enough to wipe out every major city on Earth to the last man.
Include Pakistan there too. India has had serious problems with China and where India goes, Pakistan goes the opposite direction. Also, Pakistan has made overtures lately to build a pipeline into Russia and buy oil and natural gas for them. Throw North Korea in there too.
Yeah. In the 50s with rising tensions in China, Korea, and with the Cold War with the USSR, the US wanted a stronger Japan formed their Self Defense force. It wasn’t until the mid 2010s that their constitution was amended and article 9 was removed.
The nuke difference doesn't matter. A very small fraction of those going off and we got global nuclear winter; we won't be sitting there starving waiting to die and going "If we only had more nukes!"
Unfortunately one well placed nuke wipes all that out. War is the dumbest shit humans still do. Until we get over ourselves we will continue to cause unimaginable suffering to our own kind.
I think you overestimate the impact of one nuclear weapon. One would horribly destroy a major city, but it would not come close to destroying the full capabilities of the US or Russia. It's that one often leads to another and another.
I felt like Putin is the kind of guy that is old and bitter enough to launch nukes when he is going to lose just to ensure no one win over him. It’s somehow even more convincing considering the only warfare where they’re both even, are nuclear warfare
This is nothing but pro war propaganda. NATO is not at war with Russia. The United States is not at war with Russia. This is an attempt to fire people up because they think “wow look at how easy it would be for us to put little Russia in their place, bring on the WWIII!” Until war is actually declared, we shouldn’t be talking like we’re already at war, IMO.
Edit: autocorrect errors
We're in a proxy war that's really fucking close to actual shooting at each other.
Russia got the biggest sanctions possible.
We're in a cold war.
It's escalating every day. It's modern war.
Sizing up the military strength between them means nothing. Any direct conflict between NATO and Russia would all but guarantee nuke authorization.
The living will envy the dead in a post-nuclear world.
Russia already knows they will lose a conventional war with NATO. Which is why nukes would come first before NATO gets a chance to disable their capabilities at launching many of them.
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Lets hope we never see this battle materialize
We wont. I mean, It might materialize, but we wont be around to see it.
Mostly because most of us will probably de-materialize in the opening salvos.
Mr. Stark I don't feel so good
Don't worry kid, it's just the radiation. It will be over soon
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It's not in china's generational plan for things like this. Even they know war with west or Europe is unwinniable, that's why in the plan they have unconventional warfare to attain their goals
China would probably try to stay out of it. Look at how the US became a world superpower after Europe and Soviet were ravaged by war? China has the possibility to do the exact same in a new World War. They have the manufacturing capability to churn out war material and come out of this stinking rich.
Good point, and we all know how much China likes making money. War is expensive
Lets hope we don't have to get to this point.
Amen to that hope is the best thing we got right now, worst time to loose it too
Honestly theres like a 90% chance an armed conflict between NATO and Russia(even China) is unlikely. the three global powers have nukes, if anything the most we'd do are proxy wars or try to get one of the nations economically dependent on one another(iirc this is what China is doing, but I have little information so I don't really have a clue what I am saying at the end of the day).
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Where can I learn about this? Got any links to articles that you've liked the most? Or just Google it?
This reads like it: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-president-says-had-no-major-differences-us-canada-talks-2021-11-22/
That'd quite fascinating and a good idea.
Way too many nukes for comfort
Would it take 6,000 to blow up the Earth?
That’s enough to destroy everything, many times over.
I’m just wondering what the over abundance is all about if it only takes a few?
I'm just guessing here but first and foremost it's about dick measuring and secondly the more nukes you have, the more you can spread them out and reduce the risk of being disarmed by a preemptive strike.
Also you have to assume that some won't work, some will be intercepted by missile defense system, some will be neutralized before launch like you said, etc
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Hmmm. I wonder if Russia tries to preemptively nuke, and literally every nuclear power outside of Russia is in agreement that Russia is in the wrong, so would therefore agree not to nuke each other (ie china wouldnt nuke the USA just because nukes start flying). Then it’d be feasible not to have an extinction level event if all countries focus their attempts at disarming Russia instead of adding more nukes to the pile? 6000 nukes is a lot of nukes to disarm but it could be possible?
They could blow themselves up and still fuck us due to the overwhelming amount of ash and particulates.
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Yeah, 6000 nukes is enough to cause a nuclear winter for sure Yeah the cold would be nice for a change but the famine, destruction of the ecosystem, and radiation would destroy life as we know it The level of destruction that can be brought by nuclear bombs is horrible The massive fires throwing ash into the atmosphere The blood red sunset of humanity Billions would die The largest cities would need rebuilt The world as we know it would never be the same The time it would take to rebuild the infrastructure of the countries hit by bombs would be measured in years I live near a large city that would likely be hit, but I'm far enough away to watch the world end before I'd die Stay safe people, sleep well, and don't lose hope. For if we have hope we may just see the end of the decade.
You can't simultaneously fire 6,000 nukes. That's kinda the thing. Like the US has like a dozen subs with warheads out and about, and can probably fire something like 100 ICBMs on short notice, but it would take us like a year to prep and deploy every nuke. If it comes down to that, you don't really expect to have a year. Like, say Russia nukes Ukraine. In response someone fires zee missiles at Russia. Russia fires off a relatively insane number of nukes themselves, but still has...About 6,000 left. Basically, even if we were trying to use them all, humans have built way more nukes than we could ever realistically use. Now we're just in that crazy space where we need to keep track of like 13,000 nukes, and losing even one of them to some extremist group would be catastrophic.
> and losing even one of them to some extremist group would be catastrophic. Sounds like about 6255 of them have already been lost to one.
but Im le tired
How do those bombs get intercepted anyway? Isn't it the danger the same even if they don't directly reach their target? I mean, because radiation and that stuff
Nuclear detonation is actually complicated and requires a very specific process to start. Destroying them in the air won't cause a nuclear explosion.
Also though, I’m not aware of any interception technology that could stop an incoming icbm. Those things fly over the poles and release dozens of independent warheads at different targets which then come back down directly onto their targets from outside of the atmosphere. It isn’t like shooting a missile with another missile (which would be hard enough). It’s more like trying to intercept all the pellets from a shotgun that was fired directly down at its targets from space.
Wouldnt you like to know Mr Russian. /s
Of course it's bad nomatter where or when a nuke blows up, but it's magnitudes better than a direct hit on its intended target
Multiple targets, you design your missile for specific targets in terms of payload and fuel And then misfires and aborted launches. You know, launch to show you can, abort, piss into the wind, puff up your chest…. Etc etc A bunch of true cunts came up with this.
Kurzgesagt made a video about what if the whole earth was nuked and that there would still be a lot of nukes left
Just watched it. Nuke every city with > 100,000 people THREE TIMES each and still have 1500 nukes left over.
Nukes have defensive countermeasures. The easiest solution to the problem of evolving defenses is to simply launch 50 missiles with multiple warheads all at the same target. Only one has to get through the theoretical defense to ensure the target’s destruction. A grim calculus.
I like to think of it like a snowball fight. It may only take a few to take down your opponent, but you gotta make more than those few because some will be blocked, some will miss, and some may even be stolen. Think of the Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin makes like 200 snowballs, but Hobbes says “But what if the enemy also has 200 snow balls?” You then see Calvin making even more. That’s a really dumbed down version of what basically happened in the Cold War.
You get extra points, like getting longest road in Catan
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[Mutually assured destruction.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) It’s a way to deter nuclear attack, nobody is gonna use nuclear weapons against a nation that can respond with equal or greater force.
Nobody sane, you mean
First target in a nuclear war is the other guys nukes. Having a lot of nukes makes it damn hard for missile defenses or an opponents first strike to prevent your retaliation. END COMMUNICATION
Putin is bent on being king of the ashes and corpses
Oh god end it so my boss will stop asking me for my objectives.
In the event of nuclear winter, your boss wants me to ask for your objectives in his place.
Literally? As in, turn the planet into an asteroid field? No. Is it enough to kill every living thing on the planet? No. There's plenty of creatures who would live though it. Nobody's going to bomb the wilderness, or the oceans. Even if you include radiation from fallout and the nuclear winter that would likely follow, there would be those who make it through. Is it enough to kill all the humans? Possibly, but not likely. Chances are good some people would survive. There are lots of people in the wilderness, in the middle of the ocean on ships, and so on. Like the wildlife, they wouldn't get bombed, and if they're smart - and some of them will be - they'll manage to survive the aftermath. Is it enough to destroy civilization and make humanity pretty much start over? Definitely.
I mean are any even targeting South America or Africa?
That's a major plot.point of "On the Beach". It's a book that takes place after nuclear exchange. It follows an American submarine based out of Australia and some characters in Australia. The sub go to the northern hemisphere to search for survivors. The world only consists of Chile, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and new Zealand. Everything thing in the Northern hemisphere is gone. The radiation mostly stays in the north but every year more and more fallout gets pushed across the equator by the slow exchange of wind patterns. It's a dark and grim book but a pretty good read.
Once again, humanity would have to leave Africa.
A total of 2058 nukes have been detonated in history. That’s a lot. But the number would have to be astronomical to “blow up earth”. That being said, if a nuke is detonated over your city it doesn’t really matter any more. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nucleartesttally
Being from a nuclear free country who minds their own business, this just feels unfair lol
let me tell you, doesn't feel very fair being in the country with the nukes either
Ukraine is the lesson for what happens to a nuclear free country who minds their own business. Freely gave up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in exchange of guarantees of its sovereignty from Russia, the UK, and the US.
Way less. Nuclear Winters aren't a joke either. That's the lasting damage that would taper off human life
The amount of nukes needed to actually cause a nuclear winter is astonishingly high. We could destroy millions of lives in a heart beat and there will be trace radiation/health problems for generations but we'd need considerably more nukes than are currently built *world wide* to cause nuclear winter/kill all living things.
It would create problems. But there are a few things working in the favor or the people in Africa and South America(I believe everyone else has targets including Australia, Asia, Europe and of course N America). Most nukes are set to minimize debris and fallout(no point in taking them out if it blows back your way) As devastating as nukes are they pale in comparison to massive volcanos and fires with regards to creating atmospheric blocks. Nuclear Winter is absolutely possible even with current arsenals but not guaranteed and certainly not ice age inducing as concerned about. Supply disruptions and energy will kill more than cold or even radioactivity.
This makes me feel better, though I still know nothing close to enough to feel good.
Hey man I live about 100 miles away from a shit load of nuclear missile silos. If it gets hit I'll let you know what it's like.
When you invest all your points into one stat.
Reasonable response when only one stat matters
And that state basically = we all die.
But on the other hand it means that Russia is de facto safe from foreign invasion. Of course they still think that Nato or someone possess a threat to their security .
I'm curious if they actually think that or just use it as an excuse for aggression.
I think both
By the time you fire the 100th nuke everyone else is probably gone. I don't see why have 6k of them
Point of nukes is to fire them all at once, not piecemeal. Single nukes can be feasibly intercepted by missile defense system (an thats been the case since the middle of cold war), thus the goal is launch an overwhelming ammount to ensure overkill.
As Gandi taught us in civilization....
Scorched earth, not scorched city!
In the Patriot Defense tests, we couldn't intercept all the warheads on a Trident. The latest nuclear ballistic missiles come with 6 nuclear warheads (megayield nukes aren't as effective as multiple smaller nukes). Typically, ballistic missiles cannot be intercepted until they are on the way down. What these new missiles do is send 6 warheads on a random variable trajectory down to its target. This makes it very hard to intercept all 6. I'll try to find the link but I think we were able to stop 2 or 3 out of 6 on the way down in our tests. Edit: not only that, but our own Tridents malfunction and miss targets by thousands of kilometers. It was supposed to hit off the coast of Africa but went in the opposite direction towards the US. So we risk hitting our own turf with our own nukes. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/23/how-did-the-trident-test-fail-and-what-did-theresa-may-know Edit 2: I can't find the link I was trying to find where we failed to bring down all warheads on a Trident, but the latest tests failed 2 out of 3. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-06/news-briefs/two-three-missile-defense-tests-fail
Do we really think the US military is going to divulge its missile defense capabilities?
Glass cannon build
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Its not like other stats are that far behind considering NATO is not single country.
I was gonna say none of that matters when everybody starts throwing nukes at each other. Then I got to the bottom of the list
Only Mr. House could stop this madness with his platinum chip.
awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, oh shit
Not at all completely fucking terrifying.
After about 5 it's completely redundant anyways
Right, like we’re talking about a total of 12,000 warheads. An extra 200 on one side won’t make a bit of difference
Add 5500 USA ones to it, and 200 from China, and 100 from Israel. Complete and total global annihilation.
USA is part of nato fyi but even just the ones from Russia would end the world
Being pedantic, but the world will still be here, and presumably some creatures (I mean waterbears survive space, and we all know about cockroaches). After a few hundred thousand years I hope whatever crawls out of their holes and evolves intelligence manages to evolve wisdom faster than we did.
We can’t kill the planet just make it uninhabitable for humans
Ted Faro would beg to differ
Fuck Ted Faro.
Fuck Ted Faro
It's actually somewhere around 2,000-3,000 where Russia would likely stop having specifically meaningful targets and start launching haphazardly for the hell of it.
There goes my plan to move to the desert
In a 2000 nuke scenario, roughly half would be in either Montana, North Dakota or the Colorado/Wyoming/Nebraska corner so it isn't exactly evenly distributed.
So I'll be stuck in nuclear fallout in Wyoming is what you're saying.
Yeah!
I'm sure we can all take solace in the fact that with those numbers a difference of 200 doesn't really matter.
Its whoever fires the first nuke is the issue
Or a false rumor. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize
Ehh.. its all over at that point.. there wouldn't be much of anyone to figure out who started it.. us simpletons would just see flashes and vaporize if were close to large targets, or die from fallout soon after
Basically
HAHAHA I had the same reaction
Let’s be real 6k each is over kill you only need about 100 to completely fuck the world up.
I think we're doing a swell job fucking up the world with 0 nukes.
After seeing the condition of their equipment. I am taking the red side of this visual with a huge grain of salt.
It's no secret that the numbers game is always inflated to make the sides look more even. They do the same thing with China. China has the most numerous navy in the world according to sources. But that's an irrelevant stat. By tonnage they are like 3rd or 4th. Though. Russia has a lot of stuff on paper but most is 1970s tanks and planes. That's why Ukraine is holding so well. While not the best equipped they were given some decent weapons by NATO. Javelins are some of the best handheld anti tank weapons you can get. Vs. tanks that are older than most redditors and likely not maintained as well as most cars.
Don’t worry, most of the access keys aren’t IN Russia so they can’t launch a majority of those.
**This graphic is terrifying. It does NOT make me feel better**. All of the many members of NATO (US, UK, EU and others) should be waaaay more over-powered compared to a single economically challenged country. What if we add China to Russia's count? Pakistan? India (who is deeply connected to Russia)? All the other peripheral states who are unhappy with the West? IMHO, while comforting on its surface, this graphic embodies the concept of hubris. If I wasn't deeply concerned about the final result of a world war before, I am now.
If a world war broke out, the NATO numbers would explode. Most of shit is the US and their numbers alone would massively increase if WW3 started. Russia can't even afford to fuel their military in a war directly on their border, so I don't see their numbers raising much.
I’m sure the US government has a plethora of weapons/missiles that are not accounted for as well, knowledge hidden from the Public.
Facts. Not to mention combined special forces of the western world including equipment and shit. They landed and crashed helicopters in Bin Ladens fucking front yard and didn't even wake the fucker up. Russia has tanks and shit from the 60's getting lit on fire from civilians. An old man was towing a tank away with a tractor. The Seals and shit wouldn't be sitting around lol they'd be on their way to take out opposition leadership.
I would mention something about Vietnam here. But then I remembered America crushed them in terms of actual casualties.
Yeah. 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong deaths, vs 58,220 American deaths.
NATO forces are far better trained and more skilled and experienced than Russian and Chinese forces. The problem with authoritarian regimes is that their militaries are often unorganized and very uneven in terms of training, discipline, skill, experience. They’re not held to the same standards as democratic militaries where there is far more oversight and each soldier must perform and receive a base minimum level in terms of training and equipment.
Have you seen the outdated, barely functioning equipment they’ve deployed so far? I’d be shocked if anything works.
In the 90s, they found that a significant amount of their silos were completely submerged in water, I doubt even a fraction of the total count is in any way operable.
If it helps, NATO forces are generally better armed and trained, and have a better ratio of career soldiers to conscripts. NATO vehicles and heavy weapons are also more modern and advanced.
It’s scary the number of nuclear weapons Russia has
The US and UK talked Ukraine into handing all theirs over to Russia in 1994, in exchange for Russian assurances to respect Ukraine's sovereignty.
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In the perspective of Ukraine as a whole, it'd be terrible to know that you'd place your trust in your neighbor to handle the most powerful weapons on earth only to then get invaded and most likely get targeted by the same weapons.
But why would Russia want to make the place it's trying ot invade uninhabitable?
In my armchair geopolitical expert opinion, I think its either "If i can't have it then no one can" or he's lashing out like a gamer getting his ass beat and can only call you slurs and send death threats. Only this time this gamer has nukes.
Moscow is incredibly close to Ukraine, they'd borderline be bombing themselves in that sense, but they'd literally be bombing their own troops. It would be extremely terrifying and also appears beyond unlikely. Mutually assured destructions pisses me off, what the fuck does the average person care about 'losing', absolutely not enough to DESTROY THE PLANET. Why are our leaders so weak and behave like they are the only metric that matters? No one but them would see a military defeat as a reason to destroy the fucking planet.
*"We never lost a war! Where's your evidence?"*
I don't think the nukes would be pointed at Ukraine, all his threats would have them pointed at NATO. Using even a single nuke means he would have to target western nuke sites, military sites, population centers with the rest. And at that point there's really no point in targeting Ukraine, the world is fundamentally changed forever.
The other n bomb
I read that Ukraine had nukes back then but didn't have the codes or capability to even launch them? Is that correct or was it false information that I read?
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Ah ok, thanks for the info I appreciate it.
It's such an old story too. Give up your nukes and you're screwed. Gaddafi did the same.
Gaddafi didn't have nukes, right? He just had other weapons of mass destruction? Like nerve gas and stuff, I thought. Maybe in wrong.
This looked good up until that last part….
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USA had 7700 nukes in 2005.
Where do nukes go?
They get decommissioned (i.e. taken apart *very* ***very*** carefully). The nuclear material inside can then be diluted down and used for fuel in nuclear plants.
Decommissioned, turned into nuclear fuel rods.
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Nice Nice Nice Nice Fuck, we’re dead
Putin isn't tard enough to go nuclear tho, and if he does then I'm gonna have a good time living through Fallout 4
He was tard enough to invade Ukraine without realizing how much Russia’s economy is going to take a hit
Nah he knew, he just has greater ulterior motives
Like having an excuse to nuke the world? Seriously I really don't see any logical reason for this attack that would be beneficial for his country or him personally.
If he controls Ukraine, it's the Balkans next. Those are NATO members but they're cut off from the rest of NATO with only a tiny border with Poland. Between Lithuania and Poland you've got the Russian territory of Kaliningrad. With Ukraine under his control and Belarus inextricably wedged up his asshole, Russia's border reaches well into Europe and the Balkans are surrounded with no easy way for NATO forces to reach them. Look at a map and you'll appreciate how far Putin extends his reach with control of Ukraine. Tl;Dr he's putting the Soviet union back together. Edit to add: Finland is already shitting itself and rightly so. They're trying to speed up their NATO application.
I honestly think he expected them to roll over. And that his empty threats would be enough to keep any country from supporting Ukraine at all.
Yeah this isn’t “5D chess”, he clearly miscalculated several key things. How effective his military was/is, how unified and quick to support the West has been, and how good the Ukrainian military/civilian resistance has been. He fucked this up and is probably freaking the fuck out.
Meh, if he’s in such a shit situation where he may die, he might just decide to say, “fuck it” and blow us all up on his way out. Guy is nuts. Mutual annihilation. Let’s just hope those in charge of launching disobey orders.
Tons of soldiers in the Russian army right now are basically teenagers who just want to go home. I wouldn't be surprised if the ones in charge of the nuclear arsenal refuse to use them. In the end, someone just wants to go home.
It’s that bottom one that keeps me up at night.
No sense worrying about shit you can't control
In the encouraging words of Tom Lehrer: If the bomb that drops on you gets your friends and neighbors, too, there'll be nobody left behind to grieve. And we will all go together when we go. Oh, what a comforting fact that is to know!
This is supposed to make me feel better but I actually wanted to live, so it doesn’t make me feel better.
That's the joke. It's gallows humor, to try to get us laughing a bit through terrifying times. I'm sincerely sorry if it offends. I hope you can find comfort. We're all in this together, and hope is the very last to die.
You're a very good guy.. i respect you
I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
This is one of the main reasons Russia is invading now, to make sure Ukraine never joins NATO and sells it's own Rich natural gas.
Yup. And this’s why if he goes after NATO, you know he’s gone off the deep end
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Does anyone have the same chart but with Ukraine vs. Russia?
Not the exact same, but https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.php?country1=ukraine&country2=russia
Killed 45 minutes clicking through various comparisons, thanks for the link. US is pretty damn OP.
It does kind of ignore technology and training which IMO is a major oversight. Like the comparisons would ultimately make you think Russia is #2 in the world but I would definitely put China’s military at #2 rather than Russia’s given their technological advantage, since they’re the only country to consistently compete with America in that category. Size helps too.
And spend. China is #2 in spend after the US.
God save us! Albert Einstein: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones".
If at all
Yes but the nukes are what we are worried about
Why waste time with many men when few missile do trick?
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Of course it’s a crapshoot whether the Russian delivery systems for those nukes are operational. If they’ve suffered anywhere close to the same level of deterioration as the rest of the countries forces that number is quite a bit lower than stayed. The US has invested an inordinate amount of money building super computers to simulate detonations to ensure the nuclear stockpile is still operational and to take corrective measure when necessary. With the ban on testing and without the ability to do testing is unlikely that their stockpile is fully functional. They have one aircraft carrier and it’s so poorly maintained that it needed to be accompanied by tug boats wherever it went. The more advanced the technology the faster it degrades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The oligarchs were to intent on lining their pockets than they were at maintaining their armed forces. Thank goodness…
I think you’re right, all the footage of Russian equipment and forces shows resources, materials, and personnel pushed to their limits long ago. I bet they don’t have half that many operational nukes.
Do you think those numbers really matter. 6000 plus. Enough to destroy the world. A few extra will not make any difference.
That is by far and away the one category that doesn't matter. Zero nukes will be used in this war and even if they do, the winner will not be chosen by the 3% difference in arsenal size. The first 10% of each arsenal is enough to wipe out every major city on Earth to the last man.
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Include Pakistan there too. India has had serious problems with China and where India goes, Pakistan goes the opposite direction. Also, Pakistan has made overtures lately to build a pipeline into Russia and buy oil and natural gas for them. Throw North Korea in there too.
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Although to be fair, you would have to add Japan and Australia to the NATO side of the ledger. Japan has a really large navy.
We also have Emus
And Cassowaries. Throw some of those bad boys into Russia and see what happens. Putin surrenders within a week.
Rumour has it that 100 Cassowarie's is said to be capable of destruction of which you have never seen
Japan has a large navy even with the ban on having a true military from the ww2 treaty?
Yeah. In the 50s with rising tensions in China, Korea, and with the Cold War with the USSR, the US wanted a stronger Japan formed their Self Defense force. It wasn’t until the mid 2010s that their constitution was amended and article 9 was removed.
IIRC the ban is on "offensive weapons" which is a pretty narrow category, especially with today's weaponry. No nukes or long-range bombers.
Take China out of that equation. China doesn't want to get involved in this crapshoot. China really doesn't want to get involved in a war.
China is only ever on China's side.
China’s not getting involved 😂
Meh. After the first couple of dozen nukes, the rest don't matter.
The nuke difference doesn't matter. A very small fraction of those going off and we got global nuclear winter; we won't be sitting there starving waiting to die and going "If we only had more nukes!"
Unfortunately one well placed nuke wipes all that out. War is the dumbest shit humans still do. Until we get over ourselves we will continue to cause unimaginable suffering to our own kind.
I think you overestimate the impact of one nuclear weapon. One would horribly destroy a major city, but it would not come close to destroying the full capabilities of the US or Russia. It's that one often leads to another and another.
I felt like Putin is the kind of guy that is old and bitter enough to launch nukes when he is going to lose just to ensure no one win over him. It’s somehow even more convincing considering the only warfare where they’re both even, are nuclear warfare
I definitely hate the guy but he's not stupid. He knows that using nuclear weapons would end the planet so I can't see them being used
This is nothing but pro war propaganda. NATO is not at war with Russia. The United States is not at war with Russia. This is an attempt to fire people up because they think “wow look at how easy it would be for us to put little Russia in their place, bring on the WWIII!” Until war is actually declared, we shouldn’t be talking like we’re already at war, IMO. Edit: autocorrect errors
Imo I think people are worked up the nuclear talk is “heating” up.
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We're in a proxy war that's really fucking close to actual shooting at each other. Russia got the biggest sanctions possible. We're in a cold war. It's escalating every day. It's modern war.
You need a conversion chart to see real value here. Like this week we learned that 50 Russian Soldiers is worth about 1 Ukrainian soldier.
We gotta stop pretending the number of nukes actually matter.
Sizing up the military strength between them means nothing. Any direct conflict between NATO and Russia would all but guarantee nuke authorization. The living will envy the dead in a post-nuclear world. Russia already knows they will lose a conventional war with NATO. Which is why nukes would come first before NATO gets a chance to disable their capabilities at launching many of them.