EDIT: For clarification, I feel that the current situation on the ground in the war (vs. say a year ago) might indicate that an attack on Russia might not result in instant nuclear war, which is what prompted my question. I am well aware of the “instant nuclear Armageddon” opinion.
Serious question. I don’t need to be called stupid. I realize nuclear war is bad. Thanks!
It’s nearly impossible to mobilize a large force quickly, or covertly. There would be plenty of warning, especially if the US is involved because there’s an ocean in the way in either direction.
If Western nations decide to attack Russia, I doubt the conflict will stay limited to Russia.
- North Korea will probably support Russia militarily very quickly. They’re already supplying weapons, they have a close relationship, and they’re reasonably secure against counterattack because China would react very badly if NK were attacked directly.
- Iran will join with Russia, but uncertain whether Iran will actually deploy its military in Europe (probably not), or take the opportunity to pursue their own goals in the middle east while the west is distracted.
- China will probably play neutral for awhile, but continue to trade with Russia and sell them military equipment. China is circumspect, they won’t jump into a conflict for ideological reasons, though they’ll certainly quote ideological reasons in their propaganda. They will join the conflict when it benefits them and doesn’t present extreme risk. Most likely they will pursue their own goals in the south China sea (Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines) while the US is busy elsewhere.
An attack from the West on Russia will balloon into a global conflict. It will be bad for everyone, even if it stays limited to conventional warfare.
I agree with your prediction of China’s behavior (and especially their motivations) 100%.
It will be bad for northern hemisphere *
Aside from the global environmental and economic fallout, I imagine many Southern Hemisphere countries would be dragged in as well.
Nato would completely overwhelm Russia, but not before nukes would fly from various places and hit major cities in the western world. In the retaliation, all of Russia would be destroyed, world in turmoil…
I have some doubts that Russia’s nuclear weapons are even in operational order.
maybe they try to launch them, and they just self-destruct inside their silos. or, they fly, but fall out of the sky still in Russia, or, they actually fly all the way to the destination, but fail to detonate.
to be sure, this is not something that we should wager on. I just think it would be funny if it turned out that way. just a fun little daydream of imperialist fascist scum getting put in the ground where they fucking belong.
The imperialist fascist scum would be launching the nukes from the safety of their elaborate, well-stocked, and expensive bomb shelters. I don’t disagree with your opinion of those people, but it’s vital to remember that the biggest victims would be the millions of civilians who have already suffered under their rule.
The IAEA and the START treaty mean we have inspectors that can monitor the actual capabilities of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. According to these inspectors Russia has, at least, 2000 completely operational nukes.
Russia is believed to have about 6500 nuclear weapons. Even if ninety-nine percent of them fail, that’s still 65 cities turned to ash.
Even Doctor Manhattan can’t be all places at once.
That seems like a ridiculous number of nuclear munitions. Like why so many?
Imagine your opponent gets the jump on you in some massive way. Your land based nukes have to launch from somewhere and the enemy is pointing to every one they have sussed out.
You want to still get a meaningful # in the air if the worst happens
So that even if 99% fail or get shot down, 65 cities are still turned to ash.
I recall hearing something about real arms reduction making nuclear war seem like a sane, viable option.
The theory is that we’re safer if all sides know they can completely annihilate each other. No world leaders genuinely want nuclear war (despite what they say, threaten, or imply), so nobody launches a nuke. Flaw - that theory assumes all leaders are sane and rational.
“The theory”… You make it sound like MAD is some obscure fact. I so hope that is not the case. But maybe… Fuck…
I’m not trying to. This was MANY years ago, so I’m being cautious (perhaps overly so) with the wording.
The US and the USSR engaged in a race to have the most nukes. After the fall of the Sowjet Union international treaties were put in place to reduce the number of nukes in both east and west.
Don’t quote me, but if I remember correctly, at the height of the cold war, both sides had more than 12.000 nukes each.
Humanity had enough fire power to delete the entire globe roughly 40x over then. Why? Because bigger is better.
That’s dumb. They didn’t do it just for shits and giggles. They did it because in a nuclear exchange, you only get one shot so you need to overwhelm your opponent’s defenses.
MAD theory and both sides realize that nuke silos are targets for nuke weapons so they had “extras” because everyone knows some won’t leave the tube.
I’m guessing you’ve never heard of mutually assured destruction
Also, we tested quite a few of them
A personal crackpot theory that is almost certainly wrong, is that aliens heard the emissions from these blasts and came to investigate wtf was going on. Physically impossible but still comes to mind everytime I see this.
This video is so disturbing, every time. Every detonation is an implied threat, a political message, a promise of violence, a show of power. Every detonation is an environmental catastrophe, a long-term cost that we’re still paying, both in the collection and refining of the nuclear material and in the detonation. Every detonation is an economic burden, human time and effort spent making a tool that only makes destruction. The US effectively bankrupted the USSR with this competition.
The systemic cost of the whole thing is just mind-boggling. There’s really only one silver lining that I see. Humanity had access to a terrifying new weapon, the power to wipe itself out really. And we didn’t do it. At the time of highest ignorance, when very few people in the entire world really understood how bad it could be, and when political tensions were high, we did a lot of posturing but we didn’t actually do the worst we could have.
It could have been so much worse, and we (collectively) chose not to make it that way. I do find some comfort in that.
The existence of this post (and its title in particular) might give you a clue…
More likely several hundred, not 65.
Each nuke carries multiple warheads that split up in space and fly to individual targets.Aren’t the multiple warheads for the same target, though?
That’s a very effective visualization.
They have considerable overkill, to the point where only a fraction has to hit their target.
Even failures could be bad, for nearby areas or the world. Just a missile falling and then burning is going to release stuff into the air and water. A far cry from a working launch, but still a mess and that’s just one missile. What is the probability that they all fail to even launch or just do something and crash inert? Not big, I would guess. Even a badly maintained nuclear arsenal has its own deterrence.
You don’t have to take Russia’s word on it. USA and Russia inspected each other’s nuclear arsenal as part of the New START treaty until the beginning of covid.
Thanks for the tidbit
Russia has 5000 nukes, if the US is not involved, Europe will be toast
Even without US. UK has nukes, France has nukes. You don’t need a lot to destroy Russia. Basically just two.
NATO would ensure that the US is involved. We’re aligned with the Europeans.
Doesn’t Drumpf plan to remove us from NATO? Or am I remembering wrongly what I read?
Yeah, well. He is going to prison.
He will never see a second in prison, don’t kid yourself.
He deserves it.
A boy can dream, can’t he?
Personally, I wish that jackass who shot his ear had been a better shot. What a waste of such an opportunity.
There’s a problem with your premise. NATO (much like the UN) is not a military force of its own. Rather, it’s an agreement between many nations, each with their own militaries. There is no NATO army. There is an agreement of the United States (with its army), the UK (with its army). Germany (with its army), etc.
Each of them could independently invade. They could even negotiate an agreement to invade. But that would have limited impact on NATO. The big thing would be that any invading country loses the agreed upon defenses of the rest.
Well, the armies have standardised a lot of things and train together, so they very well can act as one army
That’s rather pedantic, but a I guess it’s a valid point, so I clarified my question to mean what you already know I was asking.
Technically, NATO has multiple multinational battalion battlegroups at Russia’s border in Poland and the Baltic States, although they consist of only a couple of thousand soldiers.
Eric Schlosser’s book, “Command and Control” may be of interest to you. I found it hard to put down.
Daniel Ellsberg’s book, “The Doomsday Machine” might come closer to answering your question, but I have not read it.
kinda depends on what china would do.
china is one of the only reasons russia is still standing on their feet. if china wanted, russia would be out of ukraine tomorrow.
nato vs china is ww3
It is a complete crapshoot because it all fepends on whether thechain of people between Putin and the missles are more interested in going out with him.
What I expect to happen with an invasion:
NATO invades and quickly disables a ton of Russian military objectives. This is because Russia is already flailling with Ukraine due to lack of discipline and outdated tech that theybhave mostly lost already. Plus they can’t do waves of conscript tactics at a moment’s notice.
Putin loses it and tries to launch the missiles knowing it is the end of hos time in power. His military advisors refuse the order and stage a coup, killing Putin and blaming NATO, then fight a half hearted conventional defense for show before negotiating a ceasefire.
But that is just my thought and the risk of a nuclear launch makes it a terrible idea to launch a surprise invasion as some nuclear sub might respond tonthe invasion if their cummunication is cut off.
Russia is obliterated shortly followed by Russian nukes shortly followed by the end of humanity as a speicies.
the end of humanity as a speicies.
Now that would take at least some more months. And they are not exactly fun months.
For more humorous (but still serious) answers try asking in !noncredibledefense@sh.itjust.works
I’ve never posted there, but damn I’m glad I found them. Highly recommended.
what are the likely outcomes?
Putin launches nukes, huge amount of civilians die, russian military is crushed within next few months. NATO wins at the cost of horrible loss of civilians killed by russian nukes. World economy shrinks considerably
So, this is the same analysis I read like a year ago. Do you feel that the current situation is not different enough now to indicate an alternate course of events?
I’m not who you asked, but I’ll answer anyway: no
Fair enough!
Do you feel that the current situation is not different enough
Putin has the exact same number of nukes and ICBMs as before. This is the main factor, and I don’t see it changing any time soon
Short answer: the end of the world.
The resultant nuclear war would kill a good portion of Earth’s population, but it’s likely far more would die from the chaos of civilisation being instantly forced back to the iron age by the EMP frying every silicon transistor.
I used to be a Boy Scout. That just means I’ll die a bit slower.
The end of the northern hemisphere*
For anyone interested in some light fiction on the subject, may I direct you to On the Beach by Neville Shute.
The film Threads is also relevant.
Pakistan and India have enough nukes to cause major famine across the world. Russia alone has enough nukes to nearly if not surely end humanity even if only 1% of the human population were killed directly from a nuclear explosion. I think the only way NATO could take Russia is if they were to somehow disarm their nukes.
Also, we have to consider alliances. Russia and North Korea are closely aligned. If the entire world went to war with NK, it is still possible that South Korea would be devastated because they have setup their entire military to shell the fuck out of South Korea at a moment’s notice and have an extensive underground tunnel system for retaliatory purposes. However, it’s possible that NK would value self-preservation over maintaining it’s alignment with a Russia that will definitely not exist anymore.
That depends on how well maintained their nuke arsenal is. I can see a couple launches that will be shot down but other countries would not rick nukes for the sake of Russia.
Not to argue, but shit hitting the fan on this scale makes loyalties much harder to predict.
I wonder what would be required to surreptitiously disable most or all Russian nukes
Well the good news is that we do have some ballistic missile defence in place. The bad news is that we don’t really have enough of it. We could probably shoot down a couple hundred nukes… I’m highly doubtful that we could shoot every nuke out of the sky, if Russia decided to unleash everything they had.
what would be required
The Russian government.
Honestly, I don’t think so. It would be a huge and slow project. I’m pretty sure there are a ton of measures to prevent Internal sabotage.
I’m imagining some sort of three-pronged strategy. One, espionage to convince people in the nuclear chain of command to disregard any orders to fire nukes. This would involve converting people that have likely been thoroughly vetted by the Russian government. It would also be risky in that all it would take is for one person to snitch for the Russian government to catch on.
Two, a cyber attack that disarms nuclear weapons firing systems. This would likely involve gaining physical access to many launch systems, infecting their computer systems, then letting the infection stay dormant without getting caught yet somehow activating it when necessary. Say for example they run a dummy drill without nukes, the infection could be discovered.
And three, a interception system for nukes that are launched. This would be the most risky because it would involve intercepting nukes immediately after being fired. For ICBMs, we’d have to get them right after launch since once they’re in space, it’s nearly impossible to intercept, especially after the warheads separate from the rocket. Submarine-launched weapons might be easier to intercept if they’re strapped to a rocket until detonation. Bombs would be nearly impossible, but it would be a lot easier to intercept the planes they’re on.
Overall, I would guess we’d be able to stop some Russian nukes from hitting NATO targets, but not all of them. It would be a wild guess to calculate the percentage that get intercepted/through. Russia has about 1,710 nuclear weapons deployed. Let’s say they fire half of them as a retaliatory strike saving the other half as defense in case the retaliation stops a NATO attack. If only 1% of that half make it through, that’s still 85 nuclear strikes. If only a 10th of that were aimed at major cities, that would be 8 major NATO cities that are obliterated and then require major recovery efforts.
Not one country is prepared to recover from a nuclear strike because that’s virtually all natural disasters in one. Imagine the devastation if London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. There would not only be major loss, but the rest would have to dedicate immense resources to helping those areas recover, further pulling resources away from defense and counterattack. We would also have to consider that the other 75 nukes attacked infrastructure and military targets, so we’d be severely incapacitated.
tl;dr: stopping and surviving a Russian nuclear attack is practically impossible
I like it. 1% of 850 is 8.5 though!
Good catch! I’m still waking up this morning 🥱
Ukraine has no nuclear weapons. Nuclear arsenal is basically meant to face nato/USA in Russia.
Ukraine invading Russia is a humiliation. But it’s not a real threat for now. Russia didn’t even declared the state of war yet.
I’ve heard that Russia can’t really use atomic bomb against Ukraine because Ukraine has no atomic bombs itself. If it did, it would spark nuclear proliferation by breaking a tabou. And China wouldn’t allow that, because they don’t want Taiwan to get the bomb.
But nato is an atomic power. Thus, atomic bombs are fair game.
For starters: amassing troops at the russian is a warning.
But I think a coordinated attack by NATO could neutralize all russian air power, at least in the western part. Thus preventing Russia from waging war in Ukraine or making any attacks on NATO countries in return.
Nuclear war is not plausible due to Mutual Assured Destruction.
If your destruction is already inevitable because all of NATO is invading your country, then mutually assured destruction begins to look like a good option from the losing position.
For this reason I would argue nuclear war is plausible in the scenario.
You may also say “well the NATO forces may be looking to arrest you and not kill you so logically your best bet is to hold off on nukes”, but people, even leaders of countries, often don’t react rationally under extreme circumstances so there is definitely a non zero risk of nuclear destruction.
