Nuclear War

[adam2]

I disagree, the destruction of a major city or a major port would be hugely disruptive, far beyond the actual loss of life. I suspect that general collapse would follow.
There would be the fear of a second attack, "If they can do it once, then they might attack again"

Not to mention panic and hysteria over radiation in food and water, and radioactive refugees.

[kenneal - lagger]

Putin's paranoia is a worry at the moment. I can't ever remember a government minister from anywhere coming on TV and telling people that their hypersonic missiles, or any other nuclear warhead delivery system, are so good that the opposition have no answer to them and would be nuclear ash. That sort of attitude is very worrying. It might be just bluster at the moment but carry that sort of thinking into the future and that leader might believe it one day.

[clv101]

This analysis is pretty good:

https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2022/ ... nt-matter/

Threat of nuclear war is real and it's the US that's making it worse.

[adam2]

I agree that the risks seem to be increasing.
I wish that I had a bunker !

This has prompted me to also post about a newish bunker for which I will be designing the electrical equipment. Details in the preparations forum.

[Catweazle]

We all know that a war it often used by unpopular regimes to generate some support at home, there have been many over the centuries, the danger now is that a political attempt at a limited "Falklands" is misunderstood by the generals in the field and becomes something much larger.

Is it time to buy a mini digger and build that "Root Store" ? Probably not right now.

[BritDownUnder]

Putin's paranoia is a worry at the moment. I can't ever remember a government minister from anywhere coming on TV and telling people that their hypersonic missiles, or any other nuclear warhead delivery system, are so good that the opposition have no answer to them and would be nuclear ash. That sort of attitude is very worrying. It might be just bluster at the moment but carry that sort of thinking into the future and that leader might believe it one day.

It would be interesting to see what happens in Kazakhstan. One more worry for Putin and he has sent troops there. Russia seems to be getting busy right now with its neighbours. Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine and now Kazakhstan and not forgetting the big one, China, that probably keeps him up at night and is the real target of his bluster. Russians don't have an infinite supply of manpower having a very low birthrate, at least among ethnic Russians. Chechens and Tatars less so but I would not expect he sends them to places where fellow Muslims are around.

I can see hypersonic missiles being able to avoid being shot down by anti-ballistic missile systems but I don't see how they will stop the US retaliation to just one attack on the US.

[Catweazle]

Perhaps the biggest threat from the hypersonic missiles is that the Russians sell them to other countries.

[adam2]

In my view, the invasion of Ukraine has increased the risks of a nuclear attack.
I do not think that a nuclear war is likely, but do consider that the risks are now greater than they were a year or two ago.

Some of the threats made by Putin include wording that could be taken as a threat to use nuclear weapons.

[clv101]

Just remember the US is the only country with a stated first strike policy.

[Vortex2]

Tactical nukes can be treated as very large conventional weapons.
In other words, it's not too much of an issue to use them to zap say a tank squadorn.
The snag is that you are now on a slippery road ..

[clv101]

Yep, and it's the US that have developed the very low power (still order of magnitude+ bigger than biggest chemical explosives), dial-a-yield weapons, with much more accurate targeting. This makes nuclear weapons more useable, lowers the threshold.

[kenneal - lagger]

Just remember the US is the only country with a stated first strike policy.

Not according to recent threats by the Russian Foreign Minister.

[adam2]

I perceive not JUST a growing risk of putin launching a nuclear attack on Ukraine, having lost the conventional war, but also a risk of a meteorite falling and being mistaken for a nuclear attack, and resulting in nuclear retaliation.

Remember this event ?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRnUru6-1lI

If something similar happened today, it might result in nuclear "retaliation" for what was in fact a natural event. The damage from the above was limited by the remote location, consider the consequences of a similar or larger meteor hitting a major town.

[kenneal - lagger]

If a meteor struck a major city there would be innumerable CCTV clips of the burning trail as it entered the atmosphere. I doubt that it could be mistaken for a missile.

Also it is doubtful that a nuclear power would only launch a single missile attack. A nuclear weapons attack would be launched first against the enemy's missile sites and then its cities.

[clv101]

I guess most of us have seen Threads, the 1980s film about a nuclear attack on Britain (and presumably everywhere else). It paints a pretty bleak picture, A LOT of bombs on the UK, a total of 210 MT falls on the UK, blast casualties 2.5-9 million. Total East-West exchange 3,000 MT. Two thirds of UK houses within fire zones. Temperatures in northern hemisphere drop 25C.

With the radiation, nuclear winter, crop failures etc, film pegs casualties in the first four months at 17-38 million (from a population of 55 million). Ten years later UK population at 'medieval levels' of 4-11 million.

This is mutually assured destruction - however, any future nuclear war would involve dramatically fewer weapons and mega-tonnage. That 3.000 MT total must have been a worst-worst case even back in the 1980s. Whilst that amount of bombs existed, I don't think they could ever have all been delivered.

Today's weapons are much smaller, in the 1s, 10s to 100s of KT. The US have a small number of 1.2 MT bombs. Smaller bombs are also more efficient and produce less fallout, less damage to ozone etc. Even a 'full blown' nuclear war today would likely only involve a few hundred MT. The US may even believe they can intercept the majority and perhaps a lot of the Russia kit either doesn't exist or work as advertised. The vast majority of global population, probably even the US and Russian populations would survive the first week - the medium term challenge becomes the collapse of the global economy, transport and dramatically reduced food yields for a few years. Perhaps half the population survive?

Thing is, this isn't the 'end of the world'. It's a major shock, a reset, maybe something on the scale of the Black Death in Europe... but life will go on.

I think too often, nuclear war is seen as some end point, total destruction etc. If this were true in the 1980s, I don't think this is true any more.