Mutually assured destruction is still a thing. We may not be at Cold War levels of insanity, where between the US and Russia there were enough nukes to glass the planet like 150 times over, but plenty of nations have arsenals (especially in Europe), and the best way to make enemies of the entirety of the world would be to be the first one to launch a nuke. Dropping a nuke would signal to every leader in the world that no country is safe from becoming an irradiated wasteland.
I think if Putin dropped a nuke, his allies would drop him faster than it would take NATO to declare all out war with Russia.
I read this book and it changed my opinion a little. Every scenario ends in a nuclear apocalypse, no matter who started with how much.
There might be a hero or two refusing to launch down the command line. But should we rely on that?
You say that, and yet Exxon-Mobil have proven that actively trying to destroy the world does nothing to turn world leaders away from trying to buddy up with you.
My point was, the assassination goal would be him not being able to drop a second one. Also slay the first 100 people in the chain of command and leave them headless.
Cool thing is that nuclear winter will fight global warming
Unfortunately, nobody would be able to take him out that quickly. Russia still has plenty of nukes, and they could fire them all before anybody has time to react. If that nuke is an ICBM, though, as soon as it leaves the silo the world would know, and the counter barrage of nukes would be firing up before it even lands.
I originally meant that dropping a nuke would have the entire world declare war on Russia, even his former allies because no one wants to rule over a pile of radioactive rocks, but thinking about it, his allies would probably be the ones most likely to try to have him assassinated in that situation. A maniac with a big stick is only useful so long as you don’t have to worry about him smacking you with it, too.
Russia still has plenty of nukes, and they could fire them all before anybody has time to react. If that nuke is an ICBM, though, as soon as it leaves the silo the world would know, and the counter barrage of nukes would be firing up before it even lands.
Obviously an ICBM is armageddon. However a tacticsl nuke, one dropped from a plane or something onto Ukraine would be a different story.
The world will be far less inclined to launching ICBMs over that. So it’s just a game of how much they can get away with.
sagan et al overstated amount of soot from full nuclear exchange from targets most susceptible to large scale fires by 10x-ish and this is the only way they could come up with actual nuclear winter
Not off hand but the idea is the amount needed to cause one is not as low as previously stated (the 3 large scale bombs being enough was likely off by an order of magnitude).
The fear of instant nuclear winter was likely more cold war scare then sound science, but the chance of nuclear winter is still there. We just don’t know exactly how many nukes and where would kick one off.
Mutually assured destruction is still a thing. We may not be at Cold War levels of insanity, where between the US and Russia there were enough nukes to glass the planet like 150 times over, but plenty of nations have arsenals (especially in Europe), and the best way to make enemies of the entirety of the world would be to be the first one to launch a nuke. Dropping a nuke would signal to every leader in the world that no country is safe from becoming an irradiated wasteland.
I think if Putin dropped a nuke, his allies would drop him faster than it would take NATO to declare all out war with Russia.
I read this book and it changed my opinion a little. Every scenario ends in a nuclear apocalypse, no matter who started with how much.
There might be a hero or two refusing to launch down the command line. But should we rely on that?
You say that, and yet Exxon-Mobil have proven that actively trying to destroy the world does nothing to turn world leaders away from trying to buddy up with you.
When you exon does it, it’s slowly and for money. So there are “winners”. Nukes have no winners.
Sure they do, the rest of the universe wins by not having to deal with another species stupid enough to destroy itself.
My point was, the assassination goal would be him not being able to drop a second one. Also slay the first 100 people in the chain of command and leave them headless.
Cool thing is that nuclear winter will fight global warming
Unfortunately, nobody would be able to take him out that quickly. Russia still has plenty of nukes, and they could fire them all before anybody has time to react. If that nuke is an ICBM, though, as soon as it leaves the silo the world would know, and the counter barrage of nukes would be firing up before it even lands.
I originally meant that dropping a nuke would have the entire world declare war on Russia, even his former allies because no one wants to rule over a pile of radioactive rocks, but thinking about it, his allies would probably be the ones most likely to try to have him assassinated in that situation. A maniac with a big stick is only useful so long as you don’t have to worry about him smacking you with it, too.
Obviously an ICBM is armageddon. However a tacticsl nuke, one dropped from a plane or something onto Ukraine would be a different story.
The world will be far less inclined to launching ICBMs over that. So it’s just a game of how much they can get away with.
nuclear winter is not a thing
Patroling the Mojave almost makes me wish it was though
Source?
Seems pretty likely that all those fires would cause a lot of soot that blocks out some of the sunlight, thus causing a global temperature drop
sagan et al overstated amount of soot from full nuclear exchange from targets most susceptible to large scale fires by 10x-ish and this is the only way they could come up with actual nuclear winter
when counterexample happened during gulf war they dropped it, but when people forgot this was a thing they brought it up again. this is not how you do science https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_debate
Not off hand but the idea is the amount needed to cause one is not as low as previously stated (the 3 large scale bombs being enough was likely off by an order of magnitude).
The fear of instant nuclear winter was likely more cold war scare then sound science, but the chance of nuclear winter is still there. We just don’t know exactly how many nukes and where would kick one off.