I came across this recently by CS Lewis which I thought said it well:
“In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
The difference being that those other causes of death may kill you, and maybe your family and friends if you are really unlucky, but they won't destroy everything else you love. Our own mortality is not the issue here.
Since you're quoting Lewis and mentioning prayer, it's at least debatable whether we're all going to die, depending on your understanding of 1 Thessalonians 4 and how it relates to John 12 and other parts. :)
But I agree with you. Arms control is useful and people should work on it, but for those that don't feel called to worrying about nuclear war isn't productive.
> If vile, selfish, psychopathic maniacs make the decision to end the world then so be it.
I am afraid it's not just the vile selfish psychopathic maniacs, but also the general population, incensed by the media. For example, one might have thought that if the avoidance of a nuclear war were people's priority number one, then the Western media (supposing Russia is the lost cause) would have demanded, every day and from every corner, that the leaders of their countries must avoid any escalatory steps regarding the ongoing conflict in the Eastern Europe. That people would be marching on the streets with slogans demanding restraint. But that's not what is happening. The voices repeatedly cautioning their audience about the danger of a nuclear war are few and far between — Tulsi, Tucker, Eric Weinstein — and they are treated as traitorous or crazy.
Serious question: Do you really think that Russia poses that kind of threat? We've seen how woefully their military has performed. There is no chance that Russia would be able to start rolling through Europe the same way Germany did. Especially now that they are so depleted that they are conscripting. I'm not saying appeasement is the way, but comparing this situation to Germany in the 30s is a bit off the mark.
> We've seen how woefully their military has performed
I guess the question is, would that military have performed as woefully if we had "avoided any escalatory steps regarding the ongoing conflict in the Eastern Europe"? Would Ukraine have been able to resist as well if we had ignored their cries for help?
No. I don't believe Russia is a credible nuclear threat. Nuclear warheads aren't "set it and forget it" devices, they require continual maintenance, maintenance Russia has demonstrated they're not doing with any of the rest of their materiel due to corruption so why should be believe they're doing so for their nuclear stockpile? I honestly believe the reason Putin and the Kremlin are saber rattling about nuclear war is they're hoping to threaten us with our memory of their previous nuclear might. That might is gone. Putin is the emperor with no clothes. If he weren't so vile I'd feel sorry for him for being so pathetic.
I think his comment was about appeasing psychopathic bullies because "give him what he wants, he won't go any further after that!" didn't work, not that there were nukes back then
I am not sure this question describes the situation accurately, considering that the invaded country doesn't have nuclear weapons, and the invader wasn't threatening a nuclear attack against the invaded country.
Your question might be rephrased to "what's your response to a country that invades you and threatens nuclear strikes, and you have nuclear weapons", or to "what's your response to a country that invades another country and threatens nuclear strikes if you come to its assistance". Which are both good questions, but different ones.
So what's your response to a country led by an obvious despot that rigs elections and murders high profile citizens outspoken against them, that invades another country as part of an ongoing revanchist campaign and threatens nuclear strikes if you come to its assistance?
> led by an obvious despot that rigs elections and murders high profile citizens outspoken against them ... as part of an ongoing revanchist campaign ...
Sorry for asking, but how is this part relevant to the question? If the invading country were led by someone nice, or if its invasion were not a part of an ongoing revanchist campaign, would the answer to the invasion be any different?
My response as a private person would be no response. In an imaginary scenario where I had any political power, my response would be similar to that of India, China, Mexico, Cuba, Egypt, or United Arab Emirates. It probably makes me a bad person.
As somebody who has lived in that neck of the woods, I would want nuclear weapons and war in general to stay very, very far from my shores.
Equally I would want the current combatants to take a step back and have a grown up discussion about NATO expansion, security guarantees, ending the bloodshed - you know the boring nitty gritty stuff. I'm not dumb enough to cheer on a nuclear strike, regardless of who launched it.
Not only have you avoided answering the parent's question, you have also avoided answering any of the alternative questions that you posed. Would you care to?
I don't know what value that would add to the conversation — surely you don't expect a random guy on a forum to propose a comprehensive military strategy?
I can only share my personal preferences. If the choice is between living and not living, I would choose to live — unless it entails living in constant physical pain. If the choice is between living in a country taken by an aggressor and not living, I would choose to live. If the choice is between living somewhere in the world when another part of the world has been taken by an aggressor and not living, I would definitely choose to live. Therefore, while I don't quite know what I would do in the scenario outlined in the question above (run? hide? appease?), I know what I wouldn't do — I wouldn't agitate for a nuclear war. With a possible exception that there is an absolute certainty that the invader, when he comes, will kill or physically torture me, because then it's all the same.
> I don't know what value that would add to the conversation — surely you don't expect a random guy on a forum to propose a comprehensive military strategy?
The problem with this approach is, that while you complain about or criticize made decisions, you are not offering alternatives. So as long as we do not see a better alternative, what are we supposed to do? Complaining is very OK and an important part of debate, but without providing a better way to act, I do not see how one can expect complains to change anything.
Doing "nothing" is also an alternative, but here it comes into play, what kind of person dictates the aggressor's forces and what is known about them. If, merely hypothetically speaking, of course, the wanted to establish an empire under their rule, without regard for what others within that future empire want, what makes you think, that it will stop with that one country the aggressor is invading currently? Especially when history has proven, that further escalation is on the menu a few years later.
I think the "doing nothing" or an appeasement strategy is quickly reduced to absurdity, if we look at the past and think about what would happen in the future. In fact, some people have warned about what is happening right now, at least since 2014.
We have the choice to condition the dictator further, by giving in to every future demand, because he will learn he only needs to threaten with nuclear weapons (and he _will_ find a "reason" to be insulted, or simply make one himself, with lets say some false flag operations for example), or say no to that. We have made the mistake, of allowing this to go on for far too many years already, so that he felt too sure, that it would work this time as well. Good, that we put a stop to that. Maybe, if we had done so earlier, we would not be in this situation right now.
> If, merely hypothetically speaking, of course, the wanted to establish an empire under their rule, without regard for what others within that future empire want, what makes you think, that it will stop with that one country the aggressor is invading currently?
Nothing, other that the fact that while there are countries with which the would-be emperor has territorial disputes, he has not expressed any ambitions reaching beyond those. It is a common sentiment expressed in the Western European countries that if the the aggressor is not stopped now, he will continue westwards indefinitely, engulfing more and more countries, Genghis-like; when there is no real reason to think that he would. History is a good teacher about the past, but is powerless to predict the future.
No matter. I am dismayed by how eagerly people shift their attention from the threat to their very physical existence to questions of politics or history which seem petty in comparison. However repulsive the Muscovite tyrant might be; however dark or immoral; are we really considering collective suicide among the possible answers?
Sorry, but this sounds like nonsense to me. Why not throw out all the history classes at school then? I mean, no predictive power, so why not throw out all the lessons about Nazi Germany and all that? Why waste time? And we could throw out any teaching about how Taiwan and mainland China relate to each other as well. No need to understand their motives, no predictive power! Heck, delete everything regarding history from Wikipedia and other websites, since it is only using disk space. What a waste!
The generality of your statement "History is a good teacher about the past, but is powerless to predict the future." is highly questionable. Those who do not learn from history are bound to make the same mistakes, as is commonly said.
If anything, then the dictator is missing his history classes or did not learn properly. Otherwise he might not have acted the way he does. History could have told him a thing or two about the chances of his failing invasion or what he navigated himself into.
We are about to see another winter war, of which I can recall at least 3 failed attempts in history in similar settings: Napoleon, Nazi Germany and Soviet-Finnish War. Probably there are many more examples throughout history. Better to learn a lesson from that, than repeating things.
> [...] when there is no real reason to think that he would.
Are you serious? Like, watch a documentary or 2 about what happened in other nations, Georgia and Moldova for example, before Ukraine. Or read up on the dictator's self-declared goals and "Russian World". Compare to Nazi Germany a little and you will see the similarities. Saying, that there is no real reason to think he would not stop is ignoring so much history.
> I mean, no predictive power, so why not throw out all the lessons about Nazi Germany and all that? Why waste time?
I've been wondering the same. History at school is very rarely taught as a serious academic discipline — rather, its job it seems, much like the job of the English (or any other) literature, it to shape a general cultural identity in a student. I am almost sure that among professional historians there is a common belief that it is not history's job to provide people with lessons that they can apply to solve current or future problems — I seem to remember Niall Ferguson complain precisely of that attitude among the historians at Oxford, which was largely why he, as a rebellion, started the applied history project.
> Those who do not learn from history are bound to make the same mistakes, as is commonly said.
It is also commonly said (and attributed to von Bismark) that what we learn from history is that no one learns from history.
> If anything, then the dictator is missing his history classes or did not learn properly. Otherwise he might not have acted the way he does. History could have told him a thing or two about the chances of his failing invasion or what he navigated himself into.
The dictator had plenty of other historical examples to draw upon. He could have remembered how the nascent state of Ukraine, which emerged after the fragmentation of the Russian Empire, was retaken by force by the Soviet Russia – also, by the way, engaged in a winter campaign (there is an interesting novel by Mikhail Bulgakov — The White Guard — depicting those events). Or he could have remembered the recent events of 2014, when Russia effortlessly and bloodlessly took Crimea. History, as has so frequently been said, is a whore and a harlot.
> Are you serious? Like, watch a documentary or 2 about what happened in other nations, Georgia and Moldova for example, before Ukraine. Or read up on the dictator's self-declared goals and "Russian World". Compare to Nazi Germany a little and you will see the similarities. Saying, that there is no real reason to think he would not stop is ignoring so much history.
I did say in my previous comment that there are countries with which Russia might conceivably have territorial quarrels. Those are the countries of the former Soviet Union, and those are the countries that you named. I have not heard any noises from Russia that would suggest that it is coveting Germany, France, the UK, or even Poland. If you have read anything different in the dictator's self-declared goals, then I would happily be educated.
> Compare to Nazi Germany a little
I understand the appeal of that comparison; I truly do; but surely you must see that the comparison is purely rhetorical, made due to the universal hatred of — and universal familiarity with the story of — the Nazi Germany. Why not compare with the Soviet Union (which was largely feared) or with the Russian Empire (which was less so)?
The first step would be to not allow NATO puppet to control your country. Compare the NATO military capabilities vs. Russia, then tell me who is the aggressor (how much does NATO moved East since USSR collapse?) Don’t force the war for survival.
NATO is not a threat to the survival of Russia, only to Russia's imperial ambitions. If Russia's neighbors did not feel threatened by Russia, then perhaps they would not feel the urge to join NATO. I don't observe anybody joining a military alliance with the goal of protecting themselves from Panama or Luxembourg.
It is a tactic of bullies to reframe "defense" as "aggression". Is me locking my doors "aggression" against burglars?
NATO and Russia aren't allies (at best), which makes NATO a threat for Russia, simply by definition. Pinky-promising that NATO won't be used as a threat or a political tool obviously doesn't count, since there are quite enough precedents of the contrary. These are just boringly objective risk-management calculations and conclusions that any manager would reach.
> I don't observe anybody joining a military alliance with the goal of protecting themselves from Panama or Luxembourg.
Do you really feel like Panama or Luxembourg are fair examples, instead of countries like the US, that actually has military capability?
You wouldn't deny that there are quite a lot of instances of people trying to protect themselves from the US and NATO, would you? How come?
Really, it all boils down to a dangerous supremacist idea that there is only one culture enlightened and wise enough to use its military capabilities, and it is widely accepted in the western bubble. This concept is just so desired, that it erases any kind of reflection on how one can pave the road to hell with good intentions.
The conflict in Ukraine, for example, was born out of a public push (by the US, mostly) for it to join NATO, even before all the bad stuff started. Ironic, really, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is utter nonsense. Unlike Russia, NATO isn't invading members in order to force them to join. Countries are begging NATO to let them in so that they have some measure of protection against Russia. NATO is not some "supremacist idea" of who gets to use military force, it is a reaction to Russian aggression. Ukraine did not seek to join NATO due to the US asking it to, it sought to join NATO to defend against Russia after overthrowing Putin's puppet in 2014. Quit your bullshit.
> NATO operated in Libya to implement a security council resolution, meaning it had at least the tacit approval of China and Russia as well.
The criticism towards NATO in Lybia mostly boils down to NATO overstepping and going out of scope of the resolution. And clearly, it's not Russia, China or the US who should decide for Africa.
What about Syria? The US is relying on NATO infrastructure for its operations there. Who invited them?
What about Yugoslavia? This is an especially noteworthy case, judging by how hard the western propaganda tries to erase it from history. Just ask a Serbian whether they feel like NATOs depleted uranium munitions felt "defensive", or what they think of the narrative that current conflict in Ukraine is the first serious conflict in Europe since WWII.
Srsly, what is it going to take to drop an idiotic supremacist image of NATO as a beloved and welcomed knight in shining armor, and realize that it's just a tool of war.
Probably quite a lot, since it was born in a culture with a history of inventing supremacist ideologies, deaf to an idea that some might not really see it as a universal good, but rather as just another quasi-empire, minding it's own political and economic benefit before anything else.
Quite a lot of people in Eurasia and Africa see NATO as a threat and don't feel like being ochlos to NATO's demos. But what do these subhuman unenlightened savages understand, am I right? /s
There isn't some separate NATO army that does things at the behest of its members. Sometimes the members of NATO decide to do things with their militaries, alone or together. They have clubbed together on some equipment standards too. But the existence or not of NATO as a defensive alliance wouldn't have prevented those countries from intervening in those situations.
Turkey could have provided those bases for the US to use in Syria NATO or not. Indeed, they didn't just provide them because they're NATO, the US still had to make an agreement.
I think the Syrian Kurds were pretty keen on the US being there, and the Kosovo Albanians in Yugoslavia. If I recall that one correctly, Russia also sent a peacekeeping force at the same time.
> Quite a lot of people in Eurasia and Africa see NATO as a threat
Sure, but that doesn't mean they should. They can see the US as a threat, or an actor such as France. But the Polish army is unlikely to be bullying them around.
It's also impossible to please. When Western countries didn't step in to conflicts and genocide they're criticized, when they do they're criticized. Should they have just let the Serbs do whatever in Kosovo?
> NATO as a beloved and welcomed knight in shining armor, and realize that it's just a tool of war.
I've never seen it that way. It's a tool of war and tools of war are also tools of defense. My country is not a NATO member.
It simply doesn't correlate with your worldview, that is why you are being all dismissive.
> Unlike Russia, NATO isn't invading members in order to force them to join.
Note the "in order to force them to join" clarification. Cuz one can't say simply say "NATO doesn't invade", right?
Why would NATO spend additional resources, bother with citizenships, social infrastructure or take on any additional responsibilities, when they can just instill a loyal government? E.g. why would the US bother with providing Iraqis the perks of American citizenship, when they can just order the new government whatever they want.
IMO, the pattern of invading faraway states, crushing them, and then leaving without taking any responsibility, after establishing a puppet state colony, is a much more evil thing than squabbles between neighbors over who gets to be responsible for some territory and who will have to spend money on healthcare for people on it.
> Countries are begging NATO to let them in so that they have some measure of protection against Russia.
> NATO is not some "supremacist idea"
Riiiiight, "begging", but its definitely 100% "not supremacist". Hard to argue with that kind of a worldview. I've linked the list of NATOs military operations somewhere above. Can you tell me how much of them have anything to do with Russia and how much seem suspiciously aligned with someone's (not pointing fingers) political and economic goals?
> Ukraine did not seek to join NATO due to the US asking it to, it sought to join NATO to defend against Russia after overthrowing Putin's puppet in 2014
The US had started pushing Ukraine towards NATO much earliear than that, actually. At first it happened during Bush administration, which caused one of the first huge alienations of a newborn Russian Federation from NATO. Look it up, it's just a self-fulfilling prophesy that had been brewing for a rather long time.
Also, just note how mundanely you talk of the regime change and "puppets". You don't see how that could be related to local security infrastructure deterioration, do you?
I wonder what you make of the US politicians publicly promising Ukraine protection and NATO membership, but then declining it as soon as it became a place they'd need to actually defend, rather than a place where they can deploy their infrastructure, conveniently just after the INF treaty had been dissolved.
> NATO has become a threat to survival of NATO. And Russia. And everyone.
Can you elaborate how NATO is a threat to itself and everyone else?
It would appear Putin is the greatest threat to Russia and everyone else. He is the one ignoring Russia's own territorial treaties. He is the aggressor invading sovereign states. NATO alliances are defense pacts that are entered into voluntarily by all parties.
I think what the parent is suggesting is that NATO's tango with Russia (it always takes two, remember?) puts the world closer to the brink of annihilation. In a context when, as the title article suggests, 70% of the world population (or maybe more? they say "almost everyone", so perhaps 5,34 billion is a conservative estimate?) may die a violent death, words like territorial treaties or sovereign states start to lose their meaning.
It is ludicrous to suggest that Putin threatening to nuke Ukraine is somehow the fault of NATO. If Putin launches nukes in aggression, it is Putin's fault. Stop wringing your hands in apologetic appeasement to madmen.
When Putin announced that he was putting his nuclear forces on high alert back in February or March, it was not to threaten Ukraine, but to threaten NATO countries who might come to its assistance. I have not since then heard him threaten Ukraine with his nukes. Perhaps I missed his threats? Do you have a link to one?
As for whose fault is what — honestly, would you care, if either Russia launches nukes or NATO does so preemptively, and then the other side inevitably retaliates, and our world dies in flames — would you really care whose fault it would have been? Would it really matter to you?
I checked out the link. Didn't the parent comment say that it was Putin — italicized — who threatened to nuke Ukraine? Wouldn't the evidence for that need to point at specific Putin's words to that effect?
What makes you think that Kadyrov is Putin's likely successor? Anything could happen, of course; but as a Chechen and a demonstratively, fervently devout Muslim, Kadyrov would be an even scarier figure for the outwardly Orthodox Russians than Stalin was.
Wait, "it takes two" implies some consent of both parties. If someone is accosted we don't say they--as a victim--share half the fault. Does trying to hire a bodyguard because of your aggressive neighbor somehow make your neighbor's trespassing and destruction justified?
Remember NATO is a defense alliance which must be invited in. And afterward doesn't grant the new inductee any power to threaten other sovereign states.
Said another way, does Putin having nukes constitute a blank check to annex neighbors?
> Wait, "it takes two" implies some consent of both parties.
Yes. In this case, both parties consent to threatening each other with their nuclear arsenals. They consent to gradually raising the stakes in this poker game, and eventually calling each other's bluff. It may very well turn out that one of the two is bluffing. Or it may not. I really don't care all that much to find out which.
> If someone is accosted we don't say they--as a victim--share half the fault.
> ... trespassing and destruction justified?
> ... a blank check to annex neighbors?
We are speaking different languages here. You are talking the language of ethics and apportioning the blame. I am talking the language of survival, which I think the article in the title post talks as well.
If - following your metaphor — you live next door to a neighbor who has hired a bodyguard, and in the moment of intrusion the bodyguard and the intruder start firing at each other from a rocket launcher, explode a cistern full of gas, and as a result the intruder dies, the bodyguard dies, your neighbor dies, and you die — would you particularly care in those last terrifying moments whether it was the intruder's fault, the bodyguard's fault, or your neighbor's fault? I know I wouldn't.
> Said another way, does Putin having nukes constitute a blank check to annex neighbors?
Both no and yes, depending on which way you turn the question. It doesn't give him the right to do so, but it sure gives him the means.
> They consent to gradually raising the stakes in this poker game, and eventually calling each other's bluff.
This is absurd. NATO is a defensive pact voluntarily entered into. Russia's neighbors want in not because of Western provocations but because of Putin.
> If - following your metaphor — you live next door to a neighbor who has hired a bodyguard, and in the moment of intrusion...
Framed this way I would be the intruder, the one deciding to escalate an already dangerous situation. And therefore I would be the foolish one, putting everyone's lives at risk for my own selfish goals.
> would you particularly care in those last terrifying moments whether it was the intruder's fault, ...
It's kind of irrelevant once the moment is reached. The world isn't there yet. And it's Putin with his foot on the gas accelerating toward destruction.
> It doesn't give him the right to do so, but it sure gives him the means.
Then every nation around Russia must have nukes or an alliance with a nuclear power. Putin is the one pushing them into doing so, and he's proven that any treaty with Russia is worthless. So there's no point trying to ally with them.
The parent's (D_Alex's) thesis, if I may presume so much as to formulate it, is that (1) NATO is a threat because it is "expanding eastward", i.e. admitting countries that are more likely to have a military confrontation with Russia; in which case NATO will be obliged to come to their aid, in which case we are all dead. This is similar to how WW1 and WW2 started, only people didn't have the capacity to destroy all human life on Earth then, as they seem to have now.
Your thesis is that (2) Putin/Russia is a threat because it has nuclear weapons, which it can use, in which case we are all dead.
I am not disputing thesis 2; but it does not, in any way, undermine the validity of thesis 1. Both thesis 2 and thesis 1 may be true at the same time; and it is thesis 1 that I was responding to in the subthread started by D_Alex.
NATO didn't really move east. NATO is a security and industrial pact. You could accuse the EU of moving east as that is actually about giving up some sovereign control.
Countries need to apply to join NATO. NATO doesn't try to get them in under any circumstances. Ukraine had been begging to join and NATO still hadn't let them. If NATO was an aggressive imperial force then Ukraine would have already been in it.
The only real honest reason I can imagine Russia doesn't want countries to join NATO is because it wants the option left open to be able to attack them at some point.
So you have a poor grasp of history and ethics, and, if you’re referencing the song I think you are, justify it with poorly understood song lyrics. I’m sure you are far from anything like a government official so I won’t lose sleep over it.
Dr. Strangelove : It would not be difficult, Mein Führer! Nuclear reactors could - heh, I'm sorry, Mr. President - nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could raised and slaughtered. A quick survey would have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country. But, I would guess, that a dwelling space for several 100,000 of our people could easily be provided.
President Merkin Muffley : Well, I would hate to have to decide who stays up and who goes down.
Dr. Strangelove : Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors of youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be vital that top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Heil! Actually, they would breed prodigiously, yeah? There would be much time and little to do. With a proper breeding techniques and a ratio of, say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could interact their way back to the present gross national product within, say, 20 years.
> Now imagine there have been hundreds of those “big ones.” That’s what even a “small” nuclear war would include.
Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe this is a matter of definitions, but this feels alarmist to me. I have to think that there are many believable scenarios (e.g., in Ukraine) where "only" one to ten nuclear detonations would be employed. That seems like a "small" nuclear war and while it would undoubtably have many negative repercussions, it would not end world civilization.
Why do you think it would escalate? Do you have a crystal ball?
I don't know anything about anything, but there have been many regional conflicts over the last 100 years that have remained regional. I don't see how the technology used to fight those regional conflicts changes anything.
Perhaps the social connotations of those technologies is significant enough that using some rather than others is "triggering" enough that non-combatants can't help but get involved. <shrug>
Nuclear weapon use in a local conflict would be similar to someone unleashing a new coronavirus to win a local conflict. Due to its polluting non-local effects, it instantly paints a target on whoever uses it. This is also why "anonymous" terrorist nuclear bomb use would be very problematic.
I do not believe that they are as significant as the general public believes. After all, there have been more than 500 nuclear weapons detonated world-wide in the open atmosphere. [0]
If these non-local effects are very large, why would we take Russia's threats of using nuclear weapons against a neighbor as credible?
> Why do you think it would escalate? Do you have a crystal ball?
Even if the chance is tiny, you don't want to risk a nuclear conflict because there is no going back to the world that we live in after that. I am always dumbfounded at the lack of awareness that having a direct conflict with a nuclear power increases the risk of nuclear war.
The US has the capability to devastate the Russian army and strategic Russian targets without the use of nukes or other WMD's. That seems the most rational and likely response to tactical nuclear use by Russia on a Ukrainian target. Not guaranteed, of course, but likely. Maintaining the moral high ground has significant value.
> The US has the capability to devastate the Russian army and strategic Russian targets without the use of nukes or other WMD's
And what happens next? It's not like there is some kind of enforced rule that WMDs aren't to be used unless the other side doesn't use them. Strategic WMDs deter against a total loss to a foreign power, by any means, not just other WMDs, don't they?
There's a good chance that question would be answered by Putin's successor rather than Putin. The successor would have less face to lose in backing down.
Based on what exactly? Like, how do you imagine a successor would appear while the US devastates Russian army and how would they "have less face to lose" when their military is devastated?
It is unlikely that anyone will be replacing Putin in the heat of battle, and its hard to imagine a "less face to loose" situation - it's not like it's for one person to decide and Russian politics doesn't work that way either - there is no tradition to reset politics every few years with a new talking head. No idea how mr "Less face to lose" would be able to do something like that without starting a civil war.
> That seems the most rational and likely response to tactical nuclear use by Russia on a Ukrainian target.
What matters is what happens next. Russia razing Europe and the US in nuclear fire if they feel they are cornered have nothing to lose. Good luck with pushing things this far.
I find it amazing that we have people wringing their hands every year that the US dropped ‘tactical’ nukes on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in the biggest war ever. And how that is a lesson we should learn and burden we should carry, but in Ukraine, never mind, it’s no big deal. If it happens it happens. We can contain it. Keep up the pressure. If it pops, don’t worry, “We got this!” messaging we’re hearing. Just Wow!
I doubt anybody thinks "it’s no big deal". But in this game of high-stakes nuclear poker, if you communicate your fears and self-imposed limits to your enemy - you increase the chance he'll use them against you.
After all, the MAD strategy did keep us safe during the cold war while giving up their nukes did bring Ukraine an invasion.
> I doubt anybody thinks "it’s no big deal". But in this game of high-stakes nuclear poker, if you communicate your fears and self-imposed limits to your enemy - you increase the chance he'll use them against you.
Like General Milley secretly telling the Chinese government that Trump wouldn't be able to use nukes against them? He hasn't been tried for treason, so some people clearly don't think it's that important.
Small aside: I thought it was cool that they used Tg (teragrams) for stratospheric loading instead of the ubiquitous "millions of tons".
We all understand SI prefixes now. I wish people would stop using "thousands of kilometres" (geography) and "millions/billions of kilometres" (astronomy) and instead just use Mm, Gm, and Tm.
I think hours are usefull, even if we could say "meet me there at 46 800 seconds tomorow". And Tg might be "pure", but to get any sense of how much it actually is I am still gonna convert it to tons in my head. Id rather people used appropriate scale of units for given scenario.
The leaders of this world, are vile, evil socio paths, but they love one thing, themselves.
Which is why nukes are inherently unuseable and prevent WorldWars. They are the gametheory six-shooters of international politics. He who owns them is equal to each creature under the sun owning a gun. Which means he gets ignored by the bullies in the alley.
Unfortunatly, they do not create the ability to empathy in these flawed creatures who rules us, thus they are still capable to send others en mass to die for silly dreams of greatness, once they do not fall under the protective shade of the mushroom.
Unless, there were a system to peacefully dispose of them every 4 years, once their disability to govern properly is proven beyond a doubt.
We did not have the old, send every man to die in case of internal unrest mass mobilization wars for 65 years.
They are clearly no longer used as societal valves like they used too.
What basis is there for the assumption that nuclear attacks will result in so much soot in the stratosphere? Seems strange that this would be orders of magnitude more than wildfires that burn much larger areas. Are there measurements from Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Damage radius of a nuke is inverse cube of yield so even the biggest bomb is going to be 10x Hiroshima. And really it's less than that because urban density drops as you move out from the center.
The second and third order effects -- no electricity, fuel, food, etc -- of a nuclear war would likely make those who survived the initial exchange envy the dead.
The possibility of nuclear devastation pales in my mind next to the guarantee of climate change-based destruction and conflict, which at this point, given the astounding lack of action on the scale we need, is effectively unavoidable.
"8 degrees Celsius—3 degrees lower than Ice Age values."
"changes in ocean temperature to the Arctic sea-ice are likely to last thousands of years—so long that researchers talk of a “nuclear Little Ice Age.”"
Pretty sure that's a very BIG climate change. End of global warming though.
Yes, in a worst case scenario like the article uses, it really is game over. You may wish you had died early.
I'm not sure that's the most likely scenario, however or at least the only one worth considering. There are some scenarios in which nuclear weapons would be deployed without triggering a wider deployment. In those cases, survival will not only be possible, but likely. What the world looks like after such an event is another question.
Think about how the pandemic played out. Ask most people what that would look like prior to 2020 and you'd get some version of Outbreak or Contagion. Reality was not just different but far messier. Now that we're in it (on the other side of it?) those models look almost quaint.
It could be the same way with a nuclear exchange. The arsenals are very old, for one thing. Misfires and other unexpected events could derail responses. Then there's disbelief. There have been incidents in which those in the chain of command said "no". So a partial exchange isn't exactly impossible.
Then there's the motivation for detonating a nuke. Why do it? To terrify your opponent. To bring them to the negotiating table. To end whatever conflict has erupted quickly. You only do something like that if you're sure there will be no strike launched at you. There are places in the world in which this might be a possibility.
Tactical nuclear weapons are sometimes cited as a trigger, and there's bee a lot of talk about that in Ukraine. But the size of the weapon you need to deploy, and the proximity of that deployment to the side launching the strike makes little military sense. It's escalation with not much payoff. It could work as a weapon of terror, but only if the other side plays along.
There's also timing to consider. There's a tendency to think of a nuclear exchange as climactic event with the launch of thousands of missiles over the course of a day or two. The track record on predicting the duration of wars is quite bad. Young men were falling over themselves to enlist for WWI because they were afraid it would be over so quickly they wouldn't have time to see action. Afghanistan was supposed to be an in-and-out thing. Victory in Iraq was famously proclaimed by the US president years before the US finally withdrew in shame.
A nuclear war can last decades, centuries maybe. The first country to break the taboo makes it that much more likely that another will follow suit. Does this always mean escalation to the the point of launching thousands of weapons? Did the world's current nuclear war start in 1945?
The true hegemons beyond six degrees of freedom separation from Rupert Murdoch's news and sports media empire likely have a well stocked techno paradise buried under the snow in Antartica secured to wait for the return of first spring after nuclear total war.
No doubt the billionaires have already retreated to their shelters.
Anyone seen Jeff Bezos in person lately? Peter Thiel? Other billionaires? If their missing from public life it’s cause they’re at their doomsday hideaway.
Peter Thiel’s doomsday retreat is in New Zealand. He became a New Zealand citizen just so he could buy it. I’ll bet you $5 he’s in NZ right now.
I seriously doubt billionaires would be willing to live in a post-apocalyptic world: they have the most to lose. They live like kings right now, so I bet they would do anything to avoid the Armageddon, no matter how well stocked their shelters are.
Yeah, bad for business. I wonder though if that stance is helpful to the general population. They are used to power. That can come in two forms at least, standing up to dictators or hoping to make shady deals with them. (Or hoping to containing the dictators somehow.)
Lol, I love how you go to Murdoch looking over the largest group of people that have said most of humanity isn't needed, that people should eat bugs for the environment, and
“At Davos a few years ago [surveys] showed us that the good news is the elite across the world trust each other more and more,” she said.
“So we can come together and design and do beautiful things together.
“The bad news is that in every single country they were polling, the majority of people trusted their elite less. So we can lead but if people aren’t following we aren’t going to get to where we want to go.”
They definitely have a bunker, and probably feel like a few nukes handles some population issues.
'nuclear winter', and the 'end of the world' will not happen with current arsenals. It might have, with the crazy number and size of nukes in the 70s, although even that is highly debatable. But not now.
Even with an all-out exchange, expect Mt. Pinatubo levels of effect. A couple of bad, or even 'missing' summers, perhaps, but nothing like months of darkness, or a decade of winter that older models proclaim.
Not to say we should be any less averse to any kind of nuclear exchange; obviously many millions would die either directly, or from the impact on systems and infrastructure.
I always thought that the nuclear strike was designed to be step 1 in a Doomsday scenario--followed almost immediately by the application of weaponized smallpox and other biological agents. You can't really wipe out humanity with nuclear weapons (you can make a really good start of course), but if you smashed an areas ability to mobilize an effective response applying a biological agent immediately afterwards would allow a very deadly pathogen to spread unchecked.
Australia seems like a nice place to be at the moment...I've been doing a road trip lately and it's like a 3 day drive to get out of my state and I live near the border.
Apart from cities, there's barely anything here and across almost the entire country are small towns like 75-100kms apart that mostly are all self contained.
I like the odds here...get a day or two out of a major population centre and your chances of being near a nuclear explosion are almost zero.
If the article is accurate, then Australia has 0% starving during post-nuclear famine (see the map at the bottom), versus 98%+ for most of North America and Europe, so yes, the odds are very much better here.
So move to Brazil and get a lead rain coat? This seems strangely manageable. I'm disappointed; I wanted humanity to be snuffed out, but it looks like most of humanity would remain.
What are you talking about? The graphic at the bottom says 5.3 billion dead of famine within 2 years. That is two-thirds of humanity dead, not "most of humanity would remain".
I live near Paris and have high hopes that in case of a nuclear war our capital would be one of the targets, and with some luck I would die quickly without any warning.
A good chunk of the population would deny that it even happened. I remember reading a blog post earlier this year where someone IN KYIV thought that the war was fake since he didn't see any fighting on the streets. Even had a bunch of photos showing no destruction, like that was proof or something.
I've wondered about that guy now that kyiv itself has been attacked
It's perfectly rational to believe that stance increases the chance of nuclear weapons being used in Ukraine. If there ever was a case for strategic ambiguity, this must fit IMHO.
It's not Macron threatening to use nukes in Ukraine. Putin is. And the less the world is willing to stand up to him (like Macron) the more likely he is to use them.
Don't you think that by "choosing to let them" in advance and communicating it openly - you increase the likelihood they'll do it? LE: Right now, not "in the future".
And then do it again, for the next conquest? And then other dictators like Iran, North Korea and China do it as well?
Would you be willing to give away Alaska? Getting it back is part of russian nationalist discourse. Obviously not of the mainstream one, but only 10 years ago subjugation of Ukraine wasn't a part of mainstream discourse either.
"Standing up" to Putin is not the only option. You could also try diplomacy, which is drastically missing in all Western political circles these days ..
Putin on the other hand could stop this war at any time. Maybe you should direct your "diplomacy" message at him instead of at the "Western political circles".
LE: Don't forget this war started in 2014 with Russia's invasion of Crimea. And Russia was also the one who broke the Minsk Agreements, in 2022.
The Minsk agreements could have been followed through by both parties, and those with the weight to do so (The West) could have leaned on Ukraine to make sure it followed up on its obligations instead of just .. you know .. pissing all over them ..
I doubt many in this thread arguing for nuclear war even know where Minsk is on the map, let alone understand the importance of the Minsk Accords having been non-complied with by both parties ..
You're wrong about this too. I live in Eastern Europe, I had Ukrainian refugees in my house and I have been warning Westerners like yourself about the Russian danger for almost 30 years or so.
I'm so sick of the idea that the post ww3 world would suck.
Haven't you noobs played Minecraft? The best stage of development is when you're still punching trees
I spent my childhood in the 1970s and 1980s terrified of nuclear war.
I’m not going to do that again.
If vile, selfish, psychopathic maniacs make the decision to end the world then so be it.
It'll prove for certain that humanity doesn’t deserve the world anyway, the rest of life on earth is better off without us.
I’m not going to give them my happiness and life. They’ll have to take it.