Military Nuclear Weapons: World Destroyers Or World Mediators?

[TheVeryGermanGuy]

When the first 2 Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the tail end of World War 2, everyone was shocked, and while It barely contributed to Japan's surrender, It had many long term effects. The allies had the severe advantage over Nuclear research due to many German scientists leaving Germany due to being Jewish, causing many of them to seek cooperation with the allies In the Manhattan Project, and by 1942 the German Atomic Bomb Project was all but cancelled, with Atomic Bombs being projected to be completed by at least 1947. With the start of the Cold War In 1946 (Or 1947 depending on who you ask) many countries feared a nuclear war between the Soviets and America, and when the USSR tested there first Atomic Bomb In 1949, everyone now feared nuclear war, but where there fears based In reality? Objectively, no. While an Atomic war almost happened BY ACCIDENT multiple times during the Cold War, the nuclear bomb actually prevented war between the Soviets and the USA. The USA already deployed 2 nuclear bombs on Japan and still regrets It to this day, and, especially after the USSR got nukes In 1949, did everything In their power to avoid war with the Soviet Union, fearing Nuclear fallout. This fear was also shared with the Soviets, who didn't want to see their citizens turned to ash In an Instance and all of their manpower crushed and flattened. If anything, the nuclear bomb Is the main reason why nukes haven't been used against a country since 1945, and 2 have actually been deployed. If the US and the USSR actually didn't care about using nukes, they would have used nukes In the Korean War (Which they almost did), The Vietnam War 9Which they almost did), The Gulf War, The War On Terror etc. But that brings up another question, are nukes really that destructive? No, not really. The Nuclear bombs dropped on Japan only contributed to around 1% of the total casualties In World War 2 or less, and even the Tsar Bomba, the biggest and most destructive nuke ever, could probably only slightly surpass 2% of a war on the same scale. They only render small areas of land In countries like the USA and Russia which are absolutely huge. So a nuclear war is unlikely to happen any time soon and even If It does, won't be as destructive as most people think.

 

[Cherico]

id still rather avoid a nuclear war.

 

[TheVeryGermanGuy]

id still rather avoid a nuclear war.

Yeah, me too.

 

[Zyobot]

No, not really. The Nuclear bombs dropped on Japan only contributed to around 1% of the total casualties In World War 2 or less, and even the Tsar Bomba, the biggest and most destructive nuke ever, could probably only slightly surpass 2% of a war on the same scale. They only render small areas of land In countries like the USA and Russia which are absolutely huge. So a nuclear war is unlikely to happen any time soon and even If It does, won't be as destructive as most people think.

But then, what about the fact each of them still has thousands of these, each one more destructive than Little Boy and Fatman were by varying degrees?

You can't just look at how powerful individual bombs are; you also have to look at how powerful the entire arsenal is, since at the very least, it'd be absurd to think only one or two Tsar Bombas will be dropped and that'll be that.

 

[bintananth]

But then, what about the fact each of them still has thousands of these, each one more destructive than Little Boy and Fatman were by varying degrees?

You can't just look at how powerful individual bombs are; you also have to look at how powerful the entire arsenal is, since at the very least, it'd be absurd to think only one or two Tsar Bombas will be dropped and that'll be that.

Yeah, if someone goes nuclear every available nuke in the world will be used as soon as humanly possible because there won't be time to dilly-dally before pressing the big red button.

This is from 2,015 showing the cities in the world with more than 100,000 people:

The 4037 Cities In The World With Over 100,000 People

Map created by Fingolas, Interactive version The map above shows the 4,037 cities in the world that have over 100,000 people living in them. It was created by reddit user Fingolas, who explains how the map was created: A little background: I started with a list from the United Nations, later...

brilliantmaps.com

4,037 cities. Current arsenel of everyone combined is large enough to target each one twice without running out of nukes.

 

[ATP]

When the first 2 Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the tail end of World War 2, everyone was shocked, and while It barely contributed to Japan's surrender, It had many long term effects. The allies had the severe advantage over Nuclear research due to many German scientists leaving Germany due to being Jewish, causing many of them to seek cooperation with the allies In the Manhattan Project, and by 1942 the German Atomic Bomb Project was all but cancelled, with Atomic Bombs being projected to be completed by at least 1947. With the start of the Cold War In 1946 (Or 1947 depending on who you ask) many countries feared a nuclear war between the Soviets and America, and when the USSR tested there first Atomic Bomb In 1949, everyone now feared nuclear war, but where there fears based In reality? Objectively, no. While an Atomic war almost happened BY ACCIDENT multiple times during the Cold War, the nuclear bomb actually prevented war between the Soviets and the USA. The USA already deployed 2 nuclear bombs on Japan and still regrets It to this day, and, especially after the USSR got nukes In 1949, did everything In their power to avoid war with the Soviet Union, fearing Nuclear fallout. This fear was also shared with the Soviets, who didn't want to see their citizens turned to ash In an Instance and all of their manpower crushed and flattened. If anything, the nuclear bomb Is the main reason why nukes haven't been used against a country since 1945, and 2 have actually been deployed. If the US and the USSR actually didn't care about using nukes, they would have used nukes In the Korean War (Which they almost did), The Vietnam War 9Which they almost did), The Gulf War, The War On Terror etc. But that brings up another question, are nukes really that destructive? No, not really. The Nuclear bombs dropped on Japan only contributed to around 1% of the total casualties In World War 2 or less, and even the Tsar Bomba, the biggest and most destructive nuke ever, could probably only slightly surpass 2% of a war on the same scale. They only render small areas of land In countries like the USA and Russia which are absolutely huge. So a nuclear war is unlikely to happen any time soon and even If It does, won't be as destructive as most people think.

It certainly stopped WW3.Pity,becouse if USA wanted fight,not sold another part to soviets,they would win.
So,it saved - soviet system till it collapsed.If we had WW3 without nukes,commies would fall - and death toll would be lesser then gulags.
Now,it let Moscov pretend that they are still superpower.

id still rather avoid a nuclear war.

Indeed.But,if it happen,bigger cities would burn,but cyvilization ,and even most states would survive.
Death for me and many others,but not humanity,or even Poland.

 

[Bassoe]

I think Sachin Maini, Caitlin Johnstone and Bertrand Russell explained it best, in a world with weapons capable of causing human extinction*, the existence of multiple antagonistic groups are an existential threat. The question being, what can be done about it;

• Create a universal culture, aka, Thomas Friedman's McDonald's theory of peace. In practice, doesn't actually work because people don't want to join said supposedly universal culture, said culture attempts to deliberately cut off dissidents to punish them and potentially, the whole theory may have been corporatist propaganda to justify offshoring with 'it'll bring world peace'.
• Convince everyone to give up their WMDs. After the contrary examples of South Africa, Gaddafi's Libya and Ukraine vs North Korea, tragedy of the commons is in effect, the world as a whole would benefit from lack of nuclear apocalypse, but your country wouldn't, non-proliferation was based on the assumption that nuclear powers wouldn't bully non-nuclear powers and it'd therefore be safe to be a non-nuclear power.
• Make interventionism socially unacceptable. Being a neocon should be considered more of a genocidal extremist view than being an outright neonazi/wahabbist/maoist communist/etc. They unironically have the moral high ground, their proposed politics would kill fewer innocent people if implemented. Crack down on interventionism with all the tactics and powers used against those groups. Deplatform pro-neocon mainstream media, infiltrate their meetings with FBI agents, spy on their politicians, etc. Embrace Karl Popper's logical fallacy played entirely straight. Disadvantage, people who think this'd be a good idea don't have the societal power to do so,
• Get enough people and industries to self-sustain out of the blast radius. Disadvantage, people who think this'd be a good idea don't have the money to do it.

* Yeah, I know someone's going to say nukes don't count because a few people would survive, but all the oil essential for building technological infrastructure which can be extracted without preexisting technological infrastructure has already been used up, so they'll be stuck in pretechnological barbarianism until a cosmological Outside Context Problem finishes them off. So in the long run, a nuclear war now would cause human extinction.

 

[Marduk]

I think Sachin Maini, Caitlin Johnstone and Bertrand Russell explained it best, in a world with weapons capable of causing human extinction*, the existence of multiple antagonistic groups are an existential threat. The question being, what can be done about it;

• Create a universal culture, aka, Thomas Friedman's McDonald's theory of peace. In practice, doesn't actually work because people don't want to join said supposedly universal culture, said culture attempts to deliberately cut off dissidents to punish them and potentially, the whole theory may have been corporatist propaganda to justify offshoring with 'it'll bring world peace'.

Yeah, that basically requires the whole world being conquered, at least culturally, by said culture.

• Convince everyone to give up their WMDs. After the contrary examples of South Africa, Gaddafi's Libya and Ukraine vs North Korea, tragedy of the commons is in effect, the world as a whole would benefit from lack of nuclear apocalypse, but your country wouldn't, non-proliferation was based on the assumption that nuclear powers wouldn't bully non-nuclear powers and it'd therefore be safe to be a non-nuclear power.
  

Obviously won't work, the more pragmatic version of this is "stop crazy countries who don't have WMDs before they get them in meaningful quantity and quality" since several decades.

• Make interventionism socially unacceptable. Being a neocon should be considered more of a genocidal extremist view than being an outright neonazi/wahabbist/maoist communist/etc. They unironically have the moral high ground, their proposed politics would kill fewer innocent people if implemented. Crack down on interventionism with all the tactics and powers used against those groups. Deplatform pro-neocon mainstream media, infiltrate their meetings with FBI agents, spy on their politicians, etc. Embrace Karl Popper's logical fallacy played entirely straight. Disadvantage, people who think this'd be a good idea don't have the societal power to do so,

Umm, don't you see that this is a rehashing of the "universal culture" option, with all its problems, except hidden with humongous dose of tunnel vision?
Neocons are far from the only interventionist faction in the world.
I recommend anyone who's going to whine about Karl Popper and moral superiority of non-internventionism to go do so to the CCP and Vladimir Putin and don't come back until they succeed or die trying. We all know one of these possibilities is more likely than the other.

• Get enough people and industries to self-sustain out of the blast radius. Disadvantage, people who think this'd be a good idea don't have the money to do it.

Already true. No realistic scenario of nuclear war would cause total destruction of every country.

* Yeah, I know someone's going to say nukes don't count because a few people would survive, but all the oil essential for building technological infrastructure which can be extracted without preexisting technological infrastructure has already been used up, so they'll be stuck in pretechnological barbarianism until a cosmological Outside Context Problem finishes them off. So in the long run, a nuclear war now would cause human extinction.

Wild assumptions. There are many other ways to get liquid hydrocarbon fuels that are simply more expensive than oil. But if there was no oil...

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Nuclear weapons are so apocalyptic that, lower yield tactical warheads aside, no one is stupid enough to push the big red button.

 

[Cherico]

Nuclear weapons are so apocalyptic that, lower yield tactical warheads aside, no one is stupid enough to push the big red button.

as some one who lives in california and knows how stupid people can be I very much doubt that.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

as some one who lives in california and knows how stupid people can be I very much doubt that.

Look how many people are suddenly saying Nuclear war wouldn't be THAT bad since this thing between Russia and Ukraine popped up, and it's people on both sides of the conflict.

 

[King Arts]

Nuclear weapons are so apocalyptic that, lower yield tactical warheads aside, no one is stupid enough to push the big red button.

There are people who literally would not care either they are religious insane and think the rapture is imminent, or they could be old sociopathic assholes like Putin or maybe Xi I if he was on his deathbed and Russia was getting invaded why wouldn’t he launch? He won’t face any consequences and who cares if humanity goes extinct if you are an atheist once you die you won’t experience it or benefit from the human race if it was possible why not release a super computer like AM to send people to hell.

 

[ATP]

There are people who literally would not care either they are religious insane and think the rapture is imminent, or they could be old sociopathic assholes like Putin or maybe Xi I if he was on his deathbed and Russia was getting invaded why wouldn’t he launch? He won’t face any consequences and who cares if humanity goes extinct if you are an atheist once you die you won’t experience it or benefit from the human race if it was possible why not release a super computer like AM to send people to hell.

Indeed.Any atheist with nukes who is loosing war should use it.

 

[Zyobot]

Nuclear weapons are so apocalyptic that, lower yield tactical warheads aside, no one is stupid enough to push the big red button.

Maybe for now, but as @Cherico said: Never underestimate human stupidity, especially in light of how we can only have so many close calls before someone fucks up for real.

Even if most state actors today don't have the stomach for nuclear war, I think the off-chance some nukes go missing and fall into the hands of some crazed warlords if, say, the CCP falls or Russia dissolves post-Putin is higher than you'd think. We already had some nukes disappear when the USSR broke up, and while we certainly got lucky then, I doubt we'll get that lucky twice.

 

[Marduk]

Maybe for now, but as @Cherico said: Never underestimate human stupidity, especially in light of how we can only have so many close calls before someone fucks up for real.

Even if most state actors today don't have the stomach for nuclear war, I think the off-chance some nukes go missing and fall into the hands of some crazed warlords if, say, the CCP falls or Russia dissolves post-Putin is higher than you'd think. We already had some nukes disappear when the USSR broke up, and while we certainly got lucky then, I doubt we'll get that lucky twice.

The real barrier here is that nukes are hard to use as more than a dirty bomb, especially less technically adept organizations, due to PAL systems, and without maintenance they have a rather short "use-by" date. Any country with the means to deal with that inherently could make own weapons reasonably easily, with similar issues and in far greater number.

 

[Zyobot]

The real barrier here is that nukes are hard to use as more than a dirty bomb, especially less technically adept organizations, due to PAL systems, and without maintenance they have a rather short "use-by" date. Any country with the means to deal with that inherently could make own weapons reasonably easily, with similar issues and in far greater number.

Even if they don't succeed, I'm quite sure there'll be a handful of loonies who try — and if they fail, simply use them as dirty bombs, "Something is better than nothing!" and all that.

If anything, I wonder if rogue actors who realize that unmaintained nukes don't last might try to launch them as soon as possible, lest they become useless after waiting too long. Because I'm not just talking about state actors, bad as they may be, who might still have a semblance of pragmatism (e.g., Hitler holding off on deploying chemical weapons). I’m also talking about what future expies of Pol Pot, Jim Jones, or Oskar Dirlewanger might do if they got their mitts on dirty bombs, since they’d no doubt be running around in a “Large nuclear power collapses into warlordism!” scenario, as I fear Russia or China may be headed for later this century.

 

[Marduk]

Even if they don't succeed, I'm quite sure there'll be a handful of loonies who try — and if they fail, simply use them as dirty bombs, "Something is better than nothing!" and all that.

The value of which is more in anti-nuclear propaganda ridden western heads more than anywhere else.
Anyone who can pull that off can do more damage by homebrewing chemical weapons.

If anything, I actually wonder if rogue actors who realize that unmaintained nukes don't last might try to launch them as soon as possible, lest they become useless after waiting too long.

>launch
9/11 made geiger counters popular on borders, while launching implies having a launch platform. And the longer ranged ones are pretty hard to steal and hide, while having maintenance needs and operation requirements of their own.

Because I'm not just talking about state actors, bad as they may be, who might still have a semblance of pragmatism (e.g., Hitler holding off on deploying chemical weapons). I’m also talking about what future expies of Pol Pot, Jim Jones, or Oskar Dirlewanger might do if they got their mitts on dirty bombs, since they’d no doubt be running around in a “Large nuclear power collapses into warlordism!” scenario, as I fear Russia or China may be headed for later this century.

Would such have the money, expertise and power to get a working one rather than getting scammed by some mafia or raided by Navy Seals first?
In their case nork rules apply. Saber rattle all you want, but fire it off, and the target or one of its allies will remind you that they have the real thing, and a vastly superior conventional force too.

 

[ParadiseLost]

Dude, you need to learn to use paragraphs. Your FDR post is way worse, but this is still bad.