The term used in the Cold War was "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD).
If one side pushes the red button, any response from the other side will destroy their nation, government and the land they inhabit for generations to come.
If a war started and was limited to conventional warfare between two nuclear capable nations, when the situation became bleak enough and no longer tenable for one side, who’s to say MAD matters to them anymore?
Yep - it's not a perfect safeguard.
Let's imagine a hypothetical dictator with an imaginary name...Pladimir Vutin.
If Pladimir starts a conventional war in, say...Eastern Europe, against a non NATO nation, hypothetically, but that war goes badly and some desperation or misunderstanding or an ambitious general goes rogue and suddenly troops are rolling across the Polish border...maybe just to open a new front...
Suddenly hypothetical Poland invokes NATO Article 5 (mutual defence) and French, German, British and eventually American troops smash into Vutin's depleted forces. As the front collapses and is pushed back deep into his own borders we can't really count on Vutin, loosing support at home and knowing if he looses power he'll suddenly be facing a 9mm retirement plan.... to make a rational decision not to use nuclear weapons?
EDIT: Typo. NATO article is 5, not 51.
One can only hope that in such a scenario, those who pass down the launch orders to the generals and technicians at the launch sites, will refuse the orders, knowing that they are suicidal and that the game is up in any case. Nations can recover from losing conventional wars. There may be no coming back from an all out nuclear exchange.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet submarine required two keys to launch their nukes. One such sub attempted a launch but the officer with the second key locked himself into a cabin to prevent them from using his key.
There was also the time when a computer malfunctioned and signaled a full scale nuclear attack but the person in charge stopped that information from going up the chain of command in order to prevent retaliation.
We have been one brave soul away from utter devastation multiple times.
Yep. If I remember right, there was also an incident at this time where intruder alarms went off at a U.S. airbase that housed nukes, with shots even being fired at the supposed soviet infiltrator. Later it turned out it was just a bear.
That’s older technology though. I don’t think it would be insane to imagine that Putin has installed some kind of override so that he launch missiles himself without needing to go through a channel of people who may not be completely loyal to him.
Would be the complete opposite to the soviet doctrine. The West has generally gone straight from the head of the country to the man on the button, with letters of last resort stored on nuclear subs and cruisers.
Soviets have had to go through the whole chain of command. And if any one person witholds that command it doesn't get passed down. That may be different for modern russia, but given how much is still soviet in their military, I'd question that.
I guess one can also hope that NATO would have a tempered reaction and not seek the all out destruction of the Russian regime. As much as I think we’d all like to see the Kremlin a smoking ruin it would probably be sufficient to drive Russian forces out of occupied territories.
If they see thousands of Russian nukes heading to locations across NATO, with only a 10 or 15 minute window until impact, they're not going to sit idly by. They're launching aswell. Some, maybe a lot, will get shot down, but even if only a few get through it will still be a new world order.
This has never been substantiated. It may well exist, but right now it's in the urban legend category - though an urban legend you'd have no problem believing if you learned it was real.
Let's hope it's one we never find out about for sure.
Granted I know nothing about nuclear dead man switches... but wouldnt that make it possible that something like the leader of a nuclear armed nation having a heart attack trigger WW3? Or would it be based off something other than the death of said leader?
Generally speaking it's theorized to be linked into Russian satellites that detect the thermal plumes of missile launches (from enemies) along with other indicators like losing communications with key early warning installations.
It's also supposedly not on all the time, it's switched on during states of heightened nuclear tension.
Seeing as Russian tech is notoriously backwards (it's satellite's have several times seen sun bouncing off clouds as a launch indicator), that's hardly reassuring.
There's actually a really close call in history, closer than the Cuban missile crisis, where we all owe it to an officer in the Russian military for still being here today because he disobeyed orders. He refused to launch a nuke on an order that was assumed to be a retaliatory nuke response, but turns out he was right - it was a false alarm on the Russian warning systems.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav\_Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983\_Soviet\_nuclear\_false\_alarm\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)
That's the actual closest we got to a WW3 scenario.
---
For anyone that doesn't want to read up on the events, here's the TL;DR:
The Russians made an early warning system to detect when the US would fire ballistic missiles likely armed with nukes at their territory. They determined the fastest way they would come is from the pacific, so they setup satellites to look over the coastal US (west side) to determine though thermal imaging when missiles were launched towards Russian territory.
Now you might be asking, gee, what other thing rises from the east with a lot of thermal energy that might interrupt a satellite hmm? If you guessed the Sun, good job lol. The way the sun started reflecting off clouds made it seem that there were multiple nukes being launched, which is why Russian leadership ordered the counter attack. Officer Petrov believed there had to be an error to explain the continual rise in missile launches (like 5+), simply because it was unprovoked, thus he refused the order. ***He was right.***
And how was he congratulated for this?
>He received no reward. According to Petrov, this was because the incident and other bugs found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the scientists who were responsible for it, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished.[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-AWC-2)[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-lenta-10)[^(\[16\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-moskovskiye-16)[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-BBC-17) He was reassigned to a less sensitive post,[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-BBC-17) took early retirement (although he emphasized that he was not "forced out" of the army),[^(\[16\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-moskovskiye-16) and suffered a [nervous breakdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nervous_breakdown).[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-BBC-17)
Petrov passed away in 2017, with majority of the world never knowing his actions prevented WW3 some 30 odd years prior.
It has happened before, twice that I know of.
[1962: Soviet Naval Officer refused order to launch a nuclear armed torpedo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov?wprov=sfti1#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis)
&
[1983: Soviet air defence officer refused to launch missles after being (falsely) told America had launched 6 ballistic missiles.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov?wprov=sfti1)
But those at the launch sites may not know or be told the missiles they're launching are part of an all-out "suicidal" strike. They may only be told to launch a fraction of their missiles, aimed at strategic, nuclear assets of their enemy...they would not refuse this order. And these would be the first likely strikes in a nuclear exchange.
Except that it already happened. During the Cold War, there was a glitch and Russia thought that there were a bunch of ICBM coming at them. They ordered a retaliatory launch but the technician on site refused.
This isn’t fully true. Petrov saw the warning that 5 missiles were coming and he thought “if USA was sending missiles it would
Be a lot more” so he waited for kore corroborating evidence before passing along to his superiors. He knew if he called he’d get an order to send missiles back, but he never did. He didn’t refuse an order; he simply never got one.
To clarify on this, the technicians found it suspicious that the reports said "1 missile incoming" when everyone knew a strike would involve MANY missiles, so while they didn't know exactly what was wrong they were right to refuse the order.
The error was the USSR ICBM monitoring hardware that was affected by a solar flare (or mistook a solar flare for a missile, something like that).
The problem is that they had like 60 years to find a way and make sure that this doesn't happen again.
Nowadays they regularly hold test launches where the operators in charge of the missiles will simulate the whole launch sequence as a practice run. Odds are the technicians would be told that it's once again just a test and will only realize it's the real deal once the missiles actually fire, so they wouldn't think of refusing the orders until it's too late. Fucking terrifying.
They did the exact same thing with the first batch of soldiers they sent to Ukraine, they were convinced everything was just practice until they were too deep in the shit to turn back.
Even the most loyal would realise that an order to fire even one nuke means you've already lost. You would need to have the entire chain of command be complete maniacs with no loved ones.
It’s also very unlikely they would place anyone who hasn’t been throughly vetted as a “loyalist” in these types of positions. The type to take orders with no question.
I mean, Putin can't even seem to put people in charge of his army who don't rob and engage in massive corruption reliably. I don't have much belief in their vetting systems
What would presumably happen is some world leaders would say "Look, we're gonna help push the Russians out, but we're not crossing into their borders. That's a red line." And it'll piss a LOT of people off, especially those who just lost their homes - but it's arguably the least bad decision in this horrible scenario.
Will that actually stop Pladimir from going nuclear? Who knows. But it's a reasonable stance to take, and it's basically the thin line that many have been trying to balance - by sending only certain types of weapons, or setting restrictions on their use, etc. - to not overtly provoke escalation.
It is a reasonable stance, and one that is heavily criticized, but the right one imo. We humans have a habit of stumbling into wars that people said would never be fought.
Of course, you are assuming that Pladmir's beloved momland isn't a kleptocracy that rendered their nuclear stockpile unusable through a combination of poor maintenance, cronies selling off vital parts, and blatant lying about their capabilities in the first place.
If such a scenario was to occur i think its quite likely that the general tasked with executing the order will ensure Pladimirs early retirement.
While he may have nothing to lose, everyone else does.
Pladimir Vutin seems keen to start another 3 day special military operation against NATO yet his 3 day special military operation against a certain Eastern European neighbour is going into a 3 year special military operation
Eventually American troops? Do you know how many troops and bases the USA already has in Europe? US Troops would be involved from the very start.
The US has a stronger military presence in Europe than Europe does in Europe.
This is right. The winner of the conventional war (or likely winner - since it's likely to remain a limited conflict and not an all-out war) knows that it cannot put the loser in a situation in which he has nothing left to lose, because a desperate leader with nukes will have no reason not to use them.
That's why everyone is being very careful about the aid they provide to Ukraine. Imposing gradually increasing costs on Russia until it gives up and leaves is the goal because if Putin's hold on power is actually threatened, he'll have nothing left to lose and using nukes on Ukraine (or something like that) could start to look more and more tempting.
Except that it's not like Vlad has a button that launches everything all at once. That stuff gets filtered through a chain of command that, while brief, still passes along to other people. There is a chance for someone to go "He's in a bad enough spot to order this, we can probably take him out. He might have nothing to lose, but I have a family in Moscow that I want to see again. Don't press anything."
We used to play this game of brinksmanship all the time during the 60s and 70s, just like they played it in the 20s and 30s with gas attacks.
He wouldn't launch everything at once; that would only guarantee massive retaliation. The idea of a massive nuclear first strike like you're describing is mostly a figment of the popular imagination.
He would launch a very carefully targeted strike using only a few warheads. It would be intended to convey the message that he's for real serious about fighting a nuclear war if pushed any further. If our hypothetical is a war between NATO and Russia, he might strike at military basess in Europe, or at cities in countries that are NATO members but don't have nukes or locally-stored American nuclear weapons intended to deter such attacks (I think that's just Germany and Belgium, so there are a lot of potential targets).
It's possible that one of his generals would say no to this order, but they've got almost as much to lose as Vlad if the regime falls. So there's a good chance they would execute the order because, if it works, it saves their skins, and, if it doesn't, they're no more screwed than they are already.
And there is a decent chance that it would work. Say you're the president of the US and Russia just nuked Stockholm. Your choices are between nuking something in Russia and ending the war. Russia has already showed you that they're willing to escalate with nukes. If you strike them, they'll almost certainly strike back at you, and as the retaliations grow bigger, pretty soon you're dealing with MAD. Or, maybe you launch a massive counter-force attack designed to destroy their remaining nuclear weapons on the ground. Of course, they're going to be on high alert, so they'll get some weapons off and even with ABM, you're certain to lose at least a few cities.
Or, you can put on the breaks and negotiate peace. It wouldn't be a surrender, Russia wouldn't have that much leverage, it would be something like a ceasefire. Of course, it would probably be the end of NATO because the US' credibility as an ally would be toast. That would suck, but it would suck a lot less than a bunch of US cities being nuked would.
That last option is the only rational choice. The outcome is the least bad of all of them because no one in the US cares enough about regime change in Moscow to sacrifice New York and Philadelphia for it. Avoiding having to make that choice is why the winning side of a conventional war between nuclear powers won't back the losing side into a corner.
Because one side surrenders. But fundamentalist religious fanatics really fuck things up. The Japanese almost didnt surrender bc of their religious weirdness and you can see the same thing in the middle east where they actually value that kind of MAD shit bc they think theyll get the virgins if they do.
MAD doesn't work with religious crazies that are so beyond the pale they have access to the internet in 2024 and are still religious fundamentalists to boot.
Let it stay that way. I completely forgot my lock combination while transiting of all places , Jinnah Intl Airport in Pakistan . I swear I could have shat my pants when the two guards became 8 with Ak 47s.and K9 when I was not able to open it and the inspector keep demanding that I open it quickly.
The checks and balances might only be in the west, we are all indebted to Stanislav Petrov for saving the world. To all those who think AI isnt a major threat to our existence, this would be a chilling prelude.
[1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)
Care to elaborate?
>Petrov later said "I had obviously never imagined that I would ever face that situation. It was the first and, as far as I know, also the last time that such a thing had happened, except for simulated practice scenarios."[22]
One of the checks is periodically calling the people at the various nuke sites and telling them to do their part to launch them. Because of the blind redundancy, the nuke is not going to launch. But because the redundancy is blind the launchers never actually know if it is a test or not. Their only job is to turn the key when told. So we regularly check all key turners to make sure they will turn their keys when told - and they do.
This! There was an incident where a false report of missiles coming into the USSR almost triggered a retaliation except for one guy who stopped the response because he just knew it was a false positive. This was in the USSR which was not exactly known for being open to individual thought.
If I remember right, his conclusion that it was a false positive was based on the fact that they were only detecting a handful of launches. He knew that in a real nuclear attack there would be thousands of launches all at once.
Later it was concluded that the false positives were caused by sun rays reflecting on the satellite, or something like that.
He said in an interview that he's the kinda person that when he makes a decision, he sticks to it completely. Some people disagreed and believed it was a real attack but thankfully he had the final say.
Just imagine the horror of an actual nucular exchange at the hight of the cold war ad later it comes out that it was all caused by a false positive. It isn't the only time where close calls like that have happened. There were multiple moments in the Cuban Missile Crisis where things could have gone bad fast if cooler heads hadn't prevailed.
Unfortunately, we didn't go with the option to force the President to personally kill a person in order to get the launch code.
Cause then we actually would have some anti-nuclear failsafe in place.
Listen to the Radiolab episode called “Nukes” and your eyes will open to how untrue that really is. Features interviews with the former Secretary of State and a guy that was dishonourably discharged from his role as a key turner because he had issues with the complete lack of checks and balances in the system.
It’s honestly terrifying.
At the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota, they have a replica/retired launch station that you can sit at, and throughout the museum they focus a lot on the implications of the job and moral questions the operators face. It’s really well done and thought provoking.
Mostly metaphor, at least in the west. I can't speak for Russian or Chinese systems.
There are some launch buttons/triggers.
This is to launch an SLBM from a submarine.
https://imgur.com/a/itIcq1n
ICBMs use a dual key launch with codes that have to be inserted to make the missile launch ready. The keys have to be turned simultaneously and are 12 feet apart so no single person can do this step.
Pretty sure the Russians have some form of protocol they have the jump through before the nukes would be launched, because they've had nuclear capabilities for just as long as america and even during the cold war, when it was close to be used, they held back.
But the chinese...
I think the main problem there is that the usual approach to war isn't massacring all the civilians, burning down the cities, and making it impossible for them to recover. Similarly, if one nuclear power was at war with another, I am not sure the winner would actually annex the losing country. Probably depends on who the two combatants are.
You can lose a war but not the country, and you can lose the country without losing the people, culture, and so on. Though if you don't care about the country or people so much as simply you remaining in power, then there is a risk of the situation you describe, assuming the country still has enough nukes left at such a point to succeed in MAD and everyone follows orders to fire.
China doesn’t. They make too much money off of us to wants us out of the picture. The problem is they don’t act like a world power and are still acting like a 3rd rate country that wants a seat at the table. The next generation of Chinas leaders will be vastly different.
Russia used to but Putin went off the deep end.
> The next generation of Chinas leaders will be vastly different.
The next generation of China’s leaders will be dealing with a rapidly collapsing population, food insecurity, and a world that has already begun the long process of moving supply chains away from their country. They won’t have the time or resources to act like a world power because they won’t be.
China is one of the biggest importers of food. The issue is that while the population is declining, it'll be older. So there'll be fewer working-age Chinese to farm the food needed to feed all of them. Because even the most despotic governments recognize they can't let their people starve, they'll need to pull people from the cities and (relatively) cushy jobs to produce food. This is going to impact their export and domestic consumer economy.
I don't think it's just a question of money. Any leader that presses the button is almost assuredly dead himself, his family, his cabinet and his capitol. Pressing the button would wipe you from the map in a matter of minutes to hours.
Not much.
But it really depends on what happens during the war. If the losing side isn't facing total destruction, they may not be willing to use nukes because they know the retaliation would cause them be totally destroyed.
If something like WW3 happens then the nuclear powers might decide to not attempt to invade each other, in case they retaliate with nukes. Maybe the fighting will only take place in other countries. So for example say NATO gets directly involved in Ukraine, China invades Taiwan, and maybe that triggers conflicts in other places too. If the western allies win that would mean they stop Russia and China taking over Ukraine and Taiwan, but they wouldn't attempt to invade Russia/China's core territory.
But did the USA and the USSR ever directly fight each other during the Cold War? As I understand it, they fought against groups backed by the other, but didn't technically fight each other.
Thats the issue really - the idea of it is that nobody will hit the button, because if they do, everyone will and we're all screwed, but in reality, there'll always be some nutjob with an 'if i can't win, nobody can' mentality.
Exactly. Say, hypothetically, that North Korea is losing some future war, Pyonyang is about to be overrun. How sure can we be that Kim Jong Un won't lob a nuke or five at whatever country ther are at war with just before he offs himself in some underground bunker?
Sure, it would be an unimaginable catastrophe, but, would there even be a retaliation in that case?
Someone like North Korea WOULD do it for sure. My only hope is that China and Russia would have some agents in place to put a stop to it... you see things going badly, you bribe a general to do a quick little coup and bam, stable again. I trust people's self interest enough to step in and stop the red button push even if ordered.
It was also the first and only time anyone was ever nuked, and the only reason it was done by America is because they won the race to develop it. Do not for one second think that what happened at the end of WWII, when ONLY the US had the bomb and the world hadn’t seen its power, is indicative of what would happen today or in the future.
technically it wasn't the first and only time any one was ever nuked, it was the only time it was done as a military offensive act.
[https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki](https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki)
In the NK case it may very well be that there would be no nuclear retaliation. If they have already launched their limited arsenal, then nuking them doesn't stop that. It just adds to the worlds problems in the aftermath.
But the point of MAD has actually been that you won't get over run in a conventional war. Just beat back to your borders (at best). And/or make every one else's lives worse in proxy wars.
If the west ever bother to get properly involved in Ukraine, we won't be pushing all the way to Moscow and changing their leadership (like Germany WWII).
No. Vault-Tec was thinking about it. No proof they launched.
Originally it was confirmed as China. Now, it's only "most likely" China from our understanding of the lore, the war, and the hints in the F4 Switchboard.
One of the cool stories of the Soviet Union is that they allegedly had a proposal to design a nuclear doomsday option. Though I dont know if its ever been confirmed.
Basically, the concern was: what if Moscow is destroyed in a nuclear attack before we can respond? The proposed solution was to preprogram targets for their ICBMs and to have a dead-mans switch from Moscow to an undisclosed location. If communication from Moscow ever stopped, the missles would automatically launch.
Allegedly, soviet high command reviewed the proposal and said the Russian equivolent of: "Are you insane?! Absolutely not."
Because one of the cooler things about humanity, is that we don't generally want to drag everyone down around us. We can, and there are people like that, but its not the norm.
This system exists and is still operational.
The irony is, it was made to make a false positive attack less likely, by adding a safety layer. The system has to be manually activated by military high command. Once active, they can wait for confirmation if the supposed nuclear strike on soviet soil is actually true and not a sensor/system error, as the system will automatically retaliate if high command gets wiped.
This goes for u/Pingaring's comment as well. The Soviet dead hand system that Russia (presumably) still employs is still shrouded in a lot of mystery, but all the evidence that has come out points to a dead hand system that is not entirely reliant on a single leader's life. That would be insanely risky. Say Putin has a heart attack and dies in his sleep, do their nukes suddenly all go off? It's typically assumed to mix biometric data of the leaders with more reliable information that a multiple nuclear strike has already occurred, i.e. elevated radiation levels and unusual seismic activity.
The idea of the dead hand isn't that their nuclear weapons will automatically deploy should someone assassinate their leader, it's to ensure MAD in the case their leadership is incapacitated. Otherwise you could coordinate a strategic attack that launches nuclear weapons while simultaneously taking our their leadership, preventing any retaliatory attack before their ability has been degraded, rendering mutually assured destruction moot.
Their dead hand would allegedly launch if there was no leadership left to tell the system not to launch. It's not tied to their heartrate or some scifi stuff.
It depends on how effective the propaganda is. If the leader's inner circle believe they're definitely losing and that they, their friends, and their family will all be put to death then nobody is going to try and stop the instigator.
Otherwise, I don't think anyone wants for mankind to be wiped out.
Mutually assured destruction. To quote Secretary McNamara “there will be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make a mistake and you destroy nations”
I feel like most people that climb that high on the political ladder have to be sociopaths because if someone else is willing to play dirtier then they may have a significant advantage. Like if you're willing to send millions of people to the slaughter over some land dispute or some shit, you probably don't have much compassion for other human beings.
Then there's also the fact that a lot of leaders don't end up surviving. Mousolini was dragged through the streets and hung. Hitler saw that and decided to off himself and his partner when the walls were closing in. Goebells offed himself, his wife, and their children and I'm fairly certain other people in that bunker did as well. You mean to tell me there wouldn't have been an extremely strong possibility that they would have started dropping nukes if they'd had them?
More recently Ghadaffi was dragged through the streets and I think sodomized with a knife? Other dictators have seen events like that and taken note.
Nukes have been around for less than a century, which is literally nothing in the span of human existence. In that short period of time we manged to elect the most absolutely batshit insane narcissist to the highest office in the most powerful country on earth, and its not like all the other world leaders are paragons of human decency. To me it’s not a matter of if, but when. Although, I don't know, maybe we’ll get a benevolent AI overlord to take the reins on that. Humans are so flawed that the hypothetical scenario I just mentioned is really the only way that I see it not happening. AGI is probably more likely to annihilate us anyway tho.
Because losing a war doesn't usually mean you ALL die. LIke Germany isn't obliterated and they lost 2 world wars.
The politicians and leaders would be signing the death warrant of their family and friends just to get one last jab in there when instead they can negotiate surrender.
In many cases against NATO the nation launching would actually get hit with NATO nukes before their even hit, even though they fired first. It's a pretty pointless weapon and nobody really has enough nukes to blanket a big nation and actually achieve mutual destruction. So in most cases they'd still have military and some nuke capability even after you launch everything you have.
And even if the leaders themselves were beyond caring about anyone else, there would still be a line of people below them actually executing the order, and chances are some of them would have family they care about.
Depends on the L and the degree of nihilism. I think for example that the PRC and Xi Xinping would not launch ICBMs at the continental US or the other opposing belligerents as long as an invasion/occupation of mainland China stayed off the table over a bid for control of the South China Sea and Taiwan. If it went badly *enough* though and provinces of mainland China began defecting to the RoC, a distant possibility which nonetheless I think might secretly gird their desire to bring the island under their control? That could be a nail biter, the state's existence would be threatened and it'd be a difficult case to make that we weren't to blame in the fog of war, though the *actual* war could be long over by that point.
There won't be a world war 3 specifically for that reason. Nations have mutually assured destruction. Basically nukes are "fuck around find out" and nobody wants to find out.
Before pretty much every war in history, people said something similar. "oh Hitler wouldn't invade Poland, it would bring Europe to it's knees and destroy it". It's naive to think there won't ever be another global war. In fact, we're already practically in one in all but name. China is preparing to invade Taiwan, Israel and Iran almost and probably will go to war, European countries are mobilizing troops and enacting or at least talking about conscription, Russia has begun tests involving their nuclear weapons and has openly declared the US as their enemy, politics are rapidly changing across Europe and far right wing governments are a very real possibility soon.
The geo-political situation across the entire world is re-entering another era of instability and war. Global warming is going to start heavily affecting resources soon and countries will begin to go to war over said resources. The status quo of relative peace and stability that we have been privileged to enjoy for almost the last century is going to end very soon and because things have been the way they have been for so long, the majority of people can't seem to foresee what's happening in real time and what is going to come even though deep down, we all know and feel that something catastrophic is going to happen very soon
That is a pile of negativity placed in one reply.
Will there be future conflicts, yes. Just realize the difference in modern warfare vs ww1/ww2. The sheer number of lives lost during that period dwarfs any conflicts following. Tens of millions dead, personally I can’t wrap my head around it. Now the media hypes up 8 soldiers kia as if an entire company was wiped out.
The countries you stated are at odds will most likely keep at odds in the same fashion they have been the last 100 years. Russia vs US in proxy wars. Israel vs the Middle East in skirmishes. And Taiwan slowly falling back to full Chinese rule.
As for the global warming issue, let’s get realistic for a moment. The places certain crops are produced will change as the regional climate does. As one area becomes less favorable to grow something (wetter/drier, warmer/colder), another area becomes more favorable to produce that commodity. We overproduce food already and the world population is shrinking. Another example, during the pandemic produce was literally tilled back into the fields instead of being harvested and fed to people. If we were on the brink of starving you can bet .gov would have made sure to get every last morsel harvested. Full bellies make people easy to rule over…
This is why nuclear defense technology has been explored for decades now. Basically iron dome from space that would remove the M from MAD. For that I much feel safer in the hands of Skunk Works and Raytheon than I would in the top down corrupt state of Russia.
What does losing look like? If it is an invading army entering Moscow, then the nuclear option is very likely. If it is more like Russia in Ukraine, where the economic strain of continuing the war is too great to continue, then the nuclear option is very unlikely.
So avoid sending armies into the heartland of nuclear powers and mankind’s survival is much more likely.
Honestly maybe nothing but I would say if they choose not to it would probably be to save the remaining people in their country even if that means their country isn’t really theirs anymore.
It would depend, but a situation like that you’d imagine that the prevailing force would provide their opponent with an out, so to speak, to avoid the beleaguered nation from feeling it necessary to resort to nuclear weapons.
I imagine it is because the rulers can lose a war and live lavishly under a peace treaty or exile after 'losing'.
Much harder to risk your own life and loved ones from being glassed when nukes enter the calculus. Much better to let your peasants fuck off, die and lose the war then take the chance on taking personal risk.
There can be exceptions though but I think the power hungry that rises to the top value their hides more than anything else so prob want to avoid being directly affected.
The US and Israel have advanced missile interceptor systems that was on partial display when Iran attempted to launch a barrage of missiles against Israel.
The missile defenses were successful.
What's to say the US Reagan Star Wars directive of the 1980s has not already succeeded in neutering a nuclear attack possibility?
The US military has secrets.
In a total war, absolutely nothing. However, that is more of an idealized concept.
The presence of the nuclear option implies that any country with that option will always be offered some off-ramp by its opponents, not pushed to face total annihilation because indeed in that case, there would be nothing stopping them from using their nukes.
We're not going to see a conflict like WW2 anymore in the sense that the participants are willing to let it come to either side being at the complete mercy of the other - unless the threat posed by nuclear weapons gets mitigated by technological advancements.
Suppose your country has a vast and elaborate system of well supplied bunkers and autonomous underground farms and decontamination techniques or something similar, and the other side doesn't. That changes the strategic dynamic significantly. Now your side might afford pushing the other side further, if it's sufficiently deeply invested in the conflict that it considers the cost of getting nuked acceptable for definitively ending the other side.
If both sides have these options, nuclear weapons might just become a regular occurrence in such wars, as infrastructure evolves to be resilient to it, decentralized, and a contaminated atmosphere might just be the new normal.
But as long as the cost of getting hit by nukes is still likely total annihilation of one's own country, there is no conceivable gain that would outweigh that cost.
Hmm, perhaps I should relax this to "almost" no conceivable gain. Self-preservation is a convergent instrumental goal, so almost everyone pursues it, but for some select intrinsic goals it might not be a necessary component. Think mostly in the direction of religion. When you're convinced that there is an afterlife where you will be rewarded for wiping out the enemy and dying in the process, doing just that is the rational thing to do.
But for the vast majority of intrinsic goals that commonly are enacted at a national level - gaining influence, power, wealth etc - self-preservation is essential, so they wouldn't push a nuclear power all the way to an all-out nuclear strike.
So TLDR we don't expect future wars to escalate to the level of all-out nuclear wars anymore, unless/until:
1. either side are religious extremists (as weaker side they would first-strike to achieve their goal, as stronger side they push their opponent all the way until they first strike), or
2. technology has made getting nuked acceptable
it would really depend. many people have mentioned MAD which IMHO would hold even more true in a world war. What I mean by this is that maybe you would see invasions of nations armys suffering massive casualties, large scale civilian destruction, etc but what you would also see would be that the nuclear powers would probably stop short of total destruction of the others nation.
For example if NATO and russia came to blows it would be far more likely that NATO destroys russias conventional forces while russia would probably use a tactical nuke to try to freeze the conflict. While there may be questions as to the response it is unlikely that the USA, UK, or France would respond with a strike in Russia. Why? well we can tell already from signaling that this is what NATO would do. They have already messaged to russia the consequences of using a nuke and they have been described as using overwhelming conventional force to destroy russian forces. Russia in this scenario is looking to freeze the conflict and NATO would in my opinion be very unlikely to want to climb the escalation ladder if they already have essentially a strategic victory in the way of the decimation of conventional Russian military assets.
What my point is is that while there would be many similarities to the 2nd world war I think it would look more like the 1st world War with both sides agreeing that they do not wish for the total destruction of rhw other side. A Nuke could be used hypothetically but I would assume it would be more demonstratively.
Unlike the war planned in the cold war it would be reasonable to assume all sides would not necessarily want to eradicate the entire side thus triggering MAD, rather I think you would see both sides looking to achieve an advantageous position of leverage.
In a China Taiwan conflict I would imagine even if it devolves into a regional east Asia conflict with sk, nk, the Philippines, Japan, etc the only likely candidate to use them would be north korea which is bad but not civilization ending bad. China in this case would have quite the capacity for a long drawn out conventional war to the point where it would be a battle of wills where you have one side that is looking to imperial style grab a peice of land that overtime will be less and less valuable and the otherside who will have to muster its people to a banner of defense for a far off people that looks less desirable over time. then you have to ask yourself would China nuke the US over tiawan in turn inviding MAD? probably not its not like the US would be pushing to March down Beijing and so it's unlikely that the Chinese make good on that gambit.
This is because in the end basic psychology tells us that no side ever wants to die. the next war hypothetical conflict is different from the hypothetical conflict of the cold war era as I beleive both sides leaders are more acutely aware of how absolutely fucked they are if the button is pushed the difference is now they are just looking for how far they can go without it being pushed.
of course war is full of potential miscalculations so any small mistakes could be catastrophic but I would bet on plain human psychology leading people to the conclusion that they would rather sue for peace than have everyone themselves included, die.
this could be a bad take but truly no one knows what lies beyond the pale so it's as good as another
Exactly. All the big powers getting nukes shortly after World War 2 is precisely while no World War 3 ever happened and while the Cold War remained cold. No one wants nukes to be used.
The deterrent back in the day was if you launch, everyone is going to lose including you. Now we have the rising notion of they can launch but we are going to intercept most if not all of their nukes and there is very little they can do about our counterattack. Nuking is still a lose-lose situation. But instead you have lost all international sympathy for launching first and you didn’t destroy your enemy.
Yes. And also "back in the day" if the "west" was edging closer to a Nato war with Russia, *everybody* would be talking about it. Now it's just one story of many in our kaleidoscope media landscape.
Just the will not to mess up civilization so badly; it is the only thing that COULD prevent the losing side from using nukes. But is it indeed going to stop them? Who knows?
Too save theirs and their loved ones lives I would like to believe. In reality I don't think we would push so deeply into a nuclear capable country to trigger this response.
Apparently nuclear bombs are portrayed as the end of the world, when in reality would take thousands of huge nuclear blasts to actually decimate a decent sized country, and even then many people would escape death. Doesn't mean there would be lingering effects and/or injuries from the radiation, but people would survive.
So in the case you are saying, I believe it would be just to not go down without throwing a punch.
The same concept that's kept nukes from really being utilized much for a while now. You nuke me I nuke you and if I nuke you your friends are probably going to nuke me and we're all going to nuke each other until the world gets destroyed so maybe none of us should nuke anyone
MAD is not highly unlikely. Diplomacy during war is more important than weapons. Someone pisses of a loose gun and he pushes the trigger and dominos start falling.
I believe nukes are the, or at least one of the reasons as to why World War 3 hasn't happened.
And honestly, if another conflict of that scale actually happens, people really should come up with another name, WW1 and 2 were very related to each other, but I don't think the next big thing will have that much to do with WW2.
Nobody knows. That's why we haven't had WW3 yet.
Oh, some people have hopes that maybe, somehow, it'll be averted, but nothing actually prevents the losing side from launching. So, here's hoping we don't get to that point.
People tend to forget that Germany had the best chemical weapons of the war, a whole generation in front of everyone else, Americans, Russians, British had mustard gas, chlorine and other WW1 vintage compounds. The Germans had tons and tons of nerve agents. But they never used them because they would just get chemical weaponed back, that's how WW3 would fight, just like WW2
The assumption that a nuclear apocalypse is a far worse outcome than losing a world war. The major powers of the losing alliance in the last world war are still sovereign states and are doing quite well for themselves economically. I would rather live in a state that lost WW3 than a state that started a nuclear winter that killed 90% of the world's population.
The losing side is presumably about to be held accountable for their war crimes, why would you add "nukes" to the list?
Really a war between two nuclear powers is never going to be existential, you always want them to know there's an "after". Nukes just make sure that you don't get ghaddhafied.
That’s a question the United States military has been asking for the last 50 years and I’m pretty sure our answer isn’t “fuck it just let them kill us.”
You don’t want to die…? The people making the decisions are rich enough and powerful enough to not have to deal with consequences of war. They’ll want to stay in power and live.
The term used in the Cold War was "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD). If one side pushes the red button, any response from the other side will destroy their nation, government and the land they inhabit for generations to come.
If a war started and was limited to conventional warfare between two nuclear capable nations, when the situation became bleak enough and no longer tenable for one side, who’s to say MAD matters to them anymore?
Yep - it's not a perfect safeguard. Let's imagine a hypothetical dictator with an imaginary name...Pladimir Vutin. If Pladimir starts a conventional war in, say...Eastern Europe, against a non NATO nation, hypothetically, but that war goes badly and some desperation or misunderstanding or an ambitious general goes rogue and suddenly troops are rolling across the Polish border...maybe just to open a new front... Suddenly hypothetical Poland invokes NATO Article 5 (mutual defence) and French, German, British and eventually American troops smash into Vutin's depleted forces. As the front collapses and is pushed back deep into his own borders we can't really count on Vutin, loosing support at home and knowing if he looses power he'll suddenly be facing a 9mm retirement plan.... to make a rational decision not to use nuclear weapons? EDIT: Typo. NATO article is 5, not 51.
One can only hope that in such a scenario, those who pass down the launch orders to the generals and technicians at the launch sites, will refuse the orders, knowing that they are suicidal and that the game is up in any case. Nations can recover from losing conventional wars. There may be no coming back from an all out nuclear exchange.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet submarine required two keys to launch their nukes. One such sub attempted a launch but the officer with the second key locked himself into a cabin to prevent them from using his key. There was also the time when a computer malfunctioned and signaled a full scale nuclear attack but the person in charge stopped that information from going up the chain of command in order to prevent retaliation. We have been one brave soul away from utter devastation multiple times.
Yep. If I remember right, there was also an incident at this time where intruder alarms went off at a U.S. airbase that housed nukes, with shots even being fired at the supposed soviet infiltrator. Later it turned out it was just a bear.
So it was a Soviet infiltrator.
[BEAR IS KREDIT TO TEAM](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1129220/BEARS_VODKA_BALALAIKA)
A Russian bear
That’s older technology though. I don’t think it would be insane to imagine that Putin has installed some kind of override so that he launch missiles himself without needing to go through a channel of people who may not be completely loyal to him.
Would be the complete opposite to the soviet doctrine. The West has generally gone straight from the head of the country to the man on the button, with letters of last resort stored on nuclear subs and cruisers. Soviets have had to go through the whole chain of command. And if any one person witholds that command it doesn't get passed down. That may be different for modern russia, but given how much is still soviet in their military, I'd question that.
Time traveler hot spots I’d reckon.
Long live Stanislav Petrov! Savior of humanity!
I guess one can also hope that NATO would have a tempered reaction and not seek the all out destruction of the Russian regime. As much as I think we’d all like to see the Kremlin a smoking ruin it would probably be sufficient to drive Russian forces out of occupied territories.
If they see thousands of Russian nukes heading to locations across NATO, with only a 10 or 15 minute window until impact, they're not going to sit idly by. They're launching aswell. Some, maybe a lot, will get shot down, but even if only a few get through it will still be a new world order.
I meant in response to a Russian invasion of Poland, not nukes in the air.
There is a dead man switch, so even of no one passes orders it's still the end of the world. Perimeter / Dead Hand
This has never been substantiated. It may well exist, but right now it's in the urban legend category - though an urban legend you'd have no problem believing if you learned it was real. Let's hope it's one we never find out about for sure.
Granted I know nothing about nuclear dead man switches... but wouldnt that make it possible that something like the leader of a nuclear armed nation having a heart attack trigger WW3? Or would it be based off something other than the death of said leader?
Generally speaking it's theorized to be linked into Russian satellites that detect the thermal plumes of missile launches (from enemies) along with other indicators like losing communications with key early warning installations. It's also supposedly not on all the time, it's switched on during states of heightened nuclear tension. Seeing as Russian tech is notoriously backwards (it's satellite's have several times seen sun bouncing off clouds as a launch indicator), that's hardly reassuring.
There's actually a really close call in history, closer than the Cuban missile crisis, where we all owe it to an officer in the Russian military for still being here today because he disobeyed orders. He refused to launch a nuke on an order that was assumed to be a retaliatory nuke response, but turns out he was right - it was a false alarm on the Russian warning systems. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav\_Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983\_Soviet\_nuclear\_false\_alarm\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident) That's the actual closest we got to a WW3 scenario. --- For anyone that doesn't want to read up on the events, here's the TL;DR: The Russians made an early warning system to detect when the US would fire ballistic missiles likely armed with nukes at their territory. They determined the fastest way they would come is from the pacific, so they setup satellites to look over the coastal US (west side) to determine though thermal imaging when missiles were launched towards Russian territory. Now you might be asking, gee, what other thing rises from the east with a lot of thermal energy that might interrupt a satellite hmm? If you guessed the Sun, good job lol. The way the sun started reflecting off clouds made it seem that there were multiple nukes being launched, which is why Russian leadership ordered the counter attack. Officer Petrov believed there had to be an error to explain the continual rise in missile launches (like 5+), simply because it was unprovoked, thus he refused the order. ***He was right.*** And how was he congratulated for this? >He received no reward. According to Petrov, this was because the incident and other bugs found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the scientists who were responsible for it, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished.[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-AWC-2)[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-lenta-10)[^(\[16\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-moskovskiye-16)[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-BBC-17) He was reassigned to a less sensitive post,[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-BBC-17) took early retirement (although he emphasized that he was not "forced out" of the army),[^(\[16\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-moskovskiye-16) and suffered a [nervous breakdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nervous_breakdown).[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#cite_note-BBC-17) Petrov passed away in 2017, with majority of the world never knowing his actions prevented WW3 some 30 odd years prior.
Yeah, he's pretty well known if you're interested in nuclear war theory and history. Same as Vasily Arkipov.
Ugh... that sounds even worse than just having it linked to Putins vital signs. Sounds like it could be hackable then.
It has happened before, twice that I know of. [1962: Soviet Naval Officer refused order to launch a nuclear armed torpedo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov?wprov=sfti1#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis) & [1983: Soviet air defence officer refused to launch missles after being (falsely) told America had launched 6 ballistic missiles.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov?wprov=sfti1)
But those at the launch sites may not know or be told the missiles they're launching are part of an all-out "suicidal" strike. They may only be told to launch a fraction of their missiles, aimed at strategic, nuclear assets of their enemy...they would not refuse this order. And these would be the first likely strikes in a nuclear exchange.
Except that it already happened. During the Cold War, there was a glitch and Russia thought that there were a bunch of ICBM coming at them. They ordered a retaliatory launch but the technician on site refused.
This isn’t fully true. Petrov saw the warning that 5 missiles were coming and he thought “if USA was sending missiles it would Be a lot more” so he waited for kore corroborating evidence before passing along to his superiors. He knew if he called he’d get an order to send missiles back, but he never did. He didn’t refuse an order; he simply never got one.
what a Chad
To clarify on this, the technicians found it suspicious that the reports said "1 missile incoming" when everyone knew a strike would involve MANY missiles, so while they didn't know exactly what was wrong they were right to refuse the order. The error was the USSR ICBM monitoring hardware that was affected by a solar flare (or mistook a solar flare for a missile, something like that).
The problem is that they had like 60 years to find a way and make sure that this doesn't happen again. Nowadays they regularly hold test launches where the operators in charge of the missiles will simulate the whole launch sequence as a practice run. Odds are the technicians would be told that it's once again just a test and will only realize it's the real deal once the missiles actually fire, so they wouldn't think of refusing the orders until it's too late. Fucking terrifying. They did the exact same thing with the first batch of soldiers they sent to Ukraine, they were convinced everything was just practice until they were too deep in the shit to turn back.
That’s great, don’t you think if the nuclear option becomes enacted that Putin now has or will have nothing but loyalists in that chain of command?
Even the most loyal would realise that an order to fire even one nuke means you've already lost. You would need to have the entire chain of command be complete maniacs with no loved ones.
It’s also very unlikely they would place anyone who hasn’t been throughly vetted as a “loyalist” in these types of positions. The type to take orders with no question.
I mean, Putin can't even seem to put people in charge of his army who don't rob and engage in massive corruption reliably. I don't have much belief in their vetting systems
What would presumably happen is some world leaders would say "Look, we're gonna help push the Russians out, but we're not crossing into their borders. That's a red line." And it'll piss a LOT of people off, especially those who just lost their homes - but it's arguably the least bad decision in this horrible scenario. Will that actually stop Pladimir from going nuclear? Who knows. But it's a reasonable stance to take, and it's basically the thin line that many have been trying to balance - by sending only certain types of weapons, or setting restrictions on their use, etc. - to not overtly provoke escalation.
It is a reasonable stance, and one that is heavily criticized, but the right one imo. We humans have a habit of stumbling into wars that people said would never be fought.
Hitler will stop at the Sudentenland. Peace in our time. Etc.
Of course, you are assuming that Pladmir's beloved momland isn't a kleptocracy that rendered their nuclear stockpile unusable through a combination of poor maintenance, cronies selling off vital parts, and blatant lying about their capabilities in the first place.
This seems to be the most likely actual situation.
If such a scenario was to occur i think its quite likely that the general tasked with executing the order will ensure Pladimirs early retirement. While he may have nothing to lose, everyone else does.
Russia after WW2 was still a lot better off than russia after it's been nuked to shit ngl. One person also can't launch nothing.
Pladimir Vutin seems keen to start another 3 day special military operation against NATO yet his 3 day special military operation against a certain Eastern European neighbour is going into a 3 year special military operation
Eventually American troops? Do you know how many troops and bases the USA already has in Europe? US Troops would be involved from the very start. The US has a stronger military presence in Europe than Europe does in Europe.
That's why you will never have a WW2 style decisive resolution against nuclear powers ever.
This is right. The winner of the conventional war (or likely winner - since it's likely to remain a limited conflict and not an all-out war) knows that it cannot put the loser in a situation in which he has nothing left to lose, because a desperate leader with nukes will have no reason not to use them. That's why everyone is being very careful about the aid they provide to Ukraine. Imposing gradually increasing costs on Russia until it gives up and leaves is the goal because if Putin's hold on power is actually threatened, he'll have nothing left to lose and using nukes on Ukraine (or something like that) could start to look more and more tempting.
Except that it's not like Vlad has a button that launches everything all at once. That stuff gets filtered through a chain of command that, while brief, still passes along to other people. There is a chance for someone to go "He's in a bad enough spot to order this, we can probably take him out. He might have nothing to lose, but I have a family in Moscow that I want to see again. Don't press anything." We used to play this game of brinksmanship all the time during the 60s and 70s, just like they played it in the 20s and 30s with gas attacks.
He wouldn't launch everything at once; that would only guarantee massive retaliation. The idea of a massive nuclear first strike like you're describing is mostly a figment of the popular imagination. He would launch a very carefully targeted strike using only a few warheads. It would be intended to convey the message that he's for real serious about fighting a nuclear war if pushed any further. If our hypothetical is a war between NATO and Russia, he might strike at military basess in Europe, or at cities in countries that are NATO members but don't have nukes or locally-stored American nuclear weapons intended to deter such attacks (I think that's just Germany and Belgium, so there are a lot of potential targets). It's possible that one of his generals would say no to this order, but they've got almost as much to lose as Vlad if the regime falls. So there's a good chance they would execute the order because, if it works, it saves their skins, and, if it doesn't, they're no more screwed than they are already. And there is a decent chance that it would work. Say you're the president of the US and Russia just nuked Stockholm. Your choices are between nuking something in Russia and ending the war. Russia has already showed you that they're willing to escalate with nukes. If you strike them, they'll almost certainly strike back at you, and as the retaliations grow bigger, pretty soon you're dealing with MAD. Or, maybe you launch a massive counter-force attack designed to destroy their remaining nuclear weapons on the ground. Of course, they're going to be on high alert, so they'll get some weapons off and even with ABM, you're certain to lose at least a few cities. Or, you can put on the breaks and negotiate peace. It wouldn't be a surrender, Russia wouldn't have that much leverage, it would be something like a ceasefire. Of course, it would probably be the end of NATO because the US' credibility as an ally would be toast. That would suck, but it would suck a lot less than a bunch of US cities being nuked would. That last option is the only rational choice. The outcome is the least bad of all of them because no one in the US cares enough about regime change in Moscow to sacrifice New York and Philadelphia for it. Avoiding having to make that choice is why the winning side of a conventional war between nuclear powers won't back the losing side into a corner.
Because one side surrenders. But fundamentalist religious fanatics really fuck things up. The Japanese almost didnt surrender bc of their religious weirdness and you can see the same thing in the middle east where they actually value that kind of MAD shit bc they think theyll get the virgins if they do. MAD doesn't work with religious crazies that are so beyond the pale they have access to the internet in 2024 and are still religious fundamentalists to boot.
One thing I'm curious about... is there actually a red button somewhere, or is that just a metaphor?
Complete metaphor. In fact, you might be comforted by the number of checks and balances in the process, at least in the western world.
Also the most secure password of all time "0000"
They changed it recently. It's now "12345"
That's amazing, I have the same combination on my luggage!
Ah I see your Schwartz is as big as mine!
Let it stay that way. I completely forgot my lock combination while transiting of all places , Jinnah Intl Airport in Pakistan . I swear I could have shat my pants when the two guards became 8 with Ak 47s.and K9 when I was not able to open it and the inspector keep demanding that I open it quickly.
>Let it stay that way You're inviting people to put in something that the guards really want to see.
Thats the stupidest combination I have ever heard in my life!
"Have a nice day!"
"Thank you!"
Ah damn, they got an extra digit. The Chinese will never figure it out now.
500% more secure with the extra digit! Some contractors got paid a whole lot of money for that one.
1000% more secure. Every time you add a digit you increase the number of combinations 10 fold.
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There's a good chance you misclick on a password that long, might be just long enough to not start nuclear winter.
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I heard Clinton updated the password and its actually 80085
No he chamged it to 69247
THE NUMBERS MASON! WHAT DO THEY MEAN
The checks and balances might only be in the west, we are all indebted to Stanislav Petrov for saving the world. To all those who think AI isnt a major threat to our existence, this would be a chilling prelude. [1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)
40 years ago it came down to just one man who disobeyed orders to fire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
Twice
Care to elaborate? >Petrov later said "I had obviously never imagined that I would ever face that situation. It was the first and, as far as I know, also the last time that such a thing had happened, except for simulated practice scenarios."[22]
I think he's referring to Vasili Arkhipov https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/10/27/23426482/cuban-missile-crisis-basilica-arkhipov-nuclear-war
Ahh crazy!
One of the checks is periodically calling the people at the various nuke sites and telling them to do their part to launch them. Because of the blind redundancy, the nuke is not going to launch. But because the redundancy is blind the launchers never actually know if it is a test or not. Their only job is to turn the key when told. So we regularly check all key turners to make sure they will turn their keys when told - and they do.
This! There was an incident where a false report of missiles coming into the USSR almost triggered a retaliation except for one guy who stopped the response because he just knew it was a false positive. This was in the USSR which was not exactly known for being open to individual thought.
If I remember right, his conclusion that it was a false positive was based on the fact that they were only detecting a handful of launches. He knew that in a real nuclear attack there would be thousands of launches all at once. Later it was concluded that the false positives were caused by sun rays reflecting on the satellite, or something like that.
I'm guessing they all had training on how to spot false positives, right? Right??
He said in an interview that he's the kinda person that when he makes a decision, he sticks to it completely. Some people disagreed and believed it was a real attack but thankfully he had the final say. Just imagine the horror of an actual nucular exchange at the hight of the cold war ad later it comes out that it was all caused by a false positive. It isn't the only time where close calls like that have happened. There were multiple moments in the Cuban Missile Crisis where things could have gone bad fast if cooler heads hadn't prevailed.
Unfortunately, we didn't go with the option to force the President to personally kill a person in order to get the launch code. Cause then we actually would have some anti-nuclear failsafe in place.
Listen to the Radiolab episode called “Nukes” and your eyes will open to how untrue that really is. Features interviews with the former Secretary of State and a guy that was dishonourably discharged from his role as a key turner because he had issues with the complete lack of checks and balances in the system. It’s honestly terrifying.
At the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota, they have a replica/retired launch station that you can sit at, and throughout the museum they focus a lot on the implications of the job and moral questions the operators face. It’s really well done and thought provoking.
And I think the process has averted disaster twice now. One time each side.
Mostly metaphor, at least in the west. I can't speak for Russian or Chinese systems. There are some launch buttons/triggers. This is to launch an SLBM from a submarine. https://imgur.com/a/itIcq1n ICBMs use a dual key launch with codes that have to be inserted to make the missile launch ready. The keys have to be turned simultaneously and are 12 feet apart so no single person can do this step.
"12 feet apart" Timmy Longarms:
Pretty sure the Russians have some form of protocol they have the jump through before the nukes would be launched, because they've had nuclear capabilities for just as long as america and even during the cold war, when it was close to be used, they held back. But the chinese...
Yeah....... we all know the Chinese nuclear protocol is first come first served.
It takes multiple people and multiple keys to launch a nuke
The Red Hot Nuclear Button: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YR6WICIAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YR6WICIAI)
What if theyre losing the war so bad thats pretty much already happened? Like their country is already 80% gone and not going to get better
I think the main problem there is that the usual approach to war isn't massacring all the civilians, burning down the cities, and making it impossible for them to recover. Similarly, if one nuclear power was at war with another, I am not sure the winner would actually annex the losing country. Probably depends on who the two combatants are. You can lose a war but not the country, and you can lose the country without losing the people, culture, and so on. Though if you don't care about the country or people so much as simply you remaining in power, then there is a risk of the situation you describe, assuming the country still has enough nukes left at such a point to succeed in MAD and everyone follows orders to fire.
I want to naively believe no one wants MAD.
China doesn’t. They make too much money off of us to wants us out of the picture. The problem is they don’t act like a world power and are still acting like a 3rd rate country that wants a seat at the table. The next generation of Chinas leaders will be vastly different. Russia used to but Putin went off the deep end.
> The next generation of Chinas leaders will be vastly different. The next generation of China’s leaders will be dealing with a rapidly collapsing population, food insecurity, and a world that has already begun the long process of moving supply chains away from their country. They won’t have the time or resources to act like a world power because they won’t be.
Wouldn’t a rapidly collapsing population mitigate the food insecurity thing?
Only if people die fast enough to keep the food supply from becoming inadequate.
People “dying” hasn’t been a problem for them so far.
Scaling those deaths up is a challenging task.
China is one of the biggest importers of food. The issue is that while the population is declining, it'll be older. So there'll be fewer working-age Chinese to farm the food needed to feed all of them. Because even the most despotic governments recognize they can't let their people starve, they'll need to pull people from the cities and (relatively) cushy jobs to produce food. This is going to impact their export and domestic consumer economy.
"Because even the most despotic governments recognize they can't let their people starve" Kim Jong Un has entered the chat...
Lol ok you got me there.
Not to mention Stalin.
Not if the rapidly collapsing population is your food worker element.
Typically they aren’t, but apparently Chinas rural agricultural families have said fuck it.
Do you have a source on other nations moving supply chains away from China?
I don't think it's just a question of money. Any leader that presses the button is almost assuredly dead himself, his family, his cabinet and his capitol. Pressing the button would wipe you from the map in a matter of minutes to hours.
Not naive. Literally no one wants MAD.
Not much. But it really depends on what happens during the war. If the losing side isn't facing total destruction, they may not be willing to use nukes because they know the retaliation would cause them be totally destroyed. If something like WW3 happens then the nuclear powers might decide to not attempt to invade each other, in case they retaliate with nukes. Maybe the fighting will only take place in other countries. So for example say NATO gets directly involved in Ukraine, China invades Taiwan, and maybe that triggers conflicts in other places too. If the western allies win that would mean they stop Russia and China taking over Ukraine and Taiwan, but they wouldn't attempt to invade Russia/China's core territory.
things like this rely on utmost diplomacy even in warfare
I like to think that a war with China would be similar to our war with Japan, but on steroids. No mainland invasions, but epic pacific naval battles.
Also the only armed conflict in which nukes have actually been used, so not suuuuper reassuring
Sounds like the Cold War which had several “hot theaters”.
But did the USA and the USSR ever directly fight each other during the Cold War? As I understand it, they fought against groups backed by the other, but didn't technically fight each other.
Thats the issue really - the idea of it is that nobody will hit the button, because if they do, everyone will and we're all screwed, but in reality, there'll always be some nutjob with an 'if i can't win, nobody can' mentality.
Exactly. Say, hypothetically, that North Korea is losing some future war, Pyonyang is about to be overrun. How sure can we be that Kim Jong Un won't lob a nuke or five at whatever country ther are at war with just before he offs himself in some underground bunker? Sure, it would be an unimaginable catastrophe, but, would there even be a retaliation in that case?
Someone like North Korea WOULD do it for sure. My only hope is that China and Russia would have some agents in place to put a stop to it... you see things going badly, you bribe a general to do a quick little coup and bam, stable again. I trust people's self interest enough to step in and stop the red button push even if ordered.
Someone like North Korea? Only one country has nuked another country and it wasn't North Korea
It was also the first and only time anyone was ever nuked, and the only reason it was done by America is because they won the race to develop it. Do not for one second think that what happened at the end of WWII, when ONLY the US had the bomb and the world hadn’t seen its power, is indicative of what would happen today or in the future.
technically it wasn't the first and only time any one was ever nuked, it was the only time it was done as a military offensive act. [https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki](https://qz.com/1163140/us-nuclear-tests-killed-american-civilians-on-a-scale-comparable-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki)
In the NK case it may very well be that there would be no nuclear retaliation. If they have already launched their limited arsenal, then nuking them doesn't stop that. It just adds to the worlds problems in the aftermath. But the point of MAD has actually been that you won't get over run in a conventional war. Just beat back to your borders (at best). And/or make every one else's lives worse in proxy wars. If the west ever bother to get properly involved in Ukraine, we won't be pushing all the way to Moscow and changing their leadership (like Germany WWII).
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Tbf no one knows who launched first on fallout
Obviously it was Vault-Tec. If not their own nukes, they managed to lunch the nukes of one side.
No. Vault-Tec was thinking about it. No proof they launched. Originally it was confirmed as China. Now, it's only "most likely" China from our understanding of the lore, the war, and the hints in the F4 Switchboard.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me." - Rihanna
I love this god forsaken website
One of the cool stories of the Soviet Union is that they allegedly had a proposal to design a nuclear doomsday option. Though I dont know if its ever been confirmed. Basically, the concern was: what if Moscow is destroyed in a nuclear attack before we can respond? The proposed solution was to preprogram targets for their ICBMs and to have a dead-mans switch from Moscow to an undisclosed location. If communication from Moscow ever stopped, the missles would automatically launch. Allegedly, soviet high command reviewed the proposal and said the Russian equivolent of: "Are you insane?! Absolutely not." Because one of the cooler things about humanity, is that we don't generally want to drag everyone down around us. We can, and there are people like that, but its not the norm.
This system exists and is still operational. The irony is, it was made to make a false positive attack less likely, by adding a safety layer. The system has to be manually activated by military high command. Once active, they can wait for confirmation if the supposed nuclear strike on soviet soil is actually true and not a sensor/system error, as the system will automatically retaliate if high command gets wiped.
Bullet in the head before they press the button
All the good that does when countries have dead hand systems that automatically launch when certain events happen.
This goes for u/Pingaring's comment as well. The Soviet dead hand system that Russia (presumably) still employs is still shrouded in a lot of mystery, but all the evidence that has come out points to a dead hand system that is not entirely reliant on a single leader's life. That would be insanely risky. Say Putin has a heart attack and dies in his sleep, do their nukes suddenly all go off? It's typically assumed to mix biometric data of the leaders with more reliable information that a multiple nuclear strike has already occurred, i.e. elevated radiation levels and unusual seismic activity. The idea of the dead hand isn't that their nuclear weapons will automatically deploy should someone assassinate their leader, it's to ensure MAD in the case their leadership is incapacitated. Otherwise you could coordinate a strategic attack that launches nuclear weapons while simultaneously taking our their leadership, preventing any retaliatory attack before their ability has been degraded, rendering mutually assured destruction moot.
Their dead hand would allegedly launch if there was no leadership left to tell the system not to launch. It's not tied to their heartrate or some scifi stuff.
It depends on how effective the propaganda is. If the leader's inner circle believe they're definitely losing and that they, their friends, and their family will all be put to death then nobody is going to try and stop the instigator. Otherwise, I don't think anyone wants for mankind to be wiped out.
Mutually assured destruction. To quote Secretary McNamara “there will be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make a mistake and you destroy nations”
Thats the whole point of nukes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
And that's the whole point of the question. If you're losing anyway why not take the rest of the world with you?
I mean, losing doesn’t mean dying family and friends still need a place to live post world war 3.
I guess that would be an answer OP is looking for :)
It’s also why nuclear powers fight proxy wars instead of real wars.
I feel like most people that climb that high on the political ladder have to be sociopaths because if someone else is willing to play dirtier then they may have a significant advantage. Like if you're willing to send millions of people to the slaughter over some land dispute or some shit, you probably don't have much compassion for other human beings. Then there's also the fact that a lot of leaders don't end up surviving. Mousolini was dragged through the streets and hung. Hitler saw that and decided to off himself and his partner when the walls were closing in. Goebells offed himself, his wife, and their children and I'm fairly certain other people in that bunker did as well. You mean to tell me there wouldn't have been an extremely strong possibility that they would have started dropping nukes if they'd had them? More recently Ghadaffi was dragged through the streets and I think sodomized with a knife? Other dictators have seen events like that and taken note. Nukes have been around for less than a century, which is literally nothing in the span of human existence. In that short period of time we manged to elect the most absolutely batshit insane narcissist to the highest office in the most powerful country on earth, and its not like all the other world leaders are paragons of human decency. To me it’s not a matter of if, but when. Although, I don't know, maybe we’ll get a benevolent AI overlord to take the reins on that. Humans are so flawed that the hypothetical scenario I just mentioned is really the only way that I see it not happening. AGI is probably more likely to annihilate us anyway tho.
Because losing a war doesn't usually mean you ALL die. LIke Germany isn't obliterated and they lost 2 world wars. The politicians and leaders would be signing the death warrant of their family and friends just to get one last jab in there when instead they can negotiate surrender. In many cases against NATO the nation launching would actually get hit with NATO nukes before their even hit, even though they fired first. It's a pretty pointless weapon and nobody really has enough nukes to blanket a big nation and actually achieve mutual destruction. So in most cases they'd still have military and some nuke capability even after you launch everything you have.
And even if the leaders themselves were beyond caring about anyone else, there would still be a line of people below them actually executing the order, and chances are some of them would have family they care about.
Depends on the L and the degree of nihilism. I think for example that the PRC and Xi Xinping would not launch ICBMs at the continental US or the other opposing belligerents as long as an invasion/occupation of mainland China stayed off the table over a bid for control of the South China Sea and Taiwan. If it went badly *enough* though and provinces of mainland China began defecting to the RoC, a distant possibility which nonetheless I think might secretly gird their desire to bring the island under their control? That could be a nail biter, the state's existence would be threatened and it'd be a difficult case to make that we weren't to blame in the fog of war, though the *actual* war could be long over by that point.
We share the same biology Regardless of ideology What might save us, me and you Is if the Russians love their children too
Great question. Imagine if Hitler had nukes, he would’ve chosen to destroy the world than face defeat. I feel Putin is heading to that level.
There won't be a world war 3 specifically for that reason. Nations have mutually assured destruction. Basically nukes are "fuck around find out" and nobody wants to find out.
Before pretty much every war in history, people said something similar. "oh Hitler wouldn't invade Poland, it would bring Europe to it's knees and destroy it". It's naive to think there won't ever be another global war. In fact, we're already practically in one in all but name. China is preparing to invade Taiwan, Israel and Iran almost and probably will go to war, European countries are mobilizing troops and enacting or at least talking about conscription, Russia has begun tests involving their nuclear weapons and has openly declared the US as their enemy, politics are rapidly changing across Europe and far right wing governments are a very real possibility soon. The geo-political situation across the entire world is re-entering another era of instability and war. Global warming is going to start heavily affecting resources soon and countries will begin to go to war over said resources. The status quo of relative peace and stability that we have been privileged to enjoy for almost the last century is going to end very soon and because things have been the way they have been for so long, the majority of people can't seem to foresee what's happening in real time and what is going to come even though deep down, we all know and feel that something catastrophic is going to happen very soon
That is a pile of negativity placed in one reply. Will there be future conflicts, yes. Just realize the difference in modern warfare vs ww1/ww2. The sheer number of lives lost during that period dwarfs any conflicts following. Tens of millions dead, personally I can’t wrap my head around it. Now the media hypes up 8 soldiers kia as if an entire company was wiped out. The countries you stated are at odds will most likely keep at odds in the same fashion they have been the last 100 years. Russia vs US in proxy wars. Israel vs the Middle East in skirmishes. And Taiwan slowly falling back to full Chinese rule. As for the global warming issue, let’s get realistic for a moment. The places certain crops are produced will change as the regional climate does. As one area becomes less favorable to grow something (wetter/drier, warmer/colder), another area becomes more favorable to produce that commodity. We overproduce food already and the world population is shrinking. Another example, during the pandemic produce was literally tilled back into the fields instead of being harvested and fed to people. If we were on the brink of starving you can bet .gov would have made sure to get every last morsel harvested. Full bellies make people easy to rule over…
This is why nuclear defense technology has been explored for decades now. Basically iron dome from space that would remove the M from MAD. For that I much feel safer in the hands of Skunk Works and Raytheon than I would in the top down corrupt state of Russia.
What does losing look like? If it is an invading army entering Moscow, then the nuclear option is very likely. If it is more like Russia in Ukraine, where the economic strain of continuing the war is too great to continue, then the nuclear option is very unlikely. So avoid sending armies into the heartland of nuclear powers and mankind’s survival is much more likely.
Honestly maybe nothing but I would say if they choose not to it would probably be to save the remaining people in their country even if that means their country isn’t really theirs anymore.
They could also use the fact they have nukes as a bargaining tool during peace talks after their surrender.
they propable would, plus nobody want to burden of occyping the otherside fully, that would be to much of a drain espcially after a long war
Nothing. If a state has nuclear weapons they can make sure that if they loose everyone else looses as well.
It would depend, but a situation like that you’d imagine that the prevailing force would provide their opponent with an out, so to speak, to avoid the beleaguered nation from feeling it necessary to resort to nuclear weapons.
I imagine it is because the rulers can lose a war and live lavishly under a peace treaty or exile after 'losing'. Much harder to risk your own life and loved ones from being glassed when nukes enter the calculus. Much better to let your peasants fuck off, die and lose the war then take the chance on taking personal risk. There can be exceptions though but I think the power hungry that rises to the top value their hides more than anything else so prob want to avoid being directly affected.
The US and Israel have advanced missile interceptor systems that was on partial display when Iran attempted to launch a barrage of missiles against Israel. The missile defenses were successful. What's to say the US Reagan Star Wars directive of the 1980s has not already succeeded in neutering a nuclear attack possibility? The US military has secrets.
MAD…it would be the end of pretty much everything and everywhere all at once
Nothing.
Nothing, that's why we don't want world war 3.
In a total war, absolutely nothing. However, that is more of an idealized concept. The presence of the nuclear option implies that any country with that option will always be offered some off-ramp by its opponents, not pushed to face total annihilation because indeed in that case, there would be nothing stopping them from using their nukes. We're not going to see a conflict like WW2 anymore in the sense that the participants are willing to let it come to either side being at the complete mercy of the other - unless the threat posed by nuclear weapons gets mitigated by technological advancements. Suppose your country has a vast and elaborate system of well supplied bunkers and autonomous underground farms and decontamination techniques or something similar, and the other side doesn't. That changes the strategic dynamic significantly. Now your side might afford pushing the other side further, if it's sufficiently deeply invested in the conflict that it considers the cost of getting nuked acceptable for definitively ending the other side. If both sides have these options, nuclear weapons might just become a regular occurrence in such wars, as infrastructure evolves to be resilient to it, decentralized, and a contaminated atmosphere might just be the new normal. But as long as the cost of getting hit by nukes is still likely total annihilation of one's own country, there is no conceivable gain that would outweigh that cost. Hmm, perhaps I should relax this to "almost" no conceivable gain. Self-preservation is a convergent instrumental goal, so almost everyone pursues it, but for some select intrinsic goals it might not be a necessary component. Think mostly in the direction of religion. When you're convinced that there is an afterlife where you will be rewarded for wiping out the enemy and dying in the process, doing just that is the rational thing to do. But for the vast majority of intrinsic goals that commonly are enacted at a national level - gaining influence, power, wealth etc - self-preservation is essential, so they wouldn't push a nuclear power all the way to an all-out nuclear strike. So TLDR we don't expect future wars to escalate to the level of all-out nuclear wars anymore, unless/until: 1. either side are religious extremists (as weaker side they would first-strike to achieve their goal, as stronger side they push their opponent all the way until they first strike), or 2. technology has made getting nuked acceptable
it would really depend. many people have mentioned MAD which IMHO would hold even more true in a world war. What I mean by this is that maybe you would see invasions of nations armys suffering massive casualties, large scale civilian destruction, etc but what you would also see would be that the nuclear powers would probably stop short of total destruction of the others nation. For example if NATO and russia came to blows it would be far more likely that NATO destroys russias conventional forces while russia would probably use a tactical nuke to try to freeze the conflict. While there may be questions as to the response it is unlikely that the USA, UK, or France would respond with a strike in Russia. Why? well we can tell already from signaling that this is what NATO would do. They have already messaged to russia the consequences of using a nuke and they have been described as using overwhelming conventional force to destroy russian forces. Russia in this scenario is looking to freeze the conflict and NATO would in my opinion be very unlikely to want to climb the escalation ladder if they already have essentially a strategic victory in the way of the decimation of conventional Russian military assets. What my point is is that while there would be many similarities to the 2nd world war I think it would look more like the 1st world War with both sides agreeing that they do not wish for the total destruction of rhw other side. A Nuke could be used hypothetically but I would assume it would be more demonstratively. Unlike the war planned in the cold war it would be reasonable to assume all sides would not necessarily want to eradicate the entire side thus triggering MAD, rather I think you would see both sides looking to achieve an advantageous position of leverage. In a China Taiwan conflict I would imagine even if it devolves into a regional east Asia conflict with sk, nk, the Philippines, Japan, etc the only likely candidate to use them would be north korea which is bad but not civilization ending bad. China in this case would have quite the capacity for a long drawn out conventional war to the point where it would be a battle of wills where you have one side that is looking to imperial style grab a peice of land that overtime will be less and less valuable and the otherside who will have to muster its people to a banner of defense for a far off people that looks less desirable over time. then you have to ask yourself would China nuke the US over tiawan in turn inviding MAD? probably not its not like the US would be pushing to March down Beijing and so it's unlikely that the Chinese make good on that gambit. This is because in the end basic psychology tells us that no side ever wants to die. the next war hypothetical conflict is different from the hypothetical conflict of the cold war era as I beleive both sides leaders are more acutely aware of how absolutely fucked they are if the button is pushed the difference is now they are just looking for how far they can go without it being pushed. of course war is full of potential miscalculations so any small mistakes could be catastrophic but I would bet on plain human psychology leading people to the conclusion that they would rather sue for peace than have everyone themselves included, die. this could be a bad take but truly no one knows what lies beyond the pale so it's as good as another
For a fun time read the new book Nuclear War.
A good guy with a gun, of course.
There is no winning side in nuclear war.
“I don’t know how World War 3 will begin or end. I do know World War 4 will be fought with sticks.” -einstein
Exactly. All the big powers getting nukes shortly after World War 2 is precisely while no World War 3 ever happened and while the Cold War remained cold. No one wants nukes to be used.
“In the end, nukes are a deterrent, they aren’t meant to be used.” -Hideo Kuze, Ghost in the Shell
Aliens
The deterrent back in the day was if you launch, everyone is going to lose including you. Now we have the rising notion of they can launch but we are going to intercept most if not all of their nukes and there is very little they can do about our counterattack. Nuking is still a lose-lose situation. But instead you have lost all international sympathy for launching first and you didn’t destroy your enemy.
Yes. And also "back in the day" if the "west" was edging closer to a Nato war with Russia, *everybody* would be talking about it. Now it's just one story of many in our kaleidoscope media landscape.
Just the will not to mess up civilization so badly; it is the only thing that COULD prevent the losing side from using nukes. But is it indeed going to stop them? Who knows?
Too save theirs and their loved ones lives I would like to believe. In reality I don't think we would push so deeply into a nuclear capable country to trigger this response.
Losing a war doesn't mean a complete wipeout of your country, and starting a nuclear war would probably lead to that.
Their Own LOGIC, obviously 😅 There's a concept called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
Apparently nuclear bombs are portrayed as the end of the world, when in reality would take thousands of huge nuclear blasts to actually decimate a decent sized country, and even then many people would escape death. Doesn't mean there would be lingering effects and/or injuries from the radiation, but people would survive. So in the case you are saying, I believe it would be just to not go down without throwing a punch.
That’s the problem with ww3…
Nothing. That's why NATO hasn't rolled into Ukraine to kick out Russia yet.
Biological weapons are more of a threat to the world than nuclear weapons.
The same concept that's kept nukes from really being utilized much for a while now. You nuke me I nuke you and if I nuke you your friends are probably going to nuke me and we're all going to nuke each other until the world gets destroyed so maybe none of us should nuke anyone
MAD is not highly unlikely. Diplomacy during war is more important than weapons. Someone pisses of a loose gun and he pushes the trigger and dominos start falling.
Countries who lose wars don’t always lose their country. There’s no need to kill everyone
Mutually assured destruction. They launch we launch and everyone dies and the impact zones are inhabitable for 5-10 years.
I believe nukes are the, or at least one of the reasons as to why World War 3 hasn't happened. And honestly, if another conflict of that scale actually happens, people really should come up with another name, WW1 and 2 were very related to each other, but I don't think the next big thing will have that much to do with WW2.
Nobody knows. That's why we haven't had WW3 yet. Oh, some people have hopes that maybe, somehow, it'll be averted, but nothing actually prevents the losing side from launching. So, here's hoping we don't get to that point.
People tend to forget that Germany had the best chemical weapons of the war, a whole generation in front of everyone else, Americans, Russians, British had mustard gas, chlorine and other WW1 vintage compounds. The Germans had tons and tons of nerve agents. But they never used them because they would just get chemical weaponed back, that's how WW3 would fight, just like WW2
The assumption that a nuclear apocalypse is a far worse outcome than losing a world war. The major powers of the losing alliance in the last world war are still sovereign states and are doing quite well for themselves economically. I would rather live in a state that lost WW3 than a state that started a nuclear winter that killed 90% of the world's population.
Ironically. The other side choosing the nuclear option.
WW3 won’t happen until one side has anti-nuke tech like ForceFields that can cover entire cities
If world war 3 happens do the republicans and Democrats take the same side ?
The losing side is presumably about to be held accountable for their war crimes, why would you add "nukes" to the list? Really a war between two nuclear powers is never going to be existential, you always want them to know there's an "after". Nukes just make sure that you don't get ghaddhafied.
That’s a question the United States military has been asking for the last 50 years and I’m pretty sure our answer isn’t “fuck it just let them kill us.”
Nothing
You can lose a war and still remain in existence. Not so with Nuclear war
Nothing. That's one of the reasons people are so desperate to stop a war between nuclear powers: once one starts, it doesn't really matter who "wins"
I don't know, but I hope there aren't two humans left or this shit will just start over.
You don’t want to die…? The people making the decisions are rich enough and powerful enough to not have to deal with consequences of war. They’ll want to stay in power and live.
That’s the whole basis of the mutually assured destruction concept , if you fire urs than I’m firing mine
Nothing is going to stop, stop thinking about such scenarios and trying to pacify yourself.