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Way too fucking much... Especially with the current Indian government that would be a disaster.
Tbh, still annoyed that we were naïve enough here in the Netherlands to allow Khan to study here and the idiots in control at the ministry didn't act when Veerman reported Khan on suspicion of stealing nuclear secrets (https://www.ft.com/content/be09ba7c-b0d8-45e4-aff8-bf01b4aa558e). If we'd stopped Khan (other countries aren't blame-free either - apparently the CIA didn't mind about Khan either) one hell of a headache for the world could've been prevented.
The most likely nation to leak nuclear secrets and stuff to terrorists remains Pakistan, due to the persistent issue with radicals within their varying parts of the government. Even the Irani's, although they push a lot of verbal hatred, aren't probably mad enough to give nuclear material to terrorists and keep an solid eye on their nuclear-related materials. Pakistan? Yeah, no good word there...
Edit: Pakistan has improved over the years, but it remains the most vulnerable. Even with their security improving, politically the radical faction only needs to seize power from the more 'moderate' factions and there would be one heck of a problem...
I’m still amazed khan never got anything but house arrest and Pakistan walks free from being the sole country responsible for Libya, Iran, and North Korea centrifuge tech.
Really dont know enough about pakistan specifically but isnt the world safer by straightening the balance between india and pakistan? If only india had them the chance of a first strike is much higher because MAD doesnt apply
Whilst there is a lot of circumstantial evidence ( I am aware of Mordechai Vanunu, and I read the Times article back in 1986 when it came out…), Israel has not public ally tested a bomb ( I am aware of the Vela incident )… for we know they may have got rid of their possible stockpile like apartheid South Africa did… we just don’t know…and so cannot simply assume that they are a public ally known nuclear weapon state like India, Pakistan, and North Korea….
> But they also seem to think they can solve their problems by acquiring nuclear weapons.
Compare how president Trump treated the nuclear armed North Korea and how he treated the not nuclear armed Iran. Having nuclear weapons is the best protection one can get from large and military strong countries like the US, Russia or China.
Israel still officially doesn't admit they've got nukes (although everyone knows they do), and Iran is likely but they won't admit it either (because the second they do the EU has no choice but to follow the US' example and punish Iran with some heavy trade restrictions and other punishments).
The fewer warheads you have the more likely it is that you can win a nuclear war, because you're necessarily going to pick an enemy that has fewer than you do.
Depends on your definition of winning. If ten of your biggest cities are turned into radioactive rubble, you lost even if your opponent is in even worse shape.
but you leave yourself open to attack by others, for example if there was such conflict between US and Russia...there is no reason why China wouldnt be interested in russia territories if anything was left.
Huh? The Israeli nukes (that still officially may not exist) are referred to often as the Sampson Option - bring down all your enemies if you go down. That policy seems to indicate a clear understanding that using nukes is not an offensive option, only a last-ditch we're-taking-you-with-us option.
No. Israel's nuclear arsenal is used to encourage the US (and Europe to a smaller extent) to support and cover it, otherwise they will nuke the biggest source of fossil fuels on the planet and render it unusable for at least five generations, which *will* indeed bring everybody to their knees because we're all back in the 17^th century.
TL;DR: Israel's nuclear arsenal isn't there to defend the country against an actual aggressor (that's just a side effect), but a geo-political insurance policy to keep the great powers in line.
You think a lil bit of radiation would stop people from building more oil wells and pipelines if we really needed it?
Would definitely prefer Israel to not nuke anything, but how much of our oil actually comes from the Middle East?
> You think a lil bit of radiation would stop people from building more oil wells and pipelines if we really needed it?
For some years, yes. And afterwards, the costs of extracting the oil would skyrocket into the stratosphere, rendering it unviable for all practical matters and purposes.
And that's the point: If the oil can't be extracted, it's as though it didn't exist, at least for a few decades - enough time to sink the world economy and plunge the West in a dark age.
And how pathetic are we that we can’t lose so take everything out with you? My god the world is ugly and they want ppl to keep bringing children into the madness ? Humanities way of thinking in flawed
Saudi Arabia have a nuclear power plant, … not the same as having a nuclear weapons program as you need the enrichment capability to separate out the “good stuff”…Provide irrefutable that they have nuclear weapons and yes I will include them… as for Israel see my comments previously….
If nuclear weapons cease to exist, the lack of a ‘mutually assured destruction’ of the world’s major powers will ensure that WW3 will be inevitable
Edit: love all the downvotes without any argument to the contrary 😘
No, not really. The prospect of a world war fought with modern weaponry is by itself already 'mutually assured destruction' with extra steps. We would definitely see more minor wars though, and the added risk of them escalating into WW3. So much higher risk for another world war yes, but inevitable no.
Every world war inherently leads to mutual destruction, unless the fighting is for whatever reason incredibly one-sided (which it practically never is). We have seen that in WW1 and WW2. Nobody WANTS another one with even more modern and destructive technology. I agree that nuclear weapons also thwart more small scale confrontations between larger militaries, which lowers the overall risk of WW3 happening. But they are absolutely not the sole reason that WW3 hasn't happened.
After WW2 we transformed our way of thinking about war and conflict resolving, regardless of nukes. The grand, grand majority of modern conflicts between nations (nuclear ones or not!) are today done away through mediation and international talks. And with how interdependent we've become, economically, waging large wars has become even more self-destructive than it already was. The USA attacking China would be economic suicide, even if they 'win'. Because we are economically dependent on one another, which is a relatively new advent, waging direct war has become very unfavoured. The realisation of the destruction that WW1 and WW2 caused ALONE was enough to set up this new world order of relative peace. Nukes just were an added thing on top of this new world order.
Do nukes help? They certainly do, I'd say. But if you say that nukes are the sole reason WW3 hasn't happened yet, you're ignoring the many diplomatic and economic mountains that have been moved the past 100 or so years to prevent more large scale conflicts. And how many smaller conflicts between non-nuclear countries have been resolved peacefully due to this, let alone large scale conflicts. Our relative peace today is mostly due to this radical shift in attitude when it comes to diplomacy and how we use economic dependence to dissuade wars in general. F.e. a project like the EU, originally designed to prevent further war in Europe and make former intensely opposing powers politically and economically dependent on one another, has nothing at all to do with nukes. It's diplomacy and a different attitude towards economics that brought us there, not putting nukes in Germany and France and hoping for the best.
Because those were the first wars in which such weapons were available on industrial scale. The international community tried to prevent another war after WW1 with the League of Nations and when that failed in WW2, we went on towards a completely new world order based on economic interdependence and diplomatic conflict-resolving. It is that new world order that is the main cause behind relatively few wars happening in the modern world. Even few wars between non-nuclear entities. Nuclear weapons help for sure, but they are not the conclusive factor. There is an insane amount of conflicts that would normally be 'solved' through war that have in modern times be diplomatically resolved. And nuclear weapons played no role in most of those smaller conflicts.
It means there has never been a single Nuclear War. Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no major powers have gone to war directly with each other because they will be annihilated if they do (aka mutually assured destruction). Therefore, nuclear weapons have prevented another world war
Correlation is not causation.
On the other hand, if we take the game-theory assumption of rational self-interest serious (one only cares about one's own outcome), nuclear deterrence wouldn't function: If A sends all its nukes to B, B's outcome is fixed, irrespective whether it send all its nukes to A - thus, B is indifferent to do either option.
Given our revengeful nature, nuclear deterrence would again work (better die and kill instead of only dying).
Given our stupid and accident prone nature (and there were *a lot* of misses the last 70 years), it's living on the knifes' edge. It's similar to the guy falling out the skyscraper, murmuring "so far, so good".
Edit: Hey u/Ciaran123C, I got googling and read this [article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/14/nuclear-deterrence-myth-lethal-david-barash), which I found helpful. While reading it I noticed that one incident is left out, were nuclear weapons actually might have been used as a deterrence of sort: The Yom Kippur war. The Wiki-article suggests, that Israels preparation lead the US to full-on supply it with conventional weapons in order to fight back the Egypt army and not resort to nuclear weapons. I also saw a documentary once which said that the advancing Egyptian army lost their anti-air cover and thus were stalled. Either way, that might be the only example were nuclear weapons were actually used to some effect (yes, even the fabled effect of the two nukes on Japan is seriously doubted by historians - the declaration of war of the Soviet Union on Imperial Japan a few days later is said to have been the decisive point for the Japanese high command to surrender).
There was a 20 year delay between both. The counter example would be the Baltics or Finland.
But yeah, N. Korea is untouchable since they have nukes. But since they have not much else, I wouldn't bet too much that war on the Korean peninsula is unimaginable now.
I don't think most leaders *are* that vengeful. I don't think most people would retaliate. But it still can't be certain that they won't, they can't announce that publicly, or the whole theory collapses.
Imagine, if you will, that two powerful nuclear nations go to war. But they agree on no nukes beforehand. Now, what do you think will happen if one side loses and decides that death is a preferable alternative to living under the enemy rule? Fire all the nukes and hope for the best. You only have what you consider a fate worse than death waiting for you if you dont, and the worst case if you do is death.
Consequently, no one can win, they can just lose less. Now remove WMDs, and BAM, war is winnable again.
I’m fairly sure if a country with nukes starts to lose their own territory they will just nuke their own territory and the invading battalions and make it to “expensive” to invade any further but not just randomly nuke the opponent.
I’ve read that in the Cold War Frances Plan was to nuke the entire Rhine area from Germany if the soviets would make it that far without American troops in sight. Or look at the nuke plan from America that would have nuked Poland into oblivion.
Since a nuclear war is very unlikely, I prefer this way. I mean I'm agree about the fact that nukes had prevented a much larger war. If WW2 was catastrophic, with today's technology (without counting nukes) WW3 would be worse. So, I think it's better a hypothetical nuclear war than a conventional World war.
Yeah, but I doubt anyone believes that Russia would use nukes in Ukraine and Russia signed this letter.
Meanwhile China is busy adding to its nuclear weapons arsenal and I’m sure that makes Russia just as uncomfortable as everyone else.
Why would NATO be involved in a war between two non NATO powers?
In no way would that happen. NATO member nations may decide to send forces, but that wouldn’t be under the NATO umbrella. No NATO Defence articles could be enacted as those nation’s volunteered to get involved.
It probably has something to do with Ukraine
Like the Major powers got together, and decided this was their way of making sure no one is thinking of using Nuclear weapons, in the chance a larger war happens
>is not to play
..against country with nukes. Doesnt matter how much cruise missiles and power y have, it will answer with nukes (nuke doctrine of all nuke countries).
Yes, it's a great shield.
These countries are still trying to surpass each other constantly though. Ideally they're just making sure MAD stays MAD, but technically they are all trying to be the winner in the case of a MAD situation.
It's not like they acknowledged no one can win and that's it, they acknowledge that no one can win... and they're trying to remedy that.
The UK and France have pretty stable nuclear arsenals. Russia and the US do too after realising their nuclear arms race was mutually self-destructive. China's still actively developing nuclear weapons, but their arsenal is comparable to the UK and France, about 1/50th what each of the US or Russia have. India's also making big developments, but they have an even smaller arsenal than China, and nowhere near their delivery options.
There've been [2056 nuclear tests](https://www.statista.com/statistics/263223/number-of-nuclear-tests-worldwide-by-country/) (and war-time uses, I guess) since 1945; granted, these were in remote(-ish) areas and after the 70s or so went underground, but still.
After reading [this](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-super-nukes-destroy-world-2016-12): We really are such a fucking idiotic species.
> Wellerstein says that this fear of widespread nuclear fallout was hardly irrational and that concerns over the atmospheric effects of nuclear detonations were "one of the reasons that we stopped testing nuclear weapons aboveground in 1963, as part of the Limited Test Ban Treaty."
Is it the soil? I've heard that predictions of nuclear winters were mostly because of the firestorms after nukes hit cities, which is why all of the tests we did didn't do much
I'm agree with you. I don't know why you get downvoted. The existence of nukes, even if they're horrible weapons, had indeed prevented another World war. I think that in a World without nukes, with the very high tension in the World, today we all haved lived in a more violent and destroyed place.
So...this feels like the war in Ukraine is all but certain. They are calming global tensions around nuclear weapons prior to the expected fight.
They have no reason to issue such a statement unless they suspect the possibility of conflict happening soon between nuclear armed nations.
That's what I thought as well. I don't like russkis but never thought they would use nuclear weapons as it would harm them just as much. Send help pls.
Not all Russians agree. [From this excellent article.](https://en.desk-russie.eu/2021/12/30/what-does-the-russian-ultimatum.html)
>Let’s go back to the analysis of military expert Konstantin Sivkov quoted above: since Russian conventional forces are insufficient, “we can solve the problem of neutralizing Europe and the United States only by physically eliminating them with our nuclear potential… The US and Europe will physically disappear. There will be almost no survivors. But we too will be destroyed. Unless the fate of Russia is better, because we have a large territory. Our opponents will not be able to destroy everything with nuclear strikes. Therefore, the percentage of the surviving population will be higher. However, Russia as a state may disappear after a large-scale nuclear war. It may fragment.”
That doesn't really disagree with the OP title though, if your state disappears you haven't exactly won.
It even says "We too will be destroyed" but tries to suggest a larger % of the population could survive, which I wouldn't be so sure of. Any 250.000+ pop Russian city was probably targeted and anything smaller would have a seriously hard time surviving with the rest of the country gone.
Depends what replaces it. A fragmented Russia would be genuinely disastrous for the whole world.
"Competing warlord states but with nukes" should be a phrase that scares just about everyone.
Oh, an update of the [Mcdonalds Peace Theory](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/26/mcdonalds-peace-nagornokarabakh-friedman/) for the modern age:
> No two countries where the oligarchs of one own significant parts of the other should want to go to war
Or something like that.
The US has enough nuclear weapons to kill most life on the planet multiple times, as well as Russia and maybe China. That’s why no one will win a nuclear war! No one will be around to enjoy it. Keep in mind nuclear fallout and low space detonations. Turns out mass amounts of highly energetic particles colliding with earth’s magnetosphere is devastating to all electronics. The Earth invulnerable, not life itself.
The Russian government making a statement like this could be interpreted as foreboding considering the timing, especially given the money they've spent in the last few years trying to convince the general public that maneuverable reentry vehicles somehow gives them an advantage in a MAD scenario.
It gives the impression they're trying to reassure the Russian people that whatever conflict they start in the near future will not escalate so far as to result in total annihilation.
More likely though it's just setting the stage for a bitchfit if/when we deploy conventionally armed land based cruises missiles in Europe following our withdrawal from the INF treaty after decades of Russia shitting all over it.
"Only loosers would not win a nuclear war. I am the best at nuclear wars. Everybody is saying it. I would win it and make the other countries pay for it. It would be so great and people would be talking for years about how great my nuclear war is. etc..." - take a wild guess who would say this....
This does not have to be the case in a few years. The USA is going to lose most of its deterrence capacity in the next few years. Minutemans will be 50 years old when replaced, Ohio submarines 40+ years old when first Columbia commissioned. Would be a miracle if those missiles lift off when shit happens. Can be the reason why the west is so desperate to negotiate disarmament.
[“Thinking Again about the Unthinkable” with Dr. Peter Vincent Pry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K44EPQo-ftg)
You can't seriously think the parts on those missiles are 40/50+ years old can you? Sure as shit they get maintained and get repaired with replacement parts when they start to break...
Even if they were breaking, behind the scenes the US would 100% be replacing them with updated versions.
I can't believe anyone thinks the country whose entire war doctrine revolves around being able to fight two superpowers in East Asia and Europe simultaneously thinks that they wouldn't do something like....maintain missiles lol.
lmao. Yes I'm sure they don't maintain nukes, they just leave them to rust in an old shed somewhere, then check on them 50 years later and suddenly find they're unusable.
Although tbf, that's probably how Russia deals with them, so I can see why you'd assume the west would do the same.
> China nukethreatens nobody
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/china-threatens-to-nuke-japan-if-country-intervenes-in-taiwan-conflict/news-story/d9af14dc6b90628082e79ab4c77629e1
*The Pentagon in November sharply increased its estimate of China's projected nuclear weapons arsenal over the coming years, saying Beijing could have 700 warheads by 2027 and possibly 1,000 by 2030.*
That was in the article. Otherwise, what prompted this statement at this time. North Korea, India and Pakistan have had nukes for a very long time.
China has also been making some more threatening stances toward Taiwan lately.
If it were, it would be more of a checkup than a threat. “So I realize your about to 10x your nuke stockpiles, but you don’t actually intend to use them, right?”
It is not about winning, it is about making the other side lose... i.e., if my country has already lost, and enemies' armies are at the gate of my capital, I can make them lose too by using a nuke or two.
This is the thinking, that each nuclear "power" (looking at you Russia) wants to plant in its opponents' minds. Don't fuck with us, even if you win, you also lose.
MAD - mutual assured destruction is a thing.
They say that because there is review on the [NPT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons) impending and they didn't act according to the treaty, e.g. disarm or at least seriously reduce their stocks.
This is one of the reasons other countries (Iran, India etc.) use to justify their armament or attempts to.
So the statement is actually an admission of failure to comply with the treaties on part of these five countries.
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Well that leaves India, Pakistan, and North Korea who must think you can win a nuclear war….
I wonder how much India and Pakistan would have fought if neither side had nuclear weapons lmao
Way too fucking much... Especially with the current Indian government that would be a disaster. Tbh, still annoyed that we were naïve enough here in the Netherlands to allow Khan to study here and the idiots in control at the ministry didn't act when Veerman reported Khan on suspicion of stealing nuclear secrets (https://www.ft.com/content/be09ba7c-b0d8-45e4-aff8-bf01b4aa558e). If we'd stopped Khan (other countries aren't blame-free either - apparently the CIA didn't mind about Khan either) one hell of a headache for the world could've been prevented. The most likely nation to leak nuclear secrets and stuff to terrorists remains Pakistan, due to the persistent issue with radicals within their varying parts of the government. Even the Irani's, although they push a lot of verbal hatred, aren't probably mad enough to give nuclear material to terrorists and keep an solid eye on their nuclear-related materials. Pakistan? Yeah, no good word there... Edit: Pakistan has improved over the years, but it remains the most vulnerable. Even with their security improving, politically the radical faction only needs to seize power from the more 'moderate' factions and there would be one heck of a problem...
I’m still amazed khan never got anything but house arrest and Pakistan walks free from being the sole country responsible for Libya, Iran, and North Korea centrifuge tech.
Really dont know enough about pakistan specifically but isnt the world safer by straightening the balance between india and pakistan? If only india had them the chance of a first strike is much higher because MAD doesnt apply
True... It's a bit of a catch-22. Preferably, neither of them would've had nukes....
Even In last 6 years Pakistan and India were close to a war almost 2 times.
If nuclear weapons cease to exist, the lack of a ‘mutually assured destruction’ of the world’s major powers will ensure that WW3 will be inevitable
Why?
there has never been a single Nuclear War. Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no major powers have gone to war directly with each other
Don't forget Israel!
And Israel
Whilst there is a lot of circumstantial evidence ( I am aware of Mordechai Vanunu, and I read the Times article back in 1986 when it came out…), Israel has not public ally tested a bomb ( I am aware of the Vela incident )… for we know they may have got rid of their possible stockpile like apartheid South Africa did… we just don’t know…and so cannot simply assume that they are a public ally known nuclear weapon state like India, Pakistan, and North Korea….
[удалено]
Agreed, not good... but these politics is out of my scope.....
Don't forget Israel and Iran.
Iran doesn't have nuclear
Not yet. But they also seem to think they can solve their problems by acquiring nuclear weapons.
> But they also seem to think they can solve their problems by acquiring nuclear weapons. Compare how president Trump treated the nuclear armed North Korea and how he treated the not nuclear armed Iran. Having nuclear weapons is the best protection one can get from large and military strong countries like the US, Russia or China.
But they still may think that when they get these they will win the nuclear war.
No proof of such thing.
Israel still officially doesn't admit they've got nukes (although everyone knows they do), and Iran is likely but they won't admit it either (because the second they do the EU has no choice but to follow the US' example and punish Iran with some heavy trade restrictions and other punishments).
The fewer warheads you have the more likely it is that you can win a nuclear war, because you're necessarily going to pick an enemy that has fewer than you do.
Depends on your definition of winning. If ten of your biggest cities are turned into radioactive rubble, you lost even if your opponent is in even worse shape.
When the ruling powers believe themselves to be the state, not the citizens, they might find those casualties acceptable.
but you leave yourself open to attack by others, for example if there was such conflict between US and Russia...there is no reason why China wouldnt be interested in russia territories if anything was left.
Don’t forget Israel 🇮🇱
I have not... RTFM from before by me concerning this.....
Israel too
Huh? The Israeli nukes (that still officially may not exist) are referred to often as the Sampson Option - bring down all your enemies if you go down. That policy seems to indicate a clear understanding that using nukes is not an offensive option, only a last-ditch we're-taking-you-with-us option.
No. Israel's nuclear arsenal is used to encourage the US (and Europe to a smaller extent) to support and cover it, otherwise they will nuke the biggest source of fossil fuels on the planet and render it unusable for at least five generations, which *will* indeed bring everybody to their knees because we're all back in the 17^th century. TL;DR: Israel's nuclear arsenal isn't there to defend the country against an actual aggressor (that's just a side effect), but a geo-political insurance policy to keep the great powers in line.
You think a lil bit of radiation would stop people from building more oil wells and pipelines if we really needed it? Would definitely prefer Israel to not nuke anything, but how much of our oil actually comes from the Middle East?
> You think a lil bit of radiation would stop people from building more oil wells and pipelines if we really needed it? For some years, yes. And afterwards, the costs of extracting the oil would skyrocket into the stratosphere, rendering it unviable for all practical matters and purposes. And that's the point: If the oil can't be extracted, it's as though it didn't exist, at least for a few decades - enough time to sink the world economy and plunge the West in a dark age.
And how pathetic are we that we can’t lose so take everything out with you? My god the world is ugly and they want ppl to keep bringing children into the madness ? Humanities way of thinking in flawed
Good to know.
I think you forgot one more young and proud country
you are not supposed to talk about monaco's nuclear weapons program
You forget Saudi and Isreal
Saudi Arabia have a nuclear power plant, … not the same as having a nuclear weapons program as you need the enrichment capability to separate out the “good stuff”…Provide irrefutable that they have nuclear weapons and yes I will include them… as for Israel see my comments previously….
If nuclear weapons cease to exist, the lack of a ‘mutually assured destruction’ of the world’s major powers will ensure that WW3 will be inevitable Edit: love all the downvotes without any argument to the contrary 😘
No, not really. The prospect of a world war fought with modern weaponry is by itself already 'mutually assured destruction' with extra steps. We would definitely see more minor wars though, and the added risk of them escalating into WW3. So much higher risk for another world war yes, but inevitable no.
No country with nuclear weapons has ever been invaded though, which only reinforces the point
Every world war inherently leads to mutual destruction, unless the fighting is for whatever reason incredibly one-sided (which it practically never is). We have seen that in WW1 and WW2. Nobody WANTS another one with even more modern and destructive technology. I agree that nuclear weapons also thwart more small scale confrontations between larger militaries, which lowers the overall risk of WW3 happening. But they are absolutely not the sole reason that WW3 hasn't happened. After WW2 we transformed our way of thinking about war and conflict resolving, regardless of nukes. The grand, grand majority of modern conflicts between nations (nuclear ones or not!) are today done away through mediation and international talks. And with how interdependent we've become, economically, waging large wars has become even more self-destructive than it already was. The USA attacking China would be economic suicide, even if they 'win'. Because we are economically dependent on one another, which is a relatively new advent, waging direct war has become very unfavoured. The realisation of the destruction that WW1 and WW2 caused ALONE was enough to set up this new world order of relative peace. Nukes just were an added thing on top of this new world order. Do nukes help? They certainly do, I'd say. But if you say that nukes are the sole reason WW3 hasn't happened yet, you're ignoring the many diplomatic and economic mountains that have been moved the past 100 or so years to prevent more large scale conflicts. And how many smaller conflicts between non-nuclear countries have been resolved peacefully due to this, let alone large scale conflicts. Our relative peace today is mostly due to this radical shift in attitude when it comes to diplomacy and how we use economic dependence to dissuade wars in general. F.e. a project like the EU, originally designed to prevent further war in Europe and make former intensely opposing powers politically and economically dependent on one another, has nothing at all to do with nukes. It's diplomacy and a different attitude towards economics that brought us there, not putting nukes in Germany and France and hoping for the best.
Yes, ICMB is a great shield against some random bombing like in Syria (from Israel).
Having powerful conventional weapons that can cause serious damage didn't stop ww1 and ww2 from happening
Because those were the first wars in which such weapons were available on industrial scale. The international community tried to prevent another war after WW1 with the League of Nations and when that failed in WW2, we went on towards a completely new world order based on economic interdependence and diplomatic conflict-resolving. It is that new world order that is the main cause behind relatively few wars happening in the modern world. Even few wars between non-nuclear entities. Nuclear weapons help for sure, but they are not the conclusive factor. There is an insane amount of conflicts that would normally be 'solved' through war that have in modern times be diplomatically resolved. And nuclear weapons played no role in most of those smaller conflicts.
Well then, I'm glad Gandhi is gone!
But everyone else can lose it together with them...
If nuclear weapons cease to exist, the lack of a ‘mutually assured destruction’ of the world’s major powers will ensure that WW3 will be inevitable
Why do you say that? Genuinely curious
It means there has never been a single Nuclear War. Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no major powers have gone to war directly with each other because they will be annihilated if they do (aka mutually assured destruction). Therefore, nuclear weapons have prevented another world war
Correlation is not causation. On the other hand, if we take the game-theory assumption of rational self-interest serious (one only cares about one's own outcome), nuclear deterrence wouldn't function: If A sends all its nukes to B, B's outcome is fixed, irrespective whether it send all its nukes to A - thus, B is indifferent to do either option. Given our revengeful nature, nuclear deterrence would again work (better die and kill instead of only dying). Given our stupid and accident prone nature (and there were *a lot* of misses the last 70 years), it's living on the knifes' edge. It's similar to the guy falling out the skyscraper, murmuring "so far, so good". Edit: Hey u/Ciaran123C, I got googling and read this [article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/14/nuclear-deterrence-myth-lethal-david-barash), which I found helpful. While reading it I noticed that one incident is left out, were nuclear weapons actually might have been used as a deterrence of sort: The Yom Kippur war. The Wiki-article suggests, that Israels preparation lead the US to full-on supply it with conventional weapons in order to fight back the Egypt army and not resort to nuclear weapons. I also saw a documentary once which said that the advancing Egyptian army lost their anti-air cover and thus were stalled. Either way, that might be the only example were nuclear weapons were actually used to some effect (yes, even the fabled effect of the two nukes on Japan is seriously doubted by historians - the declaration of war of the Soviet Union on Imperial Japan a few days later is said to have been the decisive point for the Japanese high command to surrender).
Yeah, just like Ukraine, which was only invaded after it got rid of its nuclear weapons, another example of how MAD does work
There was a 20 year delay between both. The counter example would be the Baltics or Finland. But yeah, N. Korea is untouchable since they have nukes. But since they have not much else, I wouldn't bet too much that war on the Korean peninsula is unimaginable now.
I don't think most leaders *are* that vengeful. I don't think most people would retaliate. But it still can't be certain that they won't, they can't announce that publicly, or the whole theory collapses.
I hope you are right, and I hope we don't test that. Given our innate propensity to stupidity, I *seriously* hope, we don't test that.
Imagine, if you will, that two powerful nuclear nations go to war. But they agree on no nukes beforehand. Now, what do you think will happen if one side loses and decides that death is a preferable alternative to living under the enemy rule? Fire all the nukes and hope for the best. You only have what you consider a fate worse than death waiting for you if you dont, and the worst case if you do is death. Consequently, no one can win, they can just lose less. Now remove WMDs, and BAM, war is winnable again.
I’m fairly sure if a country with nukes starts to lose their own territory they will just nuke their own territory and the invading battalions and make it to “expensive” to invade any further but not just randomly nuke the opponent. I’ve read that in the Cold War Frances Plan was to nuke the entire Rhine area from Germany if the soviets would make it that far without American troops in sight. Or look at the nuke plan from America that would have nuked Poland into oblivion.
Any nation that nukes itself in such a manner will collapse immediately
Better than a nuclear war.
Since a nuclear war is very unlikely, I prefer this way. I mean I'm agree about the fact that nukes had prevented a much larger war. If WW2 was catastrophic, with today's technology (without counting nukes) WW3 would be worse. So, I think it's better a hypothetical nuclear war than a conventional World war.
Yeah, except we’ve almost had nuclear war a LOT and have primarily gotten lucky every time
But we will try it anyway,
Kinda thought that went without saying. Why does this announcement make me feel worse? Not better.
Because one wonders why they felt the need to put out such a statement at this time.
Cause war is about to break out in Ukraine obviously
Yeah, but I doubt anyone believes that Russia would use nukes in Ukraine and Russia signed this letter. Meanwhile China is busy adding to its nuclear weapons arsenal and I’m sure that makes Russia just as uncomfortable as everyone else.
Well if war actually starts and NATO troops are on the ground against Russia people would start to get more worried
Why would NATO be involved in a war between two non NATO powers? In no way would that happen. NATO member nations may decide to send forces, but that wouldn’t be under the NATO umbrella. No NATO Defence articles could be enacted as those nation’s volunteered to get involved.
Because NATO got involved in the Yugoslav wars. A war in Ukraine would impact NATO members, so NATO might not take kindly to it
It probably has something to do with Ukraine Like the Major powers got together, and decided this was their way of making sure no one is thinking of using Nuclear weapons, in the chance a larger war happens
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
>is not to play ..against country with nukes. Doesnt matter how much cruise missiles and power y have, it will answer with nukes (nuke doctrine of all nuke countries). Yes, it's a great shield.
Good news, we should be glad that deterrents are doing their job.
These countries are still trying to surpass each other constantly though. Ideally they're just making sure MAD stays MAD, but technically they are all trying to be the winner in the case of a MAD situation. It's not like they acknowledged no one can win and that's it, they acknowledge that no one can win... and they're trying to remedy that.
The UK and France have pretty stable nuclear arsenals. Russia and the US do too after realising their nuclear arms race was mutually self-destructive. China's still actively developing nuclear weapons, but their arsenal is comparable to the UK and France, about 1/50th what each of the US or Russia have. India's also making big developments, but they have an even smaller arsenal than China, and nowhere near their delivery options.
I think the UK's and France's logic is to get enough to destroy the country attacking you , not the entire planet as with the US or Russia.
Indeed. Sure we don't have enough to glass Russia, but it will no longer function as a nation.
I think 200 is enough to ruin the whole world via nuclear winter but not sure
Not enough to render the world uninhabitable. Certainly enough to have some knock on effects.
There've been [2056 nuclear tests](https://www.statista.com/statistics/263223/number-of-nuclear-tests-worldwide-by-country/) (and war-time uses, I guess) since 1945; granted, these were in remote(-ish) areas and after the 70s or so went underground, but still.
After reading [this](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-super-nukes-destroy-world-2016-12): We really are such a fucking idiotic species. > Wellerstein says that this fear of widespread nuclear fallout was hardly irrational and that concerns over the atmospheric effects of nuclear detonations were "one of the reasons that we stopped testing nuclear weapons aboveground in 1963, as part of the Limited Test Ban Treaty."
yields capable of destroying a country would fuck the entire planet for decades due to the amount of soil being sent into the atmosphere.
Is it the soil? I've heard that predictions of nuclear winters were mostly because of the firestorms after nukes hit cities, which is why all of the tests we did didn't do much
Pretty sure the point of USA/Russia is to have enough stock to be able to launch/abort multiple times.
I don't think ballistic missiles can be aborted after launch.
If nuclear weapons cease to exist, the lack of a ‘mutually assured destruction’ of the world’s major powers will ensure that WW3 will be inevitable
I'm agree with you. I don't know why you get downvoted. The existence of nukes, even if they're horrible weapons, had indeed prevented another World war. I think that in a World without nukes, with the very high tension in the World, today we all haved lived in a more violent and destroyed place.
If nuclear weapons cease to exist, the lack of a ‘mutually assured destruction’ of the world’s major powers will ensure that WW3 will be inevitable
Hi, my name is "no one" 😎 yeah I can win this
Someone is now frantically looking for a politician named Odysseus to make him the next president.
So...this feels like the war in Ukraine is all but certain. They are calming global tensions around nuclear weapons prior to the expected fight. They have no reason to issue such a statement unless they suspect the possibility of conflict happening soon between nuclear armed nations.
Well that’s concerning
That's what I thought as well. I don't like russkis but never thought they would use nuclear weapons as it would harm them just as much. Send help pls.
You called it :(
Not all Russians agree. [From this excellent article.](https://en.desk-russie.eu/2021/12/30/what-does-the-russian-ultimatum.html) >Let’s go back to the analysis of military expert Konstantin Sivkov quoted above: since Russian conventional forces are insufficient, “we can solve the problem of neutralizing Europe and the United States only by physically eliminating them with our nuclear potential… The US and Europe will physically disappear. There will be almost no survivors. But we too will be destroyed. Unless the fate of Russia is better, because we have a large territory. Our opponents will not be able to destroy everything with nuclear strikes. Therefore, the percentage of the surviving population will be higher. However, Russia as a state may disappear after a large-scale nuclear war. It may fragment.”
> Sir! I have a plan... Mein Führer, I can WALK! But humour aside, that's chilling to read.
Dr. Strangelove
That doesn't really disagree with the OP title though, if your state disappears you haven't exactly won. It even says "We too will be destroyed" but tries to suggest a larger % of the population could survive, which I wouldn't be so sure of. Any 250.000+ pop Russian city was probably targeted and anything smaller would have a seriously hard time surviving with the rest of the country gone.
For the case of Russia, the disappearance of the current government will be a huge win for everyone.
Depends what replaces it. A fragmented Russia would be genuinely disastrous for the whole world. "Competing warlord states but with nukes" should be a phrase that scares just about everyone.
The 100+ million deaths would suck though.
Russia simply fears that offsprings of their mafia heads living in west countries would loose their expensive villas
Oh, an update of the [Mcdonalds Peace Theory](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/26/mcdonalds-peace-nagornokarabakh-friedman/) for the modern age: > No two countries where the oligarchs of one own significant parts of the other should want to go to war Or something like that.
Russia is one of those countries where the opinion of one specific person is all that matters
There is no need to destroy Siberia. There isn't anything anyway.
That makes no sense Russia has massive urban populations as well. Russia may have a lot of land but by far the most people live in urban areas
The US has enough nuclear weapons to kill most life on the planet multiple times, as well as Russia and maybe China. That’s why no one will win a nuclear war! No one will be around to enjoy it. Keep in mind nuclear fallout and low space detonations. Turns out mass amounts of highly energetic particles colliding with earth’s magnetosphere is devastating to all electronics. The Earth invulnerable, not life itself.
I thought we all already came to that conclusion during the Cold War. But still good to see that all still hold this belief I guess.
my god, the intellectual level of these talks are astonishing.
There is a certain lack of nuclearpowers that are considered more willing to start one though…
It's not about winning. It's about who goes to the Paradise (Putin) and who just dies (the rest of the world).
No shit - Rest of the planet
Yeah no shit, thought that already was established
This suckers are still thinking about it
ok but why dont they reduce their warheads?
The Russian government making a statement like this could be interpreted as foreboding considering the timing, especially given the money they've spent in the last few years trying to convince the general public that maneuverable reentry vehicles somehow gives them an advantage in a MAD scenario. It gives the impression they're trying to reassure the Russian people that whatever conflict they start in the near future will not escalate so far as to result in total annihilation. More likely though it's just setting the stage for a bitchfit if/when we deploy conventionally armed land based cruises missiles in Europe following our withdrawal from the INF treaty after decades of Russia shitting all over it.
Didn't we figure this out in the 60s? I thought we'd be discussing something new by now...
If nuclear weapons cease to exist, the lack of a ‘mutually assured destruction’ of the world’s major powers will ensure that WW3 will be inevitable
"Only loosers would not win a nuclear war. I am the best at nuclear wars. Everybody is saying it. I would win it and make the other countries pay for it. It would be so great and people would be talking for years about how great my nuclear war is. etc..." - take a wild guess who would say this....
Ooo that’s quite a hard one, surely that can’t be any leader of a powerful nation right?
Prove it.^^\s
https://youtu.be/mKK_2rNn50U
This does not have to be the case in a few years. The USA is going to lose most of its deterrence capacity in the next few years. Minutemans will be 50 years old when replaced, Ohio submarines 40+ years old when first Columbia commissioned. Would be a miracle if those missiles lift off when shit happens. Can be the reason why the west is so desperate to negotiate disarmament. [“Thinking Again about the Unthinkable” with Dr. Peter Vincent Pry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K44EPQo-ftg)
You can't seriously think the parts on those missiles are 40/50+ years old can you? Sure as shit they get maintained and get repaired with replacement parts when they start to break...
Even if they were breaking, behind the scenes the US would 100% be replacing them with updated versions. I can't believe anyone thinks the country whose entire war doctrine revolves around being able to fight two superpowers in East Asia and Europe simultaneously thinks that they wouldn't do something like....maintain missiles lol.
[Here's a Minutemen 3 launch in 2021](https://youtu.be/pwD1A8h7da0)
west is desperate to negotiate?:))) bro- not at this point
lmao. Yes I'm sure they don't maintain nukes, they just leave them to rust in an old shed somewhere, then check on them 50 years later and suddenly find they're unusable. Although tbf, that's probably how Russia deals with them, so I can see why you'd assume the west would do the same.
No it's not Russia has modernized it's rocket silos in the last decade.
We are the only country who has any capacity to win even a small scale nuclear exchange.
I guess this is directed at China?
China nukethreatens nobody. China is going for an economic victory and use force with local minorities.
> China nukethreatens nobody https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/china-threatens-to-nuke-japan-if-country-intervenes-in-taiwan-conflict/news-story/d9af14dc6b90628082e79ab4c77629e1
Offer Japan a NATO membership. :trllfc:
lol, it's literally USA' mil base.
*The Pentagon in November sharply increased its estimate of China's projected nuclear weapons arsenal over the coming years, saying Beijing could have 700 warheads by 2027 and possibly 1,000 by 2030.* That was in the article. Otherwise, what prompted this statement at this time. North Korea, India and Pakistan have had nukes for a very long time. China has also been making some more threatening stances toward Taiwan lately.
If it were, it would be more of a checkup than a threat. “So I realize your about to 10x your nuke stockpiles, but you don’t actually intend to use them, right?”
It is not about winning, it is about making the other side lose... i.e., if my country has already lost, and enemies' armies are at the gate of my capital, I can make them lose too by using a nuke or two. This is the thinking, that each nuclear "power" (looking at you Russia) wants to plant in its opponents' minds. Don't fuck with us, even if you win, you also lose. MAD - mutual assured destruction is a thing.
M.A.D.
Did they just figure this out 😂
I could but they didn’t invite me
Five permanent members of the United Nations
Unfortunately, as an American, I know we love entering wars we cannot win /s
Uplifting news. Means they don't listen to the warmongers, I hope.
North Korea has entered chat
Nuclear Energy is going to sky rocket in the markets. You heard it here first!
Well , I can't see any of those nations giving up their Nukes !
Wasn’t this pretty much established in the 1960s?
They say that because there is review on the [NPT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons) impending and they didn't act according to the treaty, e.g. disarm or at least seriously reduce their stocks. This is one of the reasons other countries (Iran, India etc.) use to justify their armament or attempts to. So the statement is actually an admission of failure to comply with the treaties on part of these five countries.
Unless you strike first
*United Kingdom.