# Likelihood of a Nuclear Holocaust Now. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 16, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642 "2015-06-16T02:14:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/41 "2015-06-17T02:59:18Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > . . . There was never a real danger that a full nuclear war would happen, because it would be suicide. . . . And this pretty much means that, contrary to claims in this thread, MAD worked. It made a small nuclear war impossible, because everyone knew it would spiral up into a big one…and that would be suicide. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/42 "2015-06-17T06:10:05Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Isn’t the conventional wisdom that the most likely nuclear exchange would be between India/Pakistan? Given their close proximity, it could quickly get out of control because there wouldn’t be much time to think. Yes. However, the conventional wisdom is bunk, because neither side there is as stupid as Westerners like to believe, ---
**Author:** ![Onyerbike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onyerbike/32/5402_2.png) [@Onyerbike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onyerbike)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/43 "2015-06-17T12:47:05Z")
I think the likelihood is overall very low, for what my less than cuban missile crisis experience serves. The new folks have grown up trying to imagine a MAD strategy that kills them for no good damn reason, rather than one survived for the “greater good”. It ends well for nobody, not even the Littlefinger/Profit from chaos type. I tell you whichever two countries drag mine into a nuclear war, by the seven hells, I’m sharpening my axe and heading for both of you. You know, If I still have a functioning head/arms/torso/thyroid. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/44 "2015-06-17T13:09:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **FXMastermind** : > This is no fantasy. Unless you have some insane world leader with nuclear weapons that wants to destroy the entire world, no sane leader will ever order a nuclear attack on another country that has reactors. It’s suicide, and this has been known for a long time. While during the brinkmanship era people thought it was a possibility, since the construction of 480 working reactors worldwide, and the massive amounts of deadly spent fuel stored next to them, the doomsday weapon has existed. Was this supposed to make sense? If so, you might want to try again. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/45 "2015-06-17T13:10:32Z")
Ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) reduce the incentive to “launch immediately on warning” because the side with SSBNs knows they can ride out a first strike and still retaliate later on. Thus, SSBNs make the situation even safer. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/46 "2015-06-17T13:12:21Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > I like to respond to the original OP, so forgive me if this has been covered already. By the time Dr. Strangelove was released, it was known to the people who actually ran the world that [the nuclear arsenals were now large enough and deadly enough that winning would still likely result in the destruction of one’s country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_terror) (and the rest of the world as well). There was never a real danger that a full nuclear war would happen, because it would be suicide. > In the 80s there was zero risk of a nuclear war. The calculation were done in the 50s by nuclear scientist working on the bombs, and they knew then that even a 1000 H bombs would be quite enough to destroy human civilization, the fallout would kill so many people that civilization would end. > > By the 80s nuclear war was unthinkable, as it is at present. The simple reason is the presence of nuclear power plants. Anything that seriously disrupts a country that has nuclear power plants, (like having several dozen H bombs wipe out the infrastructure), just can’t be allowed, for any reason. The same could be said of an old fashioned invasion and bombing war. You can’t invade a country that has even a dozen nuclear reactors (and cooling ponds full of spent fuel). You certainly can’t allow an old fashioned bombing and destruction of a country with a hundred reactors, and 40 years worth of spent fuel rods sitting around. Just one disaster at a multi-reactor nuclear plant would poison the world, and certainly make any invasion of the country a no go situation. > > The idea in Dr. Strangelove, that any atomic attack would result in a world wide disaster, a mass release of fallout of deadly nuclear materials, was realized long ago, in the simple truth that any country with dozens of reactors, and the far more dangerous spent fuel ponds, has already set up a doomsday weapon. If you bomb that country (even with conventional bombs), you risk setting off an uncontrollable reaction that will result in mass poisoning of the world. > > This is no fantasy. Unless you have some insane world leader with nuclear weapons that wants to destroy the entire world, no sane leader will ever order a nuclear attack on another country that has reactors. It’s suicide, and this has been known for a long time. While during the brinkmanship era people thought it was a possibility, since the construction of 480 working reactors worldwide, and the massive amounts of deadly spent fuel stored next to them, the doomsday weapon has existed. > > And nobody wants to set it off. Nonsensical. It’s plenty possible to nuke most of a country’s cities and military facilities without hitting any reactors or spent fuel. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/47 "2015-06-17T13:50:47Z")
Personally, I’m looking forward to it. Clear out the clutter, wot? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/48 "2015-06-17T14:12:45Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) reduce the incentive to “launch immediately on warning” because the side with SSBNs knows they can ride out a first strike and still retaliate later on. Thus, SSBNs make the situation even safer. Ditto with mobile systems. There always will be launchers which will survive. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/49 "2015-06-17T14:36:11Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) reduce the incentive to “launch immediately on warning” because the side with SSBNs knows they can ride out a first strike and still retaliate later on. Thus, SSBNs make the situation even safer. So we haven’t gotten blown up yet. Great. But, I feel like saying “we’re super safe because of all the piles of weapons we have pointed at each other ready to kill everyone” sounds like famous last words… ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/50 "2015-06-17T14:40:23Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > So we haven’t gotten blown up yet. Great. But, I feel like saying “we’re super safe because of all the piles of weapons we have pointed at each other ready to kill everyone” sounds like famous last words… At least we haven’t had another world war (or two), so that’s something. I don’t think anyone feels we are all ‘super safe’, but the rising trend in larger and larger global conflicts seems to have been broken with the advent of nuclear weapons, at least so far. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/51 "2015-06-17T18:32:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > WeWe do not even need to resort to hypotheticals. It is a known historical fact that the USSR did not retaliate when they saw us launching a confirmed nuclear attack on them. If MAD had worked, they would have. The attack was not, in fact, sufficiently confirmed to merit immediate response. When they made an attempt to better confirm it, they discovered there was no nuclear attack. The story of Stanislav Petrov has grown a bit with the telling. At no point was the attack “confirmed” in the sense that the full chain of command was of the impression an attack was taking place; the equipment that recorded a launch was immediately suspected of being faulty, based not on some desire to avoid MAD but on technical understanding of the equipment in question, how it might fail, and the fact that what it was saying was absurdly inconsistent with what a real attack would have looked like. MAD does not mean “launch a full out nuclear attack the instant one computer known to be faulty says it might see a missile.” ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/52 "2015-06-17T19:11:19Z")
Persons operating sensors are trained and expected to be able to identify false alarms, Petrov, seems to have done his what was infact his job. Plus its not like he had any ability to commence retaliation himself. Now if you want a real fuckup which could have destroyed the world, l[ook no further than the 1979 NORAD Training Tape Incident.](http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/53 "2015-06-17T19:38:43Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Now if you want a real fuckup which could have destroyed the world, l[ook no further than the 1979 NORAD Training Tape Incident.](http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm) How could that have destroyed the world any more than the others? > [@](#): > > With commendable speed, NORAD was able to contact PAVE PAWS early warning radar and learn that no missiles had been reported. Also, the sensors on the satellites were functioning that day and had detected no missiles. In only 6 minutes the threat assessment conference was terminated. That ain’t good, but it is hardly feeling the icy breath of nuclear armageddon down my undershorts. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/54 "2015-06-23T00:19:34Z")
John Oliver: Russia, a country that will continue to be funny until it suddenly isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/55 "2015-06-23T01:33:55Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Well, it was a bit tongue-in-cheek and contrarian to the usual attitude that other nations are always the boogey man, like NKorea, Russia etc. while the US is, as you agree, quite meddlesome on the world stage and loves war. Looking at it objectively, the US does engage in war more often than the norm for declared nuclear powers. But Russia is also warlike: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_wars\_involving\_Russia#Russian\_Federation\_.281991.E2.80.93present.29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia#Russian_Federation_.281991.E2.80.93present.29) Another country that gets into a lot of wars – albeit often smallish – is France: > **[List of wars involving France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_France#Modern_period)** > > This is a list of wars involving modern France from the abolition of the French monarchy and the establishment of the French First Republic on 21 September 1792 until the current Fifth Republic. > \*e.g. a treaty or peace without a clear result, status quo ante bellum, result of civil or internal conflict, result unknown or indecisive, inconclusive > Location: France > Location: Western, Central, and Southern Europe, West Indies I don’t like the People’s Republic of China, but they are, objectively, less warlike. The last war they fought was the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. And North Korea, of course, is the ultimate paper tiger. I don’t think that you can simply say that the less warlike the government, the better the government. But I sure don’t see being warlike as a plus. As for predicting nuclear war, there aren’t enough data points to have much of an opinion there. I think we’ve been pretty lucky to go almost seventy years since the last one. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/56 "2015-06-23T02:01:36Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > 1. No way to test your system on the real threat. The Russians will not sell the U.S. examples of their ICBMs so that the missile defense system can be tested against them. If only there was a way we could snag one of their missile boats, we could claim its a coast guard inspection. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/57 "2015-06-23T02:06:17Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > I remember the disaster drills at school. Even as an 8-year-old kid, I suspected that crouching under my desk wouldn’t do much to save me from a nuclear bomb :dubious: It was never meant to save you from a direct hit or near miss, you may as well hide in a fridge. But blast waves were expected to be severe, and hiding under your desk would reduce your chances of being injured by broken glass, and spalling. Declan ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/58 "2015-06-23T03:39:13Z")
Only if the fridge is lead lined 😃 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642/59 "2015-06-24T03:14:42Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > No one’s mentiond the story of the Soviet submarine B-59, which almost launched a nuclear torpedo against a U.S. aircraft carrier(!?) in 1962 … However that ship happened to have [the flotilla commander, Vasili Arkhipov, on board with veto power over the launch](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-stopped-nuclear-war). This story remained secret for 40 years. Is it conceivable that the whole story was concocted to create a hero for the Russian people? Is there corroboration other than testimony of a handful of sub officers? I’m _not_ trying to start a conspiracy theory but, since the Russians might have incentive to invent a fable, wonder how certain we can be that Vasili Arkhipov really did “save the world.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-nuclear-holocaust-now/722642.md?page=2)