This seems … ill advised.
It’s not like the military will need any energy, metal or mineral resources to carry out a war…
“Hurl”, indeed.
Or that the rest of the population will.
Hey, Vlad - you know what really gets people out into the streets with pitchforks? No heat in winter.
If Putin launches a nuke in Ukraine, the response has to be absolutely devastating to Russia. China, North Korea, Iran, and other hostile or potentially hostile nuclear nations will be watching closely.
That said, a nuclear response carries huge risks. If there was to be one, the proper target would be the Dachas of all the government heads, starting with Putin’s. Hopefully while he is there.
But a better response would be a massive NATO mobilization, rapid establishment of air supremacy over Ukraine using NATO air assets, followed by the destruction of the entire Russian army in Ukraine unless it withdraws immediately. The Russian Navy in the area should also be sent to the bottom quickly.
The trick will be to so thoroughly punish the use of a nuke that no one else tries it, while also not triggering a nuclear war with a country that has 6,000 warheads. That will not be easy, but probably necessary. If the nuke gambit works, it will be used again.
And squaring that circle is what is keeping political leaders around the globe and their advisers up at nights. Not sure there is a good answer to it (one that leaves 600+ million people alive is a good answer, but…).
FWIW, I concur that NATO directly aiding Ukraine (but like the Korean War, being very careful not to intrude on legally-recognized Russian territory), but it’s a dangerous affair.
I really would like to have my vacations in 2023…
Press on.
NATO should issue a statement that any Russian use of nukes against Ukraine means instant Ukraine membership in NATO.
The thing is, it’s the “6,000 warheads” issue that lets Russia get away with nuclear extortion. China is widely regarded as the third most powerful nuclear nation, and they only have an estimated 350 warheads. That’s more than enough to deter a conventional attack on China, or a nuclear first strike, but it’s not enough for “end of the world” kind of scenarios. A nuclear war with China would be devastating, the worst war ever fought, but the human race would likely live on, and some places might not even notice many ill effects.
That’s not true of Russia, and that changes everything. I’m not worried about an unpunished Russian nuke emboldening other nuclear powers, but I am worried about it emboldening further Russia attacks.
Even a limited nuclear exchange could be devastating, causing massive global food shortages resulting in billions dead. That paper is almost certainly paywalled except for people who have institutional subscriptions, so linked below is an LA Times article based on the paper.
The premise is that the huge fires created by targeting urban areas would result in enough soot in the atmosphere to reduce global temperatures and sunlight enough to cause global famine within two years. If nuclear detonations were limited to non-urban areas, then the fires would not be large enough to cause global problems.
The authors obviously have an antinuclear bias (though I’d have much more suspicion reading a paper from scientists who are pro nuclear war), but it is published in a peer reviewed journal in the Nature family, so these aren’t just some random anti-nuke cranks. They’ve used modern weather and fire models to predict the results of urban fires from a nuclear exchange.
Trying to tie it back to the topic of this thread: It shows just how dangerous even a limited nuclear exchange could be, and how incredibly difficult this situation is. Some people in the thread have said things like “we can’t let Putin hold us hostage with his nukes”, but unfortunately, that is exactly this situation we’re in.
To put in perspective what “limited nuclear exchange” means, the authors talk about using only 3% of the nuclear weapons. Google says about 13,000 nuclear weapons, so about 400 detonations, with the requirement for mass starvation being most of those detonation on urban areas that will produce huge fires.
A third of the world’s population is bad, but as I said: it isn’t “end of the world”.
400 doesn’t seem “limited” to me. IMHO limited would be in the low single digits. By the time we’re at 400, we’re WAY beyond worrying about whether or not we should glass the offending country.
There’s a pretty decent chance it would be the end of the world for me …
Does it say how long until we’d see the secondary effects? One risk is that someone fires off a few nukes, some people die but there’s no clear impact to anyone outside of the target zone, everyone pops up their head and goes, “What? That’s all?” And suddenly, it’s bomb throwing season because no one is taking into account that it takes a few years for the impact of the bombs to start affecting the climate.
Only 1/3? Any nuclear exchange greater than the low single digits is likely to reach a point where all the nuclear powers are involved. That means pretty much everyone in Asia, Europe, and North America is going to die in the first few days, and the people in Africa and South America will probably be wishing they had been among the “lucky ones” that went in the initial blasts.
I really don’t want to derail this thread, but I’ll answer these direct questions. I’m sure there’s a nuclear war thread someplace for general discussions of extinction level events.
If I understand it correctly, one of the big variables in how bad things get is how quickly and how much soot reaches the stratosphere. The authors put “two years” as their timescale, but that is based on crop losses and food shortages. It also isn’t “we run out of food in two years”, but “after two years 1/3 of people will have died.” Of course it will be the most vulnerable people that feel an impact first.
The example the authors used in at least one interview was a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. That would be limited to a few hundred nuclear weapons, and would be unlikely to draw in any other nuclear armed countries.
(Trying to keep it on topic) I agree though, that a nuclear escalation in Ukraine could immediately turn global. A nuclear response to Russia’s use of nuclear weapons would have to come directly from one of the other 8 or so nuclear armed countries. Which of course could provoke a response from Russia directly against that country.
As has been said upthread, the best response to Russia using nuclear weapons would probably be direct conventional intervention, and hoping that it is enough to turn China against Russia. If China were to still decide to stand with Russia, then we might really be stuck. I don’t think we have the stomach for massive economic sanctions against China.
This might mean that a nuclear escalation by Russia happens essentially without any repercussions. I think that would be a very bad situation, too, but if the alternatives are “Kyiv is a crater, and we’re all very angry and sad” or “nuclear winter”, then what are we supposed to do?
This went Dr Strangelove very fast.
While I have my differences with General Turgidson, I am pleased that he made effective use of my report, World Targets in Megadeaths.
Close enough for government work. Literally.