It’s a DEFence CONdition. Launching nukes is an offensive action, so it doesn’t apply. You can go to DEFCON 1 without launching anything. Although if you do launch all your nukes, you’ll definitely want to be at DEFCON 1, just because you’re going to expect enemy nukes coming back.
But the only reason you’d launch all your nukes is because somebody else launched theirs at you. To which your response would be to go to defcon 1 and launch all your nukes, was my understanding.
Otherwise, to @Dr.Strangelove’s point, what happens if somebody launches all their nukes at us? Do we go to defcon 0? -1?
DEFCON 0 is when you announce the Doomsday Machine. And then DEFCON -1 is when you head to the mines.
The Wikipedia article says there actually is a DEFCON 0, of sorts:
plus an “Emergency” level higher than DEFCON 1 with two conditions: “Defense Emergency” and the highest, “Air Defense Emergency” (“Hot Box” and “Big Noise” for exercises).[6]
The description of DEFCON 1 (taken from Wikipedia)
So it means you’re expecting a launch, but they could change their minds and not launch. In which case, we don’t want to launch.
That is ridiculously unscientifically alarmist. Nobody will be healthier after a few nukes go off around the world, but the idea that a handful here and there will destroy humanity or the ecosystem is pure fantasy.
Depnding on who and what gets hit, there may be a lot of economic dislocation that might well make the COVID-19 “supply chain disruptions” seem trivial. But the idea that societies will break down, the entire world economy freeze up and mass starvation kill most of humanity is likewise pure fantasy. Hell, most of humanity doesn’t participate in the advanced economy to any real degree right now.
Do not confuse the timing of the decision with the timing of the public announcement.
Further, assuming any sort of rational policy-making process at work within the Kremlin (admittedly a tough call these days), the process of developing options, wargaming them, vetting them, and prioritizing them for presentation to senior leadership may be the work of months or at least weeks, not minutes.
I can’t say for sure in this particular case how much different those two times are. But as a general matter we in the public can reach some silly conclusions about cause vs effect if we forget to consider that timeline disconnect.
Right? Google says that in the history of the world, there have been over 2000 nuclear detonations from 1945 through 1996.
Even if the PAL scatters the pit around the vicinity if the attempt to bypass it fails?
I appreciate your writing style (despite the slight), but I just don’t follow your logic.
Two global nuclear forces butting heads is not going to end in “a handful” of ICBMS being exchanged only to end in a standoff.
In today’s environment, a single ICBM can carry multiple high-yield warheads, unlike anything that came before.
A country that considers itself a superpower with the ability to retaliate is not going to accept the destruction of their cities and citizens without responding in-kind to an existential threat to their very survival.
I’ve read that Russia has been training their population for decades on this very scenario. They probably have more underground shelters than any other country. Some have fallen into some level of disrepair, but the key to survival is to be underground; sheltered from the blast radius on the surface.
The US stopped educating their population for nuke survival back in the 60’s. And we stopped teaching our children to shelter under their desks in schools (probably because they wouldn’t survive anyway).
The US lives mostly above ground and most people wouldn’t know what to do if we had an incoming strike.
-I’m not sure about anything China has done to help protect it’s citizens against this threat.
What I do know is that Russia most likely has an edge in it’s survival preparation.
The doctrine seems to be based on Mutual Assured Destruction.
That doesn’t translate to a limited exchange to me.
It’d be naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments would cause a change in Soviet expansionist policy. I mean, we must be increasingly on the alert to prevent them taking over other mine shafts space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do. Thus, knocking us out of these superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!
–Gen. “Buck” Turgidson
Having tactical nukes in Belarus makes little sense, so I’m inclined to think it’s just bluster. For one, it’s further away from the front lines. If Putin was really going to use a tactical nuke, I’d think he would want them closer, like in Rostov or Belgorod oblasts, or maybe Crimea if he was feeling especially adventurous.
The big problem, however, would be the western response should a nuke be launched from Belarus. I think in that scenario the most likely outcome is that NATO glasses Belarus and Putin lets it happen.
We know from the announcement that they have 10 planes equipped to launch these weapons, and some indeterminate number of missiles. Assume one weapon per platform, then at a minimum, you end up with 9 pits spread around the room, and one functional nuke. Possibly, most likely, more than one.
And a sudden dearth of volunteers willing to poke at the thing with a stick.
This is national power vs personal power. The general may very well decide that he’d rather have the money than the nukes - it’s not like Russia itself disarming its nukes.
Or the general could sell some nukes and keep some others.
Username/post checks out.
A shaggy dog story I heard back in the day about Soviet nukes:
After the USSR broke up there was a concerted effort by Russia to secure and/or collect their missiles from the various new republics.
The team arrive at an isolated silo in one of the 'Stans to discover that it’s empty and the wiring harness from a Lada has been used to fool the telemetry systems.
Major panic ensues and a specialist team with detectors starts to hunt for the missing missile.
Eventually it is found at the back of a warehouse, still in the crate in which it was delivered a couple of decades earlier.
They summon the guy who was in charge at the time who is now retired and ask him why was the missile not deployed as per the orders from the President?
He replies: ‘Missile is big and heavy. If Soviet President wants big heavy missile in silo, Soviet President can come and move it himself.’
If they use a tactical nuke on Ukraine, that’s not two global nuclear forces butting heads.
This 4 min video Peter Zeihan just uploaded is interesting. He talks about China making a power play in central Asia and this signalling the end of the Russia/China relationship.
I grant completely that a full on wargasm exchange between the USA & Russia, with perhaps some other countries joining the melee will be an unprecedented catastrophe for worldwide civilization. Civilization collapse for 70+% of the world is entirely possible. Perhaps leading to another nuclear winter, severe human population bottleneck, etc.
it seems I (mis?)-interpreted your earlier comment
to be a limited exchange. “Multiple” didn’t read as “hundreds, nay thousands” to me; it read as “a handful”.
A lot of theorists believe it is possible, and in fact likely, to have an initial “tactical” exchange and stop right there. Putin moving a nuke to Belarus and then using it on Ukraine actually increases the likelihood of stopping the response with a limited exchange. Sadly it also increases the likelihood of Putin actually opening the exchange. For just that reason.
Having a degree in physics, and knowing a lot of people with degrees in physics, all you’d need to do to get enough volunteers is, at the end of your pitch, add, “…and if you can make us more than one, we’ll let you set one off!”
Like I said, there’s more than one way to bribe people.