Everything old is new again

[Lazarus]

Homo sapiens sapiens will never learn.
(Just for the record it really annoys my OCD when people leave off the distinguishing second sapiens that separates us from Lemurs.)
Not because we don't act like them, just because I'm a pedant.

The cubic trillions of dollars wasted on nuclear weapons in the 20th century could have created a utopian world, but we blew it all in a nuclear penis size competition.

We are doing it all over again.

China has 500, but wants to double that in the next 6 years, and the world's premier war criminal is bending over backwards to facilitate that growth.

Once the entire total of all nukes reaches the ability to wipe out everything alive, why keep making more?

I recently read "Nuclear War: a scenario", rather depressing, because it actually gives you the reality of the doctrine of "Fire on warning" used by all nuclear powers.

Under the protocol of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, there is no plan for limited use.

The "thinking" behind it is that if you're going to make that choice, to lob a nuclear weapon at someone who has their own, you have to make sure they can't respond, ergo, you do a mag dump.

Considering it takes about 24 minutes from launch for a land based ICBM to travel from Russia, DPRK or PRC, to Washington, that gives too little time for your target to gain the information needed to respond accordingly, so everybody does a mag dump.

In the scenario given, DPRK puts a land based megaton yield onto Washington and a similar SLBM onto the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California, and a large EMP device in orbit above the continental US.

America responds with hundreds of ICBMs targeting North Korean nuclear and command sites.

Due to geography, the quickest route is across Russian territory.

The Russians have the same protocol of launch on warning, the US chain of command is decapitated, so they can't be told by the president that they aren't the target, so following that same doctrine, they empty all their silos, just in case.
Because the fallout from the retaliation on DPRK is going to kill around 100 million Chinese, they empty theirs as well.

There are currently 12,100 nuclear warheads, the US Secretary of Defence Robert
McNamara reported that America has enough warheads to destroy the biggest 140 cities in Russia, 78 times over, without using their air launched weapons.

This is the lunacy right there, the Russians have at least parity, now they're helping Xi double his numbers.

Russia, China, and America are not remotely likely to kick this sh!tcan over, but Fat Boy Kim is a seriously loose unit.
In the hypothetical situation in the book, where that is used as the starter, no reason is given for his decision to launch, but if you're someone who thinks an appropriate way to dismiss your uncle from his government job is to shoot him with an anti aircraft cannon, who knows?

I always thought the hippy types protesting against nukes just needed a shower and a rest from the Ganja, seems they were right and I had the bovine by the goolies.

Nuclear War: A Scenario https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=%2F ... 19b1bc4856

https://www.newsweek.com/us-says-russia ... os-1933624

https://byjus.com/neet/difference-betwe ... %20sapiens.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... -gun-purge


To be fair, the American military veiw
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0264overkill/

[Oldbloke]

India 164
Israel 90
North Korea 30
Pakistan 170
Russia 4,489
South Africa 0
United Kingdom 225
United States 3,708
Other
World 12,512

Hit the "table" button.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nucl ... ime=latest

Almost every major city on the planet has at least one aimed at it.

[Lazarus]

India 164
Israel 90
North Korea 30
Pakistan 170
Russia 4,489
South Africa 0
United Kingdom 225
United States 3,708
Other
World 12,512

Hit the "table" button.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nucl ... ime=latest

Almost every major city on the planet has at least one aimed at it.

No wonder the neighbors just cruise past with the windows up, we're the galactic equivalent of South Central LA

[No1Mk3]

I'm not even worried by the Kimchi munching Fat Boy, as I am by a country who believe whole-heartedly that if the die they will be re-born to start again having nukes and poor relations with their neighbour who believe emphatically that if they die they get to sit with their god and have 40 virgins, or whatever the number is now. Just watch Iraq, hopefully the Yids will nuke them before they develop a Bomb.

[Lazarus]

I'm not even worried by the Kimchi munching Fat Boy, as I am by a country who believe whole-heartedly that if the die they will be re-born to start again having nukes and poor relations with their neighbour who believe emphatically that if they die they get to sit with their god and have 40 virgins, or whatever the number is now. Just watch Iraq, hopefully the Yids will nuke them before they develop a Bomb.

They're certainly trying their hardest to poke a stick up the mullahs, that's for certain

[Oldbloke]

The problem, is, as you suggested. If the SHTF we will all be living the old movie "On the beach"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)

[Die Judicii]

Whatever happened to the "Nuclear Proliferation Agreement"

[Lazarus]

Whatever happened to the "Nuclear Proliferation Agreement"

Seems Putin and the Chinese have agreed to proliferate

[alexjones]

I buy into the mutually assured destruction theory. That nukes create somewhat of a nuclear peace. They are the last thing to worry about in my opinion as the only time they were used in anger was when only one country had them. . .


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_as ... estruction

[Lazarus]

Mutually Assured Destruction is fine in principle, mate, but it's predicated on a fine balance between the major adversaries

It has worked for so long becacuse there were no wildcards.

Now that DPRK, led by a loon, has them, and as No1Mk3 pointed out, the mad mullahs aren't far off with help from Putin and Xi, that balance that is central to the MAD philosophy is out the window.

Don't get me wrong, I don't lose any sleep worrying about something over which I have no control.

But, if we are on the way to the abbottior, I want to be the sheep with his head out the side of the truck, going "Waaait a bloody minute..."

[alexjones]

Mutually Assured Destruction is fine in principle, mate, but it's predicated on a fine balance between the major adversaries

It has worked for so long becacuse there were no wildcards.

Now that DPRK, led by a loon, has them, and as No1Mk3 pointed out, the mad mullahs aren't far off with help from Putin and Xi, that balance that is central to the MAD philosophy is out the window.

Don't get me wrong, I don't lose any sleep worrying about something over which I have no control.

But, if we are on the way to the abbottior, I want to be the sheep with his head out the side of the truck, going "Waaait a bloody minute..."

How do we define loon mate? I don't think Kim of DPRK is a loon in the sense of the word we would normally use it. He has travelled the world and was schooled in Europe. He knows his country is poor and would be destroyed by the might of the USA. He tries to project strength as a means of a defence strategy. He knows there is a line he can push that will allow him to be a little annoying but not so annoying that the world will invade him. So he keeps that happy medium which keeps him and the elites in his country in power but not overthrown.

DPRK in my mind is a necessary country because it creates a buffer zone between South Korea( A US ally) and communist China.

[Lazarus]

You're right, loon is a bad descriptor.

I don't think he's insane, any more than Hitler was when he set off for Armageddon, but he's not your average camper either, you must admit.

He may be travelled and educated, but an urbane psychopath is still a psychopath, mate.

A psychopath with a god complex and nukes is a not good.

Ask anyone who knows sh!t from shoe polish in the intelligence world, they'll all tell you it's the joker in the pack that is what they all worry about.

[Lazarus]

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[Bugman]

Who knows. Oppenheimers deadly toy may be let loose. By who or whom........well that is anybodys guess.

[Lazarus]

Personally, I don't think it's an imminent threat, Bugman, but it's an extra bullet in the russian roulette wheel.

When climate change really starts to bite, massive droughts, storms and floods, widespread famine is likely to spawn a mass migration that will cause wars.

Thank christ we're an island, it won't stop them but it might make elswhere look better.

[Bugman]

Personally, I don't think it's an imminent threat, Bugman, but it's an extra bullet in the russian roulette wheel.

When climate change really starts to bite, massive droughts, storms and floods, widespread famine is likely to spawn a mass migration that will cause wars.

Thank christ we're an island, it won't stop them but it might make elswhere look better.

Yes you may well be right.

[Lazarus]

I see nukes as a hazard rather than a risk, but climate change, by whatever cause, has driven most mass extinction events in planetary history.

Hopefully I'm old enough that I'll be gone before it gets that bad

[on_one_wheel]

Personally, I don't think it's an imminent threat, Bugman, but it's an extra bullet in the russian roulette wheel.

When climate change really starts to bite, massive droughts, storms and floods, widespread famine is likely to spawn a mass migration that will cause wars.

Thank christ we're an island, it won't stop them but it might make elswhere look better.

Yes you may well be right.

Our government is already bringing over 3500 new Australians per week, no doubt they will truly open the flood gates if other countries start suffering.
Think of the money that can print if that happens.

[Lazarus]

Personally, I don't think it's an imminent threat, Bugman, but it's an extra bullet in the russian roulette wheel.

When climate change really starts to bite, massive droughts, storms and floods, widespread famine is likely to spawn a mass migration that will cause wars.

Thank christ we're an island, it won't stop them but it might make elswhere look better.

Yes you may well be right.

Our government is already bringing over 3500 new Australians per week, no doubt they will truly open the flood gates if other countries start suffering.
Think of the money that can print if that happens.

This isn't exactly factually correct, but it does express what the Poms are feeling.

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Cue the politically correct.......