A lot of this sort of information is surprisingly US centric. For instance, you might find building codes that forbid the sort of "non-exposed" room in residential housing as a health and safety issue due to ventilation or emergency exit or other reasons.
My rule of thumb is simple.
- Know the nearest target.
- Know who might hit it with a nuke.
- Check the NukeMap ( https://nukemap.org/ ) based on who might nuke it and what nukes they are known to have... to estimate the if you even need to care about shelter. If you're too close to the nearest target theres not much you could hope to do without shelter. If you're far enough then you wont need to care about the immediate attack either.
- Missile warning will likely create havoc with transport as people without plans try to suddenly make them. So consider where you spend most of your time during a normal day, and what transport options you have with you then depending on your personal level of paranoia make a decision about the best shelter options based on two things, travel time and level of protection. You should travel for better shelter, but not risk traveling far given the uncertainty of the situation. Just having a basic background understanding of what the suitable shelter would be in your life and this becomes more like knowing where you could hide from sudden rain without an umbrella on a walk down the street.
- Shelter will depend a lot on your local environment, just keep the basic principles of radiation protection in mind. 1st is Distance, 2nd is Mass. If you cant get distance from the radiation source, put mass between you and it. Given that fallout will be dropping from the sky as heavier than air dust, you want to primarily find anything to give you protection against it being blown closer to you horizontally, and maximum distance from whatever roof is over your head. If neither of these are particularly available, prioritise the horizontal wind blown dust, settle for whatever concrete slab building you can find that would afford you some measure of protection from dust blowing in even if the windows and doors were damaged.
- Think of it as extreme, unusual, but also unlikely, weather event. You don't want to get "wet" from the dry rain of fallout dust, you also want to be as far away from it as you can, and don't want it getting tracked/blown inside.
Cool and depressing. I had a preview of this feeling in the 1990's:
I went to a Nuclear Emergency Response Team (NERT) office at a base in Canada to pick up some radio equipment.
They had a wall map in there showing the base as ground zero with concentric circles covering most of the surrounding area and each ring had notes scribbled in them.
I took a quick look and didn't know what the notes meant, but my apartment was well within the annotated area....damn.
"The most important things in this war are the machines... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."
Countries don't do anything, people do. Recently I've been thinking a lot about people in so-called hostile countries, and the conclusion I arrived at is that the vast majority of those people are leading broadly similar lives to us in the West. They face similar struggles and yearn for similar things. This idea of us vs them and the proliferation of nationalism doesn't sit right with me.
I look at the things the people in charge of the country whose nationality I possess (UK) does and I am aghast at the idea that people around the world would associate them with me. I'm sure there are many people in Russia and China etc. who feel similar.
> and the conclusion I arrived at is that the vast majority of those people are leading broadly similar lives to us in the West.
Did you found that solution after actually reading up about lives, opinions or attitudes of those people or you just imagined everything being the same (and uncertainty surrounding those)?
I do not mean it in the sense of being being bad or good, but in a sense that a lot is quite a lot different in many important ways.
It would probably be true that in any war the people doing the fighting have more in common with one another than they do with those directing them to fight. But I'm not sure I see much practical use knowing that. Those in charge in Russia and China know this, so they control information to whip people up against their supposed enemies.
I suppose, in retrospect, policies in the west could have been designed to try and prevent those countries creating internet firewalls that allowed so much control. Being so aggressive on it would have looked over the top at the time though. It makes sense though that if everyone on every "side" can access all information, for good or for worse no one actor can stay on top of it.
It's not like we're allowed to choose leaders from the population at large. We are generally stuck voting for the people that run for office. Quite often, there are few choices and none of them are very good.
Not only the leaders, I'm more terrified of the amount of people on social media cheering for escalation of the war in Ukraine. Anyone mentioning anything other than "send more weapons, kill more people" gets labelled as a russian bot
On reddit it's absolutely insane, 90% of commenters are cheering for ww3, asking for hits on the kremlin, preventive nuclear strikes in russia, &c. thousands upon thousands of posts calling "russians" "orcs", I feel like I'm in the lobby of an online call of duty game
I used to think people were crazy, how could they slowly walk towards ww1 and ww2, now I see how it happens, deep down we're still dumb monkeys
Ye I got the same feeling straight from the start. I don't know where all the "war mongers" suddenly came from. Are they paid shills? In real life the amount of people I speak to that are prepared to be nuked over Ukraine border disputes is zero.
Also, the discussion climate on Reddit quickly gets sick due to the downvote system and mods purging non-believers.
I live pretty close to a US Navy base, and its common for me to hear and see formations of military helicopters like Ospreys, sometimes fighter jets, cargo planes, etc.
I swear that I hear them more often than I used to say 4 years ago (before COVID). It is kind of scary to think about these kinds of scenarios, like if something bad happens what the hell will I do if I happen to survive?
All I have are my parents who live far away, no kids or wife, not a lot of close friends here. I'm also moving pretty soon to near SF, which I hope isn't a target in such a war. I guess it is good that I've been working out. If I survive, I plan on staying alive as long as I can on my own. Damn I don't want to think about this because I don't want to die like that.
Maybe all my time sunk into playing solo DayZ back in the day and surviving against Russians, Chinese, and other players who I didn't understand working together will help, heh. FFS.
Tough to think about. Being single and ideally relatively mobile I'd guess you'd be good to cover at least 10 miles a day which would be significant in the bay area considering the hills nearby. You'd just need to know where to go. Which, the big locations these days will be schools, especially high schools. It's a good idea to know the location of your nearest city hall and high school. From there the goal will be to collect information, list your options, and rank them.
I've lived through some emergencies near you (rural north bay) and I would recommend turning on and listening to the FM & AM radio in emergencies. FM can get you stations at some distance, and there's a reasonable chance some of your local transmitters will still be up, or will be brought back up quickly. Local is fantastic for getting news that's relevant to you, at least hourly in my experience.
But in the case of national/international news, AM can also help in that it can get you (especially in mornings and evenings) plenty of news stations from in and outside of California if your area is devastated. I picked up a TX/MX border station in the middle of my house one morning a couple years ago for example.
If you have a shortwave radio like the PL-380 or CC Skywave, it will additionally be easy to pick up some stations like Radio New Zealand here in CA in the mornings and evenings. But be sure to practice this before the emergency.
If you worry about making contact from your position, it could help to pick up an FRS radio like the Midland XT511. That way you could monitor for people on the radio and call out if needed, especially if cell towers are down. When I went through that kind of emergency up here, ham radio and FRS still worked fine, and in fact the WIN system was up and running so I was able to talk to people in Ireland, Hawaii, etc.
At least in the 1990s SF had plenty of prominent targets, from what I read in books at the time. One of them (I don't remember where I read this) was the Chevron oil refinery & storage facility just off the Richmond bridge. Driving past all those oil tanks you can kind of see why. Hopefully it was just some fictive thinking though...
I was also just reading a book about a POW doctor from the UK who was right in Nagasaki when the A-bomb went off there. Shortly thereafter, aboard an allied medical ship he was...probed...and announced good to go / clear of long-term effect afterward, which surprised me. The book is "A Doctor's War", pretty interesting overall.
> At least in the 1990s SF had plenty of prominent targets, from what I read in books at the time. One of them (I don't remember where I read this) was the Chevron oil refinery & storage facility just off the Richmond bridge. Driving past all those oil tanks you can kind of see why. Hopefully it was just some fictive thinking though...
Prior to the 1980s or so targeting strategies were nominally divided into some mix of counterforce (i.e. targeting military installations) and countervalue (i.e. targeting civilians). The exact mix would depend on the parties involved and what sort of attacking they were either perpetrating or defending against. However, at some point infrastructure targets became a sort of third option for target lists, which chiefly means oil refineries.
Certain parts of the East Bay were effectively giant bull's eyes because of the concentration of air, naval, and army bases, as well as oil refineries. Cutbacks since the 90s have pared away much of the military in the area, and oil refineries are usually secondary targets.. the sort of thing you don't want to hit if you think you can win without it because you'd rather it still be around so you can make use of it yourself, but if not, waste it.
You're assuming that missiles have been retargetted since the 1990s. It would be plausible to me that a bunch of Soviet era missiles have their original targets still loaded.
It would be absurd to not have re-evaluated the targeting lists given the rise of the internet, fall of the iron curtain and the ability of “tourists“ to travel from Russia to the USA for over 20 years… while many targets are likely still valid and thus unchanged, much has changed, best example I can think of while waking and on my phone is Cheyenne Mountain, famed Cold War bunker veteran of many movies and tv shows and now a less important target than it used to be, it’s still a valuable target but perhaps one not worth the size of nuke necessary to crack it open given the damage a much smaller weapon could do at Air Force and Space Force assets stationed at Peterson and Vandenberg
Oh, I agree they have better information and that things have changed since the early 1990s. And I'm sure the desired targets by the division in charge of planning that have changed. I wouldn't be surprised if Russian ICBM #X (aimed at SF) hasn't been updated since 1991 because it has to be done by swapping out a chip with the location burned into it instead of doing it over the internet or someone whose work was never checked was assigned to do it and it's cold out that day or 100 other reasons.
Well, if we're going to play the game of assumptions, then you're assuming Russians have bothered to maintain their warheads properly. Given the very plausible theory that Nord Stream 1 and 2 were taken out as a result of the Russians trying to clear a methane hydrate plug from their side alone and wound up rupturing both pipelines (which, just so we're clear, they've done before)... I'd be a little skeptical of anything involving Russian nukes and the viability of their warheads.
The big fear isn't being a target. There are very few areas that would not be completed irradiated by substantial fallout taken by the winds. Airbursts would magnify this effect.
It's safe to assume that in any real cook off everyone is dead. Some immediately, some a little later. Those that do survive will likely starve because the land will be unusable. You wont be able to go by car, bicycle, or anything else - it'll kick up resting fallout. The panic will last weeks or months as people desperately try to escape. Supposing you survive the initial attacks you will be stuck where ever you are. Then you have to deal with your neighbors - I hope you didn't tell them you have guns/food/ammo/medicine in passing. After 3 days people begin to die of dehydration, after a week those that could stay hydrated will begin to do literally anything to eat. Your friends suddenly will turn on you, so will your family, and everyone around you. Best stash some rations for them. You'll need a team to survive. Following the guide lines of FEMA will have you underprepared by such a larger margin it's laughable. 3 days of food and water will get you to the point you can wait in a line for humanitarian aid (which won't come in a fallout zone). You'll need months of rations for each person.
Eh, I imagine the protocols in place all around the world limit any initial response to only match the incoming threat’s size and scope, with a framework in place to allow politics to decide whether or not to escalate with more force. So if Russia nuked a small village along the Rocky Mountains just to show ‘we can’, I don’t see the US sending anything huge to a populous area or Russia.
MAD is more for large scale counter value exchanges. Nonstrategic / theatre level / tactical nuclear use was always on the table and IMO probable when nuclear states become cornered. Here's a CRS report on it from this year.
> The big fear isn't being a target. There are very few areas that would not be completed irradiated by substantial fallout taken by the winds. Airbursts would magnify this effect.
It's safe to assume that in any real cook off everyone is dead. Some immediately, some a little later. Those that do survive will likely starve because the land will be unusable.
None of this has happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, the number of nukes in existence is entirely inadequate to actually render land unusable. You are doomposting without having good grasp on what exactly nuclear weapons do, their scale, and scale of the landmass.
No one knows what would happen if one nuke goes off. It’s not even a given that there would be retaliation. MAD is a very useful piece of propaganda to deter that first nuke, but it is not a given.
If Russia sent one Nuke to warsaw, and threatened that New York City, would be the next target followed by Barcelona, Paris, etc. If Putin then says: if you stand down. I will not nuke any other cities. Don't give me more reasons to send Nukes.
The sad thing is - the madman holding the nuke button has all the control. He's crazy so he'll do anything. He's old enough not to care about dying and destroying the whole world with him.
Everything doesn't just swing into action automatically. Poland gets nuked. Congresses, UN, Nato all hold virtual summits to figure out what to do. A week later, they decide this can't stand but if we can save 5 million lives in NYC, maybe we should.
It would like play out more like chess by mail, Putin makes a move, Biden makes a move, maybe Germany makes their own move, etc.
Once the game is in motion, it can go many ways. All Russia needs to do is cut a deal with a few NATO countries to let them be 'neutral' if they keep their noses out of things, and Nato falls apart, and then it leaves USA vs them, of course the way Russia military runs things that's not a big threat.
Another thing to think about - most of Russia's military officers are corrupt. They've been embezzling funds meant for supplies/equipment etc for years and now they finally need that equipment, they're getting shown off for fraudsters.
It costs iirc something like a billion every 10 years PER nuke just to update them and keep them working. On top of that I've read there could be as high as a 60% failure rate for normal nukes in action, probably due to the fact they mostly spend their entire lives just sitting in a bunker somewhere. Quality checking may not get done as often because of the radiological risks etc.
I'm betting of all the nukes in existence, Russia's by a magnitude of 20 maybe are more likely to fail than China or USA or other countries that actually have a competent military.
This is nonsense. Poland is a NATO member state. If Warsaw was attacked by Russia, it would trigger article 5 of the treaty, effectively declaring war on all member states. If the attack was carried out with a nuclear weapon, there would likely be a retaliatory strike. Voila, WW3.
Furthermore, however insane any leader of a nuclear power may be, I just got to believe there are competent, clear-headed people in the chain of command who would refuse to follow suicidal orders while not under immediate attack themselves.
The FEMA simulated strike maps from the 70s show common targets. Mostly in the midwest, large concentrations in the coasts. This of course assumes civilians are mostly left alone, which is unlikely in a large scale nuclear war.
The strike maps also show the fallout zones. Wind channels [1] take a large portion of fallout that will cover a significant amount of land mass. The map in [1] shows the case ONLY if strategic targets are hit. That doesn't include hitting major production centers, cities, places of national significance, etc. If 1/3 of Russia's nuclear arsenal made contact with CONUS [1] would most likely be nearly 100% red.
There's no doom posting here (other than the doom of nuclear war). I fully understand what they are capable of. 800Kt bombs may cause small immediate destruction (relative to other large Mt+ bombs) but it's the fallout that will kill majority of people.
Further, hiroshima and nagasaki were isolated events and the US was the only nuclear superpower. They were attacked with roughly 15kt bombs that had inefficient reaction designs, roughly 1/10th to 1/100th the size of the weapons in most superpowers arsenals today. ICBM lifted devices are so much larger than little boy and fat man we can only suppose the level of damage. SLBMs aren't much smaller.
Your theory is that fallout will kill more people than the explosions themselves. Let’s test it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions, each of which causes immediate casualties on the order of 100 000 people. Did the fallout from each of them kill millions of people? No. Did it rendered any part of Japan uninhabitable wasteland? No, in fact both cities were continuously inhabited from immediately after the bombing to the present day.
Fallout is not some magic poison that kills everyone on contact. It mostly causes extra cancers. People will die from cancers, of course, but I guarantee that in case of nuclear war, more people will die to starvation due to the collapse of production and supply chains resulting from large scale infrastructure and human capital destruction.
In locations of significant fall out the Sv./hr could be high enough to induce radiation poisoning. Inhalation of fallout allows alpha particles to bypass your skin and cause cancers faster (or again, radiation poisoning).
A better example than those bombings is chernobyl which despite it's relatively small sized (compared to actual nuclear weapons) induced significant levels of radiation sickness and long term cancers due to the fallout.
Certainly fallout is less dangerous than starvation. However, it also isn't something to just hand wave as not a big deal. It hinders your travel, can cause various degrees of sickness, etc. I dont think it's a far stretch to say that the total effect of a large scale nuclear war will primarily be felt in the fallout which will cause deaths in places completely uneffected by the war.
> In locations of significant fall out the Sv./hr could be high enough to induce radiation poisoning.
Yes, but those won’t be the vast red marked areas on the map you posted, it will be much more localized.
> A better example than those bombings is chernobyl which despite it's relatively small sized (compared to actual nuclear weapons) induced significant levels of radiation sickness and long term cancers due to the fallout.
To the contrary, Chernobyl again provides arguments against your theory. First, the number of people who got radiation sickness is rather low (between 100 and 200), and it only affected people who actually worked directly on the site of the disaster. Second, there is in fact very little evidence of increased cancer due to Chernobyl disaster among people other than the few hundred people on site on the day of disaster. One exception is good evidence for few thousand extra thyroid cancers, These are very easily treatable (90%+ success rates) in normal circumstances, so the might cause some problems in the nuclear war scenario, but an easy way to avoid it is to not eat fresh grown food for a few weeks right after the disaster (you can store it and it eat later).
> However, it also isn't something to just hand wave as not a big deal. It hinders your travel, can cause various degrees of sickness, etc.
Of course, but observe how you are backpedaling from your original “everyone is dead” claim. Look, if you think I am arguing that nuclear war is no biggie, you are much mistaken, and you need to read more carefully. All I’m saying is that it is very much false that everyone will die, either directly from bombs or later from fallout. Plenty of people will die, but given the realities of scale, plenty will survive too.
The opposite is actually true. Airbursts maximize the damage to lightly protected targets, but do not irradiate and lift the same amount of material as a ground burst. Unfortunately hard targets such as missile silos are likely to be targeted with ground bursts resulting in large plumes of irradiated material falling anywhere remotely close to the missile silos. These silos are generally clustered in the mid-west. It's unfortunate that all sides still use nuclear tipped missiles for the purpose of striking missile silos - they only needed nuclear warheads to achieve their objective in the 60s-80s due to poor targeting.
There are going to be large swaths of Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and North America which will be mostly unaffected by fallout or blasts. These areas for the most part don't include any industrial, or agricultural significance.
Theres also a lot of ambiguity regarding the effect of non-dirt fallout...
I live near a military port, and submarine base with US fleet ties. It's probably not a "priority target" but it's a pretty likely target if your goal is to deny the USA support in this region, so in its probably going to make the list should a significant number of nukes are launched/deployed, theres also a military airfield, but its no where near as valuable a target for a nuke since the USA couldn't turn any convenient highway and parking lot or field into an airfield with a couple of C5s. The only sensible place to drop a nuke near me is that port, anything else is replaceable by the forces who would value the port.
As part of evaluating my situation, using my own process ( which I outlined here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33016531 ) I ran into the airburst vs laydown attack question with respect to the port infrastructure. If you want to damage a military port, including any of the hardened, buried and underwater infrastructure... you probably need to put your nuke on the ground. But its a small island so I thought to myself ... just how much radioactive dirt could they possibly produce, surely they would end up vaporising way more water, how does this affect the fallout?... well it turns out that the fallout is different and estimating as a member of the public not party to various classified military reports that were obviously written about this and every nuke related topic under the sun... is actually pretty hard. Theres scattered notes from past research by people like https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/02/underwater-nuclear-exp... but its not as clear a picture as it is for a "normal" land based ground detonated nuke.
As part of the nuclear triad this is likely the highest priority target. Likewise ports useful for shipping military equipment are high priorities. For similar reasons, downtown manhattan is somewhat safer than Brooklyn due to distance from important ports which can be used to ship soldiers.
Okinawa, Atsugi, Sasebo, Yokosuka, Sydney, Perth, Exmouth, Pine Gap, Diego Garcia, Souda Bay, Naples, and many more …
The USA has a surprisingly large number of military facilities, many of which appear to have been located at or collocated near naval facilities, around the world that would in the event of a nuclear war, be prime targets. In a way this has strategic advantages as it makes it harder to “get everything” but at the end of the day it’s a tangled geopolitical history that lead to the current status quo.
This is also one reason why it would be virtually impossible to contain a nuclear exchange. Any submarine base, or location where the US stores or can operate nukes becomes a target. This set includes most of the G7.
One of the interesting titbits of all this is that even if the nearby port is considered not worth the nuke for whatever strategic planning reasons, it’s almost a certainty that, outside of a weird “you nuked once, so we’re going to nuke just once too” scenario, Australia (where I live) has at least one if not two or three nukes coming it’s way in all but the most limited nuclear war scenarios involving nuclear powers. (for instance India and Pakistan exchanging nukes could potentially remain a very regionally limited conflict despite the catastrophic death toll)
Depending on the exact planning and strategic goals it’s hard to imagine a significant nuclear war that doesn’t involve trying to eliminate at least one if not all of these three targets.
- Nuke 1 -> Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap - It’s got the CIA, it’s got the NSA and it’s got the NRO, its got 38 radomes housing antennas drawing down secret classified satellite data from the whole hemisphere of satellites and is part of the entire ECHELON/ 5 Eyes program
- Nuke 2 -> Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt - 1 Megawatt VLF Transmitter, most powerful in the Southern Hemisphere, designed for communicating with underwater submarines from the USA, Australia and likely capable of also doing so to any cooperating NATO nations … in short its for sending the kind of signal to an underwater submarine that would be used to tell a ballistic missile submarine to follow the orders in the green yellow blue or red folders. One of the highest likely targets for a nuke on the planet (along with its sibling VLF stations around the world) if you ask me…
- Nuke 3 -> RAAF Base Edinburgh, heart and home to the coordination centre of the Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar Network, a network of linked ionospheric frequency radar transmitter and receivers as well as ionosondes to monitor the state of the ionosphere which when combined give it a claimed capability to monitor air and sea movements over 37000square kilometres, as far as “3000 kilometres away” according to the official documents, and with a sensitivity that is apparently good enough the prototype was able to pick up a rocket launch in china 5500km away during testing in 1997 (so the real thing can probably do a bit better than the claimed 3000km range)
I thought most overweight Americans (I have sympathy, I'm one too) could fast for 3 weeks or a little more? People who fast usually say they're starting to feel good and energetic about day 3.
I personally have fasted for 28 days. The dangerous part isn't micronutrients, it's electrolytes. Fasting for an extended period can put you at a dangerously low level of certain electrolytes like phosphorus, which upon refeeding, are taken into the cells, which results in levels low enough to cause death. This is why extended fasting regimens should only be done with medical supervision.
Also, the initial onset of ketogenesis from fasting is very rough for people who aren't used to it. Most people's bodies are not used to it, and they won't be able to think clearly, they won't have much energy, etc.
I believe the definition of micronutrient covers electrolytes (including phosphorus), but I see what you're saying. There would definitely be challenges!
I wonder suspect this would be alleviated if survivors managed to get like 300 calories a day of various foods, which seems more likely than pure starvation.
Rule of threes: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. I feel like this rule is dated from a thinner time, so feel free to adjust for BMI.
There is no way you have that from historical research. Afaik, that level of notes keeping and detail was not available at the time.
In general, in situation like these, the first to die are sick, old/kids and those suffering from malnutrition. It would be super safe to guess that Leningrad at the time and a lot of those (given general state of that country).
It's interesting to observe the different perspectives of different national backgrounds. Here in Sweden a lot of the preparation that has become much more common is about social cohesion and working together (see https://www.dw.com/en/swedish-preppers-a-nation-rehearsing-d...). In contrast a lot of US prepping seems to be about protecting yourself from your neighbors, because they are after you (you express a similar sentiment so I assume you are a US American). This was also discussed in a recent post about an article in the guardian (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32711413).
I don't think the perspective is uniquely American though you correctly identified my nationality. Protecting yourself from your neighbor is to protect yourself from human nature. It's not to say so much that you should hate your neighbor, but you also shouldn't be overly forthcoming with information, nor should you be expecting help when they themselves are in a worse situation.
Consider even in Sweden if your neighbor has children and a wife, they are starving, and they know you have food there's no amount of focus on social cohesion that will stop him from bashing your head with a rock for your can of beans. Social cohesion is higher on the hierarchy of needs than food and water. Humans are still animals and higher order thinking is a privilege of the well nourished.
Surely, social cohesion is important. That's why I suggested having a "team". It's often better to cooperate than not. But as the civil wars in Eastern Europe over the last 50 years have shown us none of this matters once food supplies dwindle.
> Consider even in Sweden if your neighbor has children and a wife, they are starving, and they know you have food there's no amount of focus on social cohesion that will stop him from bashing your head with a rock for your can of beans.
Your sense of social cohesion is so poor that you’ve decided the only logical path is to murder your neighbor and steal his food rather than ask to share it.
Basically two in almost tandem, exploding in sync, one above the other.
One generates a Pressure ball above the other, forcing its explosion into a much more destructive ring. Do that with hydrogen bombs and you get weapons were one such warhead can level entire metropol areas and one icbm can carry multiple.. SF would be a circular coral reef after that
No, if the fireball does not touch the ground, which is the definition of an air burst, the fallout is much much less.
The trouble is that some targets are most efficiently destroyed with ground bursts. These targets include ICBM silos, command-and-control bunkers, telecommunications hubs and internet-cable landing stations (where submarine cables intersect with a coastline).
The other trouble is that the effects of the air bursts other than the fallout are quite destructive.
>...near SF, which I hope isn't a target in such a war
You are talking about a city right on the coast, a top-20 most populated in the country, representing the tech center of the nation. Why wouldn't it make the cut?
SF has air strips, military installations, technology, and is a massive economic center for the US at-large. It is a ripe target for any enemy that thinks about these things.
> Is there any information out there, how the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia against Ukraine would change the war?
There’s only vague assertions by the west about what will happen and that is intentional.
It’s likely to lead to a heavy retaliatory strike against Russia, I believe one of the options floated was effectively sinking the entire Black Sea fleet if Russia uses a nuke.
Keep in mind that any use of a nuke effectively necessitates a large reaction physically to try and avoid nuclear proliferation and use going wild.
> Seems more likely that sinking their fleet would cause them to use more and bigger nukes, and/or to sink every fleet of ours within missile range.
There’s no other choice, doing nothing signals to Russia that they can use nukes without repercussions and signals to the rest of the nuclear armed countries they can do the same.
You also assume Russia is capable of a strike against US fleets in any decent capacity when they cannot even capture a city less then 300km from there border and lost there Black Sea flag ship to a country with no functional navy.
I don't think we can know. Either it leads to nuclear response, or it does not. If it does not, I think it will embolden Putin, which would not be good news. So I actually think a limited nuclear exchange would be better if that happens Risk is though that it escalates further and then all bets are off.
You really can't at that point. You'd just be showing them that if they bring out the nuclear weapons, everyone else will just fold.
Say Putin nukes Ukraine (or fires a "demonstration" shot). If NATO stood down and just abandoned Ukraine as a response, or had them do appeasement style relinquishment of territory, or lifted sanctions, what stops Putin from pulling the nukes out the next time he wants something?
Ukranian cities are absolutely being leveled by Russian munitions.
> or cut the Ukranian gas pipeline (which is the only source of reliable income for Ukraine for all 30 years of its existence).
The pipelines are the biggest source of money into Russia as well. Russia has tried to go around Ukraine with the NordStream2 pipeline, but NATO countries stalled that for years precisely because they didn't want to let Russia cut Ukraine out.
>Ukranian cities are absolutely being leveled by Russian munitions.
It's at least interesting to see first hand how deeply delusional and deceived about reality so many Russian citizens act, that they could make such blatantly false easily disproven claims that fly in the face of the harsh undeniable reality and indisputable objective evidence that Putin has been bombing Ukrainian cities into the ground and mass murdering civilians.
It makes me wonder if they're willingly in on the lies and supporting and spreading them well knowing they're false out of a misguided sense of patriotism and loyalty to Putin (or simply fear and desperation?), the same way Trump supporters are LARPing by denying he lost the election and making contradictory claims like FBI planted evidence that Trump telepathically declassified anyway, when they know quite well that's a bald faced lie, or if they're actually as naive and gullible and easily deceived as they're acting.
Who do they actually think they're fooling by parroting ridiculous mendacious lies like "This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities", if not only themselves?
It's at least interesting to see first hand how deeply delusional and deceived about reality so many Russian citizens act
Or they could be a paid troll? Most of their comment history consists of pro-Russian, anti-Western rants, with only a few tech-related things in between.
Yes. This is so important it's worth repetition. 'This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities' is an untrue statement - among others. It isn't Western propaganda. As you put it 'Ukranian cities are absolutely being leveled by Russian munitions.'
You said "This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities". That was a lie.
Oh now you're moving the goalposts and trying to redefine what you said and divert the discussion. But what you said of your own free will (or is somebody holding a gun to your head?) is up there in black and tan for everyone to read, and even if you ninja edit your own words, you've been quoted enough times that nobody's going to forget what you said.
Your claim that "you can't win otherwise" when you unilaterally attack a sovereign country actually means that you should not unilaterally attack a sovereign country, not that Putin didn't bomb Ukrainian cities. It doesn't prove your lie, it just proves how inhumane and aggressive you are.
If you can't win otherwise, then you should just fucking well lose, instead of unilaterally starting a war, bombing cities, and killing innocent civilians, then mendaciously lying about it, because you should not have attacked The Ukraine in the first place. Then you wouldn't need to lie about it, huh?
Your rebuttal that "The cities where the actual war is going on. Not all the cities..." is bullshit because Russia brought the war to them. The cities that PUTIN UNILATERALLY ATTACKED are being bombed. Not bombing some cities doesn't justify bombing others, or invading a sovereign nation.
Putin DID bomb Ukrainian cities. And you said he didn't. So you LIED. Not just a little white lie. A huge mendacious lie that attempts to justify and cover up war crimes. That makes you complicit.
> "This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities or cut the Ukranian gas pipeline (which is the only source of reliable income for Ukraine for all 30 years of its existence)."
This simple fact, and what it tells about what Ukraine means to Russia, never gets to western ears for some reason.
>Ukrainian cities bombed: Russian strikes spread from east to west
>Russian strikes hit the capital, Kyiv, and Kharkiv and Kramatorsk in the east, causing deaths, Ukrainian officials say. Missiles destroy an aircraft repair plant near the airport in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Mayor Andriy Sadovy says.
>Russia accused of using cluster bombs as fighting rages in Ukraine’s cities - BBC News
>Heavy fighting has taken place in several cities across Ukraine.
>Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, has seen some of the fiercest battles with Russian forces accused of using cluster munitions. Many civilians are reported to have been killed.
>Thousands more people have been trying to flee the country, adding to a growing refugee crisis.
>Russia intensifies bombardment of Ukrainian cities
>Russian forces are setting their sights on the capital city of Kyiv, advancing to the doorstep of the city. Satellite images show Russian artillery bombarding Kyiv as fierce fighting continues in many other parts of the country. Cities in eastern and southern Ukraine are under a sustained Russian onslaught.
>Russia bombs Ukraine cities, despite pledge to pull back from Kyiv
>MALA ROHAN/NEAR IRPIN, Ukraine, March 30 (Reuters) - Russian forces bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv and a besieged city in northern Ukraine on Wednesday after promising to reduce attacks there in what the West dismissed as a ploy by Moscow to stem its heavy losses and regroup for other offensives.
Russia steps up bombardment of Ukraine’s biggest cities
>Vladimir Putin’s forces adopt more aggressive tactics in bid to regain momentum on sixth day of invasion
>Russia stepped up its bombardment of Ukraine’s biggest cities, firing missiles on targets in populated areas as Vladimir Putin’s forces turned to more brutal military tactics in a bid to regain momentum on the sixth day of the invasion.
I'm not sure you understand the difference between targeted bombing of infrastructure (that have civilian casualties I'm not denying) highly amplified by western conspiracy theories vs. actual deliberate bombing of cities (and civilians) in scale.
Be aware there's full blown propaganda on both sides.
Even if one were to grant that Russia is not nearly-indiscriminately shelling Ukrainian cities (which I don't), there is no justification for them to be attacking the country at all, targeted or otherwise. Whatever Putin might say, and notwithstanding ludicrous sham elections in occupied regions, Ukraine is a sovereign country with a democratically elected government, and not a part of Russia to be liberated.
So what is your definition of when bombing a city is not bombing a city?
Both sides, huh? Is The Ukraine denying bombing Russian cities and causing many innocent civilian casualties, while at the same time actually bombing Russian cities and causing many innocent civilian casualties, just like Russia actually is?
It's not a conspiracy theory that Putin is openly threatening the first use of nuclear weapons, and both sides certainly aren't doing that.
So does your invalid whataboutism justify the fact that YOU yourself are knowingly spreading Russian propaganda?
Whining about how both sides are doing it would be a lot more justified if you weren't doing it yourself.
Edit: I never said I wasn't a propagandist, but you definitely are, since you're the one who's lying about Putin not bombing cities.
Notice how in your reply you STILL did not explain when bombing a city is not bombing a city, you just tried to divert and deflect and spread whataboutism.
We're discussing the bombings that really did happen, that you're denying happened, and the fact that you're lying about it.
So how do you justify deliberately bombing a shopping center?
Well you seem to spread simple minded technical arguments with no historical nor political depth whatsoever (nevermind acknowledge what the US is doing behind the scenes), which is essentially textbook Western narrative.
War is war, deaths are deaths, but they do not come just like that. There's tension that builds up with time and what has the US done to ease that tension ?
Russia is saying plainly and repeatedly that they're not at war with Ukraine but with the US/NATO. Let's face reality.
"You're a propagandist while I'm not" is quite laughable I'm afraid.
Your position is ludicrous. Russia invaded Ukraine. They are clearly at war with Ukraine. There is no valid historical or political justification for this.
You're absolutely right that war doesn't just happen. Putin made a conscious choice to invade a neighboring country, and one with which you'd had close ties at that, leading to all of this suffering and needless death. The only thing that isn't obvious here is whether you believe what you're saying or are intentionally spreading nonsense.
Well you're speaking for Putin, and he's convinced absolutely nobody he didn't bomb Ukrainian cities, not even you or anticodon, who don't even believe the lies and propaganda you're spreading with your own words. But it's a living, being complicit with war crimes, huh? Too bad Putin destroyed your country's economy so terribly you can't find better work than being a trolling lying keyboard warrior. Maybe if you got into better shape you could drive a tank.
Since you claim "This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities" is a "simple fact" that "never gets to western ears for some reason", you admit you don't believe Putin has bombed Ukranian cities.
What is your proof of your belief in that lie that's contradicted by so much evidence?
Since you're so concerned that proof Putin doesn't bomb Ukrainian cities never gets to Western ears, then speak up now and show us the facts that proved to you all those videos and eyewitness accounts we've all seen are fake, so it finally does get to Western ears.
Or do you just believe the lie that Putin doesn't bomb Ukrainian cities without any proof, just like how you believe all of your baseless Covid-19 conspiracy theories that you spread?
Yes that is how Russians excuse genocide and annexation they are committing. That does not make it true. The ideology you describe here is in fact definition of genocide - attempt to destroy Ukraine into not-existing.
> This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities
It is well documented. You did destroyed multiple Ukrainian cities. You did tortured and committed massacres. Your soldiers rape kids, women, old.
> We understand that they're people pumped by the Nazi propaganda to be used by the West to attack Russia, because NATO and/or USA are too afraid to attack Russia directly.
No you dont. The right wing neonazi groups are strong in Russia.
> You show that everything you know about Russia and Ukraine is from western propaganda.
I find it hard to believe that everything we see is western propaganda. One of the reasons for this is that the Russian propagandists on TV proudly boast about committing genocide, are the Russian tv shows western propaganda now?.
Are the videos of the Russian tanks firing on fleeing civilians Western propaganda ?
Are the multiple independent reports that show Russia is committing atrocities such as raping and torturing adults and children in Ukraine western propaganda?.
Are the mass graves in multiple Ukrainian cities Western propaganda?.
> Are the multiple independent reports that show Russia is committing atrocities such as raping and torturing adults and children in Ukraine western propaganda?.
Well, lots of them definitely are fake. Ukraine government had even to fire one of its propagandists because she started creating such an absurd fakes about rapes that nobody could believe this and it undermined the influence of Ukranian propaganda. Her name was Ludmila Denisova.
"The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons. The exposure to repeated explosions, crimes, forced displacement and separation from family members deeply affected their well-being and mental health.".
I’m not sure how to even respond to something as deluded as this.
Quite evidently Ukrainians do not believe themselves to be Russian, are actively resisting Russian occupation, and will continue to until they fully push the incompetent Russian military off their land or Russia strikes a peace deal.
Ukrainian cities and apartment complexes have very much been struck by Russian cruise missiles and artillery. Russia has destroyed Ukrainian dams and power plants.
Truth be told, no one cares what you think in Russia. Ukrainians don’t see themselves as Russian, they see themselves as a separate people, and they will continue to be one since Russia is incapable of fielding a competent army.
If 16 or so HIMARS are so capable of destroying Russian ammo depots, why would the US be scared of Russia when they have 380 or so HIMARS in possession? Not to mention the US Air Force and Navy is so far beyond their Russian equivalents it’s like comparing an MMA fighter to a 5 year old child at karate for the first time. Russia hasn’t even deployed Su-57s or T-14s because they largely do not exist outside of useless prototypes. The US has 300+ F-35s and 180+ F-22s that are leaps and bounds better than anything Russia is flying, not to mention the fuck ton of F-15s and F-16s still in use.
And that’s just the USA. Fold the entirety of NATO into the equation and it’s obvious the Russian military does not hold the faintest thread to the US or NATO as a whole. Poland would crush Russia 1v1. The only thing Russia has going for it is nukes. Without them, it’s just a corrupt, broken, weak regional power. That’s really all it is with them.
You do know that Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish, don't you?
Good Godwin: "Nazi! Nazi! Nazi!" You sounds exactly like a Q-Anon Trump supporter ranting and raving about how the Democrats are all Godless Pedophile Satan Worshipers. Do you also believe that too? If so, care to explain why godless people worship Satan? The same way a Jew can be democratically elected to lead a Nazi country?
>The Jewish Quarterly: VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY and the Jews of eastern Ukraine
>In 2019, shortly after being elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky met with representatives of the country’s religious communities. During his meeting with leaders of the Jewish community, one of the delegates – a rabbi – recounted to Zelensky the famous exchange in which Henry Kissinger told Golda Meir: “First I am an American, second I am secretary of state and third I am a Jew,” to which Meir responded: “Henry, you forget that in Israel we read from right to left.” The rabbi then added: “Don’t forget that the Jews of Ukraine also read from right to left.” Presumably, the rabbi was not merely trying to deliver a punchline but also a Golda-esque reminder to Zelensky that he – Ukraine’s new president – is not only a former comedian, but also Jewish.
The TL;DR is that most experts don't think Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons, but there's still a substantial non-zero chance. 10%? 25%? Much higher than anyone would like, that's for sure, and dependent on factors that are out of control of anybody but the Russian government and military. I have not found any sources saying the opposite, though some have higher degrees of confidence than others. The consensus appears to be that this sense of uncertainty is being created by Russia on purpose, and therefore, that it's probably (but not guaranteed to be) a bluff.
I have also seen very mixed opinions on whether Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are in suitable condition for use. But I think it is best to assume they are.
The odds of Russia intentionally using strategic nuclear weapons, the kind you would target at foreign cities across continents or oceans from you, remain nearly zero. Unlike tactical nuclear weapons, which have theoretical uses in ensuring one wins a conflict, strategic nuclear weapons remain a guarantee of mutual and probably worldwide destruction with no purpose except to deter would-be attackers. The only time I can see even the Putin regime considering the use of such a weapon would be a full-scale, boots on the ground invasion of the Russian homeland (not Crimea or Donbas or other annexed territories).
>I have also seen very mixed opinions on whether Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are in suitable condition for use. But I think it is best to assume they are.
I've been thinking about this possibility since the start of the Ukraine War:
* Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of Russian might.
* The weapon is a dud.
I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!
> I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!
I mean, if you're NATO and you see that... hard to imagine you don't take the invitation and just crush the Russian military into so much melted shrapnel. Every analysis I've seen says that if NATO gets involved, and nukes are otherwise off the table (which in this case they would be, at least for long enough for it not to matter), the thing ends with total NATO victory in very little time. And the attempted use of tactical nukes is the one thing almost guaranteed to step up NATO involvement.
But maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.
In terms of geopolitical stability, it would make Russia difficult to take seriously as a nuclear power. I don't think it says much about other nuclear states, like the US or China, who are almost certainly not paper tigers like Russia would have proven to be.
Even if most Russian nukes are duds, 5% still working is enough to deter NATO from directly attacking Russian forces. Hell, 1% probably is. Right now NATO is just giving Ukraine weapons and beating Russia that way.
I'll respond to this comment but there are a number in the same vein: "Russia would still have X% working nukes even if Y% don't work, and they have lots of nukes."
That is true. However, what's missing from this assessment in my view is the difference between strategic nukes (the kind that level a city) and tactical nukes (the kind you use for specific tactical goals, and the only kind being discussed as likely to be used here).
Russia has enough working strategic nukes that any kind of direct offense against the Russian homeland is always gonna be off the table. That is totally true. But nobody, including Russia, has suggested those are going to be used at all.
Rather, what is contemplated is using a tactical nuclear weapon to make a statement or accomplish a specific wartime goal. With regards to tactical nukes specifically, I think this claim:
> 5% still working is enough to deter NATO from directly attacking Russian forces.
is possibly not true. I think NATO might be willing to engage Russia conventionally if it is clear their tactical nukes don't work - and maybe even if they do work, because that may be among what has been threatened as a response to the use of a tactical nuke.
If Russia threatens to bomb Warsaw or DC, the situation changes again. But nobody has put that on the table... yet.
They supposedly have 5000+ warheads, even if 50% straight up don't exist and another 50% of the remaining are duds that's still enough to fuck us up 5 times over
I went to a Titan or Nike missile museum once and they had an exhibit on the probabilities for Russian nukes working and reaching their targets also including interception. They are way lower than USA. That means that Russia had to have considerably more nukes to achieve a high probability of success in hitting intended targets.
I'm not sure how that plays now based on disarmament and technological updates.
Maybe - but the point of it being a nuke is that nukes get attention, and you'd do it to get that attention and try to force capitulation or at least abandonment of popular support for your enemy. A FOAB wouldn't quite do it.
Depleted uranium rounds produce more radioactive contamination than a dirty bomb yet we lost our collective mind over the second and don't even think about the first.
The only difference is that the US uses DU regularly so we think of it as normal instead of a nuclear weapon on par with a tactical nuke in terms of long term damage.
> The TL;DR is that most experts don't think Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons
We don't want to imagine it, that's as simple as that, just like we didn't want to imagine the invasion in the first place. "it's too dumb nobody would do that" is what most people were saying, even like a week before the invasion only the US were seriously warning people.
Even in the US, a lot of us didn't think Putin would actually invade since it looked like such a disasterous tactical move. It turns out a lot of people underestimated Russia's suicidal tendencies.
Apparently, nobody knows - not even analysts with lifetimes of Russia expertise. We’re in uncharted territory.
War on the Rocks[1] generally, and any content featuring Michael Kofman[2] specifically, are great sources on the conflict generally. The ~weekly podcast is great.
LOL, as a Russian I sometimes read US "experts on Russia" for lulz. They either live in a dream world where brown bears walk on streets of Moscow drinking vodka and playing balalaikas, or they just translate this nonsense to the public. Their ignorance is outstanding. Like "Russians will start a revolution because McDonalds and Coca-Cola left Russia market". Actually almost nobody regrets it, and most people are happy that it happened. And so on.
Just about every twit from McFaul about Russia is so deranged, that I'm not even surprised anymore, I read him as a good comedy.
Ok, so you have an access to some "real" information about Russia? I guess it must be classified, because when I read something that is openly published on the West about Russia, it's usually very weird and untrue information at best.
McFaul is considered an expert on Russia, he even lived here for some time. Still, when he says something about the way we live or the way we think, or anything like that, it's usually so delusional, that I can't understand what was he doing here for two years. Has he even stepped outside of US embassy a single time?..
But on the other hand, I think it's beneficial for us, that all the West lives in a dream that they know everything about Russia.
Seems like you guys are having a little trouble with underestimating your adversaries.
Why don’t you check out the source I mentioned in my original comment - any recent WotR or Geopolitics Decanted podcast with Michael Kofman, Director of Russia Studies at CNA. Then please do come back and let us know whether you think he’s full of shit. Will be waiting for your considered thoughts with baited breath.
Zero. Russia has plenty of regular weapons to level Ukraine and big part of Europe (look at thermobaric bombs). It also has industry and resources to produce such weapons for long period of time.
And it considers Ukraine ethnically related. Many Russians have relatives in Kiev etc.. Using nukes on Ukraine would be huge political problem.
It is FUD spread by trigger happy westerners, who want to normalize nuclear war!
You'd think that invading Ukraine would also be looked upon negatively then, no? You also say that like it isn't Putin who has been repeatedly threatening nuclear escalation.
I went through this when I was a teenager during Reagan's first term, and my parents when through it when they were teens during Kennedy.
This article tones it down to a dirty bomb, and the results closely resemble any natural disaster. Based on what I read about the 2020 fires in CA and Ore., I saw that roads were backed up, store shelves were hoarded, and infrastructure failed. And that was without contamination sticking to everything like and STI. Unless you can avoid evacuation and have done a meticulous job preparing -and- have a shelter, I don't think it is realistic to expect to survive a dirty bomb attack. I was truly, existentially scared when my Mayor announced that we should prepare for evacuation during the fires... because our freeways can't even handle rush-hour traffic. What was I supposed to do with two kids and pets and stores that were already picked clean from the pandemic? I've added more water jugs since (and a small trailer) but I have a low-level fear that no preparedness is going to work long term for something like a dirty bomb, that will eventually require relocation.
>Unless you can avoid evacuation and have done a meticulous job preparing -and- have a shelter, I don't think it is realistic to expect to survive a dirty bomb attack.
> The only way to get a lethal dose is to snort the dust from the explosion for a year.
That's not the message I take away from that link, and in fact, based on what is describe within it, it seems rather likely if you remain in the vicinity you will be impacted over time.
So, in case of an emergency where everyone wants to evacuate the city/populated area, your plan is to hook up a trailer? Wouldn't it make traffic worse if people did that and make it harder to maneuver?
Why not just buy a small amount of rural land and just leave stuff there, like a polite prepper?
The only winning move for sure. Living inside a major population center (near major military bases!) means that if bombs were really falling, I would be vaporized or fatally irritated in the opening salvo.
Years ago, I got randomly mailed a box of potassium iodide tablets because there was nuclear plant in the region. But in case of nuclear war, I want a suicide pill. I want several to give to others. I remember jokingly promising to be euthanasia provider for my friends who didn't want any part of the apocalypse. But if that day ever comes, I wouldn't even know how. There should be a guide out there for how to mercy off yourself and others most efficiently/painlessly/rapidly in case the world ends, but reading it will probably get one on three letter agency lists.
> There should be a guide out there for how to mercy off yourself and others most efficiently/painlessly/rapidly in case the world ends
To be blunt, shooting yourself would seem the quickest way to end yourself. At least for those in the US, owning a firearm is quite simple. Owning "suicide pills" would seem to be far more likely to put you on someone agency's watchlist.
TBH having a firearm in that scenario would probably entice one to behave poorly in effort to survive.
Cursory research of using gun has 80-90% success rate. That said it might skew 100% in a world where emergency services stop, but those are still pretty high odds of slowly bleeding out. And ultimately, as hypothetical euthanasia executor, I don't want to mercy shoot loved ones in the head.
Side note: this is morbid topic I think about every once in a while after seeing meme comparing Google vs Bing when queried "suicide methods". Google showed prevention hotline, Bing showed a table with methods and success rate. What stood out was that most popular methods were around coin flip to negligible effectiveness. Seems like it's just really hard to gracefully end someone/oneself, which is my only real anxiety in these apocalypse scenarios.
Putin cannot afford to lose a war or to lose Russian territory. Putin is only president for life. No Russian leader has personally survived such an event, all the way back to the tsars. Faced with that history, he is more likely to use a tactical nuclear weapon than give up power.
What many forget, or perhaps nver realised, is that Putin is the moderate voice of the extreme Russian nationalists.
Should Putin lose his hold on power to any degree he could be usurped by anyone of several who would have absolutely used nuclear weapons three months ago already.
> Putin cannot afford to lose a war or to lose Russian territory. Putin is only president for life. No Russian leader has personally survived such an event, all the way back to the tsars.
Alexander I survived losing the wars of the third and fourth coalitions against Napoleon, Alexander II survived losing the Crimean war, Kerensky survived losing WWI, Lenin survived losing the Polish-Soviet war, Gorbachev survived losing the Soviet-Afghan war, Yeltsin survived losing the Chechen war...
179 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 67.2 ms ] threadMy rule of thumb is simple.
- Know the nearest target.
- Know who might hit it with a nuke.
- Check the NukeMap ( https://nukemap.org/ ) based on who might nuke it and what nukes they are known to have... to estimate the if you even need to care about shelter. If you're too close to the nearest target theres not much you could hope to do without shelter. If you're far enough then you wont need to care about the immediate attack either.
- Missile warning will likely create havoc with transport as people without plans try to suddenly make them. So consider where you spend most of your time during a normal day, and what transport options you have with you then depending on your personal level of paranoia make a decision about the best shelter options based on two things, travel time and level of protection. You should travel for better shelter, but not risk traveling far given the uncertainty of the situation. Just having a basic background understanding of what the suitable shelter would be in your life and this becomes more like knowing where you could hide from sudden rain without an umbrella on a walk down the street.
- Shelter will depend a lot on your local environment, just keep the basic principles of radiation protection in mind. 1st is Distance, 2nd is Mass. If you cant get distance from the radiation source, put mass between you and it. Given that fallout will be dropping from the sky as heavier than air dust, you want to primarily find anything to give you protection against it being blown closer to you horizontally, and maximum distance from whatever roof is over your head. If neither of these are particularly available, prioritise the horizontal wind blown dust, settle for whatever concrete slab building you can find that would afford you some measure of protection from dust blowing in even if the windows and doors were damaged.
- Think of it as extreme, unusual, but also unlikely, weather event. You don't want to get "wet" from the dry rain of fallout dust, you also want to be as far away from it as you can, and don't want it getting tracked/blown inside.
I went to a Nuclear Emergency Response Team (NERT) office at a base in Canada to pick up some radio equipment.
They had a wall map in there showing the base as ground zero with concentric circles covering most of the surrounding area and each ring had notes scribbled in them.
I took a quick look and didn't know what the notes meant, but my apartment was well within the annotated area....damn.
My memory encapsulates this, before I was born:
"The most important things in this war are the machines... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."
https://www.rferl.org/a/did-us-lend-lease-aid-tip-the-balanc...
My country sustained, and I believe it will sustain again, those who are in need.
It is a dream I have.
I look at the things the people in charge of the country whose nationality I possess (UK) does and I am aghast at the idea that people around the world would associate them with me. I'm sure there are many people in Russia and China etc. who feel similar.
Did you found that solution after actually reading up about lives, opinions or attitudes of those people or you just imagined everything being the same (and uncertainty surrounding those)?
I do not mean it in the sense of being being bad or good, but in a sense that a lot is quite a lot different in many important ways.
I suppose, in retrospect, policies in the west could have been designed to try and prevent those countries creating internet firewalls that allowed so much control. Being so aggressive on it would have looked over the top at the time though. It makes sense though that if everyone on every "side" can access all information, for good or for worse no one actor can stay on top of it.
On reddit it's absolutely insane, 90% of commenters are cheering for ww3, asking for hits on the kremlin, preventive nuclear strikes in russia, &c. thousands upon thousands of posts calling "russians" "orcs", I feel like I'm in the lobby of an online call of duty game
I used to think people were crazy, how could they slowly walk towards ww1 and ww2, now I see how it happens, deep down we're still dumb monkeys
Also, the discussion climate on Reddit quickly gets sick due to the downvote system and mods purging non-believers.
I swear that I hear them more often than I used to say 4 years ago (before COVID). It is kind of scary to think about these kinds of scenarios, like if something bad happens what the hell will I do if I happen to survive?
All I have are my parents who live far away, no kids or wife, not a lot of close friends here. I'm also moving pretty soon to near SF, which I hope isn't a target in such a war. I guess it is good that I've been working out. If I survive, I plan on staying alive as long as I can on my own. Damn I don't want to think about this because I don't want to die like that.
Maybe all my time sunk into playing solo DayZ back in the day and surviving against Russians, Chinese, and other players who I didn't understand working together will help, heh. FFS.
I've lived through some emergencies near you (rural north bay) and I would recommend turning on and listening to the FM & AM radio in emergencies. FM can get you stations at some distance, and there's a reasonable chance some of your local transmitters will still be up, or will be brought back up quickly. Local is fantastic for getting news that's relevant to you, at least hourly in my experience.
But in the case of national/international news, AM can also help in that it can get you (especially in mornings and evenings) plenty of news stations from in and outside of California if your area is devastated. I picked up a TX/MX border station in the middle of my house one morning a couple years ago for example.
If you have a shortwave radio like the PL-380 or CC Skywave, it will additionally be easy to pick up some stations like Radio New Zealand here in CA in the mornings and evenings. But be sure to practice this before the emergency.
If you worry about making contact from your position, it could help to pick up an FRS radio like the Midland XT511. That way you could monitor for people on the radio and call out if needed, especially if cell towers are down. When I went through that kind of emergency up here, ham radio and FRS still worked fine, and in fact the WIN system was up and running so I was able to talk to people in Ireland, Hawaii, etc.
At least in the 1990s SF had plenty of prominent targets, from what I read in books at the time. One of them (I don't remember where I read this) was the Chevron oil refinery & storage facility just off the Richmond bridge. Driving past all those oil tanks you can kind of see why. Hopefully it was just some fictive thinking though...
I was also just reading a book about a POW doctor from the UK who was right in Nagasaki when the A-bomb went off there. Shortly thereafter, aboard an allied medical ship he was...probed...and announced good to go / clear of long-term effect afterward, which surprised me. The book is "A Doctor's War", pretty interesting overall.
Prior to the 1980s or so targeting strategies were nominally divided into some mix of counterforce (i.e. targeting military installations) and countervalue (i.e. targeting civilians). The exact mix would depend on the parties involved and what sort of attacking they were either perpetrating or defending against. However, at some point infrastructure targets became a sort of third option for target lists, which chiefly means oil refineries.
Certain parts of the East Bay were effectively giant bull's eyes because of the concentration of air, naval, and army bases, as well as oil refineries. Cutbacks since the 90s have pared away much of the military in the area, and oil refineries are usually secondary targets.. the sort of thing you don't want to hit if you think you can win without it because you'd rather it still be around so you can make use of it yourself, but if not, waste it.
It's safe to assume that in any real cook off everyone is dead. Some immediately, some a little later. Those that do survive will likely starve because the land will be unusable. You wont be able to go by car, bicycle, or anything else - it'll kick up resting fallout. The panic will last weeks or months as people desperately try to escape. Supposing you survive the initial attacks you will be stuck where ever you are. Then you have to deal with your neighbors - I hope you didn't tell them you have guns/food/ammo/medicine in passing. After 3 days people begin to die of dehydration, after a week those that could stay hydrated will begin to do literally anything to eat. Your friends suddenly will turn on you, so will your family, and everyone around you. Best stash some rations for them. You'll need a team to survive. Following the guide lines of FEMA will have you underprepared by such a larger margin it's laughable. 3 days of food and water will get you to the point you can wait in a line for humanitarian aid (which won't come in a fallout zone). You'll need months of rations for each person.
The only winning move is not to play.
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/RL32572.pdf
None of this has happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, the number of nukes in existence is entirely inadequate to actually render land unusable. You are doomposting without having good grasp on what exactly nuclear weapons do, their scale, and scale of the landmass.
That was not a nuclear war. If one country gets nuked today, the rest of the world nuclear arsenal will be expended.
There is an infinitesimal chance that only one nuke goes off, or only one country nukes and the other doesn't.
This is why Mutual Assured Destruction is such an effective peace time strategy, until it isn't.
The sad thing is - the madman holding the nuke button has all the control. He's crazy so he'll do anything. He's old enough not to care about dying and destroying the whole world with him.
Everything doesn't just swing into action automatically. Poland gets nuked. Congresses, UN, Nato all hold virtual summits to figure out what to do. A week later, they decide this can't stand but if we can save 5 million lives in NYC, maybe we should.
It would like play out more like chess by mail, Putin makes a move, Biden makes a move, maybe Germany makes their own move, etc.
Once the game is in motion, it can go many ways. All Russia needs to do is cut a deal with a few NATO countries to let them be 'neutral' if they keep their noses out of things, and Nato falls apart, and then it leaves USA vs them, of course the way Russia military runs things that's not a big threat.
Another thing to think about - most of Russia's military officers are corrupt. They've been embezzling funds meant for supplies/equipment etc for years and now they finally need that equipment, they're getting shown off for fraudsters.
It costs iirc something like a billion every 10 years PER nuke just to update them and keep them working. On top of that I've read there could be as high as a 60% failure rate for normal nukes in action, probably due to the fact they mostly spend their entire lives just sitting in a bunker somewhere. Quality checking may not get done as often because of the radiological risks etc.
I'm betting of all the nukes in existence, Russia's by a magnitude of 20 maybe are more likely to fail than China or USA or other countries that actually have a competent military.
Furthermore, however insane any leader of a nuclear power may be, I just got to believe there are competent, clear-headed people in the chain of command who would refuse to follow suicidal orders while not under immediate attack themselves.
The strike maps also show the fallout zones. Wind channels [1] take a large portion of fallout that will cover a significant amount of land mass. The map in [1] shows the case ONLY if strategic targets are hit. That doesn't include hitting major production centers, cities, places of national significance, etc. If 1/3 of Russia's nuclear arsenal made contact with CONUS [1] would most likely be nearly 100% red.
There's no doom posting here (other than the doom of nuclear war). I fully understand what they are capable of. 800Kt bombs may cause small immediate destruction (relative to other large Mt+ bombs) but it's the fallout that will kill majority of people.
Further, hiroshima and nagasaki were isolated events and the US was the only nuclear superpower. They were attacked with roughly 15kt bombs that had inefficient reaction designs, roughly 1/10th to 1/100th the size of the weapons in most superpowers arsenals today. ICBM lifted devices are so much larger than little boy and fat man we can only suppose the level of damage. SLBMs aren't much smaller.
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fallout_map_USA_(FEM...
Fallout is not some magic poison that kills everyone on contact. It mostly causes extra cancers. People will die from cancers, of course, but I guarantee that in case of nuclear war, more people will die to starvation due to the collapse of production and supply chains resulting from large scale infrastructure and human capital destruction.
A better example than those bombings is chernobyl which despite it's relatively small sized (compared to actual nuclear weapons) induced significant levels of radiation sickness and long term cancers due to the fallout.
Certainly fallout is less dangerous than starvation. However, it also isn't something to just hand wave as not a big deal. It hinders your travel, can cause various degrees of sickness, etc. I dont think it's a far stretch to say that the total effect of a large scale nuclear war will primarily be felt in the fallout which will cause deaths in places completely uneffected by the war.
Yes, but those won’t be the vast red marked areas on the map you posted, it will be much more localized.
> A better example than those bombings is chernobyl which despite it's relatively small sized (compared to actual nuclear weapons) induced significant levels of radiation sickness and long term cancers due to the fallout.
To the contrary, Chernobyl again provides arguments against your theory. First, the number of people who got radiation sickness is rather low (between 100 and 200), and it only affected people who actually worked directly on the site of the disaster. Second, there is in fact very little evidence of increased cancer due to Chernobyl disaster among people other than the few hundred people on site on the day of disaster. One exception is good evidence for few thousand extra thyroid cancers, These are very easily treatable (90%+ success rates) in normal circumstances, so the might cause some problems in the nuclear war scenario, but an easy way to avoid it is to not eat fresh grown food for a few weeks right after the disaster (you can store it and it eat later).
> However, it also isn't something to just hand wave as not a big deal. It hinders your travel, can cause various degrees of sickness, etc.
Of course, but observe how you are backpedaling from your original “everyone is dead” claim. Look, if you think I am arguing that nuclear war is no biggie, you are much mistaken, and you need to read more carefully. All I’m saying is that it is very much false that everyone will die, either directly from bombs or later from fallout. Plenty of people will die, but given the realities of scale, plenty will survive too.
The opposite is actually true. Airbursts maximize the damage to lightly protected targets, but do not irradiate and lift the same amount of material as a ground burst. Unfortunately hard targets such as missile silos are likely to be targeted with ground bursts resulting in large plumes of irradiated material falling anywhere remotely close to the missile silos. These silos are generally clustered in the mid-west. It's unfortunate that all sides still use nuclear tipped missiles for the purpose of striking missile silos - they only needed nuclear warheads to achieve their objective in the 60s-80s due to poor targeting.
There are going to be large swaths of Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and North America which will be mostly unaffected by fallout or blasts. These areas for the most part don't include any industrial, or agricultural significance.
I live near a military port, and submarine base with US fleet ties. It's probably not a "priority target" but it's a pretty likely target if your goal is to deny the USA support in this region, so in its probably going to make the list should a significant number of nukes are launched/deployed, theres also a military airfield, but its no where near as valuable a target for a nuke since the USA couldn't turn any convenient highway and parking lot or field into an airfield with a couple of C5s. The only sensible place to drop a nuke near me is that port, anything else is replaceable by the forces who would value the port.
As part of evaluating my situation, using my own process ( which I outlined here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33016531 ) I ran into the airburst vs laydown attack question with respect to the port infrastructure. If you want to damage a military port, including any of the hardened, buried and underwater infrastructure... you probably need to put your nuke on the ground. But its a small island so I thought to myself ... just how much radioactive dirt could they possibly produce, surely they would end up vaporising way more water, how does this affect the fallout?... well it turns out that the fallout is different and estimating as a member of the public not party to various classified military reports that were obviously written about this and every nuke related topic under the sun... is actually pretty hard. Theres scattered notes from past research by people like https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/02/underwater-nuclear-exp... but its not as clear a picture as it is for a "normal" land based ground detonated nuke.
As part of the nuclear triad this is likely the highest priority target. Likewise ports useful for shipping military equipment are high priorities. For similar reasons, downtown manhattan is somewhat safer than Brooklyn due to distance from important ports which can be used to ship soldiers.
The USA has a surprisingly large number of military facilities, many of which appear to have been located at or collocated near naval facilities, around the world that would in the event of a nuclear war, be prime targets. In a way this has strategic advantages as it makes it harder to “get everything” but at the end of the day it’s a tangled geopolitical history that lead to the current status quo.
Depending on the exact planning and strategic goals it’s hard to imagine a significant nuclear war that doesn’t involve trying to eliminate at least one if not all of these three targets.
- Nuke 1 -> Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap - It’s got the CIA, it’s got the NSA and it’s got the NRO, its got 38 radomes housing antennas drawing down secret classified satellite data from the whole hemisphere of satellites and is part of the entire ECHELON/ 5 Eyes program
- Nuke 2 -> Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt - 1 Megawatt VLF Transmitter, most powerful in the Southern Hemisphere, designed for communicating with underwater submarines from the USA, Australia and likely capable of also doing so to any cooperating NATO nations … in short its for sending the kind of signal to an underwater submarine that would be used to tell a ballistic missile submarine to follow the orders in the green yellow blue or red folders. One of the highest likely targets for a nuke on the planet (along with its sibling VLF stations around the world) if you ask me…
- Nuke 3 -> RAAF Base Edinburgh, heart and home to the coordination centre of the Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar Network, a network of linked ionospheric frequency radar transmitter and receivers as well as ionosondes to monitor the state of the ionosphere which when combined give it a claimed capability to monitor air and sea movements over 37000square kilometres, as far as “3000 kilometres away” according to the official documents, and with a sensitivity that is apparently good enough the prototype was able to pick up a rocket launch in china 5500km away during testing in 1997 (so the real thing can probably do a bit better than the claimed 3000km range)
It turns out that all that fat really is like a giant extra-length fuel tank.
And many, many Americans have enough fat on them to break 3 months without eating a calorie. It might, in a bizarre way, save some of them.
(Micronutrients might be a problem but is much easier to solve than the calorie problem.)
Also, the initial onset of ketogenesis from fasting is very rough for people who aren't used to it. Most people's bodies are not used to it, and they won't be able to think clearly, they won't have much energy, etc.
I wonder suspect this would be alleviated if survivors managed to get like 300 calories a day of various foods, which seems more likely than pure starvation.
In general, in situation like these, the first to die are sick, old/kids and those suffering from malnutrition. It would be super safe to guess that Leningrad at the time and a lot of those (given general state of that country).
Consider even in Sweden if your neighbor has children and a wife, they are starving, and they know you have food there's no amount of focus on social cohesion that will stop him from bashing your head with a rock for your can of beans. Social cohesion is higher on the hierarchy of needs than food and water. Humans are still animals and higher order thinking is a privilege of the well nourished.
Surely, social cohesion is important. That's why I suggested having a "team". It's often better to cooperate than not. But as the civil wars in Eastern Europe over the last 50 years have shown us none of this matters once food supplies dwindle.
Your sense of social cohesion is so poor that you’ve decided the only logical path is to murder your neighbor and steal his food rather than ask to share it.
Basically two in almost tandem, exploding in sync, one above the other.
One generates a Pressure ball above the other, forcing its explosion into a much more destructive ring. Do that with hydrogen bombs and you get weapons were one such warhead can level entire metropol areas and one icbm can carry multiple.. SF would be a circular coral reef after that
No, if the fireball does not touch the ground, which is the definition of an air burst, the fallout is much much less.
The trouble is that some targets are most efficiently destroyed with ground bursts. These targets include ICBM silos, command-and-control bunkers, telecommunications hubs and internet-cable landing stations (where submarine cables intersect with a coastline).
The other trouble is that the effects of the air bursts other than the fallout are quite destructive.
You are talking about a city right on the coast, a top-20 most populated in the country, representing the tech center of the nation. Why wouldn't it make the cut?
Christopher Walkens character was the ultimate prepper.
Every news station is talking about this possibility now. But I cannot find a single analysis of how likely it is.
And how likely it is seems to depend on the effect these weapons would have on the situation on the battlefield.
But I cannot find any info on this.
There’s only vague assertions by the west about what will happen and that is intentional.
It’s likely to lead to a heavy retaliatory strike against Russia, I believe one of the options floated was effectively sinking the entire Black Sea fleet if Russia uses a nuke.
Keep in mind that any use of a nuke effectively necessitates a large reaction physically to try and avoid nuclear proliferation and use going wild.
Seems more likely that sinking their fleet would cause them to use more and bigger nukes, and/or to sink every fleet of ours within missile range.
There’s no other choice, doing nothing signals to Russia that they can use nukes without repercussions and signals to the rest of the nuclear armed countries they can do the same.
You also assume Russia is capable of a strike against US fleets in any decent capacity when they cannot even capture a city less then 300km from there border and lost there Black Sea flag ship to a country with no functional navy.
Say Putin nukes Ukraine (or fires a "demonstration" shot). If NATO stood down and just abandoned Ukraine as a response, or had them do appeasement style relinquishment of territory, or lifted sanctions, what stops Putin from pulling the nukes out the next time he wants something?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o861Ka9TtT4
"Will you press the button if they invade West Berlin?"
Ukranian cities are absolutely being leveled by Russian munitions.
> or cut the Ukranian gas pipeline (which is the only source of reliable income for Ukraine for all 30 years of its existence).
The pipelines are the biggest source of money into Russia as well. Russia has tried to go around Ukraine with the NordStream2 pipeline, but NATO countries stalled that for years precisely because they didn't want to let Russia cut Ukraine out.
>Ukranian cities are absolutely being leveled by Russian munitions.
It's at least interesting to see first hand how deeply delusional and deceived about reality so many Russian citizens act, that they could make such blatantly false easily disproven claims that fly in the face of the harsh undeniable reality and indisputable objective evidence that Putin has been bombing Ukrainian cities into the ground and mass murdering civilians.
It makes me wonder if they're willingly in on the lies and supporting and spreading them well knowing they're false out of a misguided sense of patriotism and loyalty to Putin (or simply fear and desperation?), the same way Trump supporters are LARPing by denying he lost the election and making contradictory claims like FBI planted evidence that Trump telepathically declassified anyway, when they know quite well that's a bald faced lie, or if they're actually as naive and gullible and easily deceived as they're acting.
Who do they actually think they're fooling by parroting ridiculous mendacious lies like "This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities", if not only themselves?
Or they could be a paid troll? Most of their comment history consists of pro-Russian, anti-Western rants, with only a few tech-related things in between.
Oh now you're moving the goalposts and trying to redefine what you said and divert the discussion. But what you said of your own free will (or is somebody holding a gun to your head?) is up there in black and tan for everyone to read, and even if you ninja edit your own words, you've been quoted enough times that nobody's going to forget what you said.
Your claim that "you can't win otherwise" when you unilaterally attack a sovereign country actually means that you should not unilaterally attack a sovereign country, not that Putin didn't bomb Ukrainian cities. It doesn't prove your lie, it just proves how inhumane and aggressive you are.
If you can't win otherwise, then you should just fucking well lose, instead of unilaterally starting a war, bombing cities, and killing innocent civilians, then mendaciously lying about it, because you should not have attacked The Ukraine in the first place. Then you wouldn't need to lie about it, huh?
Your rebuttal that "The cities where the actual war is going on. Not all the cities..." is bullshit because Russia brought the war to them. The cities that PUTIN UNILATERALLY ATTACKED are being bombed. Not bombing some cities doesn't justify bombing others, or invading a sovereign nation.
Putin DID bomb Ukrainian cities. And you said he didn't. So you LIED. Not just a little white lie. A huge mendacious lie that attempts to justify and cover up war crimes. That makes you complicit.
This simple fact, and what it tells about what Ukraine means to Russia, never gets to western ears for some reason.
Is your indefensible conspiracy theory that these are all deep faked videos?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvi7QFJYv_k
>Ukrainian cities bombed: Russian strikes spread from east to west
>Russian strikes hit the capital, Kyiv, and Kharkiv and Kramatorsk in the east, causing deaths, Ukrainian officials say. Missiles destroy an aircraft repair plant near the airport in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Mayor Andriy Sadovy says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e42F1V3AOq4
>Russia accused of using cluster bombs as fighting rages in Ukraine’s cities - BBC News
>Heavy fighting has taken place in several cities across Ukraine.
>Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, has seen some of the fiercest battles with Russian forces accused of using cluster munitions. Many civilians are reported to have been killed.
>Thousands more people have been trying to flee the country, adding to a growing refugee crisis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuoo3wm69U
>Russia continues to shell newly-liberated city after Ukraine's counter-offensive – BBC News
>Ukraine's counter-offensive in the northern Kharkiv region has put the Kremlin on the back foot, Western analysts and politicians have said.
>This is said to explain President Vladimir Putin's mobilisation announcement, which could see 300,000 Russian’s summoned to serve in the war.
>The Ukrainian military is now trying to consolidate those recent gains.
>However, the city of Kupiansk, which was recently taken back from the Russians, is still coming under attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTgiVwRLx-g
>Russia intensifies bombardment of Ukrainian cities
>Russian forces are setting their sights on the capital city of Kyiv, advancing to the doorstep of the city. Satellite images show Russian artillery bombarding Kyiv as fierce fighting continues in many other parts of the country. Cities in eastern and southern Ukraine are under a sustained Russian onslaught.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-isnt-naive-zele...
>Russia bombs Ukraine cities, despite pledge to pull back from Kyiv
>MALA ROHAN/NEAR IRPIN, Ukraine, March 30 (Reuters) - Russian forces bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv and a besieged city in northern Ukraine on Wednesday after promising to reduce attacks there in what the West dismissed as a ploy by Moscow to stem its heavy losses and regroup for other offensives.
https://www.ft.com/content/e51014c3-0b97-4a3d-8a19-bc49b3ccd...
Russia steps up bombardment of Ukraine’s biggest cities
>Vladimir Putin’s forces adopt more aggressive tactics in bid to regain momentum on sixth day of invasion
>Russia stepped up its bombardment of Ukraine’s biggest cities, firing missiles on targets in populated areas as Vladimir Putin’s forces turned to more brutal military tactics in a bid to regain momentum on the sixth day of the invasion.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/russia-widens-...
Be aware there's full blown propaganda on both sides.
Both sides, huh? Is The Ukraine denying bombing Russian cities and causing many innocent civilian casualties, while at the same time actually bombing Russian cities and causing many innocent civilian casualties, just like Russia actually is?
It's not a conspiracy theory that Putin is openly threatening the first use of nuclear weapons, and both sides certainly aren't doing that.
So does your invalid whataboutism justify the fact that YOU yourself are knowingly spreading Russian propaganda?
Whining about how both sides are doing it would be a lot more justified if you weren't doing it yourself.
Edit: I never said I wasn't a propagandist, but you definitely are, since you're the one who's lying about Putin not bombing cities.
Notice how in your reply you STILL did not explain when bombing a city is not bombing a city, you just tried to divert and deflect and spread whataboutism.
We're discussing the bombings that really did happen, that you're denying happened, and the fact that you're lying about it.
So how do you justify deliberately bombing a shopping center?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyiv_shopping_centre_bombing
War is war, deaths are deaths, but they do not come just like that. There's tension that builds up with time and what has the US done to ease that tension ?
Russia is saying plainly and repeatedly that they're not at war with Ukraine but with the US/NATO. Let's face reality.
"You're a propagandist while I'm not" is quite laughable I'm afraid.
You're absolutely right that war doesn't just happen. Putin made a conscious choice to invade a neighboring country, and one with which you'd had close ties at that, leading to all of this suffering and needless death. The only thing that isn't obvious here is whether you believe what you're saying or are intentionally spreading nonsense.
Why so ? Don't be so lazy.
Sorry to have confronted your bigoted certainties.
So you know, I fear much more the US's mad leaders than Putin.
Good day
What is your proof of your belief in that lie that's contradicted by so much evidence?
Since you're so concerned that proof Putin doesn't bomb Ukrainian cities never gets to Western ears, then speak up now and show us the facts that proved to you all those videos and eyewitness accounts we've all seen are fake, so it finally does get to Western ears.
Or do you just believe the lie that Putin doesn't bomb Ukrainian cities without any proof, just like how you believe all of your baseless Covid-19 conspiracy theories that you spread?
> This is why we don't bomb Ukranian cities
It is well documented. You did destroyed multiple Ukrainian cities. You did tortured and committed massacres. Your soldiers rape kids, women, old.
> We understand that they're people pumped by the Nazi propaganda to be used by the West to attack Russia, because NATO and/or USA are too afraid to attack Russia directly.
No you dont. The right wing neonazi groups are strong in Russia.
I find it hard to believe that everything we see is western propaganda. One of the reasons for this is that the Russian propagandists on TV proudly boast about committing genocide, are the Russian tv shows western propaganda now?.
Are the videos of the Russian tanks firing on fleeing civilians Western propaganda ?
Are the multiple independent reports that show Russia is committing atrocities such as raping and torturing adults and children in Ukraine western propaganda?.
Are the mass graves in multiple Ukrainian cities Western propaganda?.
Well, lots of them definitely are fake. Ukraine government had even to fire one of its propagandists because she started creating such an absurd fakes about rapes that nobody could believe this and it undermined the influence of Ukranian propaganda. Her name was Ludmila Denisova.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/09/update-chair-ind...
ill quote it for you.
"The Commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined. Children have also been killed and injured in indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons. The exposure to repeated explosions, crimes, forced displacement and separation from family members deeply affected their well-being and mental health.".
Quite evidently Ukrainians do not believe themselves to be Russian, are actively resisting Russian occupation, and will continue to until they fully push the incompetent Russian military off their land or Russia strikes a peace deal.
Ukrainian cities and apartment complexes have very much been struck by Russian cruise missiles and artillery. Russia has destroyed Ukrainian dams and power plants.
Truth be told, no one cares what you think in Russia. Ukrainians don’t see themselves as Russian, they see themselves as a separate people, and they will continue to be one since Russia is incapable of fielding a competent army.
If 16 or so HIMARS are so capable of destroying Russian ammo depots, why would the US be scared of Russia when they have 380 or so HIMARS in possession? Not to mention the US Air Force and Navy is so far beyond their Russian equivalents it’s like comparing an MMA fighter to a 5 year old child at karate for the first time. Russia hasn’t even deployed Su-57s or T-14s because they largely do not exist outside of useless prototypes. The US has 300+ F-35s and 180+ F-22s that are leaps and bounds better than anything Russia is flying, not to mention the fuck ton of F-15s and F-16s still in use.
And that’s just the USA. Fold the entirety of NATO into the equation and it’s obvious the Russian military does not hold the faintest thread to the US or NATO as a whole. Poland would crush Russia 1v1. The only thing Russia has going for it is nukes. Without them, it’s just a corrupt, broken, weak regional power. That’s really all it is with them.
Good Godwin: "Nazi! Nazi! Nazi!" You sounds exactly like a Q-Anon Trump supporter ranting and raving about how the Democrats are all Godless Pedophile Satan Worshipers. Do you also believe that too? If so, care to explain why godless people worship Satan? The same way a Jew can be democratically elected to lead a Nazi country?
https://jewishquarterly.com/articles/extract/2022/02/volodym...
>The Jewish Quarterly: VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY and the Jews of eastern Ukraine
>In 2019, shortly after being elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky met with representatives of the country’s religious communities. During his meeting with leaders of the Jewish community, one of the delegates – a rabbi – recounted to Zelensky the famous exchange in which Henry Kissinger told Golda Meir: “First I am an American, second I am secretary of state and third I am a Jew,” to which Meir responded: “Henry, you forget that in Israel we read from right to left.” The rabbi then added: “Don’t forget that the Jews of Ukraine also read from right to left.” Presumably, the rabbi was not merely trying to deliver a punchline but also a Golda-esque reminder to Zelensky that he – Ukraine’s new president – is not only a former comedian, but also Jewish.
You sure about that one ?
Article 5
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/23/little-military-sen...
https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ukraine-post-12
https://www.iswresearch.org/2022/09/russian-offensive-campai...
The TL;DR is that most experts don't think Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons, but there's still a substantial non-zero chance. 10%? 25%? Much higher than anyone would like, that's for sure, and dependent on factors that are out of control of anybody but the Russian government and military. I have not found any sources saying the opposite, though some have higher degrees of confidence than others. The consensus appears to be that this sense of uncertainty is being created by Russia on purpose, and therefore, that it's probably (but not guaranteed to be) a bluff.
I have also seen very mixed opinions on whether Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are in suitable condition for use. But I think it is best to assume they are.
The odds of Russia intentionally using strategic nuclear weapons, the kind you would target at foreign cities across continents or oceans from you, remain nearly zero. Unlike tactical nuclear weapons, which have theoretical uses in ensuring one wins a conflict, strategic nuclear weapons remain a guarantee of mutual and probably worldwide destruction with no purpose except to deter would-be attackers. The only time I can see even the Putin regime considering the use of such a weapon would be a full-scale, boots on the ground invasion of the Russian homeland (not Crimea or Donbas or other annexed territories).
Edit: Another source pointed out elsewhere - https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/russias-plan-to-stay-in-th... - seems reasonable. I am not 100% sure on its credibility but it aligns broadly. (Listen from about 5 minutes to about 14 minutes in.)
I've been thinking about this possibility since the start of the Ukraine War:
* Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of Russian might.
* The weapon is a dud.
I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!
I mean, if you're NATO and you see that... hard to imagine you don't take the invitation and just crush the Russian military into so much melted shrapnel. Every analysis I've seen says that if NATO gets involved, and nukes are otherwise off the table (which in this case they would be, at least for long enough for it not to matter), the thing ends with total NATO victory in very little time. And the attempted use of tactical nukes is the one thing almost guaranteed to step up NATO involvement.
But maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.
In terms of geopolitical stability, it would make Russia difficult to take seriously as a nuclear power. I don't think it says much about other nuclear states, like the US or China, who are almost certainly not paper tigers like Russia would have proven to be.
Otherwise, it is MAD.
That is true. However, what's missing from this assessment in my view is the difference between strategic nukes (the kind that level a city) and tactical nukes (the kind you use for specific tactical goals, and the only kind being discussed as likely to be used here).
Russia has enough working strategic nukes that any kind of direct offense against the Russian homeland is always gonna be off the table. That is totally true. But nobody, including Russia, has suggested those are going to be used at all.
Rather, what is contemplated is using a tactical nuclear weapon to make a statement or accomplish a specific wartime goal. With regards to tactical nukes specifically, I think this claim:
> 5% still working is enough to deter NATO from directly attacking Russian forces.
is possibly not true. I think NATO might be willing to engage Russia conventionally if it is clear their tactical nukes don't work - and maybe even if they do work, because that may be among what has been threatened as a response to the use of a tactical nuke.
If Russia threatens to bomb Warsaw or DC, the situation changes again. But nobody has put that on the table... yet.
I'm not sure how that plays now based on disarmament and technological updates.
The only difference is that the US uses DU regularly so we think of it as normal instead of a nuclear weapon on par with a tactical nuke in terms of long term damage.
We don't want to imagine it, that's as simple as that, just like we didn't want to imagine the invasion in the first place. "it's too dumb nobody would do that" is what most people were saying, even like a week before the invasion only the US were seriously warning people.
War on the Rocks[1] generally, and any content featuring Michael Kofman[2] specifically, are great sources on the conflict generally. The ~weekly podcast is great.
[1] https://warontherocks.com/
[2] https://mobile.twitter.com/KofmanMichael
Just about every twit from McFaul about Russia is so deranged, that I'm not even surprised anymore, I read him as a good comedy.
McFaul is considered an expert on Russia, he even lived here for some time. Still, when he says something about the way we live or the way we think, or anything like that, it's usually so delusional, that I can't understand what was he doing here for two years. Has he even stepped outside of US embassy a single time?..
But on the other hand, I think it's beneficial for us, that all the West lives in a dream that they know everything about Russia.
Why don’t you check out the source I mentioned in my original comment - any recent WotR or Geopolitics Decanted podcast with Michael Kofman, Director of Russia Studies at CNA. Then please do come back and let us know whether you think he’s full of shit. Will be waiting for your considered thoughts with baited breath.
> with bated breath: in a nervous and excited state anticipating what will happen
> bate: To flap the wings wildly or frantically - used of a falcon; To lessen the force or intensity of; moderate.To take away; subtract.
And it considers Ukraine ethnically related. Many Russians have relatives in Kiev etc.. Using nukes on Ukraine would be huge political problem.
It is FUD spread by trigger happy westerners, who want to normalize nuclear war!
This article tones it down to a dirty bomb, and the results closely resemble any natural disaster. Based on what I read about the 2020 fires in CA and Ore., I saw that roads were backed up, store shelves were hoarded, and infrastructure failed. And that was without contamination sticking to everything like and STI. Unless you can avoid evacuation and have done a meticulous job preparing -and- have a shelter, I don't think it is realistic to expect to survive a dirty bomb attack. I was truly, existentially scared when my Mayor announced that we should prepare for evacuation during the fires... because our freeways can't even handle rush-hour traffic. What was I supposed to do with two kids and pets and stores that were already picked clean from the pandemic? I've added more water jugs since (and a small trailer) but I have a low-level fear that no preparedness is going to work long term for something like a dirty bomb, that will eventually require relocation.
Dirty bombs are actually the least dangerous WMD. The only way to get a lethal dose is to snort the dust from the explosion for a year: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/emergencies/dirtybombs.ht...
That's not the message I take away from that link, and in fact, based on what is describe within it, it seems rather likely if you remain in the vicinity you will be impacted over time.
Why not just buy a small amount of rural land and just leave stuff there, like a polite prepper?
What does 'STI' stand for in this context?
You (probably) don't want to live in a post-nuclear world.
You spare your citizens the horror of what a nuclear winter + global fallout catastrophe will look like, while ensuring your enemy suffers through it.
To be blunt, shooting yourself would seem the quickest way to end yourself. At least for those in the US, owning a firearm is quite simple. Owning "suicide pills" would seem to be far more likely to put you on someone agency's watchlist.
TBH having a firearm in that scenario would probably entice one to behave poorly in effort to survive.
Cursory research of using gun has 80-90% success rate. That said it might skew 100% in a world where emergency services stop, but those are still pretty high odds of slowly bleeding out. And ultimately, as hypothetical euthanasia executor, I don't want to mercy shoot loved ones in the head.
Side note: this is morbid topic I think about every once in a while after seeing meme comparing Google vs Bing when queried "suicide methods". Google showed prevention hotline, Bing showed a table with methods and success rate. What stood out was that most popular methods were around coin flip to negligible effectiveness. Seems like it's just really hard to gracefully end someone/oneself, which is my only real anxiety in these apocalypse scenarios.
Putin cannot afford to lose a war or to lose Russian territory. Putin is only president for life. No Russian leader has personally survived such an event, all the way back to the tsars. Faced with that history, he is more likely to use a tactical nuclear weapon than give up power.
What many forget, or perhaps nver realised, is that Putin is the moderate voice of the extreme Russian nationalists.
Should Putin lose his hold on power to any degree he could be usurped by anyone of several who would have absolutely used nuclear weapons three months ago already.
Alexander I survived losing the wars of the third and fourth coalitions against Napoleon, Alexander II survived losing the Crimean war, Kerensky survived losing WWI, Lenin survived losing the Polish-Soviet war, Gorbachev survived losing the Soviet-Afghan war, Yeltsin survived losing the Chechen war...
... I'll see myself out.