EDIT: For clarification, I feel that the current situation on the ground in the war (vs. say a year ago) might indicate that an attack on Russia might not result in instant nuclear war, which is what prompted my question. I am well aware of the “instant nuclear Armageddon” opinion.
Serious question. I don’t need to be called stupid. I realize nuclear war is bad. Thanks!
Nato would completely overwhelm Russia, but not before nukes would fly from various places and hit major cities in the western world. In the retaliation, all of Russia would be destroyed, world in turmoil…
I have some doubts that Russia’s nuclear weapons are even in operational order.
maybe they try to launch them, and they just self-destruct inside their silos. or, they fly, but fall out of the sky still in Russia, or, they actually fly all the way to the destination, but fail to detonate.
to be sure, this is not something that we should wager on. I just think it would be funny if it turned out that way. just a fun little daydream of imperialist fascist scum getting put in the ground where they fucking belong.
The IAEA and the START treaty mean we have inspectors that can monitor the actual capabilities of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. According to these inspectors Russia has, at least, 2000 completely operational nukes.
Russia is believed to have about 6500 nuclear weapons. Even if ninety-nine percent of them fail, that’s still 65 cities turned to ash.
That seems like a ridiculous number of nuclear munitions. Like why so many?
So that even if 99% fail or get shot down, 65 cities are still turned to ash.
The US and the USSR engaged in a race to have the most nukes. After the fall of the Sowjet Union international treaties were put in place to reduce the number of nukes in both east and west.
Don’t quote me, but if I remember correctly, at the height of the cold war, both sides had more than 12.000 nukes each.
Humanity had enough fire power to delete the entire globe roughly 40x over then. Why? Because bigger is better.
That’s dumb. They didn’t do it just for shits and giggles. They did it because in a nuclear exchange, you only get one shot so you need to overwhelm your opponent’s defenses.
Partially yes, but there’s an even more mundane reason; with nuclear weapons, if the other side has 5, you need 6: five to destroy their five, and one to destroy their capital. But when they discover that, they’ll decide that they need seven: 6 to destroy your 6, and one to destroy your capital. Add in some uncertainty to that feedback loop, and an arms race immediately becomes an exponential curve moderated only by the amount of time production takes and the amount of resources each nation is willing to commit at any given time.
There’s a very real way in which the proliferation of arms is, itself, an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.
Russia has 5000 nukes, if the US is not involved, Europe will be toast
NATO would ensure that the US is involved. We’re aligned with the Europeans.
nuclear war
Assuming no one nukes the world or that all air defenses work, it’d be a mess. There’s no force in human history that can stop NATO in a traditional war. (Maybe the Mongols because they’re always the exception.) But it’s very likely China, North Korea, Iran, and others would be much harder to conquer/occupy at the same time.
It would be widespread suffering in most of the world. The truth is that war is obsolete as a means of accomplishing 99% of political goals. Most of the world would descend into chaos and civil war. Food would be scarce and in times of scarcity, the drunkest, most violent people usually end up in charge. You’d have warlordism in the vast, vast majority of the world.
The natural state of humanity isn’t trade and property rights. It’s warlords offering protection in exchange for whatever they need. No one “wins” wars in 2024. Groups like ISIS would thrive, not law and order.
Easy way to kill a country: Disrupt the critical infrastructure at multiple points.
Just imagine how crippled we are without AWS, Azure, Cloudflare and Gcloud. Kill electricity, damage water supplies and destroy medication supply and the chaos is perfect.“Without their heads, they’re powerless!”
“Bullets! My only weakness!”
Gotta think of the Mongols.
It’s kinda sad to see Mongolia now. Not a lot going on, almost completely dependent on China.
That’s what they want you to think.
Wait I’m confused. Why would a NATO invasion of Russia destroy the rest of the world? Sure, Russia would be fukd. And if China tried to defend Russia for some insane reason, it would be one heck of a war. But not “entire world falls into anarchy and chaos” levels, that’s absurd.
I think the assumption is China would join in with defending Russia for fear that it would be next and alone. I’ll edit this and add Iran to the assumption that they don’t want to be next and alone either.
China clearing wants more resources and land. China has historical ambitions in Taiwan. China has historical grievances with Japan.
Vote for me as your warlord plz!
A lot of people are focusing on what Russia would do but this would also alarm every single country that isn’t in good terms with NATO and they would also start mobilizing their armies. China, NK, and maybe even the middle east would retaliate if nato was this aggressive.
In a conventional war they would crush Russia. Remember when the United States captured Baghdad in a week? It would be like that. But the chances are high that Putin would start launching nukes, and then everyone loses.
I’m not willing to gamble but I don’t think they’d go nuclear. The trick is to offer amnesty and support to everyone but Putin so they have a better option than death for themselves and their families. Loyalty to dictators is always about self preservation.
They would drop tactical nukes on NATO forces.
It’s never going to happen anyways.
They would drop tactical nukes on NATO forces.
Yeah maybe. I was operating under the prevailing idea in this thread that NATO would steamroll through Russia. It’s not something I necessarily agree with.
It’s never going to happen anyways.
Well, quite. This is all just a thought experiment, no one thinks it could happen. NATO is a purely defensive alliance.
into Russia full force with no warning
That is wrong on so many levels.
Unthinkable.
No more than a wet dream.But I am le tired!
WTF, mate?
About that time eh chaps? Right oh
It’s an old meme from a short funny video about the end of the world
Yes, and in the video Australia says, “WTF, mate?”
Well it is an old meme sorry I didn’t remember every line verbatim :)
Woosh
Because Putin is a “So much for your fucking canoe!” kind of leader. I think most world leaders are if they have the chance. Look what we still say about France for surrendering in WW2, they get plenty of mockery despite being the very nation that helped the US exist in the first place.
So the default is that the worst of the rich and powerful like Putin have the relationship with their citizens and country that a narcissistic, severe domestic abuser has with their partner:
“If I can’t have you, no one will…”
Eric Schlosser’s book, “Command and Control” may be of interest to you. I found it hard to put down.
Daniel Ellsberg’s book, “The Doomsday Machine” might come closer to answering your question, but I have not read it.
Short answer: the end of the world.
The resultant nuclear war would kill a good portion of Earth’s population, but it’s likely far more would die from the chaos of civilisation being instantly forced back to the iron age by the EMP frying every silicon transistor.
For anyone interested in some light fiction on the subject, may I direct you to On the Beach by Neville Shute.
The film Threads is also relevant.
About those nukes…
I’m sure they were kept at the same tip top condition as the rest of the russian military complex’s equipment.
Possibly. But even if 99% of their strategic arsenal is junk, they’d still be left with 17 working warheads. Who’s gonna risk 17 large cities wiped out?
Poorly maintained nukes, that make me feel better, thanks
Ukraine has no nuclear weapons. Nuclear arsenal is basically meant to face nato/USA in Russia.
Ukraine invading Russia is a humiliation. But it’s not a real threat for now. Russia didn’t even declared the state of war yet.
I’ve heard that Russia can’t really use atomic bomb against Ukraine because Ukraine has no atomic bombs itself. If it did, it would spark nuclear proliferation by breaking a tabou. And China wouldn’t allow that, because they don’t want Taiwan to get the bomb.
But nato is an atomic power. Thus, atomic bombs are fair game.
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Russia is obliterated shortly followed by Russian nukes shortly followed by the end of humanity as a speicies.
the end of humanity as a speicies.
Now that would take at least some more months. And they are not exactly fun months.
