Another nuclear war population center design consideration...
Welcome to America's "Nuclear Sponge"
The United States currently deploys hundreds of nuclear missiles across Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Each missile carries a nuclear payload many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people. The Pentagon is now planning to build a new, deadlier generation of these missiles, which are housed in underground silos.
But these intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are not meant to be launched, ever. Not even in a nuclear war. Their primary mission is to be destroyed in the ground, along with all the people that live anywhere near them. Their main purpose is to “absorb” a nuclear attack from Russia, acting as a giant “nuclear sponge.” Such is the twisted logic of atomic warfare.
Actually that kind of makes sense. I read somewhere that China is building a shitload of nuclear silos in remote areas, many more than they have nukes to fill, in order to draw US fire away from population centres.
I mean...maybe I'm missing something, but the only way I see nukes ever being deployed going forward is by a country that is being conquered, as a last act of defiance
I don't think a country in those dire straits is gonna care about whether they get return fire or not
nerdo correction you are entirely free to ignore because prescriptivism is bullshit, but might help with making puns about how bad heteros are
dire straits
Kind of a shame about the lyrics, because the guitar intro is amazing
Their greatest hits album just mutes that entire verse so you just have this long pointless solo/bridge.
But I don't get the point. Isn't it a conversation between working class mooks that resolves that homosexual signifiers are meaningless when the person under discussion is drowning in pussy and money (and that slur may even just arise out of resentment)? Is this not how people spoke at the time? It's like banning Huck Finn because there's an n-word in it.
Nah, dire straights are just twice the size of normal straights and feral.
Mattis said, “It’s clear they are so buried out in the central U.S. that any enemy that wants to take us on is going to have to commit two, three, four weapons to make sure they take each one out. In other words, the ICBM force provides a cost-imposing strategy on an adversary.”
You know, I feel like if somebody is committed enough to blowing the US up that they are willing to use nuclear weapons in order to do so, they
- Aren't going to care about the cost, and
- Probably don't care if they knock out all of the US' nukes or not
Since launching such weapons has long been considered suicidal anyway. But if we stopped building nukes, I guess we would have to cut the defense budget
Why would you even need the payload if they're not meant to be launched? Just put dummy warheads on them and save your rare and valuable enriched uranium for things you can actually use
Because that's not as profitable for the contractors making and maintaining those nukes.
If any of them are fake, then it's possible for a spy to leak that information, which would be useful information if you are short one nuke and thinking about popping a fascist country.
dispersion may not be the answer if other atomic weapons, such as clouds of radioactive material, render it ineffective
Well it's a good thing that airburst nukes don't throw up clouds of radioactive fallout, because that would mean that all this planning was useless for the very purpose it was designed for!
Gotta put a supply depot next to your barracks so that you can run between them - lots can't fit and have to go around.
with that many nukes going off, they ignite the air around you causing a hellish firestorm that burns up all available oxygen.
there :amerikkka-clap: is :amerikkka-clap: no :amerikkka-clap: surviving :amerikkka-clap: a :amerikkka-clap: nuclear :amerikkka-clap: exchange :amerikkka-clap:
Thinking back to a conversation about military strategy I saw. One guy involved was convinced he knew more about the subject than every existing authority and his fantastic analysis included the exact phrase "nukes are overrated and easily survivable."
If I were in a nuclear war, I would just survive. I am pretty sure I am tough enough to just get over radiation sickness.
I would simply hide under my desk where the nukes can't get me :very-smart:
It won't. Not to say that nuking the planet won't end the vast majority of life, but you can't ignite the atmosphere. There is no other substance in the air the oxygen can react with, the nitrogen is inert and to create the conditions for nuclear fusion, you need so much power in the first place, that it doesn't make a difference in the end. Even if you manage to locally create the condition for fusion (as in a hydrogenbomb), the energy will just dissipate and scatter too fast to sustain a chainreaction. Earth is just too big and too cold for that.
Here's something to consider. Would a hot war between two nuclear powers ever actually result in a nuclear exchange? Consider the following...
Two nuclear powers build up massive military forces on either side of a border somewhere. Maybe one is directly committed while the other is committing by arming locals. Do you launch a nuke? Of course not, that would result in the world's destruction.
One side sends troops over the border in limited numbers. Do you launch a nuke? Of course not, that would result in the world's destruction.
One side rolls in with tanks and aircraft. Do you launch a nuke? Of course not, that would result in the world's destruction.
Both sides are now clashing in a full-scale conventional ground war. Do you launch a nuke? Of course not, that would result in the world's destruction.
The dust is settling and one side's military has fully occupied the contested zone. Do you launch a nuke? Of course not, that would result in the world's destruction.
The only situation I see where a nuclear exchange becomes possible is if one side is directly invading the other, and the other is in a "Battle of Berlin" situation, sending old men and children to the front with nothing to lose. But by the time you get to that level of desperation, the invading side has had ample opportunity to take control of the losing side's nuclear stockpile.
The neoliberal sub spent all day yesterday arguing that the US could survive a nuclear exchange, merely bumping it from "superpower" to "great power" during reconstruction, whereas Russia and China would be 100% wiped from the face of the earth, a long-term victory in the eyes of liberal psychopaths.
These are the kind of people driving policy at every level of American politics. They literally can't believe that America could lose a conflict, even if every major city on the continent is turned to glass.
"Even if America is temporarily crippled, liberal democracy will live on, more easily than ever with Russia and China out of the picture."
We do not have rational actors running the show in the US.
They have a similar argument in "yes prime minister" To be honest it kinda makes sense, the whole MAD thing only works if you can convince your adversaries that you are unhinged
lmao that's where I first got this idea from. I've never heard a convincing counter-argument - if Russia was rolling tanks into Alaska and Washington, we still wouldn't push the button. Probably.
I think you're underestimating how genocidal the average American and average American politician is. Once anti-imperialist soldiers step on US soil, nukes become popular opinion.
This assumes that the powers are both rational. Relatedly, the only country on earth with a nuclear first strike policy is the US.
Either those are gigantic houses, or they really scaled down the mushroom clouds.
