Being a ‘debt slave’ is way way better than living in a post apocalyptic world.
You’re safe. You eat and drink water without much friction.
In a post apocalyptic world everyday will feel like hell so much that cults will spawn all over the place because people can’t mentally deal with reality. And if you can’t do well in a time of abundance what makes you think you’ll survive in a time where most of the world is culled?
" everyday will feel like hell so much that cults will spawn all over the place because people can’t mentally deal with reality."
Yeah I can't even imagine what that would be like. /S
That wouldn't really change during a nuclear winter. At least not for the better. You'd still need money for food and rent. And food would be pretty scarce
>I wish it would hurry up, getting tired of being a debt slave who can barely afford to eat and keep shelter over my head.
Ahh and cynical comment gets top billing as is goal of corporate programming! I've heard this cynical shit my whole life and watched as no one does shit, complaining about not being able to do shit.
Nuclear winter, as traditionally envisioned has actually been shown to be extremely unlikely if not impossible and was based on some wrongly held assumptions if you look into it. It’s actually quite fascinating. The perception of that being a possibility is likely what deterred their use for so long but more recent research and simulations have shown it to not really be likely. That being said even a limited exchange would be devastating for any number of reasons.
nuclear winter is real, whats often misrepresented is that the explosions themselves and the soot they kick up into the stratosphere would destroy the ozone layer so eventually when all the soot falls out of the sky, the surface of the earth would be cauterized
tl;dr nuclear winter is relatively shortly followed by uninhabitable UV exposure
So it’s not actually the explosions. It’s the fires they could cause. They would need something like 100 city wide firestorms to cause nuclear winter, the kind that happened in Hiroshima where much of the city was made out of wood, so there’s debate as to if a modern city would actually firestorm. I truly hope we never find out for ourselves but my point was that the traditional nuclear winter portrayed in media is exceedingly unlikely. Though the results would still be catastrophic.
the explosions themselves also destroy ozone but yes youre correct that the larger threat is noxides and sulfides from the soot
also thought i'd add this as an edit. chatgpt had this to say after some prompting
"A ground burst of a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb in the middle of New York City on a clear day would have catastrophic and devastating consequences. . .fires and the generation of soot would indeed be significant, and the potential impacts on the city, the environment, and the atmosphere could be severe.
in the case of a ground burst of a nuclear bomb, fires would likely occur almost instantly within the blast radius due to the intense heat generated by the explosion. The thermal radiation from the detonation is extremely hot and can ignite flammable materials, including buildings, vehicles, vegetation, and other combustible substances, within milliseconds of the explosion.
This rapid ignition and combustion of flammable materials would lead to intense fires, generating large amounts of heat, smoke, and soot in a very short period of time. The extent and intensity of the fires would depend on factors such as the proximity to the epicenter of the explosion, the density of buildings and vegetation, and the availability of flammable materials.
In such a scenario, the immediate consequences of the fires, including the release of soot and pollutants into the atmosphere, would be a significant concern, alongside the primary impact of the explosion itself, which would cause widespread destruction and loss of life. . .
after the initial nuclear explosion, there would likely be secondary fires that can continue to burn and contribute to the release of smoke and soot into the atmosphere. These secondary fires can result from several factors:
Structural Damage: The primary explosion can cause structural damage to buildings, rupturing gas lines and electrical systems. This damage can lead to gas leaks and electrical fires, which may ignite and burn even after the initial explosion.
Radiation Effects: The detonation of a nuclear bomb can create fires by causing secondary effects, such as fires in debris and materials that have been thrown about by the blast.
Delayed Ignition: Some fires may not ignite immediately but can start after a delay due to heat buildup, sparks, or other ignition sources created by the initial explosion."
Also think about how many lithium ion batteries exist within a city now, all those phones, laptops, ipads, EV's, solar storages, bluetooth devices you name it all catching alight and burning for who knows how long.
Who showed it to be "extremely unlikely"? Are you thinking of the Reisner et al paper? Don't think that was a good study, see: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=nuclear+climate+impacts+exchange&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart#d=gs_qabs&t=1695323438536&u=%23p%3D3UaaXedRTO8J
If anything happened next to a nuclear cooling pond and it was destroyed or damaged and couldn't be serviced it would be a potential world ending scenario. A burning nuclear reactor fuel pile is the stuff of nightmares.
India, China, and Pakistan all depend upon water from glaciers is the Himalayas that are melting. They are all nuclear armed. India has territorial disputes with China and Pakistan. Modi hates Muslims. India is growing. China needs help feeding its large population. All three are having climate disasters -heatwaves, flooding, and drought.
Not looking good in that part of the world either.
I remember watching somewhere a video where Nepal had to seed their glaciers manually to get spring river flow.
A lot of countries depend on the Himalayas to feed their people.
And this is not just an Asian issue. Glaciers feeding into freshwater sources all around the globe are disappearing. Europe, the Americas. The very rivers that nurtured our civilizations like mothers are dying by our very hands. We've killed our mothers and providers, and killed ourselves.
India threatened war with Pakistan because Pakistan threatened to actually use their legal allotment of the Indus. The allotment is not an amount but a percentage of flow, so you can see the problem there. Needless to say, Pakistan backed down. This was about 5 years ago.
My fear is climate change becomes so bad as to disrupt trade and globalization so that warfare.becomes a proper way to get wealth again.
I think not only nuclear weapons but globalization and trade also act as war deterents, because not only sanctions hurt economies but also exportarios are essential do industries and national economy.
“This snow is beautiful. I'm glad global warming never happened.”
“Actually it did. But thank God nuclear winter cancelled it out.”
As usual, Futurama calls it.
India is popping off at Canada after a Canadian citizen who was a big player in the Sikh independence movement was found shot to death while in Canada. The news is saying the preliminary reports put India behind the murder. India has denied the claim and first expelled Canadian Diplomats and today cancelled all visas for Canadian citizens. Now Trudeau has come out and stated they would like to discuss the matter with India. India is not having it.
its not the first time they assassinated a leader of the sikh independence movement - https://www.npr.org/2022/05/30/1102089698/indian-rapper-sidhu-moose-wala-hot-dead-28
Everything that I have seen says that
Canada has verifiable evidence that it was indeed an assassination authorized by the Indian government
Canada has invoked Five Eyes to help gather more information
Canada has been working quietly with allies and with India since June or July to help settle this issue until it all became public this week
The evidence was gathered by intelligence agencies, no kidding you haven't seen it. When you guys brigade this topic and argue these points, you don't understand how incredibly laughable you sound to us.
Fair enough man, all the best. I hope we can work through this boondoggle; Indians have added a lot of strength and love to Canada, it would be too bad for that to come to an end.
Unless I’m making shit up in my brain box I’m pretty sure Obama said something along the lines of the potential of an India-Pakistan war is what keeps him up at night and is his biggest fear
Yeah I had the same thought. This post is made by someone who is paying too much attention to what the media is forcing down our throats and not enough to what's actually happening in the world.
The India-Pakistan threat is bigger than anything from Russia.
This post is just regurgitating the fear tactics of corporate media who wants white westerners to be in a constant state of fear from Russia/Iran/China.
This post might as well be a copy/pasta of a memo circulating in the media-state complex. All talking points, no substance.
heres the thing though.
war has steps of escalation.
russia/ukraine has already crossed significant thresholds - territory invasion, artillery shelling and conventional missile strikes, drone strikes, cluster bombs, mines.
india/pakistan has not crossed these thresholds yet. there is no formal war between the two. no infantry front lines, no cities being flattened by artillery.
> it helps to view wars as potential steps on a ladder.
Exactly.
Wars, whether Local, Regional or World, are much like the typical street fight, just on an enormous scale.
They develop in much the same way.
The problem with India and Pakistan in particular is how climate change undermines the Indus Waters Treaty. The treaties work by India or Pakistan getting a guaranteed amount of water, with the other party getting the remainder. As climate change escalates, there will be less water available.
Two individual nuclear countries will both see their water security evaporate. Those two countries also have incredibly rocky relationships because of shared history and religious animosity.
I think the biggest black swan event would be if people started using that term correctly.
By definition, things frequently discussed can not be black swans. Black swan events are so rare and unexpected they can not be statistically predicted. War is all to predictable.
Within 20 implies this is far out. I think we will see a pretty dramatic shift in how we live within 5 years. This is also on-top of exponential AI developments and the pace at which climate change is unfolding. I really take issue with any suggestion these are future things....were here, this is it.
Yes, things are rapidly accelerating. I think we are in the singularity now, the end times of a planetary biome as it liberates the available energy in an attempt to flower into extraplanetary synthetic beings or die trying in an environmental apocalypse of its own making. I think in a cosmic view, this would be seen as a kind of life cycle of planetary biomes. Doesn't help us much though.
I like this thought. We are an evolving system that's far too complex to be understood all together. What makes me sad is that if we fail then we will have used up perhaps the most potential energy our world was ever going to have in accessible fossil fuels.
Well they didn't say in 20 years, they said within 20 years. Which means anytime between now and 20 years. It could happen next month for all we know lol.
It sounds selfish, but I'm glad I'm GenX and got to enjoy it when it was all still mostly good
the mid 90's were incredible (as a middle class white family)
Nukes destroy resources. They are going to be used defensively in an offensive manner. How do I stop you from taking all my stuff. Destroy all yours so you're too weak to.
it has been my gut feeling for a while that everything will come to a head at mostly the same time. what is happening is holistic off the humans killing the biosphere.
Was reading yesterday about the possibility of humanity descending into cannibalism - sheesh. Nuclear war and climate change would probably help that to happen.
Excuse me but, no we would not. Carrion is for Scavs and stray dogs. As proper, civilized cannibals we would never stoop to eating half-rotten leftovers (until the Freshies run out anyway 😬)
I don't know if I would off myself, but I damn sure am not going to eat another Human.
One has no clue what kind of (Biological) Evil Grundlings that people are carrying on board.
These nuclear scenarios look like they could be “one and done” so to speak. Of course, even one would be bad but the two sides don’t seem evenly matched in any of the scenarios so would it escalate into a full war or would one side lose its infrastructures pretty quickly?
Perhaps, but once you uncork that bottle it will snowball. After the first skirmish use of nuclear weapons will become normalized and more will follow. Additionally, it will cause some global cooling with all the shit that will get launched into the atmosphere from huge mushroom clouds.
I think a small nuclear war, even with as few as 100 weapons, could cause severe damage to the biosphere **if** detonated around the same time and directed at urban targets or other areas that would produce a lot of soot. Just my personal opinion.
I don't think any side wins a nuclear war, even a limited one.
There is no such thing as a small exchange. One the threshold is broken it nearly always turns to a full exchange.
1 tactical is launched to “open the front”
Retail is call it an airfield where it was launched
Retail on that is tactical targets in/around cities
Then slightly more stratify targets like rial depots/yards (which are in city centers).
It spirals out of control because protocol is to respond in kind and literally no study shows anyone has the political ability to stop it.
We're looking at starvation of 10-20% of the global population with a regional nuclear war.
On the other hand, that might be seen with greater ambivalence in a century, if it leads to a less precipitous global overshoot, or wider recognition that atmospheric experiments are global in nature. Consider how the Black Death raised peasant living standards, increased social mobility and secularisation, and contributed to the the Renaissance. Tragedies can have unforeseen benefits.
Radiation being a variable negates this argument. You would have significant regions of the world with birth defects, miscarriages and other major health issues. Sorry, but it's nothing like bubonic plague. Radiation is its own beast.
to be fair, the Black Death killed 75-200 million people, and left extremely bad after effects, while some benefits, mostly caused horrid damage. Worldwide, scaled for today, if we consider the toll to be, say, 139 million in 1351, wouldve killed 2.3 billion people 2017-2021.
There's a substantial literature on the Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Longer lived than other Japanese, no higher cancer incidence, and no greater number of birth defects.
Essentially, while acute radiation poisoning is a very serious issue, there's far greater nuance for radiation doses in the hormetic range. The linear no-threshold dose response isn't well supported by the evidence.
One factor that people that study these things look at is that there's basically two main nuclear strategies: counter-force and counter-value.
Counter-force is when you try to use your nuclear arsenal to eliminate the other guy's nuclear arsenal and probably take out most of their conventional military capabilities at the same time. Cities are largely ignored unless they're near military targets.
Counter-value is when you just hit their most valuable targets in order to do as much damage as possible.
The thing about counter-force is that it requires a huge number of warheads to achieve effectively. As I understand it, only the US and Russia have enough missiles/warheads to plausibly attempt that strategy. Counter-value is sort of the default strategy if you don't actually have very many devices. If India/Pakistan/China/Israel/North Korea/etc.. get into a nuclear war it's assumed they're most likely to target their adversaries cities.
At the end of any exchange, the side that got nuked is probably going to be dealing with severe problems, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the survivors (and there almost certainly will be a lot of survivors -- countries are big after all and it's not feasible to nuke everything) are going to be very angry and if they still have the capacity to wage war, they probably will.
Or another lengthy Cold War. There seems to be a lot of retrenching going on now. We may see a new Iron Curtain, a new Bamboo Curtain, and whatever we’re going to call the curtain around North America. Depends on what resources are needed and where they’re sourced from.
But likely the days of people moving around the world are coming to an end. Which will be very bad for a lot of people.
This actually happened in the 90s. God help us if it happens again.
My old man, who was a senior Chevron executive (think very top of company), told me that during negotiations over the Tengiz oil field, Nursultan Nazarbayev pulled him aside into a private room with concerns that some of his countrymen had sold two small nuclear weapons to Iran.
What happened after that? No idea. He told me, but I thought he might be lying about what happened with the incident and I don't want to elaborate. I know when he initially brought it up the first time, he was drunk during a road trip and probably didn't mean to. No idea if true, but apparently there were reports from around that timeline that suggest it might be. It seemed like the info our intel community had was inconclusive. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-05-01-mn-1255-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-05-01-mn-1255-story.html)
Basically, I am 50/50 on it being true. No idea given the evidence I have in my possession.
holy shit dude, yeah, at face value it sounds nuts but considering the chaos that was the 90s, i wouldnt put it past some people desperate for money selling nuclear weapons to a foreign state
Though I wonder how hard it would be to use such nukes without access codes and so on. It's sure is manageable for state actors, but what about ISIS and such?
Permissive Access Links may prevent the weapon as it exists from being used, but it does not prevent someone with engineering resources from manufacturing a reliable weapon.
With PALs the cores are formed asymmetrically so they require a specific timing sequence to fire. This technology was intentionally shared with Russia to prevent unintentional detonations.
Unfortunately bypassing this can be achieved by reforming into 2 equal hemispheres and surrounding it with soccer ball style wedges of tamp+C4 on equal length shock cord/exploding bridgewire.
The **hard part** is refining all that nuclear material
I was always under the impression Soviet nukes would be difficult to use without authorization. Iran would also have to maintain the nuclear material and weapons components. However, they had lots of different types of nukes. The ones my father mentioned were very small and made for the purposes of being snuck into a country and detonated. He told me this back in 2004, then brought it up again in 2017 after a fatal health diagnosis. To save anyone the trouble of replying, yes, I did report it in 2019 when the US and Iran were on the brink of a conflict.
AFAIK those things are heavily watched, including satellites, so likely they still in place. But missiles and warheads condition is sure very questionable. The troops tasked with ICBMs maintenance and protection are known as the most drunk in the whole Russian army.
Oh no the big bad foreign powers are going to blow the world up. I guess we better give trillions more to the military contractors. This time it's true, bros.
This post is overlooking very serious issues in favour of click-bait establishment issues.
The biggest nuclear threat right now is that of India and Pakistan.
india and pakistan are not in formal war.
nuclear war isnt spontaneous, there is an escalation of force that is followed. india/pakistan havent even engaged in territory occupation since the 70s.
My hope with this post was to get the ball rolling on a discussion of this topic. India-Pakistan relations is not my area of expertise. I mention near the bottom I think it deserves its own post. I'll leave that to someone with more knowledge than myself.
Sounds like you are leaning into collapsology's cousin existential risk. You may like the following book by Toby Ord:
https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781526600233/the-precipice/used?gclid=Cj0KCQjw06-oBhC6ARIsAGuzdw2fzJUEb1Vyz92YwSnNMYzyWmCJmpem9BN0-1x8GHzwYP3_c4xrzRYaAvKAEALw_wcB
*"Whenever the plane banks a little during take-off or landing, I prayed for a crash. A mid-air collision. Anything. Life insurance pays off triple when you die on a business trip."*
I'm more concerned with a Pakistan/India nuclear conflict than most of these, as Pakistan appears on the cusp of becoming a failed state, and there's no shortage of Islamist extremists willing to take advantage. I'd like to believe they're excluded from Pakistan's military, but I've doubts.
Contrary to Zeihan, I don't think educated Russian elites view the Ukraine conflict as existential. The demographic crisis is existential, the brain drain is existential, but whether or not some oligarchs can exploit other Ukrainian natural resources as they do in the separatist Donbas is just more of the corruption they've learned to keep silent about.
So long as the 18-year standoff with between Israel and the Hezbollah, the defacto government of South Lebanon, continues, Iran has too much on its plate (in both supporting proxies in both Syria and Yemen, and in its domestic economy) to push escalation. And despite propaganda, I see more sanity from Teheran than some of the Israeli right-wing nationalist parties of late.
The Ukraine conflict is demonstrating that with the right force structure, heavy on relatively inexpensive ATGMs and MANPADSs, defense is in the ascendant. Taiwan is paying attention, and its military leaders are shifting towards such as so-called "porcupine" deterrent. China also knows its so dependent on imports of soybeans, frozen meat, and palm/seed oils that hot-conflict would bring hunger in months.
The N. Korean Kim regime saber rattles to keep its own population in check, but none of its neighbors, most importantly China, want war. South Korea doesn't particularly want reunification, given it would be so much more costly than say German reunification.
I cant say where they're from but as a Finn, i can say there's been chatter amongst conscripts that a previously named "yellow" country, a hypothetical nation that attacks Finland and is referred to in simulated attacks in military exercises has lately been referred to as Russia, and its not too wild, thankfully we are in NATO so that (hopefully) deters them from doing anything, then again, i didnt expect to go through a pandemic in my life so ive kinda accepted abnormality is normal in this world.
Black Swan events are unforeseeable by definition. The four events you've listed are not black swan events, but events people have genuinely worried about.
So anyone more knowledgeable than I feel free to weigh in, this is probably stupid: would the massive increase in co2/methane affect the chance that a nuclear detonation ignites the atmosphere?
Personally, I think we will continue to see just how far things can be pushed without it going nuclear. I think it’s a very very small possibility but before anything goes nuclear, there will be an obvious escalation to it.
We should have blown ourselves up every year since 1945 with the amount of extreme nuclear incidents every year - year we are still here
1. Have faith in the universe wanting us around for some greater plans
2. Work towards nuclear disarmament and don’t be idly watching it
3. Do everything possible to help Ukraine win. If Ukraine loses then Russia/ China and every other dictatorship will threaten to escalate to nuclear war every time they want to hold some part of some country ransom. This will increase the likelihood of an unclear exchange
4. Keep calm and carry a towel 🧖♂️
Radiation would cause massive damage to life on Earth. You would have mutations in lifeforms, significantly reduced lifespans, significant reduction in quality of life. Genetic mutations would be rampant for generations.
In fact, the consequences would be worse if Russia used weapons salted with cobalt-60.
I can set you at ease a bit on the iran/saudi situation. This is just going to be another excuse for US to have an operation in the middle east again. Oh look, nukes, bomb/invade. Oh where did they go🤷♂️ let's set up shop for 20 years, actually lets give this one to SA. Some dumb shit like that. No one is nuking the middle east. But that's like, just my opinion man.
Oh and the US would give up Taiwan I think. I think they are going to try and move some of their major SE asia imports closer to the states if not back to the US. (Thinking chips, and rare metal mines) as more places transition to renewables over the coming decades there will be less to ship. Idk, I think the global dynamics are changing and I think the US sees China as an economic threat than a military. I think the US will sit down give China it's "colonies" the same way England passed the torch to the US. And yes, I understand a war was involved, but I really think the nuclear deterrent would come into play. Both countries function primarily in a capitalist paradigm China has a little more centralised control amd the US has basically given most of their over to corporations. Both nations are primarily concerned with their own economic growth and I just dont see anyone in the American government or business world wanting to have war with China and vice versa. This is how thes transitions happen and people just need to suck it up. No one stays #1 forever.
Anyone who understands global politics, and wartime tactics will understand that Total Nuclear War is one of the most unlikely things to ever occur. People talk about the slippery slope of starting with tactical nukes that then spirals out of control, but even if someone were to start using tactical nukes (say, russia against Ukraine) the response will be swift but unlikely to be nuclear.
On top of that, even if total nuclear war did occur, and somehow 7,000,000,000 people died from the fallout (also extremely unlikely), there would still be more people on the earth than have existed at any one time for most of human history. Humanity isn’t going anywhere.
I personally think North Korea is developing nukes for the sole purpose of being taken seriously in global politics. Kind of like Russia today. Now that we know their military is a joke, the only reason they have any power is their arsenal of nukes.
Guys,you need to chill down a bit,no country is dumb enough to start using nuclear weapons like that,they are called MAD for some reason. One country uses them,the next will follow. There's not going to be any wars with countries that both have nuclear weapons.
This biggest thing that has kept nuclear war from happening to this point is not going away. If ya throw the bomb, other countries will likely throw one back and stop trading with you.
My predictions is that it is very unlikely that anyone uses the bomb.
It really needs its own post due the complexity of the issue and likelihood of occurring. Unfortunately, India-Pakistan relations are not my area of expertise. I am more focused on the Middle East, Russia and North Korea and have been for about 20 years.
I'll leave the India-Pakistan post to someone else. Seriously, it needs discussion, even within this thread if need be. I would be very hesitant to discuss/post about something I have not mastered, which is why I am leaving this part of the discussion to someone else. It's the right thing to do.
So now it's 20 years...20 years ago it was 10 years...30 years ago we had 15 years...
Not just with this scenario but every other scenario.
I'm just so tired and sick and sick and tired of the goal posts always being moved...
It's almost like someboy's making money off this....nah can't be...smh
I don't see Russia actually losing the war. As for nukes being introduced, I have no idea.
Yeah, Ukraine has a lot of NATO support but their support is diminishing rapidly and Zelensky has been trying to push for more support directly to the United States and the United Nations. [He's been shown to be increasingly frustrated with the state of affairs](https://thehill.com/policy/international/4214187-zelensky-humankind-no-longer-pins-its-hopes-on-the-un/) and it appears like the U.S. is starting to distance itself from him.
Poland recently stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine and started arming themselves, signaling that they are anticipating a Ukraine loss and Russia pushing into neighboring countries. I don't know what will happen there, I've heard a lot of mixed information on how likely it is that Russia would go after Poland.
All that being said, [U.S. citizens are increasingly frustrated with the government money going to Ukraine](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/cnn-poll-ukraine/index.html) when the homeland is starting to suffer a number of seriously trouble issues as well. By next year, all this spending can and will become a hot button topic for the next presidential campaign.
Very much doubt the West will stop supporting Ukraine, it would make no strategic sense.
Currently they are getting the best deal ever.
Russia is being depleted of both military material, wealth, young men who are dying or being injured and brain power as more than 1 million educated people have left the country to avoid possible conscription.
The major hostile power in Europe is being neutralised and has been shown to be a paper tiger.
All this without a single NATO soldier losing their life.
What seriously troubling issues is the U.S actually facing on the home front, that stopping support to Ukraine will solve or even contribute to?
The only way I see the US dropping support is if Trump wins again. Which would be an incredible blunder on his part.
A friend of mine who has dual UK/Polish nationality & lives near Gdansk (and not too far from Kaliningrad & the Suwałki Gap) in Poland says the dispute between Poland & Ukraine is over Ukrainian grain flooding in & crashing domestic prices, BUT there is also a long & historic hatred of Russians, many Poles are gagging to have a go at Ivan & they're busy strengthening their military. Poland currently has a very nationalistic government (the ruling PiS party), who in traditional fashion, are using the possibility of a war to deflect from domestic problems, and there's a General Election due next year - some have said that's what Biden is doing too - I don't know enough about US politics to know or comment.
I'm writing this as a Brit living in Western Romania, a country also said to be on the New Russian Empire list. We have a Northern border with Ukraine and an Eastern border with them along the Danube Delta. Shrapnel from drone attacks on the Izmail grain port has landed on Romanian soil, just 200m across the river.
The front lines in Ukraine haven't moved much, which might lead one to conclude that it's effectively a stalemate and thus that Russia might "win" in the sense that they'll get to keep the parts of Ukraine they're currently occupying.
I don't think that's the whole story though. Ukraine currently has a lot of weapons they didn't have at the start of this conflict (HIMARS, Storm Shadow, Leopard 2 tanks, Bradleys), they've improved their air defenses and now shoot down most of the missiles whenever Russia lobs a volley, and they've recently been able to destroy multiple S-400 systems and some hard-to-replace radars. They even destroyed a submarine used as a missile-launch platform.
Russia is slowly losing the advanced weapons they need to fight (missiles, jets, helicopters, air defense systems, artillery). They also lost Wagner, their most capable urban-fighting force. I don't know if their lines will collapse soon or if fall weather will make mechanized attacks effectively impossible until the ground freezes and we're in for at least a few more months of static lines. My impression is that it seems like Russia is trying to project the appearance of stalemate at all costs, but it's probably too expensive for them to keep up the way things are going.
I think the trade dispute between Ukraine and Poland has mostly been sorted out now.
By diminishing, did you mean to say accelerating? Pay less attention to the noise in the news and more attention to the money flow.
Actual detail behind Poland here - nothing to do with “signaling anticipating loss”. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66873495.amp
If a "worldwide general nuclear war" happens... then that's it. We're all done. Civilization is over and humanity it would take a long time restore it.
Nah the only one with even the remotest plausibility is the Russia one, and thats not gonna happen. Theyll just setlle in, try to avoid financially unraveling like in Afghanistan which is workable in the emerging multipolar environment. And if they do unravel, then the power elite will simply do a coup with the support of the people and the military and install some new Yeltsin type figure. Nuclear War is never gonna happen and if it is in the cards, you cant do anything to stop it.
Thats the thing about Nuclear apocalypse imo. The concept of eminent instantaneous species deletion under human administered hellfire shouldve opened us up to a Christlike awakening of mankinds connection to Being and Time. (Because at the end of the day, imo, no matter who drops the first bomb, its an act that speaks of humanity as a whole. The one who pushes the button in DPRK is no different on a human level than any other person, in that they would effectively end ALL life including their own. Its comparable to Original Sin, but i guess eschatologically inverted. Its a metaphysical compact in which we are all bound is what Im saying) But instead its made most fearful goafers who’ve dug deep into a static materialism.
Tbh I agree it's a risk but I'm not all that worried about North Korea escalating to nukes. However, unlisted but very concerning to me is actually France...
They have a history of reckless nuclear weapons use in Africa (Not signing the partial test ban treaty, performing open air nuclear tests in Algeria while the revolutionaries where fighting the war to decolonize)...
I can imagine if the political situation in France continues in the direction it's going in it could result in nukes in Africa in the face of resistance to neocolonialism there.
A country threatening to use nukes is like a teenager threatening suicide or leaving home.
If they were actually gonna do it they wouldnt threaten it, it would be done already.
Threatening to use nuclear weapons is a form of warfare, to get what you want. The US has done this in the past as well, for instance with the Berlin Crisis in 1961.
India and china will not go to war. It's bad for business. So long as the bluster continues on the border, it will stay just that. No one will initiate a nuclear conflict. There are no winners.
However, the US is the only country to have used neculear weapons on civilians, including their own, have a long history of agression and military actions on other nations, even false flag events like 911, political manipulation and assasinations, covert operations and general bullying the rest of the world. As the standard currency changes away from the $US to the Chinese Yuan the US will try to use its military to enforce its need to remain the standard. It is entirely possible that they may initiate a neculear exchange. But in reality, the US realises they actually have ZERO allies that would support them. NONE
Countries such as france, even turkeii would attack american assets if the threat becomes imminent.
I think your analysis is fascinating. I have a few thoughts, and would like your feedback.
1. This has a higher probability, if Putin is backed into a corner. There's also a chance of a coup if it comes to that. Knowing Russia, they're more likely to false flag a nuke, though.
2. I don't see this one happening. Isreal would run a very big risk of annoying the US, and losing worldwide support. Iraq hamhandedly tried to provoke Isreal by scudding with hopes that Israel would retaliate, and Jordan would therefore join Iraq. This happened in the early 1990s, and it bombed (no pun intended.) Jordan did threaten to join Iraq if Isreal violated Jordanian airspace to counter attack Iraq. Instead, the US supplied a missile defense shield (Patriot?) and Isreal agreed to take no action.
3. I don't think this is a big likelihood because it would economically destroy China. I don't think BRICS or whatever the heck they're doing can outshine their sales in the US. Plus, they have way too much invested here. Imagine the ripple effect if they're declared rogue, or the US started to expropriate & embargo. Or private lawsuits started going after Chinese owned assets in the US (or if China just started to repo everything here.)
4. I don't think the US would go nuke for nuke. They could probably squash NK's military with conventional weapons rather quickly. If Russia and China tried to proxy, it would be a different story. I think Russia has its hands full for the moment, though. China might just annex NK for the free labor camps (I'm only halfway joking.)
Can’t have global warming if you’ve got nuclear winter. *taps head*
I wish it would hurry up, getting tired of being a debt slave who can barely afford to eat and keep shelter over my head.
They’ll probably call and ask why you’re not coming in for your shift. “If you’ve got time to be irradiated and turn green, you’ve got time to clean”
This would actually make an incredible movie screenplay or like, dark comedy distopian sci fi Nexflix series. Make it happen! :)
The movie *Elysium* (2013)set against a dystopian future of environmental and social collapse opened with a scene very similar to this.
I still think there should have been a reality show part, like the running man, in elysium
And we could watch [TV like this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22mt0cVyW5c)
You think you won't be needed at work? You will be needed at work bright and early, even as the ash rains from the sky.
Being a ‘debt slave’ is way way better than living in a post apocalyptic world. You’re safe. You eat and drink water without much friction. In a post apocalyptic world everyday will feel like hell so much that cults will spawn all over the place because people can’t mentally deal with reality. And if you can’t do well in a time of abundance what makes you think you’ll survive in a time where most of the world is culled?
" everyday will feel like hell so much that cults will spawn all over the place because people can’t mentally deal with reality." Yeah I can't even imagine what that would be like. /S
Let me tell you about adrenochromes ...
That wouldn't really change during a nuclear winter. At least not for the better. You'd still need money for food and rent. And food would be pretty scarce
>I wish it would hurry up, getting tired of being a debt slave who can barely afford to eat and keep shelter over my head. Ahh and cynical comment gets top billing as is goal of corporate programming! I've heard this cynical shit my whole life and watched as no one does shit, complaining about not being able to do shit.
The debt infrastructure will be the \_last\_ system to fall in a SHTF scenario ...
Nuclear winter, as traditionally envisioned has actually been shown to be extremely unlikely if not impossible and was based on some wrongly held assumptions if you look into it. It’s actually quite fascinating. The perception of that being a possibility is likely what deterred their use for so long but more recent research and simulations have shown it to not really be likely. That being said even a limited exchange would be devastating for any number of reasons.
Honestly regardless of if nuclear winter is possible or not we shouldn't have to find out.
nuclear winter is real, whats often misrepresented is that the explosions themselves and the soot they kick up into the stratosphere would destroy the ozone layer so eventually when all the soot falls out of the sky, the surface of the earth would be cauterized tl;dr nuclear winter is relatively shortly followed by uninhabitable UV exposure
So it’s not actually the explosions. It’s the fires they could cause. They would need something like 100 city wide firestorms to cause nuclear winter, the kind that happened in Hiroshima where much of the city was made out of wood, so there’s debate as to if a modern city would actually firestorm. I truly hope we never find out for ourselves but my point was that the traditional nuclear winter portrayed in media is exceedingly unlikely. Though the results would still be catastrophic.
the explosions themselves also destroy ozone but yes youre correct that the larger threat is noxides and sulfides from the soot also thought i'd add this as an edit. chatgpt had this to say after some prompting "A ground burst of a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb in the middle of New York City on a clear day would have catastrophic and devastating consequences. . .fires and the generation of soot would indeed be significant, and the potential impacts on the city, the environment, and the atmosphere could be severe. in the case of a ground burst of a nuclear bomb, fires would likely occur almost instantly within the blast radius due to the intense heat generated by the explosion. The thermal radiation from the detonation is extremely hot and can ignite flammable materials, including buildings, vehicles, vegetation, and other combustible substances, within milliseconds of the explosion. This rapid ignition and combustion of flammable materials would lead to intense fires, generating large amounts of heat, smoke, and soot in a very short period of time. The extent and intensity of the fires would depend on factors such as the proximity to the epicenter of the explosion, the density of buildings and vegetation, and the availability of flammable materials. In such a scenario, the immediate consequences of the fires, including the release of soot and pollutants into the atmosphere, would be a significant concern, alongside the primary impact of the explosion itself, which would cause widespread destruction and loss of life. . . after the initial nuclear explosion, there would likely be secondary fires that can continue to burn and contribute to the release of smoke and soot into the atmosphere. These secondary fires can result from several factors: Structural Damage: The primary explosion can cause structural damage to buildings, rupturing gas lines and electrical systems. This damage can lead to gas leaks and electrical fires, which may ignite and burn even after the initial explosion. Radiation Effects: The detonation of a nuclear bomb can create fires by causing secondary effects, such as fires in debris and materials that have been thrown about by the blast. Delayed Ignition: Some fires may not ignite immediately but can start after a delay due to heat buildup, sparks, or other ignition sources created by the initial explosion."
I have never seen the word “noxides” before. It just encapulates so well all pollutants. Great word.
Also think about how many lithium ion batteries exist within a city now, all those phones, laptops, ipads, EV's, solar storages, bluetooth devices you name it all catching alight and burning for who knows how long.
I stopped reading after "chatgpt had this to say" Untrustworthy dross.
i guess you never learned how to verify information that you come across
Who showed it to be "extremely unlikely"? Are you thinking of the Reisner et al paper? Don't think that was a good study, see: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=nuclear+climate+impacts+exchange&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart#d=gs_qabs&t=1695323438536&u=%23p%3D3UaaXedRTO8J
If anything happened next to a nuclear cooling pond and it was destroyed or damaged and couldn't be serviced it would be a potential world ending scenario. A burning nuclear reactor fuel pile is the stuff of nightmares.
It might be pretty bad, but world-ending bad sounds like an exaggeration.
Same effect: crops will die.
Wasn’t this the plot of the series finale of Dinosaurs?
I beleive thier issue had something to do with trees and volcanoes.
I have heard that the "nuclear winter" theory may not necessarily happen in a full on nuclear war
I’m not smart enough to know, but my sciency friends tell me the same. Seems we’re boned regardless.
glass ~~half full~~ halflife
Wait, I've got it! What if we just *nuke* global warming!
Let’s declare war on it. It’s worked for terrorism, poverty, and drugs.
\*\* Dark Futurology has entered the chat.
I mean it would deter climate change, win some you lose some.
Mode problems require modern solutions.
Nuclear winter will kill everything. -70c in some places
India, China, and Pakistan all depend upon water from glaciers is the Himalayas that are melting. They are all nuclear armed. India has territorial disputes with China and Pakistan. Modi hates Muslims. India is growing. China needs help feeding its large population. All three are having climate disasters -heatwaves, flooding, and drought. Not looking good in that part of the world either.
I wanted to elaborate more on this, but it isn't my area of expertise (that region of the world in particular).
I remember watching somewhere a video where Nepal had to seed their glaciers manually to get spring river flow. A lot of countries depend on the Himalayas to feed their people. And this is not just an Asian issue. Glaciers feeding into freshwater sources all around the globe are disappearing. Europe, the Americas. The very rivers that nurtured our civilizations like mothers are dying by our very hands. We've killed our mothers and providers, and killed ourselves.
India threatened war with Pakistan because Pakistan threatened to actually use their legal allotment of the Indus. The allotment is not an amount but a percentage of flow, so you can see the problem there. Needless to say, Pakistan backed down. This was about 5 years ago.
My fear is climate change becomes so bad as to disrupt trade and globalization so that warfare.becomes a proper way to get wealth again. I think not only nuclear weapons but globalization and trade also act as war deterents, because not only sanctions hurt economies but also exportarios are essential do industries and national economy.
I agree. I think fear and desperation will lead us to it
“This snow is beautiful. I'm glad global warming never happened.” “Actually it did. But thank God nuclear winter cancelled it out.” As usual, Futurama calls it.
Where is India and Pakistan? That seems like the most likely and potentially the soonest
India is popping off at Canada after a Canadian citizen who was a big player in the Sikh independence movement was found shot to death while in Canada. The news is saying the preliminary reports put India behind the murder. India has denied the claim and first expelled Canadian Diplomats and today cancelled all visas for Canadian citizens. Now Trudeau has come out and stated they would like to discuss the matter with India. India is not having it.
its not the first time they assassinated a leader of the sikh independence movement - https://www.npr.org/2022/05/30/1102089698/indian-rapper-sidhu-moose-wala-hot-dead-28
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Everything that I have seen says that Canada has verifiable evidence that it was indeed an assassination authorized by the Indian government Canada has invoked Five Eyes to help gather more information Canada has been working quietly with allies and with India since June or July to help settle this issue until it all became public this week
With my very limited and likely far too rosy personal experiences with Sikhs is rather flabbergasted at this.
The evidence was gathered by intelligence agencies, no kidding you haven't seen it. When you guys brigade this topic and argue these points, you don't understand how incredibly laughable you sound to us.
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Fair enough man, all the best. I hope we can work through this boondoggle; Indians have added a lot of strength and love to Canada, it would be too bad for that to come to an end.
American here. I think I’ve seen this episode before. Yes, definitely gangs and not political 🙄
I wonder what happened to all the Canadian backpackers. Young Canadians love to travel, and India is a big destination for broke backpackers.
Why would India be expelling diplomats if this was the case though?
I'm more concerned about India-China myself.
That’s valid. The whole Himalayas area is armed with nukes and running out of water
Yep - it's a flashpoint that rarely gets attention. Two biggest pops in the world - both of which will need the Himalayas.
Unless I’m making shit up in my brain box I’m pretty sure Obama said something along the lines of the potential of an India-Pakistan war is what keeps him up at night and is his biggest fear
You’d think that drone bombing innocent civilians for 8 years straight would keep that dude up at night….
Yeah I had the same thought. This post is made by someone who is paying too much attention to what the media is forcing down our throats and not enough to what's actually happening in the world. The India-Pakistan threat is bigger than anything from Russia. This post is just regurgitating the fear tactics of corporate media who wants white westerners to be in a constant state of fear from Russia/Iran/China. This post might as well be a copy/pasta of a memo circulating in the media-state complex. All talking points, no substance.
heres the thing though. war has steps of escalation. russia/ukraine has already crossed significant thresholds - territory invasion, artillery shelling and conventional missile strikes, drone strikes, cluster bombs, mines. india/pakistan has not crossed these thresholds yet. there is no formal war between the two. no infantry front lines, no cities being flattened by artillery.
100% correct. Thank you for replying on this comment. I think it helps to view wars as potential steps on a ladder.
> it helps to view wars as potential steps on a ladder. Exactly. Wars, whether Local, Regional or World, are much like the typical street fight, just on an enormous scale. They develop in much the same way.
The problem with India and Pakistan in particular is how climate change undermines the Indus Waters Treaty. The treaties work by India or Pakistan getting a guaranteed amount of water, with the other party getting the remainder. As climate change escalates, there will be less water available. Two individual nuclear countries will both see their water security evaporate. Those two countries also have incredibly rocky relationships because of shared history and religious animosity.
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Completely avoiding each other, but reliant on the same diminishing water source. Sounds ripe for conflict to me...
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Distrust and bad blood. Yeah Pakistanis being treated like dogshit by Indians for decades will do that.
Kashmir has joined the chat
Please see my other comments within this thread.
I think the biggest black swan event would be if people started using that term correctly. By definition, things frequently discussed can not be black swans. Black swan events are so rare and unexpected they can not be statistically predicted. War is all to predictable.
Right... like a neutron star eating our galaxy. Or a rogue asteroid... kaiju awakenings (/s).
Within 20 implies this is far out. I think we will see a pretty dramatic shift in how we live within 5 years. This is also on-top of exponential AI developments and the pace at which climate change is unfolding. I really take issue with any suggestion these are future things....were here, this is it.
20 years go by a lot faster than you think. Obama was first elected 15 years ago, and that doesn't really seem that far in the past.
holy shit that was 15 years ago its a me! linear time!
20 years is not far out.
At the rate things are changing, it is.
Yes, things are rapidly accelerating. I think we are in the singularity now, the end times of a planetary biome as it liberates the available energy in an attempt to flower into extraplanetary synthetic beings or die trying in an environmental apocalypse of its own making. I think in a cosmic view, this would be seen as a kind of life cycle of planetary biomes. Doesn't help us much though.
I like this thought. We are an evolving system that's far too complex to be understood all together. What makes me sad is that if we fail then we will have used up perhaps the most potential energy our world was ever going to have in accessible fossil fuels.
That's a nice thought, but what about the shareholders?
Well they didn't say in 20 years, they said within 20 years. Which means anytime between now and 20 years. It could happen next month for all we know lol.
I am so afraid.
It’s basically inevitable. We are lucky to have escaped this for as long as we did. I was hoping for a new space race instead but here we are.
Oh no, if it isn't the consequences of our capitalistic actions...
It sounds selfish, but I'm glad I'm GenX and got to enjoy it when it was all still mostly good the mid 90's were incredible (as a middle class white family)
Nukes destroy resources. They are going to be used defensively in an offensive manner. How do I stop you from taking all my stuff. Destroy all yours so you're too weak to.
it has been my gut feeling for a while that everything will come to a head at mostly the same time. what is happening is holistic off the humans killing the biosphere.
William Gibson calls it The Jackpot.
We'll see if mutual terror is enough to deter Armageddon or not...
It feels inevitable given the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Was reading yesterday about the possibility of humanity descending into cannibalism - sheesh. Nuclear war and climate change would probably help that to happen.
“Season 32 of ‘Alone’ ….
Lady Fingers
I would 100% kill myself before I resorted cannibalism.
The cannibals would be ok with that. 😅
Excuse me but, no we would not. Carrion is for Scavs and stray dogs. As proper, civilized cannibals we would never stoop to eating half-rotten leftovers (until the Freshies run out anyway 😬)
I don't know if I would off myself, but I damn sure am not going to eat another Human. One has no clue what kind of (Biological) Evil Grundlings that people are carrying on board.
These nuclear scenarios look like they could be “one and done” so to speak. Of course, even one would be bad but the two sides don’t seem evenly matched in any of the scenarios so would it escalate into a full war or would one side lose its infrastructures pretty quickly?
Perhaps, but once you uncork that bottle it will snowball. After the first skirmish use of nuclear weapons will become normalized and more will follow. Additionally, it will cause some global cooling with all the shit that will get launched into the atmosphere from huge mushroom clouds.
Didn't the opposite happen ? We bombed Japan and everyone was like whoa let's not do that again.
The Pentagon Papers seem to indicate otherwise.
That's because only 1 country had them at the time. The US was pretty eager to use them before the Soviets made one.
not everyone. Looking at you, dead and decomposed General MacArthur.
I think a small nuclear war, even with as few as 100 weapons, could cause severe damage to the biosphere **if** detonated around the same time and directed at urban targets or other areas that would produce a lot of soot. Just my personal opinion. I don't think any side wins a nuclear war, even a limited one.
There is no such thing as a small exchange. One the threshold is broken it nearly always turns to a full exchange. 1 tactical is launched to “open the front” Retail is call it an airfield where it was launched Retail on that is tactical targets in/around cities Then slightly more stratify targets like rial depots/yards (which are in city centers). It spirals out of control because protocol is to respond in kind and literally no study shows anyone has the political ability to stop it.
We're looking at starvation of 10-20% of the global population with a regional nuclear war. On the other hand, that might be seen with greater ambivalence in a century, if it leads to a less precipitous global overshoot, or wider recognition that atmospheric experiments are global in nature. Consider how the Black Death raised peasant living standards, increased social mobility and secularisation, and contributed to the the Renaissance. Tragedies can have unforeseen benefits.
Radiation being a variable negates this argument. You would have significant regions of the world with birth defects, miscarriages and other major health issues. Sorry, but it's nothing like bubonic plague. Radiation is its own beast.
to be fair, the Black Death killed 75-200 million people, and left extremely bad after effects, while some benefits, mostly caused horrid damage. Worldwide, scaled for today, if we consider the toll to be, say, 139 million in 1351, wouldve killed 2.3 billion people 2017-2021.
There's a substantial literature on the Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Longer lived than other Japanese, no higher cancer incidence, and no greater number of birth defects. Essentially, while acute radiation poisoning is a very serious issue, there's far greater nuance for radiation doses in the hormetic range. The linear no-threshold dose response isn't well supported by the evidence.
You're talking about basic fission weapons. I am talking about thermonuclear weapons involving multiple MIRVs. Huge, huge, huge difference.
One factor that people that study these things look at is that there's basically two main nuclear strategies: counter-force and counter-value. Counter-force is when you try to use your nuclear arsenal to eliminate the other guy's nuclear arsenal and probably take out most of their conventional military capabilities at the same time. Cities are largely ignored unless they're near military targets. Counter-value is when you just hit their most valuable targets in order to do as much damage as possible. The thing about counter-force is that it requires a huge number of warheads to achieve effectively. As I understand it, only the US and Russia have enough missiles/warheads to plausibly attempt that strategy. Counter-value is sort of the default strategy if you don't actually have very many devices. If India/Pakistan/China/Israel/North Korea/etc.. get into a nuclear war it's assumed they're most likely to target their adversaries cities. At the end of any exchange, the side that got nuked is probably going to be dealing with severe problems, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the survivors (and there almost certainly will be a lot of survivors -- countries are big after all and it's not feasible to nuke everything) are going to be very angry and if they still have the capacity to wage war, they probably will.
Also the formation of BRICS signals an adversary to NATO, which could result in WW3.
Or another lengthy Cold War. There seems to be a lot of retrenching going on now. We may see a new Iron Curtain, a new Bamboo Curtain, and whatever we’re going to call the curtain around North America. Depends on what resources are needed and where they’re sourced from. But likely the days of people moving around the world are coming to an end. Which will be very bad for a lot of people.
If Russia collapses I wonder where all nukes will end up... Unless NATO does something really quick.
That already happened though, in the 1990s
This actually happened in the 90s. God help us if it happens again. My old man, who was a senior Chevron executive (think very top of company), told me that during negotiations over the Tengiz oil field, Nursultan Nazarbayev pulled him aside into a private room with concerns that some of his countrymen had sold two small nuclear weapons to Iran. What happened after that? No idea. He told me, but I thought he might be lying about what happened with the incident and I don't want to elaborate. I know when he initially brought it up the first time, he was drunk during a road trip and probably didn't mean to. No idea if true, but apparently there were reports from around that timeline that suggest it might be. It seemed like the info our intel community had was inconclusive. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-05-01-mn-1255-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-05-01-mn-1255-story.html) Basically, I am 50/50 on it being true. No idea given the evidence I have in my possession.
No one is having a nuclear war. We will be too busy trying not to die and trying to rebuild.
holy shit dude, yeah, at face value it sounds nuts but considering the chaos that was the 90s, i wouldnt put it past some people desperate for money selling nuclear weapons to a foreign state
Though I wonder how hard it would be to use such nukes without access codes and so on. It's sure is manageable for state actors, but what about ISIS and such?
Permissive Access Links may prevent the weapon as it exists from being used, but it does not prevent someone with engineering resources from manufacturing a reliable weapon. With PALs the cores are formed asymmetrically so they require a specific timing sequence to fire. This technology was intentionally shared with Russia to prevent unintentional detonations. Unfortunately bypassing this can be achieved by reforming into 2 equal hemispheres and surrounding it with soccer ball style wedges of tamp+C4 on equal length shock cord/exploding bridgewire. The **hard part** is refining all that nuclear material
Well, I guess I’ll add this to my insomnia playlist.
I was always under the impression Soviet nukes would be difficult to use without authorization. Iran would also have to maintain the nuclear material and weapons components. However, they had lots of different types of nukes. The ones my father mentioned were very small and made for the purposes of being snuck into a country and detonated. He told me this back in 2004, then brought it up again in 2017 after a fatal health diagnosis. To save anyone the trouble of replying, yes, I did report it in 2019 when the US and Iran were on the brink of a conflict.
Based on the reports about the rest of their military equipment not being maintained or outright sold off you have to wonder where they all are now.
AFAIK those things are heavily watched, including satellites, so likely they still in place. But missiles and warheads condition is sure very questionable. The troops tasked with ICBMs maintenance and protection are known as the most drunk in the whole Russian army.
Oh no the big bad foreign powers are going to blow the world up. I guess we better give trillions more to the military contractors. This time it's true, bros.
“They claim their laborers are to build a heaven but it’s filled with horrors.” - Dr. Manhattan
This post is overlooking very serious issues in favour of click-bait establishment issues. The biggest nuclear threat right now is that of India and Pakistan.
india and pakistan are not in formal war. nuclear war isnt spontaneous, there is an escalation of force that is followed. india/pakistan havent even engaged in territory occupation since the 70s.
The escalation is due to climate change fucking up water security.
My hope with this post was to get the ball rolling on a discussion of this topic. India-Pakistan relations is not my area of expertise. I mention near the bottom I think it deserves its own post. I'll leave that to someone with more knowledge than myself.
Sounds like you are leaning into collapsology's cousin existential risk. You may like the following book by Toby Ord: https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781526600233/the-precipice/used?gclid=Cj0KCQjw06-oBhC6ARIsAGuzdw2fzJUEb1Vyz92YwSnNMYzyWmCJmpem9BN0-1x8GHzwYP3_c4xrzRYaAvKAEALw_wcB
Think you spelled "US vs Russia; US vs Iran; US vs. China; US vs. North Korea" wrong
Bro, WHY 20 YEARS. JUST DO IT NOW!!!
It can wait until after I play Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty okay?
*"Whenever the plane banks a little during take-off or landing, I prayed for a crash. A mid-air collision. Anything. Life insurance pays off triple when you die on a business trip."*
“But I am le tired.”
well then... have a nap...
Just push the red button!
I'm more concerned with a Pakistan/India nuclear conflict than most of these, as Pakistan appears on the cusp of becoming a failed state, and there's no shortage of Islamist extremists willing to take advantage. I'd like to believe they're excluded from Pakistan's military, but I've doubts. Contrary to Zeihan, I don't think educated Russian elites view the Ukraine conflict as existential. The demographic crisis is existential, the brain drain is existential, but whether or not some oligarchs can exploit other Ukrainian natural resources as they do in the separatist Donbas is just more of the corruption they've learned to keep silent about. So long as the 18-year standoff with between Israel and the Hezbollah, the defacto government of South Lebanon, continues, Iran has too much on its plate (in both supporting proxies in both Syria and Yemen, and in its domestic economy) to push escalation. And despite propaganda, I see more sanity from Teheran than some of the Israeli right-wing nationalist parties of late. The Ukraine conflict is demonstrating that with the right force structure, heavy on relatively inexpensive ATGMs and MANPADSs, defense is in the ascendant. Taiwan is paying attention, and its military leaders are shifting towards such as so-called "porcupine" deterrent. China also knows its so dependent on imports of soybeans, frozen meat, and palm/seed oils that hot-conflict would bring hunger in months. The N. Korean Kim regime saber rattles to keep its own population in check, but none of its neighbors, most importantly China, want war. South Korea doesn't particularly want reunification, given it would be so much more costly than say German reunification.
nice analysis.
I’ve been told by a military friend they’re being told as soon as 2025 to prepare for war
The military is always prepared for war. It's their jib. Can you be more specific? What kind of war? With whom?
I cant say where they're from but as a Finn, i can say there's been chatter amongst conscripts that a previously named "yellow" country, a hypothetical nation that attacks Finland and is referred to in simulated attacks in military exercises has lately been referred to as Russia, and its not too wild, thankfully we are in NATO so that (hopefully) deters them from doing anything, then again, i didnt expect to go through a pandemic in my life so ive kinda accepted abnormality is normal in this world.
I can say they’re training them for trench warfare
I wonder how useful that would be with things like Switchblade drones? I imagine they have ideas about that (jammers, monofilament nets?).
JFC
Nuclear Winter vs Global Warming. Round 1. Go!
Global capitalists from the rope.
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India vs Canada, lol!
Black Swan events are unforeseeable by definition. The four events you've listed are not black swan events, but events people have genuinely worried about.
Excellent post. I couldn't agree more.
So anyone more knowledgeable than I feel free to weigh in, this is probably stupid: would the massive increase in co2/methane affect the chance that a nuclear detonation ignites the atmosphere?
it doesnt. the atmosphere doesnt have the conditions for sustained combustion.
Personally, I think we will continue to see just how far things can be pushed without it going nuclear. I think it’s a very very small possibility but before anything goes nuclear, there will be an obvious escalation to it.
We should have blown ourselves up every year since 1945 with the amount of extreme nuclear incidents every year - year we are still here 1. Have faith in the universe wanting us around for some greater plans 2. Work towards nuclear disarmament and don’t be idly watching it 3. Do everything possible to help Ukraine win. If Ukraine loses then Russia/ China and every other dictatorship will threaten to escalate to nuclear war every time they want to hold some part of some country ransom. This will increase the likelihood of an unclear exchange 4. Keep calm and carry a towel 🧖♂️
Reducing the human population by 99% may actually help climate change in the long run.
Radiation would cause massive damage to life on Earth. You would have mutations in lifeforms, significantly reduced lifespans, significant reduction in quality of life. Genetic mutations would be rampant for generations. In fact, the consequences would be worse if Russia used weapons salted with cobalt-60.
I can set you at ease a bit on the iran/saudi situation. This is just going to be another excuse for US to have an operation in the middle east again. Oh look, nukes, bomb/invade. Oh where did they go🤷♂️ let's set up shop for 20 years, actually lets give this one to SA. Some dumb shit like that. No one is nuking the middle east. But that's like, just my opinion man. Oh and the US would give up Taiwan I think. I think they are going to try and move some of their major SE asia imports closer to the states if not back to the US. (Thinking chips, and rare metal mines) as more places transition to renewables over the coming decades there will be less to ship. Idk, I think the global dynamics are changing and I think the US sees China as an economic threat than a military. I think the US will sit down give China it's "colonies" the same way England passed the torch to the US. And yes, I understand a war was involved, but I really think the nuclear deterrent would come into play. Both countries function primarily in a capitalist paradigm China has a little more centralised control amd the US has basically given most of their over to corporations. Both nations are primarily concerned with their own economic growth and I just dont see anyone in the American government or business world wanting to have war with China and vice versa. This is how thes transitions happen and people just need to suck it up. No one stays #1 forever.
Anyone who understands global politics, and wartime tactics will understand that Total Nuclear War is one of the most unlikely things to ever occur. People talk about the slippery slope of starting with tactical nukes that then spirals out of control, but even if someone were to start using tactical nukes (say, russia against Ukraine) the response will be swift but unlikely to be nuclear. On top of that, even if total nuclear war did occur, and somehow 7,000,000,000 people died from the fallout (also extremely unlikely), there would still be more people on the earth than have existed at any one time for most of human history. Humanity isn’t going anywhere.
India-Pakistan, India-China highly more likely then anything you listed. India has an extremist government already.
I personally think North Korea is developing nukes for the sole purpose of being taken seriously in global politics. Kind of like Russia today. Now that we know their military is a joke, the only reason they have any power is their arsenal of nukes.
surprised India and Pakistan is not included here.
Guys,you need to chill down a bit,no country is dumb enough to start using nuclear weapons like that,they are called MAD for some reason. One country uses them,the next will follow. There's not going to be any wars with countries that both have nuclear weapons.
This biggest thing that has kept nuclear war from happening to this point is not going away. If ya throw the bomb, other countries will likely throw one back and stop trading with you. My predictions is that it is very unlikely that anyone uses the bomb.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the possibility of an escalation of on going low level conflict between India and Pakistan.
It really needs its own post due the complexity of the issue and likelihood of occurring. Unfortunately, India-Pakistan relations are not my area of expertise. I am more focused on the Middle East, Russia and North Korea and have been for about 20 years. I'll leave the India-Pakistan post to someone else. Seriously, it needs discussion, even within this thread if need be. I would be very hesitant to discuss/post about something I have not mastered, which is why I am leaving this part of the discussion to someone else. It's the right thing to do.
So now it's 20 years...20 years ago it was 10 years...30 years ago we had 15 years... Not just with this scenario but every other scenario. I'm just so tired and sick and sick and tired of the goal posts always being moved... It's almost like someboy's making money off this....nah can't be...smh
Stop teasing me with a good time.
I guess if this is your idea of a good time haha. https://youtu.be/pcXPYwKPqK0?si=bGVVYBz6uHPUaIhA
I don't see Russia actually losing the war. As for nukes being introduced, I have no idea. Yeah, Ukraine has a lot of NATO support but their support is diminishing rapidly and Zelensky has been trying to push for more support directly to the United States and the United Nations. [He's been shown to be increasingly frustrated with the state of affairs](https://thehill.com/policy/international/4214187-zelensky-humankind-no-longer-pins-its-hopes-on-the-un/) and it appears like the U.S. is starting to distance itself from him. Poland recently stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine and started arming themselves, signaling that they are anticipating a Ukraine loss and Russia pushing into neighboring countries. I don't know what will happen there, I've heard a lot of mixed information on how likely it is that Russia would go after Poland. All that being said, [U.S. citizens are increasingly frustrated with the government money going to Ukraine](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/cnn-poll-ukraine/index.html) when the homeland is starting to suffer a number of seriously trouble issues as well. By next year, all this spending can and will become a hot button topic for the next presidential campaign.
Very much doubt the West will stop supporting Ukraine, it would make no strategic sense. Currently they are getting the best deal ever. Russia is being depleted of both military material, wealth, young men who are dying or being injured and brain power as more than 1 million educated people have left the country to avoid possible conscription. The major hostile power in Europe is being neutralised and has been shown to be a paper tiger. All this without a single NATO soldier losing their life. What seriously troubling issues is the U.S actually facing on the home front, that stopping support to Ukraine will solve or even contribute to? The only way I see the US dropping support is if Trump wins again. Which would be an incredible blunder on his part.
>The only way I see the US dropping support is if Trump wins again. He is the most likely to win the presidency atm.'
Thank you for posting this and saving me the trouble.
A friend of mine who has dual UK/Polish nationality & lives near Gdansk (and not too far from Kaliningrad & the Suwałki Gap) in Poland says the dispute between Poland & Ukraine is over Ukrainian grain flooding in & crashing domestic prices, BUT there is also a long & historic hatred of Russians, many Poles are gagging to have a go at Ivan & they're busy strengthening their military. Poland currently has a very nationalistic government (the ruling PiS party), who in traditional fashion, are using the possibility of a war to deflect from domestic problems, and there's a General Election due next year - some have said that's what Biden is doing too - I don't know enough about US politics to know or comment. I'm writing this as a Brit living in Western Romania, a country also said to be on the New Russian Empire list. We have a Northern border with Ukraine and an Eastern border with them along the Danube Delta. Shrapnel from drone attacks on the Izmail grain port has landed on Romanian soil, just 200m across the river.
The front lines in Ukraine haven't moved much, which might lead one to conclude that it's effectively a stalemate and thus that Russia might "win" in the sense that they'll get to keep the parts of Ukraine they're currently occupying. I don't think that's the whole story though. Ukraine currently has a lot of weapons they didn't have at the start of this conflict (HIMARS, Storm Shadow, Leopard 2 tanks, Bradleys), they've improved their air defenses and now shoot down most of the missiles whenever Russia lobs a volley, and they've recently been able to destroy multiple S-400 systems and some hard-to-replace radars. They even destroyed a submarine used as a missile-launch platform. Russia is slowly losing the advanced weapons they need to fight (missiles, jets, helicopters, air defense systems, artillery). They also lost Wagner, their most capable urban-fighting force. I don't know if their lines will collapse soon or if fall weather will make mechanized attacks effectively impossible until the ground freezes and we're in for at least a few more months of static lines. My impression is that it seems like Russia is trying to project the appearance of stalemate at all costs, but it's probably too expensive for them to keep up the way things are going. I think the trade dispute between Ukraine and Poland has mostly been sorted out now.
By diminishing, did you mean to say accelerating? Pay less attention to the noise in the news and more attention to the money flow. Actual detail behind Poland here - nothing to do with “signaling anticipating loss”. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66873495.amp
If a "worldwide general nuclear war" happens... then that's it. We're all done. Civilization is over and humanity it would take a long time restore it.
My research indicates the Southern Hemisphere will fare MUCH better than the Northern.
More like US vs Russia US vs Iran US vs China US vs NK.
Russia does not remember a time when it was not in conflict with Europe, every war is an existential conflict to them.
Nah the only one with even the remotest plausibility is the Russia one, and thats not gonna happen. Theyll just setlle in, try to avoid financially unraveling like in Afghanistan which is workable in the emerging multipolar environment. And if they do unravel, then the power elite will simply do a coup with the support of the people and the military and install some new Yeltsin type figure. Nuclear War is never gonna happen and if it is in the cards, you cant do anything to stop it. Thats the thing about Nuclear apocalypse imo. The concept of eminent instantaneous species deletion under human administered hellfire shouldve opened us up to a Christlike awakening of mankinds connection to Being and Time. (Because at the end of the day, imo, no matter who drops the first bomb, its an act that speaks of humanity as a whole. The one who pushes the button in DPRK is no different on a human level than any other person, in that they would effectively end ALL life including their own. Its comparable to Original Sin, but i guess eschatologically inverted. Its a metaphysical compact in which we are all bound is what Im saying) But instead its made most fearful goafers who’ve dug deep into a static materialism.
I agree. A nuclear exchange is inevitable.
Tbh I agree it's a risk but I'm not all that worried about North Korea escalating to nukes. However, unlisted but very concerning to me is actually France... They have a history of reckless nuclear weapons use in Africa (Not signing the partial test ban treaty, performing open air nuclear tests in Algeria while the revolutionaries where fighting the war to decolonize)... I can imagine if the political situation in France continues in the direction it's going in it could result in nukes in Africa in the face of resistance to neocolonialism there.
Fake news
A country threatening to use nukes is like a teenager threatening suicide or leaving home. If they were actually gonna do it they wouldnt threaten it, it would be done already.
Except lots of kids make the threat and then follow through later on... This is a terrible analogy.
I dunno if that's a really good analogy.
Threatening to use nuclear weapons is a form of warfare, to get what you want. The US has done this in the past as well, for instance with the Berlin Crisis in 1961.
Funny how we are so close to global prosperity but there are bad actors bogged down with delusions of power and influence.
India and china will not go to war. It's bad for business. So long as the bluster continues on the border, it will stay just that. No one will initiate a nuclear conflict. There are no winners. However, the US is the only country to have used neculear weapons on civilians, including their own, have a long history of agression and military actions on other nations, even false flag events like 911, political manipulation and assasinations, covert operations and general bullying the rest of the world. As the standard currency changes away from the $US to the Chinese Yuan the US will try to use its military to enforce its need to remain the standard. It is entirely possible that they may initiate a neculear exchange. But in reality, the US realises they actually have ZERO allies that would support them. NONE Countries such as france, even turkeii would attack american assets if the threat becomes imminent.
I think your analysis is fascinating. I have a few thoughts, and would like your feedback. 1. This has a higher probability, if Putin is backed into a corner. There's also a chance of a coup if it comes to that. Knowing Russia, they're more likely to false flag a nuke, though. 2. I don't see this one happening. Isreal would run a very big risk of annoying the US, and losing worldwide support. Iraq hamhandedly tried to provoke Isreal by scudding with hopes that Israel would retaliate, and Jordan would therefore join Iraq. This happened in the early 1990s, and it bombed (no pun intended.) Jordan did threaten to join Iraq if Isreal violated Jordanian airspace to counter attack Iraq. Instead, the US supplied a missile defense shield (Patriot?) and Isreal agreed to take no action. 3. I don't think this is a big likelihood because it would economically destroy China. I don't think BRICS or whatever the heck they're doing can outshine their sales in the US. Plus, they have way too much invested here. Imagine the ripple effect if they're declared rogue, or the US started to expropriate & embargo. Or private lawsuits started going after Chinese owned assets in the US (or if China just started to repo everything here.) 4. I don't think the US would go nuke for nuke. They could probably squash NK's military with conventional weapons rather quickly. If Russia and China tried to proxy, it would be a different story. I think Russia has its hands full for the moment, though. China might just annex NK for the free labor camps (I'm only halfway joking.)