Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24
- Thread starter kebabking
- Start date
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
This, plus nukes are very hard to explode, they need to be in 100% tip-top condition and the chances of that when it is crystal clear that every single bit of the Russian military has been neglected and abused by tea-leaves for decades, it would be a miracle if the nukes were kept in working order. A risky as shit gamble, obviously.
And how many times has Putin done his "I'm not bluffing this time" bollocks? ~35 according to a number of reports.
I'm gonna hit you.
I am.
Really, I'm gonna do it.
Not bluffing.
I'm fucking nails and it will hurt when I do it.
This time, I really am going to hit you!
etc.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
A load of hipster "I hated him before it was cool" anti-Putin types will come out of the woodwork?
nogojones
spelling is overrated
I don't think you've been paying attention to the last 8 years there.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Pro-Kremlin neo-Nazi militia inciting the torture and murder of Ukrainian prisoners
Task Force Rusich, linked to the Wagner Group, advises its fighters not to report the capture of Ukrainians to Russian commanders
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Him and a blue haired Simonyan ranting about how Putin has ruined the country and saying his pronouns are going to be 'was/were' in the most unconvincing political conversion ever
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Nor indeed the last 8 days
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I suppose the reason the use of "tactical nukes" crosses some kind of red line is in the end simply that they have "nuclear" in their name.
Because really it doesn't make a whole load of sense that a couple of bombs would trigger such a response and yet multiple war crimes committed over many months, and the destruction of several cities using conventional weapons doesn't.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Probably, because of the fear that people have over anything nuclear, their use may cause Europe to waiver in its support for Ukraine, so a solid line is drawn there?
maomao
普費斯
Bear in mind that the smallest tactical nukes (say 0.5 KT for sale of argument which is teeny weeny for a nuke) produce an explosion nearly 45 times as big as the biggest non nuclear bomb in the US arsenal (11 tons). Also, a chunky percentage of dead will die in a particularly horrible and painful manner. So maybe it's right that there's a line there.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
I think the opposite, if Russia did use a nuclear weapon then the final fig leaf for the non-aligned would be gone and the non-aligned would probably become aligned and China would pull any support.
It also seems likely that all the back channels are letting all their contacts be in no doubt than anyone in the command structure involved in using a nuclear weapon* is going to be lucky to spend the rest of their life in a prison in Holland rather than danging from a gallows following Nuremberg 2.0. I want my MI6 money back if we aren't contributing to that.
(*Russian obvs. Not people on our side...)
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A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
That's kind of the crux of the whole thing. How have we got to the point where many of our best physicists, engineers and administrators in the richest nations of the world have spent their lives building fantastic machines that can burn down whole cities from the far side of the world.
Mind you, the unilateralism I believed in for most of my life has taken a bit of a knock. So far only 50% of the countries that went down that route haven't been invaded...
2hats
Dust.
Total inventory which includes long term stored devices and assemblies awaiting refurbishment or destruction.
Actual serviceable devices, probably equal numbers at best, if not lower. Active deployed numbers roughly equal, though possibly more US are available.
Status of World Nuclear Forces
Globally, the overall inventory of nuclear weapons is declining, but the pace of reductions is slowing compared with the past 30 years.
fas.org
maomao
普費斯
Well yes, but also able to be ignored and not constantly dripping into the main war threads.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I wouldnt put it quite like that. There were a collection of fears. At one end of the collection was a large number of missiles being fired, leading to a sort of armageddon that changed life as we know it around the globe. Under that scenario some of the fictional representations of what survival would look like got rather silly, eg threads depicted people losing some of their fundamental human emotions in a way that did not ring true at all, as well as their ability to use language just because the education system was disrupted.
The original 1940s-1960s version of these fears were a response to technological change, this new form of horror via the arrival of the atomic age, the bombs dropped on Japan, the arms race, the amount of test bombs set off, coming to terms with the post WW2 global order. The 1980s rehash of the nuclear armageddon fears continued some of these themes but was a bit silly and surreal in some ways, and people varied in how seriously they really took the threat. There was some sense that it was part of a political game, a reheating of the cold war that could be treated with some skepticism, a sense that various domestic political agendas were being served by the stoking of this fear. And also the politics of nuclear disarmament vs the UK signing up to receive Trident missiles. New fears to justify the next generation of weapons, or to resist them, depending on where you stood. Things reached the serious stage of Sting doing a song about it, but no further.
This scenario has not been tested and its pretty unclear whether one or more major powers will stop short of proceeding to mutually assured destruction during any of the phases of escalation that would lead up to that point. The entire logic of MAD is based on the power of threats and not really getting to the stage of testing the bluffs. We dont actually know what will happen if the brinkmanship ends up going further than ever before.
I don’t have a clue what the Russian command is thinking. But I do know that I were in their shoes, I’d be avoiding nuclear weapons like the plague.
Russia has never been so weak militarily. Their combat ability has been massively degraded. They’re also already stretched across front lines. And the perception of them as a dangerous force has evaporated. I can’t believe there aren’t dead-eyed nutcases across China, the US and Europe that are salivating about the possibility of taking their opportunity to strike and carve it up. All they need is an excuse. Russia wants to be very careful not to trigger this.
I view the nuclear threats like my dog growling. He’s soft as shite but sound ferocious. And that’s because the growl is literally all he has to defend himself.
Russia has never been so weak militarily. Their combat ability has been massively degraded. They’re also already stretched across front lines. And the perception of them as a dangerous force has evaporated. I can’t believe there aren’t dead-eyed nutcases across China, the US and Europe that are salivating about the possibility of taking their opportunity to strike and carve it up. All they need is an excuse. Russia wants to be very careful not to trigger this.
I view the nuclear threats like my dog growling. He’s soft as shite but sound ferocious. And that’s because the growl is literally all he has to defend himself.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
This started as one
The Kiss Your Arse Goodbye Thread
So Ukraine gets its way with the No Fly Zone. Russian and NATO forces clash. We're all shitting ourselves as to what will happen next... What would you do in the shadow of the nuclear holocaust other than think about how unlikely this was (1962 excepted) in the good old days of Cold War stability?
www.urban75.net
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
But please, no fighting in the Nuclear Scenarios Thread
Nylock
I hate 'these days'...
Trouble with that thread is that anyone attempting to discuss the doomsday scenarios gets lumped into the category of 'war enthusiast' by a certain poster and then it just degenerates into finger pointing and ad homs.This started as one
The Kiss Your Arse Goodbye Thread
So Ukraine gets its way with the No Fly Zone. Russian and NATO forces clash. We're all shitting ourselves as to what will happen next... What would you do in the shadow of the nuclear holocaust other than think about how unlikely this was (1962 excepted) in the good old days of Cold War stability?
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
That's really unusual on here tbh
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Just don't engage with them
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
That’s neither here nor there. Both sides have enough to blow the planet apart 10 times over.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Only one side's work so it'll all be fine.
petee
no gods, no malarkey
really!
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Need to say this directly to one particular poster who obsessively engages and then calls for a ban.
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