7 ms·

One oops and maybe something gets nuked, but I don't think it makes any sense to worry about the whole world being destroyed. Why would they? I mean, if the US

One oops and maybe something gets nuked, but I don't think it makes any sense to worry about the whole world being destroyed. Why would they? I mean, if the US was hit, it would be like 9/11 only bigger, and I'm sure people would be talking about glass parking lots, but why would all the missiles be launched towards everywhere? Who wants to destroy the world and why wouldn't they have done it already? Same goes for any other country.

arthurcolle 7y ago
I think you don't have an appreciation of the devastation that modern thermonuclear warheads are capable of, as well as the sophisticated delivery systems that the United States has concocted and refined over many, many years.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Modern warheads are smaller, not larger - everybody knows that. And what "sophisticated" means is better targeting, which is why smaller weapons can be used. Those things seem to point away from blowing up the entire world. I don't know if it's true, but there was a rumor that if one wanted to, it would be technically feasible to make a hydrogen bomb of unlimited size - e.g. crack the planet in half. However, that path was not taken.
- ethbro 7y ago
  I think the B83 (1.2 megatons) is the highest yield weapon currently in the US arsenal. Which, while terrible (9 megatons ~= pressure wave that levels most structures in a largish city), pales in comparison to something like the B41 (25 megatons) or the B53 (9 megatons). Generally speaking, the US and Russia both realized (~70s) that building excessively large bombs was inflexible and a waste of resources. The actual first-order effects are generally smaller than what you'd expect: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
  - cma 7y ago
    MIRVs have multiple smaller bombs, that can do much more damage than a single of equivalent tonnage to their cumulative (due to volume being more concentrated over ground plane, like cluster bombs).
ethbro 7y ago
> why would all the missiles be launched towards everywhere? Because that's the way nuclear deterrent theory works. If you collapse the game theory calculus down, it turns into "Any technology or action that makes it less likely an adversary will respond with an unacceptable counterstrike on me makes it more likely that I will consider a first strike a viable option." Examples of technologies or activities with this result: missile defense, hypersonic reentry vehicles, hard target capable systems, smaller / tactical-sized warheads, launch site or attacker obfuscation. Raising the likelihood that in the event anything happens to me I will ensure an unacceptable number of nukes are delivered to your country is one of the easier ways of ensuring deterrence and making the entire business unpalatable. Nobody wants to destroy the world. But it's in everyone's interest to make everyone else think they're absolutely willing-to and capable-of, in the event they're strategically attacked.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "Because that's the way nuclear deterrent theory works." The theory is that the US has committed to blowing up...Japan, say...if North Korea should succeed in missiling San Francisco?
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    ...consider that Nevada has been nuked (I just looked it up) a hundred times - and that's just above ground testing.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    See point on attribution. How do we know the weapons originated from North Korea, and not Japan, or the UK, or some other unlikely source? Because we saw the missile radar tracks? What if it was a shipping container or UUV bomb? This is why huge sums of money have been spent on post-detonation nuclear fingerprinting with high accuracy. Absent a high likelihood of correctly attributing the source, one must default to retaliating against everyone. Only once one establishes a credible belief in an adversary that the true source will likely be discovered can one relax policy to retaliation only against the source (and probably its allies).
csallen 7y ago
> Who wants to destroy the world and why wouldn't they have done it already? Who wants to shoot down a civilian airliner and why wouldn't they have done it already? It's not about the desire to destroy humanity. It's about the catastrophic scenarios that can arise when nuclear armed countries think they're under nuclear attack and start getting jumpy about counter strikes or even pre-emptive strikes. The only sensible strategy is, basically, to Launch All The Things and wipe out your enemy before they can do the same.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  People shoot down civilian airliners "all the time". Nobody shoots down all the airliners in the world. If you destroy the world after being nuked, that is strictly worse than not destroying the world after being nuked, so nobody would do it. Since nobody would do it, and that is obvious, there is no such thing as holding the world hostage as a deterrent. If you maintain that some person or group is insane enough to destroy the world, there still can be no deterrent because you can't expect insane people to behave according to logic or plan.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    > If you destroy the world after being nuked, that is strictly worse than not destroying the world after being nuked, so nobody would do it. Possibly. But it is also strictly dominating (in the time before nuclear exchange) to make everyone else believe with absolute certainty that you're willing to destroy the world after being nuked. Therein lays one of the quandaries of nuclear weapons policy.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      The result of that strategy is irrelevant because it's obviously impossible. Sane people wouldn't destroy the world and insane people can't be relied on to do anything with certainty. Any analysis of a game that relies on impossible moves is meaningless.
loopz 7y ago
Please read. Nuclear capabilities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad MAD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction Revenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-deadly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-deadly

arthurcolle 7y ago

I think you don't have an appreciation of the devastation that modern thermonuclear warheads are capable of, as well as the sophisticated delivery systems that the United States has concocted and refined over many, many years.

perl4ever 7y ago
Modern warheads are smaller, not larger - everybody knows that. And what "sophisticated" means is better targeting, which is why smaller weapons can be used. Those things seem to point away from blowing up the entire world. I don't know if it's true, but there was a rumor that if one wanted to, it would be technically feasible to make a hydrogen bomb of unlimited size - e.g. crack the planet in half. However, that path was not taken.
ethbro 7y ago
I think the B83 (1.2 megatons) is the highest yield weapon currently in the US arsenal. Which, while terrible (9 megatons ~= pressure wave that levels most structures in a largish city), pales in comparison to something like the B41 (25 megatons) or the B53 (9 megatons). Generally speaking, the US and Russia both realized (~70s) that building excessively large bombs was inflexible and a waste of resources. The actual first-order effects are generally smaller than what you'd expect: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
- cma 7y ago
  MIRVs have multiple smaller bombs, that can do much more damage than a single of equivalent tonnage to their cumulative (due to volume being more concentrated over ground plane, like cluster bombs).

ethbro 7y ago

> why would all the missiles be launched towards everywhere? Because that's the way nuclear deterrent theory works. If you collapse the game theory calculus down, it turns into "Any technology or action that makes it less likely an adversary will respond with an unacceptable counterstrike on me makes it more likely that I will consider a first strike a viable option." Examples of technologies or activities with this result: missile defense, hypersonic reentry vehicles, hard target capable systems, smaller / tactical-sized warheads, launch site or attacker obfuscation. Raising the likelihood that in the event anything happens to me I will ensure an unacceptable number of nukes are delivered to your country is one of the easier ways of ensuring deterrence and making the entire business unpalatable. Nobody wants to destroy the world. But it's in everyone's interest to make everyone else think they're absolutely willing-to and capable-of, in the event they're strategically attacked.

perl4ever 7y ago
"Because that's the way nuclear deterrent theory works." The theory is that the US has committed to blowing up...Japan, say...if North Korea should succeed in missiling San Francisco?
- perl4ever 7y ago
  ...consider that Nevada has been nuked (I just looked it up) a hundred times - and that's just above ground testing.
- ethbro 7y ago
  See point on attribution. How do we know the weapons originated from North Korea, and not Japan, or the UK, or some other unlikely source? Because we saw the missile radar tracks? What if it was a shipping container or UUV bomb? This is why huge sums of money have been spent on post-detonation nuclear fingerprinting with high accuracy. Absent a high likelihood of correctly attributing the source, one must default to retaliating against everyone. Only once one establishes a credible belief in an adversary that the true source will likely be discovered can one relax policy to retaliation only against the source (and probably its allies).

csallen 7y ago

> Who wants to destroy the world and why wouldn't they have done it already? Who wants to shoot down a civilian airliner and why wouldn't they have done it already? It's not about the desire to destroy humanity. It's about the catastrophic scenarios that can arise when nuclear armed countries think they're under nuclear attack and start getting jumpy about counter strikes or even pre-emptive strikes. The only sensible strategy is, basically, to Launch All The Things and wipe out your enemy before they can do the same.

perl4ever 7y ago
People shoot down civilian airliners "all the time". Nobody shoots down all the airliners in the world. If you destroy the world after being nuked, that is strictly worse than not destroying the world after being nuked, so nobody would do it. Since nobody would do it, and that is obvious, there is no such thing as holding the world hostage as a deterrent. If you maintain that some person or group is insane enough to destroy the world, there still can be no deterrent because you can't expect insane people to behave according to logic or plan.
- ethbro 7y ago
  > If you destroy the world after being nuked, that is strictly worse than not destroying the world after being nuked, so nobody would do it. Possibly. But it is also strictly dominating (in the time before nuclear exchange) to make everyone else believe with absolute certainty that you're willing to destroy the world after being nuked. Therein lays one of the quandaries of nuclear weapons policy.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    The result of that strategy is irrelevant because it's obviously impossible. Sane people wouldn't destroy the world and insane people can't be relied on to do anything with certainty. Any analysis of a game that relies on impossible moves is meaningless.

loopz 7y ago

Please read. Nuclear capabilities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad MAD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction Revenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-deadly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-deadly