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Capability of actual MAD did not exist for most of the Cold War. If Kennedy went bonkers and initiated pre-emptive strike. USA would survive. It would lose some
by tlear 6y ago
Capability of actual MAD did not exist for most of the Cold War. If Kennedy went bonkers and initiated pre-emptive strike. USA would survive. It would lose some of the major cities and tens of millions of people, but it would live. USSR would cease to exist a long with all of its proxies in east Europe. A lot of the Europe would be gone but again probably damage on level of Black Death not extinction event.
Soviet intel and propaganda was always far above what west could do. It is what kept it looking close for two decades.
Korea for example. US could easily use nukes with impunity. It did not but there would be no consequences in terms of nuclear retaliation as Stalin knew what the equation was. Still he took the bet to attack south.. just a mad lad that he was. When Chinese counter attacked if US used nukes again there would be no retaliation, McArthur got retired over that.
I am really happy we lived through that. It is incredibly lucky that it was US that got the nukes first and not Germany or USSR or other similar regime.
- andrepd 6y ago>A lot of the Europe would be gone but again probably damage on level of Black Death not extinction event. If you think "oh this is not so bad" you should watch Threads.
- ArnoVW 6y agoSecond that. Left me in a state of shock for weeks when I saw it. Compared with threads, "the day after" is kids stuff. https://archive.org/details/threads_201712 https://archive.org/details/threads_201712
- arethuza 6y agoIn the early 1960s an all out attack by the US would have resulted in at least 600 million dead - including 100 million dead in Western Europe. Add to that the effects of medium range Soviet weapons in Western Europe (which they had a lot of) then things would have been very bad here. Source: The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg
- heavenlyblue 6y agoWhat are you on about? The whole race was about creating nukes to nuke the other nukes out of the orbit when they are attacking, so the total amount of nukes was way beyond what was required to destroy the other side.