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This is perennial, and no less terrifying for it. There was briefly a 3D version integrated with Google Earth that was even more depressing. Also check out (b

This is perennial, and no less terrifying for it. There was briefly a 3D version integrated with Google Earth that was even more depressing. Also check out (by the same developer, Alex Wallerstein) MissileMap, where you can plant a launch platform on a map (sub, silo etc.), assign it a missile and a warhead, and see which parts of the earth you can turn to glass. Stiff drink helps; all a bit close to home for this cold war kid.

hunterb123 5y ago
I find it assuring. There's so many it's such a large deterrent to escalating war. Noone would win.
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  It’s also a deterrent for actually getting involved and doing the right thing. World powers can’t directly fight anymore so Russia takes chunks of Europe every so often. China does the same. Ukraine and Taiwan, for example, lose out. We pretend there is peace.
  - kzrdude 5y ago
    Domination/Hegemony has been the only sense of peace historically. In that sense, I think that the continued stability of the United States as a prosperous and well-run democracy is very important for the world. It looks shaky though, and it's partly outside my control. What do I know, I'm in Europe. Europe is certainly not projecting any hegemony around.
    - Waterluvian 5y ago
      Yeah that resonates with me. There’s rarely peace, just quiet, created forcibly by a dominant actor.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      This seems reasonable and we even have phrases for it. Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and now Pax Americana.
    - FpUser 5y ago
      Just as people countries get tired being "dominated" too. And the "dominator" rots if it does not have healthy competition
  - phtrivier 5y ago
    The current situation in Europe is telling : why bother with sending nukes on other countries when you can threaten them with "bombarding you with migrants" ? Or when you can retaliate by "freezing financial assets" ? M.A.D. is a deterrent for total nuclear war. It's not a deterrent for war. One thaught "trade" would work, but it's still not perfect.
    - arthurcolle 5y ago
      I like this new word thaught, I shall start using it in my belligerences.
    - User23 5y ago
      The Chinese are doing some very advanced philosophizing on the subject of Unrestricted Warfare[1]. It's a remarkably comprehensive view of national conflict, that reminds me of Clausewitz's famous maxim that "war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means". It's an interesting thought experiment to ponder what exactly a nation-state's political objectives would have to be that a nuclear war would be the best way to accomplish them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
    - the_af 5y ago
      > why bother with sending nukes on other countries when you can threaten them with "bombarding you with migrants" Which country is using "bombarding with migrants" as a deliberate tactic to undermine a rival country? In contrast, I do agree with you that freezing assets is a real way to retaliate, and we've witnessed it in action. It has happened, and the relevant states have explained how and why it was a deliberate action.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - ummonk 5y ago
        Belarus is doing exactly that as a retaliation for EU criticism. It remains to be seen how impactful their state sponsored migrant program will be though.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  I would find it more reassuring if there were more evidence that countries are rational where war is concerned. A recently-concluded twenty-year war to remove and reinstate the Taliban is not encouraging.
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    However big a failure that war may seem using it for extrapolation in this case is like predicting a person wouldn't take risk of bankruptcy seriously because they lost a quarter in the couch cushions without getting worked up about it. It's not even comparable with the impact of a single nuke let alone nuclear war.
    - JasonFruit 5y ago
      I understand economic impact is not the whole story, but the Japanese estimate of all economic losses due to the Hiroshima bombing was 884 million yen, about 1.2 trillion 2021 US dollars, by my calculations. The cost of the war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is all of a piece, was about 2.3 trillion USD. One was a $1.2 trillion atrocity; the other is a $2.3 trillion atrocity. On another note, while Japan has recovered very well — thrived, even — after the impact of two nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union never did fully recover from its Afghanistan debacle, which was part of the background for its eventual collapse. Don't underestimate the undesirability of nuclear attacks or disastrous wars that can neither be won nor gained from.
      - Teknoman117 5y ago
        You also have to realize that NATO invested tremendous amount of time and capital into the recovery of Japan and Germany following WW2. They didn't want a repeat of WW1 where the damage done to the defeated nations created a festering resentment and yet another war 20 years later.
        JasonFruit 5y ago
        You're right that there were other factors at play. I'm just trying to point out that the two are not as incomparable to one another as they were being made out to be.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  Allow me to introduce you to “countervalue targeting” as part of what “winning” means here.
- lumost 5y ago
  One concerning item with recent events is that no one can plausibly point to a nuclear "red line" in most of the existing flash points. The historic red lines in the cold war were either one side reaching a first-strike position, or an unstoppable ground invasion in which both sides soldiers were directly involved and tactical nuclear weapons would usefully repel the invasion. Even then NATO troop deployments in Germany during the cold war reflect both a risk that this tipping point wouldn't trigger a nuclear war - as well as carefully calculated strategies to ensure that the risk of a nuclear escalation was high such as by stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Germany. It's difficult to identify a similar red line in a likely conflict between any of the major nuclear powers.
  - ls612 5y ago
    This is why war in the pacific is a disturbingly realistic possibility. There's no plausible scenario under which such a war is existential for either side and so no plausible path to nuclear escalation. But this could lead to a very protracted conventional war we haven't seen in a long time. Game theory is weird and counterintuitive.
- cameldrv 5y ago
  This is becoming potentially less true. Most of the deterrent was designed and built in the 70s and 80s based on the first strike threat models at that time. Since then, we've seen the development of, among other things: 1. The U.S. no longer maintains a command post on continuous airborne alert. There are two planes on 15 minute ground alert, but they are very vulnerable sitting on a limited set of alert facilities. 2. A couple of new submarine detection methods have gotten some development. Signal processing for sonar has improved. 3. Missile accuracy has improved, particularly in a first strike scenario where satellite navigation would be available. 4. Aerial drones have gotten much more sophisticated and compact, which could jeopardize silos, communications infrastructure, bombers on the ground, and the E-6s and E-4s. 5. Sea based drones have undergone extensive development and might become a serious threat to the submarine force. 6. Anti satellite weapons have advanced significantly, putting communications satellites to transmit launch orders at risk. 7. There has been more work on maneuvering reentry vehicles and hypersonics, which could enable depressed trajectory launches which, if they were accurate enough to destroy silos or the underground launch control facilities, could knock out the ICBMS with less than 10 minutes of warning, which is not enough to retaliate in time.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    How do you get the SLBMs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_ballistic_missile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_ballistic_m... First-strike only works if you eradicate _all_ of the opponent's nuclear forces. Otherwise, you're left with a few extremely pissed off submarine Admirals / Captains with nuclear-retaliation abilities. ---------- Like, you're skipping a major step here. If you destroy comms and launch a nuclear first strike before the submarines are down, you're screwd. You're basically saying you have confidence that some adversary can 100% detect all of someone else's submarines simultaneously, across the world, with high confidence. Sure, submarine detection has gotten better, but I'm not even sure if you can pinpoint all of the USA's __carriers__ (and near-carriers, like the Marine's Wasp Assault Ships) right now (let alone the USA's submarines). -------- I have severe doubts that anyone in the world has enough satellites in the air for 100% ocean coverage. We don't even have enough satellites in the air for 100% ground coverage. The sea is a very large place. If the technology you allege to exists really does exist, then the MH370 probably would have been found by now. But no: satellites don't fly over 100% of the sea, our computers aren't fast enough to scan everything our eyes-in-the-skys see even if we could scan 100% of the ocean. Furthermore: Satellites are floating up there in the sky. I'm sure the military is just watching each-other's satellites and knowing when they pass by or not. If a Satellite can see you, you can see the Satellite. If you can see the Satellite, you can tell your Submarines where to hide.
- Kiro 5y ago
  Are we looking at the same map? This is a map to visualize blast radius, not amount of nuclear warheads.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Hah, I find it reassuring for the opposite reason - that most humans living in small towns and rural areas would survive a full nuclear exchange, though urban inhabitants like me would perish.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- laydn 5y ago
  Assuring for whom exactly? The citizens of ~8 nations who have these WOMD?
- mk89 5y ago
  on the other hand, i am not aware of any weapon that we (humans) developed and never used...
kcplate 5y ago
> all a bit close to home for this cold war kid You are not the only one. I’m still scarred 38 goddamned years later from “The Day After”

hunterb123 5y ago

I find it assuring. There's so many it's such a large deterrent to escalating war. Noone would win.

Waterluvian 5y ago
It’s also a deterrent for actually getting involved and doing the right thing. World powers can’t directly fight anymore so Russia takes chunks of Europe every so often. China does the same. Ukraine and Taiwan, for example, lose out. We pretend there is peace.
- kzrdude 5y ago
  Domination/Hegemony has been the only sense of peace historically. In that sense, I think that the continued stability of the United States as a prosperous and well-run democracy is very important for the world. It looks shaky though, and it's partly outside my control. What do I know, I'm in Europe. Europe is certainly not projecting any hegemony around.
  - Waterluvian 5y ago
    Yeah that resonates with me. There’s rarely peace, just quiet, created forcibly by a dominant actor.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    This seems reasonable and we even have phrases for it. Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and now Pax Americana.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    Just as people countries get tired being "dominated" too. And the "dominator" rots if it does not have healthy competition
- phtrivier 5y ago
  The current situation in Europe is telling : why bother with sending nukes on other countries when you can threaten them with "bombarding you with migrants" ? Or when you can retaliate by "freezing financial assets" ? M.A.D. is a deterrent for total nuclear war. It's not a deterrent for war. One thaught "trade" would work, but it's still not perfect.
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    I like this new word thaught, I shall start using it in my belligerences.
  - User23 5y ago
    The Chinese are doing some very advanced philosophizing on the subject of Unrestricted Warfare[1]. It's a remarkably comprehensive view of national conflict, that reminds me of Clausewitz's famous maxim that "war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means". It's an interesting thought experiment to ponder what exactly a nation-state's political objectives would have to be that a nuclear war would be the best way to accomplish them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
  - the_af 5y ago
    > why bother with sending nukes on other countries when you can threaten them with "bombarding you with migrants" Which country is using "bombarding with migrants" as a deliberate tactic to undermine a rival country? In contrast, I do agree with you that freezing assets is a real way to retaliate, and we've witnessed it in action. It has happened, and the relevant states have explained how and why it was a deliberate action.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ummonk 5y ago
      Belarus is doing exactly that as a retaliation for EU criticism. It remains to be seen how impactful their state sponsored migrant program will be though.
JasonFruit 5y ago
I would find it more reassuring if there were more evidence that countries are rational where war is concerned. A recently-concluded twenty-year war to remove and reinstate the Taliban is not encouraging.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  However big a failure that war may seem using it for extrapolation in this case is like predicting a person wouldn't take risk of bankruptcy seriously because they lost a quarter in the couch cushions without getting worked up about it. It's not even comparable with the impact of a single nuke let alone nuclear war.
  - JasonFruit 5y ago
    I understand economic impact is not the whole story, but the Japanese estimate of all economic losses due to the Hiroshima bombing was 884 million yen, about 1.2 trillion 2021 US dollars, by my calculations. The cost of the war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is all of a piece, was about 2.3 trillion USD. One was a $1.2 trillion atrocity; the other is a $2.3 trillion atrocity. On another note, while Japan has recovered very well — thrived, even — after the impact of two nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union never did fully recover from its Afghanistan debacle, which was part of the background for its eventual collapse. Don't underestimate the undesirability of nuclear attacks or disastrous wars that can neither be won nor gained from.
    - Teknoman117 5y ago
      You also have to realize that NATO invested tremendous amount of time and capital into the recovery of Japan and Germany following WW2. They didn't want a repeat of WW1 where the damage done to the defeated nations created a festering resentment and yet another war 20 years later.
      - JasonFruit 5y ago
        You're right that there were other factors at play. I'm just trying to point out that the two are not as incomparable to one another as they were being made out to be.
germinalphrase 5y ago
Allow me to introduce you to “countervalue targeting” as part of what “winning” means here.
lumost 5y ago
One concerning item with recent events is that no one can plausibly point to a nuclear "red line" in most of the existing flash points. The historic red lines in the cold war were either one side reaching a first-strike position, or an unstoppable ground invasion in which both sides soldiers were directly involved and tactical nuclear weapons would usefully repel the invasion. Even then NATO troop deployments in Germany during the cold war reflect both a risk that this tipping point wouldn't trigger a nuclear war - as well as carefully calculated strategies to ensure that the risk of a nuclear escalation was high such as by stationing tactical nuclear weapons in Germany. It's difficult to identify a similar red line in a likely conflict between any of the major nuclear powers.
- ls612 5y ago
  This is why war in the pacific is a disturbingly realistic possibility. There's no plausible scenario under which such a war is existential for either side and so no plausible path to nuclear escalation. But this could lead to a very protracted conventional war we haven't seen in a long time. Game theory is weird and counterintuitive.
cameldrv 5y ago
This is becoming potentially less true. Most of the deterrent was designed and built in the 70s and 80s based on the first strike threat models at that time. Since then, we've seen the development of, among other things: 1. The U.S. no longer maintains a command post on continuous airborne alert. There are two planes on 15 minute ground alert, but they are very vulnerable sitting on a limited set of alert facilities. 2. A couple of new submarine detection methods have gotten some development. Signal processing for sonar has improved. 3. Missile accuracy has improved, particularly in a first strike scenario where satellite navigation would be available. 4. Aerial drones have gotten much more sophisticated and compact, which could jeopardize silos, communications infrastructure, bombers on the ground, and the E-6s and E-4s. 5. Sea based drones have undergone extensive development and might become a serious threat to the submarine force. 6. Anti satellite weapons have advanced significantly, putting communications satellites to transmit launch orders at risk. 7. There has been more work on maneuvering reentry vehicles and hypersonics, which could enable depressed trajectory launches which, if they were accurate enough to destroy silos or the underground launch control facilities, could knock out the ICBMS with less than 10 minutes of warning, which is not enough to retaliate in time.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  How do you get the SLBMs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_ballistic_missile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_ballistic_m... First-strike only works if you eradicate _all_ of the opponent's nuclear forces. Otherwise, you're left with a few extremely pissed off submarine Admirals / Captains with nuclear-retaliation abilities. ---------- Like, you're skipping a major step here. If you destroy comms and launch a nuclear first strike before the submarines are down, you're screwd. You're basically saying you have confidence that some adversary can 100% detect all of someone else's submarines simultaneously, across the world, with high confidence. Sure, submarine detection has gotten better, but I'm not even sure if you can pinpoint all of the USA's __carriers__ (and near-carriers, like the Marine's Wasp Assault Ships) right now (let alone the USA's submarines). -------- I have severe doubts that anyone in the world has enough satellites in the air for 100% ocean coverage. We don't even have enough satellites in the air for 100% ground coverage. The sea is a very large place. If the technology you allege to exists really does exist, then the MH370 probably would have been found by now. But no: satellites don't fly over 100% of the sea, our computers aren't fast enough to scan everything our eyes-in-the-skys see even if we could scan 100% of the ocean. Furthermore: Satellites are floating up there in the sky. I'm sure the military is just watching each-other's satellites and knowing when they pass by or not. If a Satellite can see you, you can see the Satellite. If you can see the Satellite, you can tell your Submarines where to hide.
Kiro 5y ago
Are we looking at the same map? This is a map to visualize blast radius, not amount of nuclear warheads.
ummonk 5y ago
Hah, I find it reassuring for the opposite reason - that most humans living in small towns and rural areas would survive a full nuclear exchange, though urban inhabitants like me would perish.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
laydn 5y ago
Assuring for whom exactly? The citizens of ~8 nations who have these WOMD?
mk89 5y ago
on the other hand, i am not aware of any weapon that we (humans) developed and never used...

kcplate 5y ago

> all a bit close to home for this cold war kid You are not the only one. I’m still scarred 38 goddamned years later from “The Day After”