5 ms·
> A system which stops 50% of incoming missiles means that only half as many people will die in a nuclear war, obviously a desirable result. Half as many will
by xg15 4y ago
> A system which stops 50% of incoming missiles means that only half as many people will die in a nuclear war, obviously a desirable result.
Half as many will die on the first day of nuclear war.
So assume the enemy only obliterated 50 cities when without defense it would have been 100. That's great! But those 50 nuclear explosions are probably still enough to shroud large parts of the country in nuclear fallout. Not to mention the country's infrastructure will still be destroyed, leading to chaos, diseases, famine and all the other consequences of nuclear war. It's not clear to me a defense that could destroy 50% of incoming missiles would make meaningful difference in what happens medium or long term.
This is also another general argument against nuclear war: Fallout cares about borders about as much as covid did. Even if you're the attacker and your defense is so good you don't have to worry about retaliatory strikes, you will with high likelihood contaminate your allies as well.
- 988747 4y agoAren't 50 nuclear explosions enough to basically cause the next global Ice Age? With the amount of dust thrown into the air, that will block sunlight?
- Merad 4y agoNo, definitely not. During the Cold War more than 600 nukes were exploded in above ground tests (thousands more in underground detonations).
- twelve40 4y agoyeah but wikipedia says nuclear winter would come from burning cities emitting soot ("100 or more city firestorms"). All tests were done in places like Novaya Zemlya which barely has any vegetation, let alone big burning cities.
- credit_guy 4y agoWikipedia also says we've been through such an event at the end of Gulf War 1, when Saddam burned the Kuwaiti oil fields. There was absolutely nothing close to the nuclear winter effect. Sagan later conceded in his book The Demon-Haunted World that his predictions obviously did not turn out to be correct: "it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4–6° C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in...
- LatteLazy 4y ago528 (530 including Hiroshima and Nagasaki). https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nucleartesttally https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nucleartesttally And that's over 20ish years. 30 a year is a lot but it's not 3000 in 1 day...
- somenameforme 4y agoThat quote from the article (50% missiles stopped means 50% fewer dead) is simply false. It simply means that more missiles will be launched towards each destination. The fact that this requires more missiles is inconsequential given the number of premium targets relative to the number of missiles known to be available. There are far fewer premium targets than nukes. Imagine the effects of just a single well placed nukes in NYC, LA, San Francisco, and Chicago. 4 nukes expended, 5,973 remaining. Now enter in 50% effective shields, thus requiring an average of 2 nukes. Now, it requires twice the nukes so there's only 5,969 remaining. Very comforting.