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A nuclear weapon used in an EMP configuration is not the same thing as one used on the ground. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse#

by jerf 2y ago

A nuclear weapon used in an EMP configuration is not the same thing as one used on the ground. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse#Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse#... more carefully and consider the implications. A nuke detonated for this purpose would kill no one... directly. Is the fear overblown? I don't know. Nuclear has a long history of people grotesquely over-exaggerating the dangers. Makes it hard to tell. But even if it took 10 aerial-burst nukes to take out a country rather than just one, it's still a rather effective way to use the arsenal right now, arguably more effectively than detonating them on the ground. And it tightens the defense window quite a bit.

krisoft 2y ago
I don’t understand your argument. > A nuke detonated for this purpose would kill no one... directly. Yes. I’m aware of that fact. And that is why I fear an EMP less than the alternatives. Don’t get me wrong. It would suck. But it would suck in a “gosh the economy just collapsed, and there is a good chance we will starve or freeze in the next few months/years” sense. Which is less bad than the alternative where they bomb cities and millions of people like you and me die in incredible agony hours/days after the bomb. And that is why i fear the second more. Things like where the hospitals are so overwhelmed that your burn treatment involves moving you to a field where your screams won’t bother others as much. Or a situation where we have to stop euthanizing mortaly wounded people because we run out of bullets (locally). > Is the fear overblown? I don’t know if your fear of the EMP is overblown. Probably not. I know my fear of a conventionally employed nuclear weapon is not overblown because we have the data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it is not pretty. I for one know which one I fear more and it is not the EMP. Of course this is all quite academic because by all chance they will choose to do both.

by jerf 2y ago

krisoft 2y ago

I don’t understand your argument. > A nuke detonated for this purpose would kill no one... directly. Yes. I’m aware of that fact. And that is why I fear an EMP less than the alternatives. Don’t get me wrong. It would suck. But it would suck in a “gosh the economy just collapsed, and there is a good chance we will starve or freeze in the next few months/years” sense. Which is less bad than the alternative where they bomb cities and millions of people like you and me die in incredible agony hours/days after the bomb. And that is why i fear the second more. Things like where the hospitals are so overwhelmed that your burn treatment involves moving you to a field where your screams won’t bother others as much. Or a situation where we have to stop euthanizing mortaly wounded people because we run out of bullets (locally). > Is the fear overblown? I don’t know if your fear of the EMP is overblown. Probably not. I know my fear of a conventionally employed nuclear weapon is not overblown because we have the data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it is not pretty. I for one know which one I fear more and it is not the EMP. Of course this is all quite academic because by all chance they will choose to do both.