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Is It Time for a Nordic Nuke?
- tekno45 9mo agoyou can have a tiny nuclear war, as a treat. insane we're back here.
- mothballed 9mo agoNorth Korea has nukes but those in the Nordics are bragging about defeating Russia by buying heat pumps. Much of Europe has been living in a time of what amounts to ignorant bliss which Putin is slowly shaking them out of.
- knallfrosch 9mo agoIt would have been stupid not to try peace. Germany hasn't invaded France (or vice versa) for two generations now. The Soviet Union dissolved itself peacefully by act of parliament. (Compare to Germany/Japan/Napoleon)
- hiprob 9mo ago"Peacefully" is a strong word, that same parliament would later be "peacefully" removed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_cr...
- knallfrosch 9mo agoCan you name a more peaceful end of an 20th century empire?
- graemep 9mo agoIf you want peace, prepare for war
- mothballed 9mo agoAnd if you aren't prepared, but you have peace anyway, you never really made the choice. You just had a bout of luck.
- tim333 9mo ago>Nordics are bragging about defeating Russia by buying heat pumps...ignorant bliss... I think you'll find Finland in particular doesn't have much innocent bliss regards Russia and some history there.
- Legend2440 9mo agoWe kinda never really left.
- red-iron-pine 9mo agoif anything, we had fantastic stability because of it, and because there were rational-ish actors holding the bombs
- ASalazarMX 9mo agoIt was a fantastic bluff from the USA to make the USSR believe that Bufford "Mad Dog" Tannen was in charge of the nukes, when in reality it was Doc. Brown.
- stoneforger 9mo agoThe OG grift, FUD and extortion money. But call it a military industrial complex.. The Devil's Playground was an eye+opener
- ajuc 9mo agoAll we needed to do was accept Ukraine to NATO. Or provide actual military help back in 2014. Instead we paid more, got hundreds of thousands of people dead, undermined our security guarantees, and all because of short term idiocy/cowardice. The only reasonable consequence is EU countries getting nukes and getting closer to China. And we're digging our grave further by Trump undermining NATO guarantees.
- christkv 9mo agoyou also need submarines to have a "credible" second strike deterrent. It's not enough to just have a bomb.
- Onavo 9mo agoAnd launch vehicles.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoSubmarines are one of several options for this. Rockets, submarines, aircraft, or even a nuke in a container ship parked in a big harbor work.
- tshaddox 9mo agoOr missile systems constantly moved around on roads, railroads, or underground tunnels. And there’s also “launch on warning.”
- ortusdux 9mo agoChina's recent container ship weaponization efforts are .. interesting - https://www.twz.com/sea/chinese-cargo-ship-packed-full-of-modular-missile-launchers-emerges https://www.twz.com/sea/chinese-cargo-ship-packed-full-of-mo... Reminds me of the Rapid Dragon missile system the US uses to weaponize cargo planes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system)
- ceejayoz 9mo agoAlso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poseidon_(unmanned_underwater_vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poseidon_(unmanned_underwater_... I'd fully expect China and the US to be working on such things.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- bob1029 9mo ago
- acessoproibido 9mo agoFollowing Betteridges Law the answer is of course No
- chinathrow 9mo agoIt's time to disarm Russia. Edit: to be more clear: I can't believe that after 4 fucking years, a hostile nation is still permitted to wage war against a sovereign country.
- kwanbix 9mo agoHow do you disarm a bully with the nuclear capacity to blow half of the world if not more?
- colechristensen 9mo agoHave the CIA turn enough insiders that one of them succeeds in assassinating Putin after a propaganda campaign raising up an opposition party ready to take over in an election/coup (mixture of both really). Have a weak and friendly leader installed that exchanges nukes for population support and possibly brakes up Russia into several smaller states. When the USSR broke up, Ukraine gave up its nukes in exchange for security guarantees (lot of good that has done them)
- vablings 9mo agoYou act like this is a stroll in the park. I would be willing to bet that this is essentially impossible
- colechristensen 9mo agoTell me you honestly think what is happening in America right now isn't the outcome of long planning by Russian intelligence (and likely other intelligence services). Their plan was to install a leader they had chosen and influenced. Also Epstein was probably also a spy, but more likely for Mossad. BIG COINCIDENCE he was so close with dear leader? Then tell me you think that doing things in Russia isn't possible.
- vablings 9mo ago
- b00ty4breakfast 9mo agonuclear weapons are one of those insidious technologies that are almost self-replicating in a sense, because if your enemy has nukes it strongly behooves one to either also have nukes or to buddy up with someone who has them. Opting out entirely is very difficult once the genie is out of the bottle
- spencerflem 9mo agoI get why they would want them but it seems so clear to me that the world is going to end in fire
- hsuduebc2 9mo agoTime for a Nordic nuke is at least from 2008.
- iammjm 9mo agoRussia is genocidal, US unreliable and erratic. The civilized world needs nukes. Not only the Nordic countries, but also Germany and Poland. Unless Russia and US are willing to give up theirs ;)
- tshaddox 9mo ago> Unless Russia and US are willing to give up theirs I think you’re missing a few other countries
- 6d6b73 9mo agoGermany? Hell no. We need CE + Nordics to have a unified front and to keep West and East in check. Nordics + Poland + Czech Rep + Ronania and maybe a few smaller countries is the sweet spot.
- Glawen 9mo agoYes I would not feel safe with nukes in Germany
- arjie 9mo agoThere are nukes in Germany. The US has put them there. The Germans will soon have the F-35 and then when America gives the word, if she does, the Germans will be dropping those nuclear weapons. These aren't secrets. https://www.icanw.org/germany https://www.icanw.org/germany
- 6d6b73 9mo agoThey are not German nukes
- red-iron-pine 9mo agoCanada too. Front and center with Russia and the US. Canada has all of the resources too; SK is the 2nd largest source of uranium in the world.
- deadbabe 9mo agoInstead of nukes, maybe another massive pandemic super virus that kills off half the population of humans on Earth wouldn’t be so bad.
- jjtheblunt 9mo agoto your point, historically mumps neutered some infected men. i don't know how one could calculate how much population was prevented by mumps before vaccines, though.
- spankalee 9mo agoThis is what Trump's dismantling of US power has brought us to. Our soon-to-be-former allies can't count on US nuclear deterrence to protect them, because not only is the US unreliable, but they might be the ones attacking. We're in crazy-town because of Trump and the Republicans, with very real consequences.
- bethekidyouwant 9mo agoFrance has nukes.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoAs does the UK. But the collapse of the EU/US relationship means you probably want to plan for the potential of a similar collapse within the European alliances.
- graemep 9mo agoI think the opposite. It straightens incentives to cooperate. IIRC the UK has committed its nuclear weapons to defend NATO countries.
- ceejayoz 9mo ago> IIRC the UK has committed its nuclear weapons to defend NATO countries. So has the US, which is part of why this is so odd of an approach. Technically we’re required to nuke ourselves if we attack Greenland.
- direwolf20 9mo agoJust like the US committed to defend Ukraine?
- rcxdude 9mo agoThe UK buys its nukes from the US, so it's not really independent. (As I recall, the UK doesn't even have free choice on where those nukes are targeted).
- roschdal 9mo agoNo. Nei.
- rurp 9mo agoI don't think there's any question at this point that it's in Nordic self interest to develop a nuclear deterrent. This has also become true for other regions in the world. This is all a horrible development for the overall future of humanity, but it's the world we live in now. At a minimum hundreds of billions of dollars will be siphoned off from more beneficial uses over the coming decades, and the risk of major accidents will increase. The worst change is of course the fact that the odds of a complete societal collapse have increased dramatically. Almost all of the world's nukes are controlled by aging old dictators or aspiring dictators who are surrounded by sycophants and treat competence as much less important than personal loyalty. Geopolitical risks are only going to increase as these rulers become more erratic and demented.
- assaddayinh 9mo agoLongterm klingons dont go to space, they goto heaven. Tribalist warrior cultures do not survive the nuclear age .
- alphazard 9mo ago> I don't think there's any question at this point that it's in Nordic self interest to develop a nuclear deterrent. Yes, it definitely is. > The worst change is of course the fact that the odds of a complete societal collapse have increased dramatically. A nuke means that anyone who wants to invade you needs to price in a total loss of their largest city as a possible outcome. That is a great disincentive, one that Ukraine probably wishes it had against Russia. > and the risk of major accidents will increase. I don't think that's reasonable to say about a bunch of countries getting their first nuke. The concern should be more with countries like the US and Russia that have so many nukes, which they can't possibly use effectively, and don't have the ability to properly maintain. If every western country had exactly one nuke, the world would probably be much safer than if the US has all of them.
- ASalazarMX 9mo ago> A nuke means that anyone who wants to invade you needs to price in a total loss of their largest city as a possible outcome. That is a great disincentive, one that Ukraine probably wishes it had against Russia. It's even more complex than that. If Ukraine responded conventional war with nukes, it can be sure Russia would retaliate with even more nukes, practically extinguishing their statehood. The equilibrium is reached when the exchange is equally devastating, so the only winning move is attacking first, and only if the attacked won't be able to retaliate. The Cold War never ended, just warmed a little, because it doesn't exist (yet) a guaranteed way to avoid an all-out nuclear retaliation.
- Timpanzee 9mo agoIn light of renewed aggressions from powerful states, the only recourse smaller states have to defend themselves is to turn themselves into a fortress like Taiwan (which is prohibitively expensive for most larger states) or nuclear deterrence (which Ukraine gave up for false guarantees of protection from invasion). Guarantees aren't what they used to be, and I wouldn't be surprised if many waning US allies are covertly developing nuclear capabilities. I hope my state is because the alternative is being at the whim of the powerful nuclear states around us in a political climate of rising authoritarianism.
- Zealotux 9mo agoUkraine never had the possibility to keep its nuclear arsenal, they simply didn't have the infrastructure for it, let's not pretend they had any real choice.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoThe US built nukes in the 1940s. Ukraine has at least as much technical know-how and engineering infrastructure as, say, Pakistan or North Korea. They couldn't have launched the Russian warheads as-is, but disassembly and reuse of the warhead material is another thing entirely.
- ben_w 9mo agoI agree Ukraine could probably build a new nuclear deterrent, similar examples as you give. > They couldn't have launched the Russian warheads as-is, but disassembly and reuse of the warhead material is another thing entirely. Another thing entirely, yes. But consider that Ukraine build the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, lost it in the collapse of the USSR because the (captain?) just sailed off with it: everyone would have noticed if Ukraine had tried to keep those weapons, and at least some of them would have demonstrated how upset they were with an invasion and/or by bribing guards to put them in trucks and drive them across a border (not necessarily the USSR-Ukraine border) regardless of what the government thought.
- ajuc 9mo ago
- fsloth 9mo agoYes please.
- fsloth 9mo agoNo, seriously, the reason the world is messed up now is that only some powers have monopoly on nuclear weapons. And every single one of the major powers is internationally in an aggressive, expansive mood. We could have had a world without nuclear escalation. But the last 4 years have shown that if as a country and nation you don’t have a nuclear umbrella, you don’t have recognised sovereignty and hence cannot do the single most important duty a state has - to protect the human rights of it’s citizens. So I’m afraid the lot of the non-nuclear countries is either nuke up, or lick the boot.
- goodluckchuck 9mo ago[flagged]
- Supermancho 9mo ago> proved they'd rather have an empty piece of ice / dirt, than our friendship and protection > Europe is far more aligned with Russia than they are against This does not follow.
- goodluckchuck 9mo agoIf Europe wants North America to intervene in Europe's territorial disputes, then Europe should allow North America to have dominion over North America. It's hypocritical for Europe to claim North American territory, and then claim we should be concerned about a European nation claiming European territory. Russia and Ukraine are both on the same continent. They're neighbors. That's a much tougher decision than whether a European nation should control Greenland... that's not even on the same hemisphere.
- mongol 9mo ago> proved they'd rather have an empty piece of ice / dirt, than our friendship and protection I think I need to leave Hacker News soon. It has become MAGA territory
- goodluckchuck 9mo agoI think you're being a bit dramatic. My voice is an outlier, and heavily downvoted. Being exposed to different ideas is a good thing. If you're not going to question your own views, at be grateful that others will.
- mavamaarten 9mo agoWhat are you on about. We had a great thing going until your (Assuming this is a US person speaking and not a Russian or other troll bot) president started breaking that relationship down. We never threatened to "shoot first" lol, we simply responded to the threat of having Greenland taken by force. Our relationship has been deteriorating because it was very clear that the US was not behaving like the ally they said they were.
- carlosjobim 9mo agoNordic countries have had nuclear power plants for half a century. If they don't have a sufficient secret stock pile of nuclear weapons already, then they have been utter and total fools. If they don't have secret nuclear weapons in orbit, they have been severely irresponsible. Let's hope the plans of their leaders is not to send all young men as infantry to the meat grinder to die for a country which hates them, like they are doing in the Ukraine war. But who knows? Life is full of surprises.
- exitb 9mo agoTypically the point of nuclear deterrence is to brag about your capabilities, not keep them secret.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoIt probably doesn't hurt to have your opponent worry that your capabilities are secretly even more effective than openly stated, though.
- carlosjobim 9mo agoWhat we can hope for is a situation similar to Israel, where they "officially" don't admit to having nuclear arms, but everybody knows they do.
- assaddayinh 9mo agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p6uxLHWVYRg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p6uxLHWVYRg A lot more countries then expected had or almost had the bomb.
- option 9mo agoThe lesson from Ukraine is resounding Yes. Any country (this includes both democracies and petty dictatorships) which wishes to be safe and independent must get nukes and means of delivery now.
- Ekaros 9mo agoBest time was over 70 years ago. Second best time was 69 year ago. But currently best is now.
- lawn 9mo agoYes. Russia will be prepared to launch another attack in just a few years after the war on Ukraine ends and the US cannot be relied upon. In fact, it's even worse as the US may end up as the enemy!
- heraldgeezer 9mo agoAs a Swede we don't have the competence or expertise anymore. We did have at one time and we tried to make the bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra... Everything is service or finance economy now. Nobody cares about science sadly (me included). It's all Netflix & TikTok, Foodora scrolling until the end now.
- SwetDrems 9mo agoAny nation launching any nuke has the potential to eliminate most life on earth. Limited nuclear war is very unlikely. This is a nightmare. Please read Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book by Annie Jacobsen that discusses the insanity of nuclear war.
- zarzavat 9mo agoThis article is so batty it's hard to take seriously. The Nordics are not going to be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. I know the UNSC seems toothless most of the time, but on this issue they are united.
- ceejayoz 9mo ago> I know the UNSC seems toothless most of the time, but on this issue they are united. The UNSC has long been toothless on this issue; see North Korea.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Pinus 9mo agoFrom what I have understood, a significant part of the reason why Sweden scrapped its nuke program last time around, was that we found out that nukes pose more questions than they answer. Obviously, you need the nukes themselves, and a reliable delivery mechanism. Neither are cheap. Preferably, you want second-strike capability, which is kind of tricky. And you want some way of balancing things so that the enemy does not take a chance on that second-strike capability and nuke you first anyway. Then you need something to use them for. At the time, the targets would probably have been ports in the Baltic states, then (involuntary) parts of the Soviet union and likely starting points for the hypothetical Soviet invasion fleet. Could we really stomach the idea of killing a few thousand Estonian civilians, probably not too happy about being used as stepping stones by the Soviets? For most military targets, there are better weapons. Of course, it has later been argued that by entering into various more or less hidden agreements with the US, we made ourselves nuclear targets anyway, with no formal guarantees whatsoever to show for it...
- flowerthoughts 9mo agoGiven that Sweden manufactures submarines since long ago, I'm surprised second-strike capability was even a question. Agreed that finding a target that doesn't blow back in our own face would be an issue. Though you don't really have to answer that question to have a deterrent, almost by definition.
- Gud 9mo agoBuilding submarines capable of delivering nukes is a whole different game from hunter killers
- madspindel 9mo agoBring out the Swedish Nuclear Canon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90wcPsxr4H4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90wcPsxr4H4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsMcAvAITjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsMcAvAITjk
- wasmainiac 9mo agoI live in Norway and I agree we should have a nuclear deterrent, however this article feels like navel gazing, it’s long, projecting and speculative. What is not discussed well is delivery systems, which we are lacking for second strike capability… submarines or complex siloes? My only wish for the program is that we keep the capability within our control to prevent political overhead and give the current government the ability to destroy the current capabilities at a moment’s notice in case the following govt seems irresponsible. Who knows what we will look like in 200years.
- pirate787 9mo ago[flagged]
- OKRainbowKid 9mo agoAuthoritarians are thriving currently precisely because of such narratives as this great replacement bs, designed to sow division and promote xenophobia and nationalism.
- janlucien 9mo ago[dead]
- class3shock 9mo agoIs it time? Maybe. Will they do it? Probably not. The European countries constantly talk and never act. It took the second Russian invasion of Ukraine for them to even barely start to do anything and even now, they are still trying to get the US to continue to be the backbone of their defense strategy. Even as the US takes actions that (in their minds) are ruining that idea, instead of acting, they just complain and condemn. Even if tomorrow they decided to actual work together and invest in their own capabilities it would be decades before they would be free of the US defense sector and they know it and it's why they are so resistant to the idea. I think you would need to see more aggression by the Russians combined with substantially more shenanigans by the US (more than just bombastic announcements for the sake of grabbing media attention) for that to change because you are talking about trillion dollar investment, every year, for decades to walk a different path.
- 6d6b73 9mo agoI find it funny that everyone complains that Europeans currently just talk and never act.. Every time Europeans acted, it ended in either a world war, of half of the war colonized.. So not sure if you really want Europeans to act..
- class3shock 9mo agoI'm not sure how we went from the "act" being "invest in their own defense" to "start ww3" but I am quite confident no one is complaining they are not doing that, lol.
- ben_w 9mo agoHumans being the same everywhere, the ideal condition of "we can defend ourselves, yet have no expansionist tendencies" doesn't tend to keep the words after the comma for very long. This is also why anarchies are not very stable. The international order, with each nation being kinda like an individual person, has few enough actors that the distinctions between "anarchy", "democracy", and "dictatorship" are blurry.
- 9mo ago
- glimshe 9mo agoThis is a fantastic idea to trigger the truly unthinkable: a war between the "Nordics" and the two European nuclear states.
- rramadass 9mo agoRelevant detailed paper; The Domestic Politics of Nuclear Choices — A Review Essay by Elizabeth N. Saunders (pdf) - https://profsaunders.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/saundersdomesticpoliticsnuclearchoices.pdf https://profsaunders.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/saunders...
- GeorgeOldfield 9mo agoI read the title and i thought we are considering if nuking Northern Europe is a good idea.
- ajuc 9mo agoThat's what you get for abandoning Ukraine after Budapest memorandum. They gave up their nukes to be betrayed. There will be A LOT of new countries with nukes soon because of that.
- derelicta 9mo agoWestern warmongering piece. Congrats on the Americans for having managed to pit Europeans against their Russian counterparts and biggest energy partners.
- direwolf20 9mo agoRussia pitted Russia against Europe when Russia invaded Europe.
- derelicta 9mo agoOne could denounce this war as a preventive and thus illegal war and one would be right. However, Westerners have taunted the country for decades, and the last expension and takeover of Ukraine by western-backed fascists has pushed them into committing exactly that. If I keep provoking you with a knife, don't be surprised if I end up beating you to a pulp.
- direwolf20 9mo agoIf you beat me to a pulp, don't be surprised when you get a jail sentence.
- squidbeak 9mo ago[edit, direwolf20 put it more succinctly]
- niemandhier 9mo agoBuilding and maintaining a nuclear arsenal is possible:Look at Pakistan. Building and maintaining an air defense system that protects your nuclear arsenal unless you own thousands of km airspace as buffer is much harder: Look at Pakistan. Israel is special in the sense that: 1. All its enemies are underarmed. 2. The US acts as additional deterrent.
- Permik 9mo agoSeems that every intelligence agency is still in the dark about Väinämöinen, lmao.
- credit_guy 9mo agoThis whole article severely understates the difficulty of making a bomb. There are two ways to make a bomb: either using weapons grade uranium (like the Hiroshima bomb) or weapons grade plutonium (like the Nagasaki bomb). The first requires uranium enrichment facilities and the second requires spent fuel reprocessing facilities. No such facilities exits in the Nordic countries, and both are stupendously complex. You can't just wave a want and build them. And certainly not in a clandestine way (which the author does not actually propose). If they start on this path, maybe, maybe, their own population would accept, but it's unlikely the population of other countries would accept too. Lots of the parts and raw materials needed for these facilities will need to be imported, the Nordic countries can't simply build the entire supply chain, no matter how rich they are per capita. The access to some of that upstream supply chain will be curtailed, because other countries are either strategic adversaries (Russia, China) or democracies where a large fraction of the population opposes nuclear armament. Add to that that some of the key scientists and engineers involved in such a project could be the target of assassinations (oh, wait, Russia would never do that, would it?).
- verzali 9mo agoSweden has been here already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra... Considering they got to within 6 months of finishing a bomb in 1965, I think they could probably do it again today.
- credit_guy 9mo agoYes, Sweden had a nuclear weapons program and they stopped short of building a bomb. But things are very different today. There are 2 main differences. Sweden has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and Sweden is now a member of NATO. Both of these things result in Sweden being extremely unlikely to be able to pursue a nuclear weapons program in a clandestine way. And the article doesn't even imply that it would try that, given that it talks about a Nordic compact to pursue the bomb. Announcing to everyone that you are trying to get the bomb implies that you first withdraw from the NPT. Legally, all the nuclear suppliers (such as Urenco) are obligated to immediately stop shipments to you. All your nuclear power plants will run on fumes. Once you run out of whatever inventories you have (most importantly nuclear fuel), you need to find way to supply yourself with what you need. Sweden gets 30% of its electricity from nuclear power plants [1]. If the population really, really wants to pursue a bomb, they can probably tough it out and find ways to overcome a 30% drop in electricity generation. But it's a tall ask. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Sweden
- zrn900 9mo agoThe 'Nordic' countries have been active participants in every single US war since the 1990s. They have no business getting any nuke.
- scotty79 9mo agoWhen the sheriff quits, everybody is interested in procuring a gun. And it's really hard to blame them.
- nephihaha 9mo agoFrom the people who brought you the film Sisu.