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Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#131

Post by senectus1 »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #129
senectus1 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that happens, who replaces him? Does someone pop down the local gulag and release Navalny? Or is there a cronie that potentially worse than Putin in the shadows?

Lenin - 200k executions, 5 million deaths due to famines Stalin - 800k executions, 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag, plus some famine and some miscellaneous brings to around 5million, some estimates upwards 20 million. Everything after that sounds like a breeze.

Jesús.

right. be less flippant, me.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#132

Post by shrimp_emoji »

tspike wrote: post #81
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #40

No. Its an everyone loses everything situation. Even narcistic authoritarians realize that. And in the event I am wrong, then so what, I'll be dead.

In all likelihood, you won't be dead. You'll be faced with a stark, deeply unpleasant new reality and your survival instincts will kick in. You will look back on this fatalism as sad naivety.

https://youtu.be/nPM-QSCnNas

Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#133

Post by jacknews »

The world will not have a full scale nuclear war over Putin.

In the cold war era, Russia was the enemy, and any war would have been existential. I do not think that is the case any longer. The enemy now is merely the Putin regime, not Russia and it's people.

It is possible that Putin will use tactical nuclear weapons if he is desperate, but the world will not respond with armageddon, but instead with every effort to remove the regime, and I expect the Russian people will be a part of that effort.

In fact I predict Putin will not last the year as it is.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#135

Post by Ourgon »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #117
NikolaNovak wrote: post #52

It always surprises me that most of the discussion on nuclear Armageddon is about sudden push of big red button. I think in conflicts like this, each side tries to be the one to make the big, unanswerable bluff. "I'll escalate so high they won't dare follow". But there's a lot between guns and even thermobaric missiles and cluster bombs, and global thermonuclear annihilation. My assumption is that the intervening, en…

Russia will first tease and provoke with some nuke in the ocean, then someone's territorial waters, then somewhere in Ukraine, then in some small NATO country like Baltics. Their fucked up bully goal is to be attacked so they can retaliate with full force. They'll go one provoking everyone, but when first soldier will be killed by a NATO soldier (which might not even be factual) it's suddenly a drama and oh no poor R…

Why would Putin - not Russia - be out for nuclear annihilation? What can be gained by provoking such a conflict? Other than some version of apres moi, le deluge I don't see any upside for any country initiating a large-scale nuclear conflict.

No, I don't think this is a believable scenario. That does not mean an escalation can not occur, but I think it is far more likely to be initiated by the use of low-yield 'tactical' nuclear weapons with the intent of forcing a surrender. Once that threshold has been crossed the risk of a nuclear exchange rapidly increases, especially when it becomes clear that the radius of destruction from such an attack is rather limited compared to the doom scenarios which have been painted over the decades. This is not a good thing since it makes it more likely for "rational" minds to consider retaliating in a similar fashion.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#137

Post by dzhiurgis »

Ourgon wrote: post #135
dzhiurgis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia will first tease and provoke with some nuke in the ocean, then someone's territorial waters, then somewhere in Ukraine, then in some small NATO country like Baltics. Their fucked up bully goal is to be attacked so they can retaliate with full force. They'll go one provoking everyone, but when first soldier will be killed by a NATO soldier (which might not even be factual) it's suddenly a drama and oh no poor R…

Why would Putin - not Russia - be out for nuclear annihilation? What can be gained by provoking such a conflict? Other than some version of apres moi, le deluge I don't see any upside for any country initiating a large-scale nuclear conflict. No, I don't think this is a believable scenario. That does not mean an escalation can not occur, but I think it is far more likely to be initiated by the use of low-yield 'tacti…

He's not out for annihilation, he's out there to push limits. The moment he'll be slapped for it he'll cry like a little bitch he is.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#138

Post by majewsky »

Ourgon wrote: post #135
dzhiurgis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia will first tease and provoke with some nuke in the ocean, then someone's territorial waters, then somewhere in Ukraine, then in some small NATO country like Baltics. Their fucked up bully goal is to be attacked so they can retaliate with full force. They'll go one provoking everyone, but when first soldier will be killed by a NATO soldier (which might not even be factual) it's suddenly a drama and oh no poor R…

Why would Putin - not Russia - be out for nuclear annihilation? What can be gained by provoking such a conflict? Other than some version of apres moi, le deluge I don't see any upside for any country initiating a large-scale nuclear conflict. No, I don't think this is a believable scenario. That does not mean an escalation can not occur, but I think it is far more likely to be initiated by the use of low-yield 'tacti…

Several of my personal friends are wondering if Putin has a cancer diagnosis or such that the world does not know about, and now he's scrambling to secure his legacy.

I'm trying to imagine if he would be the person to go "the world has never appreciated me, so if I go out, may as well take the world with me". But in now writing that out, I realize that's literally the villain's motivation in the movie Tenet, so probably a bit too one-dimensional of a motivation (although that character is coincidentally a Russian oligarch).

Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#139

Post by ukraineally »

>What does HN think?

I think Russia's opposition to a defensive alliance is that they have been planning the full invasion for quite some time. Ukraine never joined a military alliance because Russia guaranteed their independence and thusly kept NATO at bay and not 'on their front porch'. When Crimea happened... it made sense for crimea to be their own republic. But Russia's own actions and breaking of their diplomatic commitment is what brought the defensive alliance to the forefront.

As part of the plan to invade non-nato entities, they needed big allies to use as an umbrella. China's no limit alliance is giving them the breathing room to invade.

The expected cyber war never showed up, it seems all hackers turned on russia. Even conti melted down. This only leaves an infowar.

It seems to me, the attempt to crush Russia via sanctions is a primary goal. If a nuclear power can be crushed under sanctions and prevent war. It tells the entire world that war is no longer allowed. Borders are what they are, start building tall. Get free trade going.

The war in Ukraine isnt going well for Russia. They cant touch Romania or Finland. Georgia is rushing to get into the EU to avoid a similar fate. Yes Russia is threatening nuclear war over these but Russia probably cant touch it.

The big wildcard seems to be china. If they invade Japan, South Korea, Australia, India. Which is the fear... that will be World War 3. I can also tell you... that fight will be so broken... Nukes will fly.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think nuclear armageddon is plausible?

#140

Post by 3pt14159 »

To start, I think credibility on this question is important. I've been on the arms control beat since around 2017 when I first started to really worry about the strategic concerns of mass cyberattack. I befriended Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and Scott LaFoy after finding their podcast. I tipped their Patreon over to $100 a month, drank beers with them personally, and pushed one of the other Canadians that was a student at the time to go into something that required clearance because he seemed to want to build policy from the inside. He did so and worked directly for Nato for a while.

So while my background isn't really nuclear weapons per se, I'm better read on this than most.

This is the first time in my 36 years of life that I think that there is greater than a 0.5% chance that some kinda of nuclear attack happens in the next 30 days. Almost certainly one or two tactical nukes to scare the hell out of Europe, but still. Fog of war is a real thing and there are a lot of well-intentioned hackers really taking the gloves off against Russia right now, so this could escalate further.

I'm not alone on this. Where the world goes after this looks grim. I'm trying to control my anxiety and focus on work but so much suffering is in the balance. Even a 1% chance of nuclear attack is too much.

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