Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope, it's from Geiger counter on my desk.
Good lord, I love the understatedness of this comment.
The seem to be like £100 on amazon.
Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
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Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#292At what point do we consider the risks of letting this continue higher than the potential effects of intervention?
Given that the potential effects of intervention run up to nuclear war -- never.
And if this is how Putin wanted his Presidency to end, care to game out his deadhand switch?
Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#293Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#294Why not sign a pact saying "Nuclear Power Plants are Off Limits. Anyone caught messing around will be court martialled." It's quite naive I know but if you make the consequences very clear and extremely bad for the troops, it might really deter them. Or Russia is implementing a something similar to a scorch= the-earth policy.
Russia signed a pact guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for their portion of the Soviet nuclear stockpile [my misremembering, this was incorrect: and a large amount of money]. You can see how much signatures are worth with Putin.
> sovereignty in exchange for their portion of the Soviet nuclear stockpile and a large amount of money
The money went the other way - "guarantee" of sovereignty plus financial compensation, in exchange for the nuclear weapons.
Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently Ukrainians have surrendered now. What a nerve wrecking situation. In the heat of the moment deciding when is the right time to surrender. Probably the smartest decision of the day.
Where do you get those news? Would you mind sharing the link?
Ukraine TV live on YouTube.
Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#296Quoted post unavailable.
Eh, no, bombing nuclear power plant is a warcrime.
I mean, I agree that it'd be an incredibly inhumane thing to do, and a very bad idea that shouldn't occur
...but war crimes seem like they should only really be applicable to an aggressor. How can we tell another nation how it's allowed to defend itself? If you don't want to suffer inhumanity from an aggrieved nation, perhaps stop invading it.
Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#297Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#298I do not understand, why are they fighting near the reactor? It only makes sense to keep troops of both sides away from something as dangerous.
One side goes “hey they won’t shoot us if we’re near the plant”. The other side goes “hey no fair”. Things escalate. It’s war, and it sucks.
War is the ground-truthed rule of kill or be killed. This is artillery being used to cause a nuclear incident. Maybe it’s to draw international troops in for emergency remediation. Maybe it’s to spread radiation to demonstrate the consequences of resisting.
Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
The risks of nuclear war from a NATO militarily intervention are far too high to even consider it. I’m sorry to say, but there is really nothing that could happen in Ukraine that would be bad enough for us to accept the risk of nuclear annihilation.
If NATO got involved my guess is that the chance of an all out nuclear war would increase to near 100% because Russia can not win a conventional war with NATO which means nukes would need to be deployed to level the playing field. Once one Nuke is fired it's likely they'll all be because the only real defence against a nation using nuclear weapons against you is to try to wipe them out before they wipe you out. In th…
> the only real defence against a nation using nuclear weapons against you is to try to wipe them out before they wipe you out
Thankfully, that has been thought of and, as much as possible, planned for.
How do you decrease the incentive for a preemptive strike? By building your nuclear arsenal so that it can survive one. There are 3 main things that help achieve this:
(1) Put your nukes somewhere where even a direct hit from an enemy nuke will not destroy them. That's why missile silos are underground.
(2) Hide your nukes. The enemy can't take out your nukes if they don't know where they are. Fixed-location nukes are bad at this. Mobility is good, but road and rail are not the best forms of mobility. Nukes in planes are better. Nukes in submarines are really good.
(3) Have lots of nukes. If the enemy can destroy 90% of your nukes with a preemptive strike but 10% of your nukes would still easily be enough to wipe them out, then a preemptive strike still doesn't achieve its goal. One way to increase nukes cheaply and effectively is with MIRVs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...), which means one missile has multiple nuclear warheads that can independently hit different targets.
Basically, all this was thought out pretty thoroughly during the Cold War. The well-known acronym MAD stands for Mutually-Assured Destruction, and the importance of the assured part has not been overlooked.
Source: needed a government credit in college, took a class that was all about nuclear deterrence theory.