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How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

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Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#81

Post by tshaddox »

coffeefirst wrote: post #32
happytoexplain wrote: post #10

>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…

Yeah, this is the same type of article that, from the comfort of the author's arm chair, says things like: "well humanity survived the black death, basically no matter what we're going to be fine." You can only shrug it off looking at the abstract numbers. You absolutely do not want to live through a period of history that's anything like that.

> You absolutely do not want to live through a period of history that's anything like that.

Perhaps a good rule of thumb might be “you don’t want to experience a deadly event where it’s difficult to say whether you’d rather be one of the early people to die or one of the survivors.”

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#82

Post by justinpowers »

chakalakasp wrote: post #67
leto_ii wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, it's exactly as destructive as I think. My thoughts exactly. Setting the world back 100+ years is a disaster of gigantic proportions. I also find it odd that the author didn't even attempt to provide an estimate of the possible victim count. I'm basically sure it would at least be in the tens, perhaps hundreds of millions. This is to say nothing about a possible future arms race that would increase the numbers…

A U.S. nuclear warplanner from around a decade ago (I can link you to him if you're interested) recently stated that he'd suspect that a typical full exchange between the U.S. and Russia would kill 95% of the people living in both countries within 18 months of the attack. Main causes of death would be complete collapse of infrastructure; no supply chains, no food production, no fuel, no heat, no power, no water, no m…

Please do provide that link

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#83

Post by chakalakasp »

nostrademons wrote: post #72
matthewdgreen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internal US government documents estimate something like a 90% population loss after a war that only targets our ICBM silos. (Ie not one missile hits a populated area.) The fallout destroys our food supplies and wipes out livestock, making farming impossible: most of the US population starves within a year. There is a reason the US government doesn’t spend a lot of effort preparing the population for a nuclear war, a…

There appears to be a fair amount of internal dissension within the government on that point. Nuclear War Survival Skills [1], also a government publication, explicitly calls out this attitude as both scientifically inaccurate and irresponsible, as there are a number of things the population can do to dramatically increase their survivability in a nuclear war. [1] https://ia800501.us.archive.org/35/items/NuclearWarSu…

Yes, the publications the U.S. made for the population back then were reassuring.

The people who actually plan the wars these days expect maybe 15 to 20 million people to still be alive in the U.S. a year and a half after a full general war.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#84

Post by mchusma »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #49
happytoexplain wrote: post #10

>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…

I encounter a lot of people with the "species-ending nuclear winter" false belief, and their attitudes are usually something like, "Oh, what can you do? Just have a drink and enjoy the fireworks." I get the sense the author is working against this line of thinking, because there is in fact a lot you can do (both in terms of preparing and in terms of responding).

I agree with this. Overstating the negative effects of nuclear war do not help us prepare to survive the reality of it. The author states many times that we should still avoid it and it would be the largest disaster ever, but people still seem to resist.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#85

Post by discreteevent »

afiori wrote: post #63
coffeefirst wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is the same type of article that, from the comfort of the author's arm chair, says things like: "well humanity survived the black death, basically no matter what we're going to be fine." You can only shrug it off looking at the abstract numbers. You absolutely do not want to live through a period of history that's anything like that.

especially in a period that kills xx% of the population _due to scarcity of resources_. in a black plague situation the following generations are almost guaranteed an economic boom of sort as there are more natural resources per capita, in a nuclear winter scenario I believe that many would die and the survivors would still find themselves with incredible scarcity.

> in a nuclear winter scenario

Did you read the article? I think you are making its point, which is that it is bad but not as bad as most people think.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#86

Post by amelius »

happytoexplain wrote: post #10

>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…

Different perspective: at least they will delay the singularity, which could be a life-saver, overall.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#87

Post by darkhorn »

> In practice, most strategic nuclear warheads today are in the 300-500 kT range

Capable to wipe out all capital cities in Eastern Europe, or most of capital cities of Western Europe, I mean if only one is used, and not two, out of few thousands.

Few weeks ago something fell out of blue in Zagreb and later they identified it as a Russian spy plane. That's it.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#89

Post by nostrademons »

lumost wrote: post #46
matthewdgreen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internal US government documents estimate something like a 90% population loss after a war that only targets our ICBM silos. (Ie not one missile hits a populated area.) The fallout destroys our food supplies and wipes out livestock, making farming impossible: most of the US population starves within a year. There is a reason the US government doesn’t spend a lot of effort preparing the population for a nuclear war, a…

Studies done in the 60s and 70s were aimed at much larger scale conflicts than would occur in 2022. However the general sentiment is accurate. Food production post-nuclear war is a wildcard, dependent on both fallout pattern, global capacity to increase food production, global interest in helping countries devastated by nuclear war, and targeting. The assumption that nukes would primarily target ICBM silos seems susp…

"The assumption that nukes would primarily target ICBM silos seems suspect to me, as it would seem pointless to target silos which have already fired their missiles."

That's what SLBMs are for. An SLBM launched off the Oregon coast could hit missile silos in Montana in under 5 minutes. Launch in the middle of the night and there's not enough time to get the President out of bed and brief him before the missiles impact. (For that matter, if you park an SSBN 500 miles off Washington DC, it can get nuked in 3 minutes, probably killing the president as there's not enough time to get him down into the bunker. That's why the U.S. developed the SOSUS network, so you can't park an SSBN 500 miles off Washington without us knowing about it.)

Modern SLBMs (1980s and onwards) are explicitly designed for this role, with depressed flight trajectories, low CEP, MIRVs, hardened silo penetrators, and warhead yields calibrated to destroy typical silos, given an accurate ground burst.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#90

Post by ChuckMcM »

happytoexplain wrote: post #10

>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…

Sadly part of a general trend I've noticed post Ukrainian invasion to "sell" nuclear war as a viable response (or at least not a deterrent for "going in there and fixing things dammit") These people have never been in a supermarket and looked at the countries where their food comes from apparently since shipping would pretty much be a dead industry with all port cities (and their port facilities) basically blown to smithereens. Everyone who lives on the coast is going to be "food challenged" in under a month, (likely sooner as hoarding would really kick in) and then starving and fighting their neighbors for food. There would be no "third party" that would be able to ship in food aid, it would be every person for themselves. If nothing else, this one effect would kill billions of people.
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