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How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

navalgazing.net

191–200 of 221 posts

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#191
post #40
post #3

I think it might be for the better that we think nuclear weapons are world ending in that it stops them from being used

I think it’s almost always better to have a more accurate mode of the world than a less accurate one. For example if Russia were to commit further atrocities worse than actual nuclear war, and the civilized world refused to call their bluff because the cost of imaginary nuclear war is worse still. Of course there are also scenarios where bluffs getting made and called are net-negative utility, and maybe you wouldn’t…

While this is certainly a different model of the world - it would be incredibly irresponsible to operate if this were accurate, or that almost any model of the outcome would be in any way accurately predicable or controllable in the end.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#192

Just one of many pro-nuke propaganda pieces prepping our minds for the next stage of war, actual nuclear war. The more we discuss the merits, the more "acceptable" the outcomes seem to become in the popular zeitgeist.

You think this is a government backed article?

This appears like a navy-glorification website. If not government backed, then it could at least be think-tank backed, with a military industrial bent.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they survive on subsistence farming regardless of what any cities do. That's the definition of subsistence farming. I agree that the situation in cities would be dire, but over 40% of people live in rural areas and half of them are already growing their own food.

Well, the point is if the cities can’t feed themselves the people would go out into the countryside to search for food, and food wars would break out. So even if you have your own farms, property rights are basically over under a catastrophe of that scale

> So even if you have your own farms, property rights are basically over under a catastrophe of that scale

1. And for the same reason, just any kind of government will be forced to seize land from vapid hipsters, and grow something edible on it, along with enforcing at least minimal rationing.

2. 1/3 of food in the world is wasted

> consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food, 222 million tonnes, as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa

A healthy young adult can live a heck a lot of time on one bag of staple foods.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you prepare for the complete breakdown of society and 200 million survivors competing for resources that will support maybe 15 million people in a blasted, utterly destroyed landscape with no infrastructure or production.

I'm no expert, but here are my thoughts: 1) Don't die in the initial strike. Take a working vacation to the countryside when things look tense if you live near obvious targets. 2) Have a few months' worth of food and water on hand 3) Skill with guns, ammo, and guns, in that order 4) Friends. Have friends who also have a modicum of preparedness and useful skills, or be good at making them 5) Healthcare and sanitation.…

Ok. That gets you to stay alive for a few months.

Now, imagine a world in which there will no longer be any agriculture, fuel, easy access to clean water, electricity, heating, medicine, health care, communications, government, supply chains, or law enforcement. The food supply that was available at stores and in homes has now run out. Fertilizer is no longer available, contemporary farm machinery that runs on petrol won't last long as the petrol dries up (and when they break down, won't be repairable due to DRM). Wildlife might supply enough calories to feed a small fraction of one percent of all people currently still alive.

This would go on indefinitely.

Preppers look at surviving a nuclear war like it's an adventure where all their Eagle Scout skills will finally be put to use. It's really just slow, heartbreaking death from starvation and disease, with horrible violence from desperate people and regional warlords mixed in. Think "The Road", without the extreme environmental destruction.

Note that this wouldn't be everywhere, just in targeted countries. US, Canada, NATO and NATO leaning Europe, Japan, both Koreas, China, Russia. Those not targeted would be looking at this whole thing kinda like insert "it's free real estate" meme here

And if nuclear winter is a real thing, which most contemporary modelling suggests it is (though this is not settled science and some modelling suggests it isn't), likely there won't be an environment conducive to growing crops anywhere in the world for at least 5 years. A lifetime Prepper Magazine subscription won't help you there.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think this is a government backed article?

This appears like a navy-glorification website. If not government backed, then it could at least be think-tank backed, with a military industrial bent.

https://www.navalgazing.net/About

Surely part of the ruse!

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But actually, why not target both? There are thousands of warheads from what I understand. It doesn’t seem like they need to be choosey.

The article covers that. It boils down to “there’s a lot of bombs but the world is really, really big.”

I did see that. I suppose my thinking is that both seem like prime targets, so they could easily both be high on the list.

I’m probably failing to recognize the number of “prime” targets in the really, really big world though. It’s in the territory of scales so huge that brains are bad at drawing useful conclusions. I also have no idea about war strategy, let alone of this variety.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the author argued there wasn’t enough nuclear weapons to utterly destroy all the infrastructure, even in major cities. No doubt it would be really bad with tens of millions dying in the aftermath. But there would still be intact smaller cities, roads, trains, smaller airports and some industry that wasn’t targeted. Plus a shot ton of farmland and ranches. Setting the Western world back a century is probably…

The author is wrong. The people who are experts at doing this kind of thing for a living very much believe that a general nuclear war will destroy nearly all infrastructure. Don't just believe random bloggers with no expertise in the things they're bullshitting about. Even in the open source world, there is an entire body of expert information on this topic that contradicts what this guy is saying.

Can you point to some people / papers / where these people hang out? I'd like to do some reading

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, but here are my thoughts: 1) Don't die in the initial strike. Take a working vacation to the countryside when things look tense if you live near obvious targets. 2) Have a few months' worth of food and water on hand 3) Skill with guns, ammo, and guns, in that order 4) Friends. Have friends who also have a modicum of preparedness and useful skills, or be good at making them 5) Healthcare and sanitation.…

Ok. That gets you to stay alive for a few months. Now, imagine a world in which there will no longer be any agriculture, fuel, easy access to clean water, electricity, heating, medicine, health care, communications, government, supply chains, or law enforcement. The food supply that was available at stores and in homes has now run out. Fertilizer is no longer available, contemporary farm machinery that runs on petrol…

> It's really just slow, heartbreaking death from starvation and disease, with horrible violence from desperate people and regional warlords mixed in. Think "The Road", without the extreme environmental destruction.

Yeah. People do live through those kinds of times, though. And I'd wager at least a few end up thinking it was worth it! Perhaps the Black Death was comparable in that sense, in that it killed 30-50% of Europe?

I also do have some hope that we wouldn't slide back in to warlords, disease, and famine everywhere. Everyone alive will have pretty deeply inculcated norms around fairness, cooperation, and institutions. In some of the less destroyed areas perhaps we'd be able to organize and rebuild a semblance of our current life reasonably quickly (albeit much more local).

P.S. fuck DRM :-)

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is wrong. The people who are experts at doing this kind of thing for a living very much believe that a general nuclear war will destroy nearly all infrastructure. Don't just believe random bloggers with no expertise in the things they're bullshitting about. Even in the open source world, there is an entire body of expert information on this topic that contradicts what this guy is saying.

Can you point to some people / papers / where these people hang out? I'd like to do some reading

Sure, here are a couple of resources, both for Russia and the U.S.

For the U.S. plan to attack Russia, the NRDC did an interesting hypothetical attack around 20 years ago to show the impact a U.S. attack would have on Russia. (It's hypothetical because the actual attack plans are classified to the point that even Senators on the big committees don't get to see them when they angrily ask for them.) The report on that hypothetical is here: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/us-nuclear-war-plan...

For the Russian plan to attack the U.S., this reddit thread is a guy who did this for a living answering questions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/war/comments/trkfe7/three_hypotheti...

The submitter, https://www.reddit.com/user/dmteter/, has deep knowledge of the issue, and answers a lot of questions. He's kinda a hothead, though, if asked questions the wrong way. I chalk it up to the kind of stress that might come from realizing that the plans you helped to develop to kill hundreds of millions of people might actually get put to use in the foreseeable future.

He also answers some questions in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/nuclearwar/comments/tpa3ao/openriso...

The nuclear winter stuff is more interesting. Most recent papers are very much thinking it's a very big deal:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3155983 http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ChinaNWrice8inpress.pd... https://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/OzdoganNuclearWinterM... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF00... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay5478 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1919049117 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019GL08... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JD02... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019JD03...

One paper that feels the nuclear winter risk is overstated is from LLNL: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020...

This paper talks a bit about the uncertainties regarding nuclear winter right now. Mainly lack of data for modelling: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2021.1...

A lot of the questions revolve around whether nuclear detonations would create firestorms in contemporary U.S. cities, and if they did, if those fire storms would be strong enough to generate pyrocumulonimbus clouds that drew the soot into the stratosphere on a widespread scale. If firestorms do start, based on PNW fire studies, it seems that pyrocumulonimbus clouds would be a very common thing: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax1748

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