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this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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NonCredibleDefense
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But with a fraction of the nukes, which is the actual big stick part of NATO
It took two nukes for Japan to wave the white flag. Do we really need 5,000+ nukes for anything? France has 290 and UK has 225. Thats enough to wipe one or multiple countries clean off of the map without any form of surrender.
Yes, antimissile systems will shoot down most of your missile volley, so you need to launch enough that they become overwhelmed and the few that make it through accomplish your goal.
We don't know exactly how much "most" is, but its enough that the powers that be consider our current level of armament to be necessary.
This is where I think there is a misunderstanding. You don't just fire only nukes at a country. You fire a multi pronged attack with regular bombardment aswell.
Will the ones shit down rain down radioactive dust everywhere?
Yes, but to a way lesser degree.
The bombs become really nasty by creating a big chain reaction (boom) and then radiating the dust the explosion creates (aftermath) which then spreads everywhere.
Without a controlled explosion there will be significantly less radiating reactions and radioactive dust.
It's like deep inhaling the smoke of a package of burning fire starters VS throwing said burning fire starter into a warehouse full of fireworks (and for the sake of this argument you cant leave the warehouse and have no equipment whatsoever)
Both will probably fuck you up a bit if you're to close, but one is comparably insignificant.
Shooting down a nuclear icbm doesn't really help as much as you think, if it catches it.
Not to mention the atmosphere lighting up wouldn't be much better
You know they don't go critical when you shoot them right?
Doesn't that depend on how they're set up? I'd imagine in the 50+ years since they've been invented they would have designed it so it could, specifically because modern anti missile defenses exist.
I mean, I know world governments can be dumb, but I would imagine they're not that dumb as to bother maintaining a key super weapon just to not upgrade it / design it so that it won't work if used.
Maybe but no not really the triggering process is extremely fast but kinda fragile because everything needs to be compressed just so.
They upgrade them, it's public knowledge for the budget. Usually it's faster smaller or different form factor plus renewal programs.
But any knowledge on how modern triggering works on them I'd imagine would be kept a state secret wouldn't it? I don't think it's something you'd want others to know.
Someone has to know because scientists and engineers are educated in universities and not in military boot camps. Universities are the origin of all scientific expertise in a nation, including the nation's military.
They hid the Manhattan project really really well, if you've ever looked into the history.
In the game of nukes you don’t really need many.
You can destroy the world just so many times.
The rest is just for showing who has it bigger (the arsenal)
A lot of that is because rest of NATO is under US umbrella. Not like nukes are high tech at this point. Most of Europe could get nukes real fast if they wanted, but everyone has been better served by it being to many Nuclear Powers up to this point
And I expect they will get nukes real fast. Ukraine is probably going to go for that, tbh. It’s kinda their only option at this point.
But are we bringing nukes to a biological warfare... umm... party? Or hell, AI drones/nanobots?