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He hath eaten me out of house and home. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"

As the crisis in Ukraine deepens, it is appropriate to consider what the
actual consequences of war there might be. An armed conventional conflict
in Ukraine would be a terrible humanitarian disaster.

Last week, US government officials estimated that the fighting could kill
25,000 to 50,000 civilians, 5,000 to 25,000 Ukrainian military personnel,
and 3,000 to 10,000 Russian soldiers. It could also generate 1-to-5
million refugees.

These figures are based on the assumption that only conventional weapons
are used. However, if the conflict spread beyond Ukraine’s borders and
NATO became involved in the fighting, this would become a major war
between nuclear-armed forces with the very real danger that nuclear
weapons would be used—and the public debate about this crisis is utterly
lacking in discussion of this terrible threat.

Both sides in such a conflict would, of course, begin fighting with
non-nuclear conventional weapons. But as a result of advances in
technology and firepower over recent decades, these weapons possess much
greater range and destructiveness than earlier models, enabling them to
strike high-value targets—airbases, radar stations, command centers,
logistical hubs, and so on—far behind the front lines. As the losses
mounted up on both sides—and if one or the other faced imminent defeat—its
leaders could feel driven to employ their tactical nuclear weapons to
avert such an outcome. Both US and Russian military doctrines allow for
the use of tactical nuclear weapons under such circumstances.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ukraine-russia-nuclear-threat/

Despite reductions in nuclear forces over the last several decades, Russia
still has 1,900 tactical nuclear weapons and 1,600 deployed strategic
nuclear weapons. On the NATO side, France has 280 deployed nuclear weapons
and the UK, 120. In addition, the United States has 100 B-61 tactical
bombs deployed at NATO bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
and Turkey, and an additional 1,650 deployed strategic warheads.

If even a single 100-kiloton nuclear weapon exploded over the Kremlin, it
could kill a quarter of a million people and injure a million more,
completely overwhelming the disaster-response capability of the Russian
capital. A single 100-kiloton bomb detonated over the US Capitol would
kill over 170,000 people and injure nearly 400,000.

But it is unlikely that an escalating nuclear conflict between the United
States and Russia would involve single warheads over their respective
capitals. Rather, it is more likely that there would be many weapons
directed against many cities and that many of these weapons would be
substantially larger than 100 kiloton. For example, Russia’s 460 SS-18 M6
Satan warheads have a yield of 500 to 800 kilotons. The W88 warhead
deployed on US Trident submarines has a yield of 455 kilotons.

A 2002 report showed that if just 300 of Russia’s 1,600 deployed strategic
warheads were detonated over US urban centers, 78 million people would die
in the first half hour. In addition, the nation’s entire economic
infrastructure would be destroyed—the electric grid, Internet, food
distribution system, transportation network, and the public health system.
All of the things necessary to sustain life would be gone, and in the
months following this attack the vast majority of the US population would
succumb to starvation, radiation sickness, exposure, and epidemic disease.
A US attack on Russia would produce comparable devastation there. And if
NATO were involved, most of Canada and Europe would suffer a similar fate.

Still, these are just the direct effects of the widespread use of nuclear
weapons between NATO and Russia. The global climate effects would be even
more catastrophic. Recent studies have confirmed the predictions, first
advanced in the 1980s, that large-scale use of nuclear weapons would cause
abrupt, catastrophic global cooling. A war involving the full deployed
arsenals of the US and Russia could loft up to 150 teragrams (150 million
metric tons) of soot into the upper atmosphere, dropping average
temperatures around the world as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit. In the
interior regions of North America and Eurasia temperatures would drop 45
to 50 degrees, to levels not seen since the last ice age, producing a
disastrous decline in food production and a global famine that might kill
the majority of humanity. Even a more limited war involving just 250
warheads in the 100 kiloton range could drop average global temperatures
by 10 degrees, enough to trigger a famine unprecedented in human history,
which would almost certainly bring the end of modern civilization.

The enormity of the risk inherent in the current game of nuclear chicken
between the US and Russia demands a fundamental change in their relation
to each other, and in the equally fraught relation between the US and
China. The great powers can no longer pursue a zero-sum game to see who
will come out on top. It is possible that one of them will emerge on top
of the heap—but the heap may well be a global ash pile.

Nuclear weapons are a discrete manmade threat to the survival of our
species. Their elimination could be achieved within a decade if the
leaders of the nuclear-armed states were committed to doing so. And the
process of negotiating a verifiable, enforceable timetable for dismantling
these weapons would establish a new cooperative paradigm in international
relations that would enable them to address the other, more complex
existential threat posed by the climate crisis. The elimination of nuclear
weapons is not some pie-in-the-sky fantasy. It is an absolute necessity
for our continued survival. We have not survived this far into the nuclear
era because of wise leadership, or sound military doctrine, or infallible
technology. As Robert McNamara famously observed, “We lucked out.. It was
luck that prevented nuclear war.” A hope for continued good luck is an
insane security policy. A determination to eliminate these weapons is a
policy grounded in reality, and it offers us the only acceptable path
forward.

It is imperative that the current crisis be resolved by diplomatic means..
It is equally imperative that the nuclear armed nations learn from this
dangerous situation and act to eliminate the danger of nuclear war in a
definitive fashion by promptly beginning negotiations for the complete
elimination of these weapons, as advocated by the Back from the Brink
campaign, so that they all come into compliance with the Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

### - when germany finally surrendered at the end of ww2 the whole world
collectively sighed in relief, the stark differences existing between what
hitler's regime was clearly offering versus what the rest of the world
would preferably now 'choose' given the choice, was never so clear in
people's minds & hearts as at that very moment... gone overnight was the
horror of the prospect of a whole world set to marching and fighting & war
under a brutal totalitarian regime + welcome back, oh-man, to some kind of
much easier plus, for goodness sake, more reasonable life and a chance to
live!

churchill being literally flabbergasted when he wasn't immediately voted
straight back into office by a jubilant + completely grateful public
carrying him high on their shoulders? far from it: the public had
surprisingly (to him at any rate) had MORE than enough of right-wing
leaders to last them several lifetimes! and accordingly: the whole world
'lurched' quite consciously, towards the left!

the resulting next generation were accordingly lovers of freedom, music &
art in every form! the hippies potentially even providing a vision of a
more harmonious & peaceful future: 'love & life' being more important than
material things!

only a couple or 3 generations down the line, however, that's all been
more or less forgotten by now, and, over the long years since, the rise of
the right-wing has again steadily grown as people's discontent has grown
and now want something DONE about it! the right-wing knowing just exactly
how to cater to such a sentiment, if not actively foster it! (coz that's
what they do and then promise to sort it all out for ya's once they're in
power... only they never do...)

unfortunately, in the realm of reality, the past 70 years has, apparently,
only been a lull in the fighting that's been going on in wallyworld for
centuries... ww1 & 2 being but the preparation for the BIG one to come
when things will, finally + permanently, get sorted out!

albeit perhaps a little bit more 'permanently' than we'd bargained for!
duh!

however... it wasn't until in the their very last final desperate moments,
when s.africa was literally going-down for the 3rd time, that they
suddenly became possessed by another, new, almost crazy fucking idea??

as in: hey what about if we all choose to 'live' instead of fighting: how
would THAT work out??

wot, as in not hitting each other anymore?

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Subject	Author
Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War	slider
Re: Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War	Abo Henry

He hath eaten me out of house and home. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"

interests / alt.dreams.castaneda / Re: Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War