I have general comment on what is discussed in several individual threads here:
Such "simulations" should be seen as a tool for thought, not as truly accurate scenario of a most probable future. It is rather like assigning some numbers to a qualitative argument in a debate. To keep the complexity in check, you leave out everything that you think is not relevant to the overall outcome of the simulation. To challenge such a simulation, a critic must present his or her own simulation showing that the omitted factor may well be relevant instead.
In the Princton simulation the participants use only a bit more than 10 percent of their arsenal. Assuming that most warheads get through, simulating an intercept rate would be redundant if one also assumes that the margin of error on how many of their arsenals participants would use is much larger.
Likewise, focusing on Russia and the USA already covers almost 90 percent of all nuclear warheads. Simulating the other nuclear powers would probably not change much in the overall picture.
However, in view of the complexity of the influencing factors and the multitude of possible scenarios, the fundamental question arises as to whether such simulations can at all provide deeper general insights into the topic than what we already vaguely suspect.
Especially since finding participants here whose psychology and job experience parallel Putin's quite closely will not be easy.
One the one hand:
Putin bluffs about whether he's bluffing about bluffing. His word is chaff. If he says he won't be invading, it's a pretty good indication he will. Etc.
On the other hand:
When one person is vital to the course of events and can't be removed, prediction generally becomes a fool's game, either way; because human brains are, needless to say, highly complex. Concentrating power means anything can happen (but not that anything will, of course.)
Pick your poison. With Putin being the other player, no course of action, including pacifism, is anything but risky. Gird your loins (as none of the kids say.)
This comment is wrong and I'm negatively surprised it made it to the top, since I would have believed HN had a more discriminating approach.
The comment mirrors a very similar argument made against climate change: Since we can't simulate it accurately, we say the entire simulation is useless (" whether such simulations can at all provide deeper general insights into the topic than what we already vaguely suspect").
The key benefit of such simulations is not always scientific insight, but making the problem and its urgency palpable for the non-expert.
You "vaguely" suspect the problem, but that is not enough to make you go out and do something against it. You need to fully understand it to get the motivation to act in some way (write to your local politician, set up a fundraiser against nuclear proliferation etc.).
That's not how I personally read the comment. But let's also recognize that the accuracy of war games is very different than the accuracy of climate simulations. War games like these typically are one offs. Climate simulations have substantially larger teams, use ensembles of models, and have a long history of verification.
The above comment reads to me that they are saying the simulation should be treated like a Fermi estimate. That people can come back and say "well this is wrong and that is wrong" but the point is to get a reasonable estimate. I mean let's be real, the accuracy of this simulation is pretty low. It doesn't even consider the effects of fallout. But that's outside the scope of the simulation and that is perfectly okay. It does exactly what it is supposed to, put a pin as a starting point for conversations. We can add complexity on top of it and calculate ensembles of simulations for the different potential scenarios. But one can argue that there is a lot more randomness involved in a simulation like this than compared to climate because it depends on something that is almost impossible to model: decisions of singular persons. There's several very critical points in these simulations that depend on such decisions.
> The key benefit of such simulations is not always scientific insight, but making the problem and its urgency palpable for the non-expert.
But I'm a bit confused, because this line makes me think you two are actually in agreement.
I know it may be off topic but i don't want people to discuss about the reliability of the data involved, no, i want people to reflect about the outcome: end of humanity.
It disgusts me to think that maybe 99.99% of world population wouldn't harm another person but due to a ridicolous small fraction of the entire population, we risk to end our lives.
This is completely absurd and makes no sense at all.
"maybe 99.99% of world population wouldn't harm another person"
I think they would... especially in self-defense, in defense of someone they cared about, and plenty would do so for ideals like "freedom", "country" or "democracy"... and if they wouldn't most would be perfectly happy to let others do it for them.
That's why the military and police exist, and why most people are perfectly happy to fund and support them. It's also why wars have so many participants and supporters.
Politicians can further rile people up to commit violence against scapegoats and even preemptively against distant potential threats. It's not so difficult for them to get a lot of people to commit violence against a historical, cultural, political, religious, or ethnic enemy.
Even if you subscribe to the idea of violence being justified in specific cases, there is no reason in the idea "kill everybody including yourself".
People arguing in favor of doomsday-weapons fail to recognize, the supposedly addressed problem not having a solution in the domain of violence means you have to look elsewhere.
A police officer is a position of power. In many parts of the world, someone in this position of power will use that power to acquire resources via bribes or extortion. This person with authority of the state has a right to violence that you do not have. This person has determined they have a right to your money and a "justification" (The law of nature: I have more power) to take it.
If you give the money there is no 'harm,' yet you have been harmed with the threat of violence. If you need that money to feed yourself or get medical care for your child, it might literally result in death.
If you fight the police officer, others will come after you. If you gather your friends to fight the police officers, you have now subverted the government, created your own government (because you are now an agent of enforcement of your own set of "laws"), and now started a very small scale war (revolution) out of your desire to not be harmed.
If you don't think people would self enrich at the cost of others, I have some very bad news for you. Just because a person hasn't been physically damaged, doesn't mean they haven't been harmed.
If there was a button that gave you a million dollars but would kill a person you have never met, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who would press it, and those that do press it, would probably be happy to press it many times.
The way you use the word harm is what prevents you from making sense of the problem.
Confusion is not the result of understanding. Sadness is.
The state's monopoly, qua Max Weber, is on the claim to the legitimate use of violence. That is, the right and legitimacy of that right, is restricted to the state, or an entity acting in the effective capacity of a state, whatever it happens to call itself.
Absent this, one of three conditions exist;
1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.
2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious. This is your condition of tyranny (unaccountable power).
3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.
The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy
Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.
The misleading and abbreviated form that's frequently found online seems to have originated with Rothbard in the 1960s, and was further popularised by Nozick in the 1970s. It's now falsely accepted as a truth when in fact it is a gross misrepresentation and obscures the core principles Weber advanced.
In your comment, what you confuse is capacity for violence (inherent in all actors, state, individual, corporate, or non-governmental institutional, with numerous extant examples of each) with the Weberian definition of a monopoly on the legitimate claim to violence. In practice, enacting violence on virtually any actor will engender some counterveiling response, though the effectiveness will vary greatly depending on the comparative power and/or disinhibition of the entity responding.
>If there was a button that gave you a million dollars but would kill a person you have never met, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who would press it, and those that do press it, would probably be happy to press it many times.
I have heard this thought experiment strikingly followed up with "Jeff Bezos is effectively a man who has built a machine to push the button as fast as is physically possible."
War mongers also cross the entire political spectrum almost like they're born with a death wish. It's too bad they can't be excised from the system before they gain too much power.
The basic problem in the world is that while a majority of the people may want to live self-determined lives, and be governed by a self-ruling democracy, there is a significant minority who wants to, at a personal level steal, extort, or extract value from others, and at a societal/governmental level rule over others. The latter are perfectly happy to steal, extort, extract, and/or rule over others using deception and violence.
If the people who want to live free and self-determined lives and under self-determining governments are not better prepared and better armed than the bullies, thieves, and authoritarians, they WILL be ruled by those bullies, thieves, and authoritarians.
If someone comes to your home to steal, rape, rule, or otherwise harm you or your family, is your response to say "sure, do what you want", or will you defend yourself?
Will you not call the cops if you have a chance because they might use violence to subdue or even kill your assailants (because they'd be doing violence on your behalf)?
If you defend yourself, or call the cops to do so, are you a warmonger?
If someone attacks our land and people, or a neighbor's land and people, and we call the military to defend ourselves, are we warmongers?
It is a useless accusation that undermines real understanding of what is happening.
I think I am quite liberal and I could be considered a warmonger.
If you have never met a truly delusional person in your life, it's easy to have pacifist ideals. As soon as you meet a truly delusional person and those delusions directly conflict with what you need or a right you think you have, you quickly learn that "war" is sometimes the only option. If there are situations that require war, then you must make sure you are capable of exerting force.
I think the quote "If you want peace, prepare for war," is quite accurate. It is perceived weakness that opens you up to having war thrust upon you by someone who has estimated they have more power. In that sense, I think pacifism is a warmongering ideology because I view "despots that have too much power will exist" as an axiom upon which any political philosophy must be built. To a despot, pacifism is opportunity to subjugate. The foundation of despotism is built upon people who will not risk what they hold dear.
Nuclear annihilation is bad, but I would rather live in a world under threat of nuclear annihilation rather than a world where only Putin or Xi could threaten the force of nuclear weapons to subjugate those they wish.
The common folk may be led to think that the only alternative they have to live is war. And they are led to think that by those small overpowered fraction.
It has been the case for a lot of modern wars (even those pushed by us or nato).
I'm so tired of seeing this 70% number. There is a lot of available evidence against it. Why is it so widely quoted by western media?
The poll is from Nevada, same poll company that said 1% support Navalny as a politician. Navalny got 27% on Moscow mayor election in 2013. Tens of thousands of people were on demonstrations in his support in 2021, risking getting beaten up by police and jailed.
Out of ~100 people I know, maybe a couple somewhat support war.
In Moscow, none of civilian cars you see on the streets have Z/V/military symbols in support of the war. If war has 70% support, at least 1% would put it on display.
Since there is no free press in Russia and if you publicly come out against the war you might be jailed and brutalised, I'm surprised the percentage isn't even larger.
> The few warmongers often have the support of the majority, e.g. in Russia right now, where polls consistently show 70% support or more for Putin's attack on Ukraine.
We should take a step back and think about Russia's problem.
Not only did Russia's dictatorship made it illegal and a punishable offense to express any negative feeling regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they manipulate all their media with pro-Putin and pro-war propaganda.
Keep in mind that Russia's regime response to anti-mobilization protesta was to arrest protesters and force them to the war front.
No wonder a big chunk of Russians, when faced with any war-related question, they make it their point to promptly give a canned response on how they are apolitical. Self-preservation in a totalitarian state kicks in almost as a Darwinian response.
If you found yourself living in that sort of castrating society, what would you answer if state posters asked you what you thought of the ongoing war?
If Maslow’s hierarchy of needs had one more layer at its very base, it would be power. That is, the ability to project their will into the world. People who are made to feel powerless (like the Russian population) will align themselves with a source of power (Putin) to satisfy their need for power, even if by proxy. The need for power is so fundamentally important to humans that any source of this is valued above most moral conflicts that the source may cause. This is how a large population of “good” people can commit atrocities, as in WWII Germany, for example.
This concept has always baffled me too. There's the old saying (I think from cold war era): the difference between you (a foreigner) and me is smaller than the difference between us and our respective leaders.
It is very clear to me that these existential threats are elites playing a game with our lives. The lives of everyone on this planet. The same elites that have nuclear bunkers and would survive the repercussions of their acts. The same elites who get us worked up with racism and scapegoatism. It doesn't matter if you're American, Indian, Chinese, or Russian; the honest to god truth is that the VAST majority of us want to just live in peace and don't give a shit about this geopolitical nonsense. It's strange to me that you can go back to Diogenes and find people discussing this same sentiment, about being citizens of the world. Nationalism is a hell of a drug. Fine in moderate usage but large doses make people go insane.
I do recognize that there is a lot more complexity to all this. Like another commenter pointed out, even 0.01% of 8 billion is 800k. But this shows an existential threat to humanity. That even if the rate of psychopaths with power is extremely low, that the total number is still quite large. But it isn't just these elites that make us think small cultural differences are quite large, I see every day people come to these same conclusions. I don't understand how this happens when we really are all just people doing people things. Exposure?
I'm not sure how to solve this tbh. I do think working towards a post scarce society is one of the biggest tools we can have. People tend to be much nicer and far less likely to act criminally when they don't have to worry about getting by. People aren't inherently evil, but justify small steps in that direction with good intentions. Post scarcity takes away some of this power that these people have, but it won't take away all of it. I know this is something we techies here are able to work towards, but I don't know what the other parts are, and I don't think it is going to be a fully technological solution (that would be absurd). But I do thin, like you're saying, that we need to discuss this. After all, even if it is unlikely to happen, the fate of the human race depends on this discussion. A 0.001% chance of nuclear war is still too high.
If 8 billion people in the world, your 99.99% leads to 80 million people who would be willing to harm others - a lot of people - where certainly only a fraction of that is enough to create an army for a tyrant; and to which where the second amendment in the U.S. stems from, knowing that only an armed population can counter threats on freedom.
Didn't just shock a generation, it shocked the President.
There is the apocryphal story about Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood actor who turned politician, who saw The Day After and asked his staff if would really be that bad. His staff, hardened Cold War generals and such, replied that it would be so, so much worse.
This spooked the hell out of Reagan, and led him to reach out to the USSR to ease tensions.
Didn't stop him from building deterrents in the form of Star Wars, etc. though...
Both are very good and shocking movies. I personally found Threads more grimly realistic, and more relatable. This might be because I've watched Threads only a few years ago, while it's been decades since I've seen The Day After.
It doesn't seem to take into account British and French nuclear arsenals (although they're not commensurable to US and Russian ones). Strikes on UK and French territory (which are shown in this simulation), not even mentioning NATO commitments, would incite a response.
Also look at the other nuclear powers just sitting there dooing nothing.
This in a early cold war era US vs USSR Armageddon scenario, not a 202x scenario.
Plausible scenarios today are:
- Russia using a nuke in Ukraine and earning the hate of every single country in the world. China and India try to remain neutral but they would almost certainly drop support for Russia if they break the nuclear taboo. This would not even require a nuclear response to solve.
ukraine wouldn't be enough to push nato to even regular war let alone a nuclear response.
If putin keeps the radiation from spilling into nato territory its not enough to start ww3.
Despite cnn's lies, nato doesn't actually care much for ukraine, they just see this as a way to do damage indirectly to an enemy they want to hurt.
Nato isn't interested in committing suicide, afterall nuclear war benefits noone.
Honestly I see the ukraine situation either ending with a discussion that cedes at least the 2 "republics" on the border, or small yield nukes being used on small targets to scare ukraine to the negotiation table.
The reality is russia can last enough in war but ukraine is pretty tough and has nearly the same if not even more men than russia fielded.
Russia using a nuke in Ukraine doesn’t even make any sense. What would it accomplish? The Ukrainian forces are too scattered for this to be effective. Would it scare the West into backing down? It would certainly scare a lot of people, but Putin knows that the West will not be scared into submission. If it’s done as a scare tactic, then it’s terrorism, and negotiating with terrorists is off the table.
The only way I can see Russia going nuclear is if the West becomes directly involved in the conflict, Putin sees it as the existential end of Russia, and decides to take the murder-suicide route. Let’s hope it never gets to that point.
Obviously you have to start somewhere with a simulation, but to me it seems like you'd want to quickly add in the food/water/energy aspect and perhaps consider the additional damage caused by conventional weapons.
It seems as though at least one of the simulated parties has a current doctrine of trying to destroy power plants and food distribution hubs, we'd have to assume that will be part of an apocalyptic exchange.
> It seems as though at least one of the simulated parties has a current doctrine of trying to destroy power plants and food distribution hubs
Given the state of economic "optimization" our current systems are operating under I would imagine that even if the enemy did not strike energy and food distribution centers on purpose these systems would fall apart pretty quickly. Redundancy and resilience costs money, money that would not land in certain pockets if spent.
Fall apart? They'd be taken apart. People have to eat. The level of fear would could create an unprecedented and unpredictable mob mentality. See 6 Jan for example.
When I've read about scenarios like this or the topic of mutually assured destruction is discussed, I notice that the concept of 'retaliation' is taken as a given. The premise of immediate retaliation creates the hypothetical domino effect that seems to polarize the discussion between (1) total prevention at all costs or (2) a terrible mass casualty scenario.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is this assumption of retaliation grounded in the reality of our political systems or perhaps a theory of modern warfare that I'm missing? Don't get me wrong, it sound very plausible, but that is exactly why I'm questioning it and would like to expand my understanding so that it's grounded in something more than just a hunch.
Quite simply, it's basic human nature. I don't think you can name a country that its citizens would remain complacent after a nuclear attack. New York, LA, DC, Chicago suddenly get wiped off the map. You don't think the population would demand retaliation? Not only the massive immediate loss of life, but it would decimate the economy. Look at the response to 9/11. That was "just" 2 buildings. Now imagine entire cities that would be impossible to rebuild or habitat.
Just so we are accurate. It was three buildings; hit by 3 planes full of people. A fourth plane that hit the ground and several buildings in New York as secondary casualties.
IMO nuclear game theory especially around Launch on Warning / immediate retaliation is going to change in the coming years as everyone builds up conventional global strike missiles. Decision makers will be incentivized to at least wait for confirmation before ending the world.
But otherwise I'm much more pessimistic about narrative around "retaliation" because I think when shit hits fan, MAD doesn't just extends to nations trading nukes but eradicating their entire alliance network that can help rebuild as well. US cold war nuke plans on USSR included nuking PRC just in case. USSR was going to make sure Europe was a wasteland that couldn't help wasteland US rebuild. On paper US/USSR had thousands of nukes because you need multiple for counter-force on harden targets. On secret paper, it's counter value your entire rival block to ensure anyone who can be potential threat after, aren't.
> I notice that the concept of 'retaliation' is taken as a given
There is no room for 'retaliation' in reality. All the superpowers' defense systems are set up to launch in around ~10 minutes if they detect a nuclear launch from the other side. So, all these 'they used nuclear weapons first so we have to retaliate' delirium in the press is totally nonsense. There is no such 'first - second' in a war between nuclear superpowers. They launch simultaneously within ~15 minutes and destroy each other and entire world within ~40 minutes. (includes flight time of the slowest ballistic missile)
Well IDK about russia or china, but if the major US population centers get hit, we immediately become a very republican country. I suspect those people will be rather eager to retaliate.
Are they providing the data they use anywhere? Are they just expecting that all Russian nukes will actually make it to the US?
The US has been somewhat open about the immense difficulty of keeping it's nuclear arsenal working reliably and has demonstrated at least some capability to intercept nuclear payloads.
Russian state of it's arsenal is likely going to be worse and the actual ability of the US to intercept is likely going to be better.
This comment terrifies me to the bone. Note: I'm a long term Eastern European immigrant (not Russian or Ukrainian). Unlike most of HN, I have been in a war, it's much worse than most civilians imagine it. Much.
One of the things we knew during the cold war was that nuclear war would be the ruin of society. It was rightly feared. Keeping the peace between the two nuclear powers wasn't seen as a sign of weakness, everyone realized the alternative. Aside from the immediate millions of deaths, the longer term (ie after the first day) effects would be capital C Catastrophic, even if the threat of nuclear winter was overstated.
I read this as: oh it wouldn't be so bad. We could probably shoot many of them; and many won't make it, probably. This is incredibly optimistic; Russia has started modernization of its nuclear arsenal long before us because it has a stronger reliance on nuclear deterrence in defensive capability than we do.
At the time of writing this, this is also the top voted comment. Simply terrifying. Every day I have the fear we're going to head straight into the new Cuban missile crisis and one that we may not be so lucky to escape.
we are probably heading towards that because the usa did the same thing that caused it already.
The crisis happened because the usa put bombs in turkiye which is super close to the ussr.
Now the usa has bombs in turkiye and other nato members near russia.
The issue is that we can't handle what we dish out, I guarantee if russia station nukes further than we stationed them to russia that we would freak out and threaten nuclear apocalypse.
the usa makes unnecessary enemies by acting hypocritical and basically pushing other nations around.
At one point we could have gotten russia in nato and could have slowly influenced it to be like the rest of nato.
Instead we gave them the middle finger and created a jaded enemy that wants to be the ussr again because we treated them as the ussr.
"Are they just expecting that all Russian nukes will actually make it to the US?"
Russia and the US have something like 5000 nukes each. Many if not all of those nukes are way more powerful than the ones that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Even if only a small fraction of them make it, they'd likely be enough to completely destroy every major city in both countries... and cities are where almost the entire population lives. Plenty of remote areas will likely be hit too, because that's where the missile launch sites and military bases are.
All those huge "impregnable" bunkers you see in movies that were supposed to house governments in case of nuclear war were quietly decommissioned because it was realized that they couldn't survive hits from modern nuclear weapons and there's no way to hide them from today's surveillance technology.
So in an all-out nuclear war probably most everyone in Russia and the US would die from direct hits.. and that doesn't include knock-on effects from radiation poisoning and fallout, nuclear winter, complete infrastructural and governmental collapse (ie. no clean water to drink, all the animals dead, no food and perhaps even no ability to grow food).
As for other countries, I'd read that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the UK general in charge of his country's nuclear arsenal met his Russian counterpart and him whether he thought the movie Threads was an accurate depiction of what would happen in a nuclear war between the two countries. The Russian general laughed and said the entire UK was designated an overkill zone.
yeah people don't seem to understand the reality of nuclear war, how much nations want to avoid it, and that russia isn't a paper tiger like the news claims.
Russia is a near equal to america in its nuclear tech and absolutely has the firepower needed to induce MAD back at us.
Its the dumbest thing to think for a second that its a good idea to push for any kind of war with russia because it runs the risk of a game over for all nations involved.
places like the uk are absolutely done for, the whole island would be a mess.
"[...]
a dramatic account of nuclear war and its effects in Britain, specifically on the city of Sheffield in Northern England.
[...]
A third and final attack targets primary economic targets such as the Tinsley Viaduct. This third attack causes massive structural damage to Sheffield; the blast and heat kill an estimated 12 to 30 million people in the U.K. in the wider exchange. [...]"
Just reading the Wikipedia synopsis of this films plot I already feel like it’s nightmare material.
How on earth we as in humanity want to keep weapons around that would render us this way is still beyond my comprehension.
I also don’t know that I want to be a survivor of a nuclear war. I will be honest, don’t think I could handle it. I have dogs and a wife that needs specialized care. Just thinking about the terrible things that could happen to them alone and not even getting into the rest of the people I care about has already managed to depress me now.
I’d rather avert circumstances than even risk exchanging nukes
> Russian state of it's arsenal is likely going to be worse
Up until recently Russia was sending up American astronauts on Soyuz rockets to the ISS because they had a reliable system (based on the R7 ICBM) and we didn't.
> and the actual ability of the US to intercept is likely going to be better.
Intercepting ICBMs is orders of magnitudes more difficult than intercepting theater weapons like scuds because of the velocities involved.
This simulation was of 10% of each nations arsenal. If Russia launches 20% of their arsenal then it should make up for any amount of failure (and interception is likely to be negligible).
Worries me that we have so much motivated thinking trying to discount the risks of nuclear war these days. That's how you wind up in a nuclear war just like the one suggested here.
Russia has hypersonic reentry vehicles, they are pretty much impossible to intercept (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat), each of these MIRV contains 10-15 nuclear warheads or an unspecified number of hypersonic glide vehicles (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avangard_(hypersonic_glide_v... )with nuclear payloads. They figured out the hydrodynamics to make the hypersonic glide vehicles work, I believe the US is roughly a decade behind on that. Note that this requires genuinely hard math to do and the US funding on this was temporarily suspended because it was thought to be infeasible.
There is nothing that makes hypersonic reentry vehicles uniquely difficult to intercept, I'm not sure why anyone would assume that. The US considered this a solved problem in the 1980s.
As for the US being "behind", the US was developing and testing endo-atmospheric hypersonic missile platforms as far back as the 1980s. Russia et al designed hypersonic weapons with significantly compromised terminal guidance performance, a compromise the US will not accept in operational systems. Terminal guidance is the hardest technical problem when designing long-range endo-atmospheric hypersonic weapons. That the US is starting to move these systems toward production after 30-40 years of research suggests that they've solved the problem of terminal guidance to their satisfaction.
The US has been physically inspecting Russia's arsenal (and vice versa) under the terms of New START: https://www.state.gov/new-start/
These inspections don't actually test the functionality, but we should have a pretty good idea of the condition of their nuclear arsenal, as they have of ours, as that is part of how MAD works.
From that page:
Implementation: The information provided through the treaty’s implementation contributes to reducing the risk of strategic surprise, mistrust, and miscalculations that can result from excessive secrecy or decisions based on worst-case assumptions. Since the New START Treaty’s entry into force, as of late January 2022, the two parties have conducted:
* 328 on-site inspections
* 24,000+ notifications exchanged
* 19 meetings of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, and
* 42 biannual data exchanges on strategic offensive arms subject to the treaty.
Treaty Duration: The treaty’s original duration was 10 years (until February 5, 2021), with the option for the Parties to agree to extend it for up to an additional five years. The United States and Russian Federation agreed on a five-year extension of New START to keep it in force through February 4, 2026. The treaty includes a withdrawal clause that is standard in arms control agreements.
Russian Compliance: Although the United States has raised implementation-related questions and concerns with the Russian Federation through diplomatic channels and in the context of the BCC, the United States has determined annually since the treaty’s entry into force, across multiple administrations, the Russian Federation’s compliance with its treaty obligations.
U.S. Compliance: The United States is in compliance with its New START obligations. The Russian Federation has criticized U.S. procedures used to convert B-52H heavy bombers and Trident-II SLBM launchers. The United States stands by its conversion procedures, which render the converted SLBM launchers and heavy bombers incapable of employing nuclear weapons thereby removing them from accountability under the treaty.
Most experts seems to think that interception is basically impossible to do reliably with current technology, even before you get into the question of countermeasures, and that with the sheer quantity of warheads, it's basically a given that a large majority would land.
Whether the entire six thousand or so warheads would explode, or the one-and-a-half thousand deployed missiles would actually reach their targets is anyone's guess.
However, bearing in mind that even one nuclear explosion is capable of killing about a million people, if detonated in an urban center, it really just takes a comparative handful of working weapons, say 1-2%, to kill as many people outright, in the initial explosions, as the number that died in the whole of WW2[0].
[0]: 1-2% of 6000 = 60-120, 60 to 120 * 1million = 60 to 120 million, around the same ballpark as deaths in WW2. That's obviously just the initial direct deaths, there would obviously be many more (an order of magnitude, at least) from follow-on effects. And this is ridiculously low-balling the estimate for how many of the warheads would be delivered to target: a more realistic estimate would be like, 90%.
the actual ability of the US to intercept is likely going to be better.
Unlikely. The Russians have an actually effective interception system: nuclear-tipped interceptor missiles. For political or environmental reasons, the US doesn't use those. Everything we use has at best a fifty percent interception rate and the Russians have more reentry vehicles than we have interceptor missiles.
I don’t think you can use unknowable things like ‘state of the nuclear arsenal’, or ‘potential ability to negate or intercept nuclear weapons’ in your simulation as they’re probably state secrets, even if you did somehow know what they were.
This is a very pessimistic (but still quite possible) scenario and hopefully it will not realize. I once per year watch myself the movie "The Day After" (1983) to remind me of the horrible consequences.
This should probably be required watching on a population level - to make sure people don't get complacent and are aware in the risks and can push their politicians to do everything they can do avoid such an outcome.
Readit News
Such "simulations" should be seen as a tool for thought, not as truly accurate scenario of a most probable future. It is rather like assigning some numbers to a qualitative argument in a debate. To keep the complexity in check, you leave out everything that you think is not relevant to the overall outcome of the simulation. To challenge such a simulation, a critic must present his or her own simulation showing that the omitted factor may well be relevant instead.
In the Princton simulation the participants use only a bit more than 10 percent of their arsenal. Assuming that most warheads get through, simulating an intercept rate would be redundant if one also assumes that the margin of error on how many of their arsenals participants would use is much larger.
Likewise, focusing on Russia and the USA already covers almost 90 percent of all nuclear warheads. Simulating the other nuclear powers would probably not change much in the overall picture.
However, in view of the complexity of the influencing factors and the multitude of possible scenarios, the fundamental question arises as to whether such simulations can at all provide deeper general insights into the topic than what we already vaguely suspect.
One the one hand: Putin bluffs about whether he's bluffing about bluffing. His word is chaff. If he says he won't be invading, it's a pretty good indication he will. Etc.
On the other hand: When one person is vital to the course of events and can't be removed, prediction generally becomes a fool's game, either way; because human brains are, needless to say, highly complex. Concentrating power means anything can happen (but not that anything will, of course.)
Pick your poison. With Putin being the other player, no course of action, including pacifism, is anything but risky. Gird your loins (as none of the kids say.)
The comment mirrors a very similar argument made against climate change: Since we can't simulate it accurately, we say the entire simulation is useless (" whether such simulations can at all provide deeper general insights into the topic than what we already vaguely suspect").
The key benefit of such simulations is not always scientific insight, but making the problem and its urgency palpable for the non-expert.
You "vaguely" suspect the problem, but that is not enough to make you go out and do something against it. You need to fully understand it to get the motivation to act in some way (write to your local politician, set up a fundraiser against nuclear proliferation etc.).
The above comment reads to me that they are saying the simulation should be treated like a Fermi estimate. That people can come back and say "well this is wrong and that is wrong" but the point is to get a reasonable estimate. I mean let's be real, the accuracy of this simulation is pretty low. It doesn't even consider the effects of fallout. But that's outside the scope of the simulation and that is perfectly okay. It does exactly what it is supposed to, put a pin as a starting point for conversations. We can add complexity on top of it and calculate ensembles of simulations for the different potential scenarios. But one can argue that there is a lot more randomness involved in a simulation like this than compared to climate because it depends on something that is almost impossible to model: decisions of singular persons. There's several very critical points in these simulations that depend on such decisions.
> The key benefit of such simulations is not always scientific insight, but making the problem and its urgency palpable for the non-expert.
But I'm a bit confused, because this line makes me think you two are actually in agreement.
It disgusts me to think that maybe 99.99% of world population wouldn't harm another person but due to a ridicolous small fraction of the entire population, we risk to end our lives.
This is completely absurd and makes no sense at all.
I think they would... especially in self-defense, in defense of someone they cared about, and plenty would do so for ideals like "freedom", "country" or "democracy"... and if they wouldn't most would be perfectly happy to let others do it for them.
That's why the military and police exist, and why most people are perfectly happy to fund and support them. It's also why wars have so many participants and supporters.
Politicians can further rile people up to commit violence against scapegoats and even preemptively against distant potential threats. It's not so difficult for them to get a lot of people to commit violence against a historical, cultural, political, religious, or ethnic enemy.
Even if you subscribe to the idea of violence being justified in specific cases, there is no reason in the idea "kill everybody including yourself".
People arguing in favor of doomsday-weapons fail to recognize, the supposedly addressed problem not having a solution in the domain of violence means you have to look elsewhere.
If you give the money there is no 'harm,' yet you have been harmed with the threat of violence. If you need that money to feed yourself or get medical care for your child, it might literally result in death.
If you fight the police officer, others will come after you. If you gather your friends to fight the police officers, you have now subverted the government, created your own government (because you are now an agent of enforcement of your own set of "laws"), and now started a very small scale war (revolution) out of your desire to not be harmed.
If you don't think people would self enrich at the cost of others, I have some very bad news for you. Just because a person hasn't been physically damaged, doesn't mean they haven't been harmed.
If there was a button that gave you a million dollars but would kill a person you have never met, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who would press it, and those that do press it, would probably be happy to press it many times.
The way you use the word harm is what prevents you from making sense of the problem.
Confusion is not the result of understanding. Sadness is.
Absent this, one of three conditions exist;
1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.
2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious. This is your condition of tyranny (unaccountable power).
3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.
The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy
Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.
<https://archive.org/details/economysociety00webe/page/54/mod...>
There's an excellent explanation of the common misunderstanding in this episode of the Talking Politics podcast: <https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership>
The misleading and abbreviated form that's frequently found online seems to have originated with Rothbard in the 1960s, and was further popularised by Nozick in the 1970s. It's now falsely accepted as a truth when in fact it is a gross misrepresentation and obscures the core principles Weber advanced.
In your comment, what you confuse is capacity for violence (inherent in all actors, state, individual, corporate, or non-governmental institutional, with numerous extant examples of each) with the Weberian definition of a monopoly on the legitimate claim to violence. In practice, enacting violence on virtually any actor will engender some counterveiling response, though the effectiveness will vary greatly depending on the comparative power and/or disinhibition of the entity responding.
I have heard this thought experiment strikingly followed up with "Jeff Bezos is effectively a man who has built a machine to push the button as fast as is physically possible."
The basic problem in the world is that while a majority of the people may want to live self-determined lives, and be governed by a self-ruling democracy, there is a significant minority who wants to, at a personal level steal, extort, or extract value from others, and at a societal/governmental level rule over others. The latter are perfectly happy to steal, extort, extract, and/or rule over others using deception and violence.
If the people who want to live free and self-determined lives and under self-determining governments are not better prepared and better armed than the bullies, thieves, and authoritarians, they WILL be ruled by those bullies, thieves, and authoritarians.
If someone comes to your home to steal, rape, rule, or otherwise harm you or your family, is your response to say "sure, do what you want", or will you defend yourself?
Will you not call the cops if you have a chance because they might use violence to subdue or even kill your assailants (because they'd be doing violence on your behalf)?
If you defend yourself, or call the cops to do so, are you a warmonger?
If someone attacks our land and people, or a neighbor's land and people, and we call the military to defend ourselves, are we warmongers?
It is a useless accusation that undermines real understanding of what is happening.
If you have never met a truly delusional person in your life, it's easy to have pacifist ideals. As soon as you meet a truly delusional person and those delusions directly conflict with what you need or a right you think you have, you quickly learn that "war" is sometimes the only option. If there are situations that require war, then you must make sure you are capable of exerting force.
I think the quote "If you want peace, prepare for war," is quite accurate. It is perceived weakness that opens you up to having war thrust upon you by someone who has estimated they have more power. In that sense, I think pacifism is a warmongering ideology because I view "despots that have too much power will exist" as an axiom upon which any political philosophy must be built. To a despot, pacifism is opportunity to subjugate. The foundation of despotism is built upon people who will not risk what they hold dear.
Nuclear annihilation is bad, but I would rather live in a world under threat of nuclear annihilation rather than a world where only Putin or Xi could threaten the force of nuclear weapons to subjugate those they wish.
The common folk may find war too unpleasant to conduct themselves, but they rally behind someone who will do it for them.
Like you, for example, or majority of "west" for that matter, has completely believed that "70%" number that was released by Russian government.
It has been the case for a lot of modern wars (even those pushed by us or nato).
It's not a matter of country.
The poll is from Nevada, same poll company that said 1% support Navalny as a politician. Navalny got 27% on Moscow mayor election in 2013. Tens of thousands of people were on demonstrations in his support in 2021, risking getting beaten up by police and jailed.
Out of ~100 people I know, maybe a couple somewhat support war.
In Moscow, none of civilian cars you see on the streets have Z/V/military symbols in support of the war. If war has 70% support, at least 1% would put it on display.
We should take a step back and think about Russia's problem.
Not only did Russia's dictatorship made it illegal and a punishable offense to express any negative feeling regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they manipulate all their media with pro-Putin and pro-war propaganda.
Keep in mind that Russia's regime response to anti-mobilization protesta was to arrest protesters and force them to the war front.
No wonder a big chunk of Russians, when faced with any war-related question, they make it their point to promptly give a canned response on how they are apolitical. Self-preservation in a totalitarian state kicks in almost as a Darwinian response.
If you found yourself living in that sort of castrating society, what would you answer if state posters asked you what you thought of the ongoing war?
It is very clear to me that these existential threats are elites playing a game with our lives. The lives of everyone on this planet. The same elites that have nuclear bunkers and would survive the repercussions of their acts. The same elites who get us worked up with racism and scapegoatism. It doesn't matter if you're American, Indian, Chinese, or Russian; the honest to god truth is that the VAST majority of us want to just live in peace and don't give a shit about this geopolitical nonsense. It's strange to me that you can go back to Diogenes and find people discussing this same sentiment, about being citizens of the world. Nationalism is a hell of a drug. Fine in moderate usage but large doses make people go insane.
I do recognize that there is a lot more complexity to all this. Like another commenter pointed out, even 0.01% of 8 billion is 800k. But this shows an existential threat to humanity. That even if the rate of psychopaths with power is extremely low, that the total number is still quite large. But it isn't just these elites that make us think small cultural differences are quite large, I see every day people come to these same conclusions. I don't understand how this happens when we really are all just people doing people things. Exposure?
I'm not sure how to solve this tbh. I do think working towards a post scarce society is one of the biggest tools we can have. People tend to be much nicer and far less likely to act criminally when they don't have to worry about getting by. People aren't inherently evil, but justify small steps in that direction with good intentions. Post scarcity takes away some of this power that these people have, but it won't take away all of it. I know this is something we techies here are able to work towards, but I don't know what the other parts are, and I don't think it is going to be a fully technological solution (that would be absurd). But I do thin, like you're saying, that we need to discuss this. After all, even if it is unlikely to happen, the fate of the human race depends on this discussion. A 0.001% chance of nuclear war is still too high.
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[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Srqyd8B9gE
Including my parents, in Italy, where it aired on February 1984.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
There is the apocryphal story about Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood actor who turned politician, who saw The Day After and asked his staff if would really be that bad. His staff, hardened Cold War generals and such, replied that it would be so, so much worse.
This spooked the hell out of Reagan, and led him to reach out to the USSR to ease tensions.
Didn't stop him from building deterrents in the form of Star Wars, etc. though...
Threads really shocked me. Nuclear war should not be threaded lightly.
This in a early cold war era US vs USSR Armageddon scenario, not a 202x scenario.
Plausible scenarios today are:
- Russia using a nuke in Ukraine and earning the hate of every single country in the world. China and India try to remain neutral but they would almost certainly drop support for Russia if they break the nuclear taboo. This would not even require a nuclear response to solve.
- Kim doing something stupid.
If putin keeps the radiation from spilling into nato territory its not enough to start ww3.
Despite cnn's lies, nato doesn't actually care much for ukraine, they just see this as a way to do damage indirectly to an enemy they want to hurt.
Nato isn't interested in committing suicide, afterall nuclear war benefits noone.
Honestly I see the ukraine situation either ending with a discussion that cedes at least the 2 "republics" on the border, or small yield nukes being used on small targets to scare ukraine to the negotiation table.
The reality is russia can last enough in war but ukraine is pretty tough and has nearly the same if not even more men than russia fielded.
they will almost certainly negotiate.
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The only way I can see Russia going nuclear is if the West becomes directly involved in the conflict, Putin sees it as the existential end of Russia, and decides to take the murder-suicide route. Let’s hope it never gets to that point.
It seems as though at least one of the simulated parties has a current doctrine of trying to destroy power plants and food distribution hubs, we'd have to assume that will be part of an apocalyptic exchange.
Given the state of economic "optimization" our current systems are operating under I would imagine that even if the enemy did not strike energy and food distribution centers on purpose these systems would fall apart pretty quickly. Redundancy and resilience costs money, money that would not land in certain pockets if spent.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is this assumption of retaliation grounded in the reality of our political systems or perhaps a theory of modern warfare that I'm missing? Don't get me wrong, it sound very plausible, but that is exactly why I'm questioning it and would like to expand my understanding so that it's grounded in something more than just a hunch.
No. After seeing the devastation, the population would demand not to escalate.
The MIC was doing its job very well back then to make a multi-trillion war happen.
But otherwise I'm much more pessimistic about narrative around "retaliation" because I think when shit hits fan, MAD doesn't just extends to nations trading nukes but eradicating their entire alliance network that can help rebuild as well. US cold war nuke plans on USSR included nuking PRC just in case. USSR was going to make sure Europe was a wasteland that couldn't help wasteland US rebuild. On paper US/USSR had thousands of nukes because you need multiple for counter-force on harden targets. On secret paper, it's counter value your entire rival block to ensure anyone who can be potential threat after, aren't.
There is no room for 'retaliation' in reality. All the superpowers' defense systems are set up to launch in around ~10 minutes if they detect a nuclear launch from the other side. So, all these 'they used nuclear weapons first so we have to retaliate' delirium in the press is totally nonsense. There is no such 'first - second' in a war between nuclear superpowers. They launch simultaneously within ~15 minutes and destroy each other and entire world within ~40 minutes. (includes flight time of the slowest ballistic missile)
The US has been somewhat open about the immense difficulty of keeping it's nuclear arsenal working reliably and has demonstrated at least some capability to intercept nuclear payloads.
Russian state of it's arsenal is likely going to be worse and the actual ability of the US to intercept is likely going to be better.
One of the things we knew during the cold war was that nuclear war would be the ruin of society. It was rightly feared. Keeping the peace between the two nuclear powers wasn't seen as a sign of weakness, everyone realized the alternative. Aside from the immediate millions of deaths, the longer term (ie after the first day) effects would be capital C Catastrophic, even if the threat of nuclear winter was overstated.
I read this as: oh it wouldn't be so bad. We could probably shoot many of them; and many won't make it, probably. This is incredibly optimistic; Russia has started modernization of its nuclear arsenal long before us because it has a stronger reliance on nuclear deterrence in defensive capability than we do.
At the time of writing this, this is also the top voted comment. Simply terrifying. Every day I have the fear we're going to head straight into the new Cuban missile crisis and one that we may not be so lucky to escape.
The crisis happened because the usa put bombs in turkiye which is super close to the ussr.
Now the usa has bombs in turkiye and other nato members near russia.
The issue is that we can't handle what we dish out, I guarantee if russia station nukes further than we stationed them to russia that we would freak out and threaten nuclear apocalypse.
the usa makes unnecessary enemies by acting hypocritical and basically pushing other nations around.
At one point we could have gotten russia in nato and could have slowly influenced it to be like the rest of nato.
Instead we gave them the middle finger and created a jaded enemy that wants to be the ussr again because we treated them as the ussr.
Russia and the US have something like 5000 nukes each. Many if not all of those nukes are way more powerful than the ones that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Even if only a small fraction of them make it, they'd likely be enough to completely destroy every major city in both countries... and cities are where almost the entire population lives. Plenty of remote areas will likely be hit too, because that's where the missile launch sites and military bases are.
All those huge "impregnable" bunkers you see in movies that were supposed to house governments in case of nuclear war were quietly decommissioned because it was realized that they couldn't survive hits from modern nuclear weapons and there's no way to hide them from today's surveillance technology.
So in an all-out nuclear war probably most everyone in Russia and the US would die from direct hits.. and that doesn't include knock-on effects from radiation poisoning and fallout, nuclear winter, complete infrastructural and governmental collapse (ie. no clean water to drink, all the animals dead, no food and perhaps even no ability to grow food).
As for other countries, I'd read that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the UK general in charge of his country's nuclear arsenal met his Russian counterpart and him whether he thought the movie Threads was an accurate depiction of what would happen in a nuclear war between the two countries. The Russian general laughed and said the entire UK was designated an overkill zone.
Russia is a near equal to america in its nuclear tech and absolutely has the firepower needed to induce MAD back at us.
Its the dumbest thing to think for a second that its a good idea to push for any kind of war with russia because it runs the risk of a game over for all nations involved.
places like the uk are absolutely done for, the whole island would be a mess.
Had to look it up, seems the movie was seen as optimistic ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film):
"[...] a dramatic account of nuclear war and its effects in Britain, specifically on the city of Sheffield in Northern England. [...] A third and final attack targets primary economic targets such as the Tinsley Viaduct. This third attack causes massive structural damage to Sheffield; the blast and heat kill an estimated 12 to 30 million people in the U.K. in the wider exchange. [...]"
How on earth we as in humanity want to keep weapons around that would render us this way is still beyond my comprehension.
I also don’t know that I want to be a survivor of a nuclear war. I will be honest, don’t think I could handle it. I have dogs and a wife that needs specialized care. Just thinking about the terrible things that could happen to them alone and not even getting into the rest of the people I care about has already managed to depress me now.
I’d rather avert circumstances than even risk exchanging nukes
Up until recently Russia was sending up American astronauts on Soyuz rockets to the ISS because they had a reliable system (based on the R7 ICBM) and we didn't.
> and the actual ability of the US to intercept is likely going to be better.
Intercepting ICBMs is orders of magnitudes more difficult than intercepting theater weapons like scuds because of the velocities involved.
This simulation was of 10% of each nations arsenal. If Russia launches 20% of their arsenal then it should make up for any amount of failure (and interception is likely to be negligible).
Worries me that we have so much motivated thinking trying to discount the risks of nuclear war these days. That's how you wind up in a nuclear war just like the one suggested here.
Suggests that the US is not behind. If Wikipedia has that information it is likely that we’re already several decades ahead, in fact.
As for the US being "behind", the US was developing and testing endo-atmospheric hypersonic missile platforms as far back as the 1980s. Russia et al designed hypersonic weapons with significantly compromised terminal guidance performance, a compromise the US will not accept in operational systems. Terminal guidance is the hardest technical problem when designing long-range endo-atmospheric hypersonic weapons. That the US is starting to move these systems toward production after 30-40 years of research suggests that they've solved the problem of terminal guidance to their satisfaction.
These inspections don't actually test the functionality, but we should have a pretty good idea of the condition of their nuclear arsenal, as they have of ours, as that is part of how MAD works.
From that page:
Implementation: The information provided through the treaty’s implementation contributes to reducing the risk of strategic surprise, mistrust, and miscalculations that can result from excessive secrecy or decisions based on worst-case assumptions. Since the New START Treaty’s entry into force, as of late January 2022, the two parties have conducted:
* 328 on-site inspections
* 24,000+ notifications exchanged
* 19 meetings of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, and
* 42 biannual data exchanges on strategic offensive arms subject to the treaty.
Treaty Duration: The treaty’s original duration was 10 years (until February 5, 2021), with the option for the Parties to agree to extend it for up to an additional five years. The United States and Russian Federation agreed on a five-year extension of New START to keep it in force through February 4, 2026. The treaty includes a withdrawal clause that is standard in arms control agreements.
Russian Compliance: Although the United States has raised implementation-related questions and concerns with the Russian Federation through diplomatic channels and in the context of the BCC, the United States has determined annually since the treaty’s entry into force, across multiple administrations, the Russian Federation’s compliance with its treaty obligations.
U.S. Compliance: The United States is in compliance with its New START obligations. The Russian Federation has criticized U.S. procedures used to convert B-52H heavy bombers and Trident-II SLBM launchers. The United States stands by its conversion procedures, which render the converted SLBM launchers and heavy bombers incapable of employing nuclear weapons thereby removing them from accountability under the treaty.
Whether the entire six thousand or so warheads would explode, or the one-and-a-half thousand deployed missiles would actually reach their targets is anyone's guess.
However, bearing in mind that even one nuclear explosion is capable of killing about a million people, if detonated in an urban center, it really just takes a comparative handful of working weapons, say 1-2%, to kill as many people outright, in the initial explosions, as the number that died in the whole of WW2[0].
[0]: 1-2% of 6000 = 60-120, 60 to 120 * 1million = 60 to 120 million, around the same ballpark as deaths in WW2. That's obviously just the initial direct deaths, there would obviously be many more (an order of magnitude, at least) from follow-on effects. And this is ridiculously low-balling the estimate for how many of the warheads would be delivered to target: a more realistic estimate would be like, 90%.
Unlikely. The Russians have an actually effective interception system: nuclear-tipped interceptor missiles. For political or environmental reasons, the US doesn't use those. Everything we use has at best a fifty percent interception rate and the Russians have more reentry vehicles than we have interceptor missiles.
they know its their best trump card and they want to "win" by killing us more efficiently.
If you have not done it until now, here's a link for the full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-phsyn3KQM
Just don't blame me for the miserable tight stomach afterwards... :-/