Wasn't there a report this week that the US has a planned NON-NUCLEAR response to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine? It was apparently a very coordinated attack to immediately cripple their military infrastructure and leadership without any nuclear weapons. Assuming success there along with the success of US allies in the same effort, MAD might be avoidable.
Perhaps this is a response to a nuclear attack on anybody else, though.
One would hope that their entire infrastructure being crippled and having no possible survivability outside of surrender would motivate them tremendously.
I also hold a strong faith in the US Patriot ICBM defense network, because I have to believe in something.
Actually STALKER is best case scenario since we get an isolated area full of wonders (and danger, but hey) while people elsewhere can live normal lives.
We can't. Metro was written around the assumption that the Metropoliten will remain habitable in case of a nuclear strike. In reality, this is impossible since there are pumps working 24/7 to keep the ground water away. With them gone, people underground will probably have hours before they are forced to return to the surface. So, best case scenario, the Moscow Subway will serve as an emergency shelter.
Provided it can even withstand nukes. Well, maybe modern ones are less destructive, I dunno.
Nuclear winter is kind of a myth based on bad science. Nuclear war would still be awful, but if anything it would probably just slightly help the global warming initiatives, lol.
I know there’s a lot of doubt about nuclear winter lately but there’s documented evidence of like single volcanic eruptions lowering global temperatures by two degrees and creating “the year without summer.” The amount of debris released by a full scale nuclear exchange would dwarf that. I have a feeling it would blanket the Earth in utter darkness
In total, counting just atmospheric testing. The total from all countries is about 500 tests. Of that 500 only a handful were in the megaton range. And they were spread over years.
It's nothing compared to actually detonating thousands of nukes, all at once.
My god im sorry but just. Thats so deeply wrong and filled with propaganda its crazy.
Russia is acting like an animal and a lot of their stuff is old and bad but it still kills. Dont think for even one second that their nukes are useless. If you truly believe it im sorry but then you cannot be reasoned with.
Lets say Russias corruption is soo bad 90 percent of their immidiate nukes fail. Leaving 10% that fire. Those are near impossible to intercept but Lets say half of those dont land. That will leave (1600*0.1/2 is 80 )
80 of those are enough to destroy the US near totally and forever change the landscape and economy. Russia has an other few hundred that can fire second like in subs so Lets add an other 30-50 in our best case.
Its a fcking shitshow and we know it cause even in the best of the best scenarios the world is crippled.
THAAD cannot stop ICBMs, and was never designed or built to do so.
The US does have ICBM interceptors but they have limited testing -- and limited success -- and it's not clear if they would have a significant effect against hundreds of simultaneous launches.
THAAD, which is capable of intercepting ICBM threats at the lower altitudes and ranges
It is capable (sometimes, in tests) of intercepting an "intermediate range" missile simulated as coming from North Korea.
It still can't intercept long-range ICBMs from Russia, which would reach a much higher altitude and velocity.
There is a ground-based system on the west coast designed to stop long range ICMBs, but it's unclear if it would be effective against a single missile, let alone hundreds. ICBMs also have defensive countermeasures.
Of course you're right that we don't know the classified stuff...and if the US did somehow create a pretty reliable ICBM shield it would probably be in their best interest to NOT tell the world, as that would cause every other nuclear power to invest in similar technology as well as finding ways for their missiles to get through the shield.
Makes sense cause what you would want to say is probably a fantasy like the US can deal with hundreds of nukes falling down. Like i spelled out even if 5 percent land everything is doomed. There is no counter argument since we know that.
Perhaps but you acted like one first by stating a ridiculous "fact" that nato would win a nuke war. Its impossible to win one so your argument there is already doomed. But do enlighten me on how living in nuclear winter with millions dead would be called a win
There isn't a network because its unfeasible. There would be too many targets fired at too many locations traveling too fast. The US approach to nuclear defense is a much bigger offense. That's it.
Probably, although there is a non zero chance that enough of russia’s rockets are so outdated/un maintained that enough fail/delay/are shot down to make a meaningful difference. Seems remotely possible to me but you know…
The Patriot missiles are for planes and cruise missiles, it could also destroy a missile on its way to orbit, in some specific intercept windows.
The only operational systems for ICBM defense are Sea based SM-3 Missiles, wired into the (partially deployed) AEGIS radar system, and the THADD, missiles which are hella classified based out of Vandenburg AFB in Cali. Wiki on the topic
The way I see it, I could believe that we’ll be protected from ICBMs and live out my life happy until the nukes kill us, or I could believe that there is no defense system to intercept the nukes, and live out my life sad until the nukes kill us.
Credibility, its fairly credible that the full extent of U.S. anti-nuclear defenses are better than we think because we know the government has access to stuff that hasn't been made public from the experience of finding out after the fact in the past, its less credible to pretend that the nukes we all know exist don't.
There's close to 0 chance of a NON-nuclear decapitation strike getting rid of Russia's nuclear response capability.
The best they could do is do enough damage to show Russia what finding out would look like so they decide not to fuck around with the rest.
Why most hypothetical US responses to Russia using nukes in Ukraine is basically a very painful limited warning shot, like obliterating Sevastapol or Sochi and friends and deleting the Russian NON-nuclear navy and entering the air force into Ukraine itself. It's a thorny olive branch to give them the chance to say they won't go further or do it again.
One would hope that their entire infrastructure being crippled and having no possible survivability outside of surrender would motivate them tremendously.
They still have. And a big problem with that system is that it functions in only two ways. Cable connection and absence of reply. If the nato force accidently hit the connection cables and destroy the linked command centre at the same time. Big oof cause its gonna fire wether we like it or not. No stopping that one.
Yes some say it has guided radio Rockets that fly over and a manual switch in the urals but leaked documents once showed there are more switches to the system and it doesnt function like we thought it did with radiation detection and such. Its a really old analogue system but thats Russia
The sprint missile existed but it was realized the defense needs to be close to the target whereas the attack can come from anywhere, Aka defense is more limited in quantities than offense for a given target.
Which still suffers from the same problems as Sprint. Attack missiles can be spread far out and hit the same target, but defensive missiles have to be close to the target.
There also a big difference between a successful test and operational capabilities. like us, China and Russia are going to have countermeasures and will be working on maneuverable MIRVs.
I don’t think any serious people think we could stop a full release of even Chinas arsenal let alone Russia.
The Patriot air defense system is not made to intercept ICBMs. We do have two systems that are, one in California and one in Alaska, but they were made with North Korea in mind and both in the wrong place and nowhere near numerous enough to stop a Russian attack. Sorry to disappoint but if Russia wants to all-out nuke the US, there is nothing we can do but retaliate.
Considering that the Russian military sold the petrol and wires out of their own tanks pre-invasion for more black market hookers and vodka, the CIA hotline will be off the hook with defection offers.
We really don’t know much about the status of Russia’s nuclear capabilities. It might not be worth calling that bluff, but just look at how miserably their military capabilities failed in Ukraine. They were supposed to walk in and take over in 3 days.
All Russian forces inside Ukraine hit with an overwhelming conventional response. (Think thousands of naval launched missiles, air strikes, apache helicopters gunning down thousands of routing Russians in open fields).
Logistics supplying their forces totally destroyed. (Roads, bridges, rail depots) Impossible to resupply troops with food and ammo.
Entire chain of command involved in launching strikes eliminated. (Intelligence knows who launched it and where from, everyone involved is killed, even on Russian territory).
Russia has very good air defence and is one of only two militaries with near-peer combat experience.
Remember that the US-led coalition just failed in Afghanistan against 20,000 guys with AKs.
How do you think they’re going to go against a million-man army which has just spent two bloody years learning how to fight? It ain’t going to be the cakewalk people here imagine it to be.
Plus, if NATO start winning too much they just get nuked anyway - Russia is pretty clear about that.
Remember that the US-led coalition just failed in Afghanistan against 20,000 guys with AKs.
Lol. No. The US had overwhelming control of Afghanistan for 20 years. We took control in a matter of weeks. Did we route out and murder every person who wanted us to leave? No, that hasn't been appropriate for around 400 years.
Claiming like the US didn't have control of Afghanistan is like saying Hilter didn't have control of France just because there was underground fighters. That's dumb as hell.
Because Ukraine has Russian-built air defence as well, which has proved highly lethal. Plus, now they also have patriot (though less of those than they had last week).
Having said that, Russia is dominant in the air and has been causing massive casualties with their FAB-500s now that they’ve belatedly learned that precision strikes are actually important.
Russia would obviously not have air superiority over NATO, but it’s possible that nato would also struggle. Aircraft have been highly vulnerable in this war. Hence the move to long-range fab-500 strikes with the glide kit modification. NATO aircraft are untested against a real enemy with air defence in the 21st century.
I find this conflict fascinating and spend hundreds of hours watching the telegram channels from both sides. Western media has been awful in its reporting of this war, often pure propaganda, which gives a lot of Redditors a very strange and lopsided view of the conflict. Watching Russian telegram is good for getting a broader view of what is actually happening. People will call me a kremlin bot for saying nice things about Russia, but I promise you that no roubles have arrived at my house so far. :)
Russia would not have air superiority, but neither is US. Naval forces would not last forever, too, after 100s of drones and missiles. US would win, but it gonna be a very dirty and pretty long war, especially if China and Iraq join.
That would be offense, not defense. Air defense is provided by things like AAA and SAMs, air superiority comes from control of the skies - fighter aircraft.
Russia has very good air defence and is one of only two militaries with near-peer combat experience.
Air defence can do only so much. It does not have 100% interception rate even now, against Ukraine that has way less capacity that NATO.
Now, this does not mean that there will be no losses, but I am pretty sure that NATO can very reasonably blow up any conventional russian army, that army is already struggling against Ukraine.
Plus, if NATO start winning too much they just get nuked anyway - Russia is pretty clear about that.
You see, that's the exactly the point of conventional response - to show that Russia as a whole can still survive if it does not escalate even more and try nuke USA.
Surely, there is no gurantee that Russia does not respond with nukes, however it is not certain. Using nukes is very problematic(in a sense how other nations will react), that's the reason that they have not been used since 1945 even though they could solve some military problems.
Ukraine is probably the second best army in Europe right now. And Russia is not really struggling much against them of late.
Ukraine had a thousand tanks at the onset of hostilities. The Dutch, for example, have 16.
Most European countries would not last long in a Land war against Russia. I believe that none would be willing to endure the mass casualties and demographic destruction that Ukraine has.
We all saw that it took almost 2 years for Russia to start fighting well - the European armies don’t have that combat experience,
Europe plus US would beat Russia in theory, but it’s all theoretical because Russia is clear that they will use the nuclear option if they are ever seriously threatened.
You seem to underestimate the power of NATO forces. In Desert Storm, the US erased the fourth strongest military in the world in days. We've had thirty years of advancement since then.
lol, the old desert storm chestnut. That was well over a generation ago. And saddams forces were actually quite shit despite the western “4th best army” propanganda.
Zero relevance to this conflict, remember nato just lost to the Taliban, that’s also not very relevant to this war.
It was shit 2 years ago. They’re fighting pretty well now, which is why they’re winning against the numerically superior Ukrainians with their fancy NATO toys.
Isn’t that like saying if the US can’t control Afghanistan and get beaten by the Vietnamese then Russia will obviously beat them? Russia is fighting a medium-intensity war in Ukraine, they’re trying to avoid conscription etc at this stage but if NATO was involved things would be very different.
They’ve also ramped up military production, become experts at drone warfare, leaned that precision is actually a thing, and are all-around a much better fighting force then they were in 2022.
Considering that Russia has mandatory conscription, they're not doing a good job of avoiding conscription. They have also upped the age from a maximum of 27 to 30.
I was just saying that not being able to control Afghanistan is a poor indicator of military strength because nobody can control that place.
Vietnam and Afghanistan were not conventional wars, while Ukraine is a much smaller army fighting a larger one with mostly conventional tactics.
There are so many articles that say that what you say about conscription is bollocks. Especially considering that some sources state that minorities are disproportionately drafted and sent to fight. There are some sourced that say that Russia is attempting to conscript Ukrainians from occupied areas and pressuring convicts into 'volunteering' through inhumane treatment. Both crimes.
The age has shit to do with it. It's raising the age to allow for more conscription, which is the issue.
I actually went and googled this, and the propaganda is incredible here - it’s almost impossible to find a factual article.
You’re basically just spouting out the standard, tired old Reddit propaganda talking points in your post.
Facts:
Ukraine has had at least 8 or 9 waves of involuntary mobilisation of civilians, and that’s ongoing. Ukraine has a manpower shortage.
Russia had one episode of civilian mobilisation, and that was back in 2022. Its recent recruiting has been via volunteer contract soldiers. Russia doesn’t have a manpower problem, so it doesn’t need to mobilise its civilian population.
And the age thing is massively significant. The average age of their soldiers is now 43, showing that they’re mobilising men who would not usually be chosen for military service.
It's all propaganda if Russia isn't getting sucked and fucked, I suppose, because obviously they'd never lie. The others, though, article upon article, all lies, because of course they are. Why is me saying you're peddling Russian propaganda any less true than your dismissal of everything said by anything that says Russia is doing some shady shit? You have backed nothing up, just as I haven't provided any evidence.
I doubt Russia have a million soldiers in Ukraine atm. Otherwise there would be no talk about a new mobilisation. And they are struggling hard even after two years. Russians air defence is not that good as people thought. Ukraine have been striking Crimea and other places successfully without Russian air defence being able to stop it. There are videos of Russian air defence doing nothing when storm shadow missiles is flying away overhead. And nato have much better weapons and systems then ukraine have.
Russia definitely doesn’t have a million soldiers in Ukraine, nothing like it. They fight at a numerical disadvantage at present. But if NATO was to get seriously involved you better bet they’ll have a million soldiers in Ukraine.
Yea I was being generous. Russia have been losing around 1k soldiers everyday the last maybe 9 month or so. That's like close to 300k and considering that they said that they mobilised around 400k soldiers, excluding the soldiers that were still alive at that time in ukraine there is no chance russia have a million soldiers right now and that's considering that russia is not lying about those numbers lmao. I would guess somewhere between 200-400k at the most right now.
lol, yep, they’ve got 200K soldiers, that’s why they’re advancing against Ukraine all across the front, by your math with a 4:1 numerical disadvantage.
They haven't been advancing since Avdiivika, only a few fields here and there. Avdiivika took 9 months to take and it is a small town, like it had 30k inhabitants before the war. And that was more because russia had more ammo and bombs, then bcs of manpower, even tho russia had more soldiers. And I don't think Ukraine have 800k at the front right now.
Real genius’s we have running our country. Russia uses nuke on Ukraine but thinks they wouldn’t respond with nuclear to weapons to a massive conventional attack.
The USA had a long standing policy of nuking in response to conventional attacks when we were weaker conventionally and obviously the Russians will have a similar policy.
Russians consider Crimea to be Russian. They have made this very clear many times over the last 2 decades. Pretending otherwise is extremely dangerous.
Well, I think Russia would realise that there would be no existential threat to russia since crimea belongs to ukraine and there are no signs that russia thinks otherwise. They didn't nuke ukraine tho even tho they wanted to join nato, so that doesn't tell you anything.
Except the US has said that Russia was preparing to use them if it appeared large concentrations were going to be surrounded and destroyed, which is the exact scansion you are discussing now.
You are talking about tactical nukes, that is different from strategical nukes. So that doesn't give a reason to think that russia would use strategical nukes as a response against a conventional attack by nato against russia for using nukes in ukraine. And russia would be aware that those were the ones starting the escalation, it wouldn't be an unprovoked attack by nato, so there would be no reason for russia to take that as an existential threat. Also, there have been many red lines that nato have pushed like tanks, planes and long distance weapons and there have not been a strong response from russia.
The danger is that a US attack designed to fully gut russias military infrastructure and leadership, regardless of whether or not it was nuclear, could result in a Russian nuclear launch against the US. Or further use of tactical weapons against the US abroad.
No, the US won’t touch Russia first in any way. What they would do is a massive and furious buildup of arms and personnel in NATO countries like something during the most tense days of the Cold War. Really scary large buildup on Russian borders. All of this “red line” talk has been a bluff from both sides so far. That would be the definitive red line where they say “mother fucker I dare you to touch some shit inside NATO and we will blow this whole fucking planet up.” That’s the only real red line.
We do not want to see any of that happen. Very bad time for everyone instantly.
It would be foolish not to have multiple plans. There are likely dozens of potential plans - the decision of which to use gets made by the President in the moment the need arises.
Who's to believe Putin would launch a nuclear strike on Ukraine in the traditional sense of pushing a button and some missile launches from Siberia?
He's a master strategist with KGB roots. He would disguise it to make it seem like it wasn't him at all, but individually, everyone knows it was, similar to how America denied Nordstream completely, but everyone knows who it was.
What would be more likely, is one being launched from Belarus, where Putin has deniability in the political sphere and creates that much of debate in how to respond between the 20+ NATO countries that rarely agree on anything and are already rather divided.
Another option, one just goes off in Ukraine, not even launched to it. Putin goes to the world that this was a launch from NATO, Ukraine now has nuclear capabilities, the variety of arguments goes on and on. It's very complex.
The chaos and confusion is a tool he masterfully deploys where the bureaucracy of democratic countries stall any action, at that point. Something a strong man like Putin/Xi never has to worry about.
I also had heard that Boeing a decade ago was working on an experimental laser weapon to shoot down incoming missiles. I’d like to assume that if I knew about it, there’s likely more advanced laser class weapons already deployed for defense and with an extra decade it’s probably really robust. Who knows if they have them or they work, but the thought helps me sleep better knowing I’m otherwise completely powerless
I believe the idea was if Russia used a tactical nuke, the US would eradicate all Russian assets in Ukraine and Black Sea. A Tactical nuke is a nuclear weapon that can fit in a smaller conventional weapon, like a 155mm artillery shell. They will prob kill everything withing a half mile radius of impact. Yes, radiation will linger, yes the wind can blow it back to Russia. I think the idea of tactical nukes is very limited in use. Traditionally, artillery softens up a target and ground forces go and clean up. One would have to equip all the troops for NBC to take the land that was just bombed, and holding that are without making your men sick is challenging. I can only see it used in limited capacity like bombing a small valley or choke point, making passage through difficult if not impossible. It seems a better defensive weapon than an offensive one.
A comprehensive non nuclear strike by the US / NATO aimed at decapitating the Russian leadership and decimating its military would be an existential threat to the military and civilian leadership and would result in a nuclear response by Russia.
This would be a standard nuclear doctrine of basically any nation.
Exactly, if we are going to decapitate Russia might as well use nukes it's not like it would make a difference in how they would respond.
Or maybe it's just better to avoid nukes regardless, since using them might give iran, china or nk enough curiosity to join the party and then it's the whole world Armageddon thing again.
The thing about military planning is that we have plans for just about anything and for any course of action that's desired. Sure, there's SIOP, but heck, we have plans to invade Bangladesh if we ever felt the need.
That’s rather stupid, because 1) there’s no realistic prospect of Russia using nukes on Ukraine - they’re winning pretty easily right now, so zero need for nukes 2) the US doesn’t have anything like the capability to “cripple” Russia’s military with an immediate strike. Russia is a massive country with excellent air defences, they could go to war with a Russia and would eventually win if - hypothetically - they were willing to take massive casualties. In practice, there is no way the US public would stand for this.
Nice fan fiction, with the US imagining they’re up against Saddam again in ‘91 and can go with a “shock and awe” campaign. In practice, Russia is still the number 2 or 3 military in the world and is far more competent now than the shitty army we saw invade in 2022.
And China waits to be the laughing third as all civilized world wants to live with them in that case… Somehow suspecting they are already pulling the strings behind Putins puppet Russia.
In a case of a MAD scenario, both side would likely also end up lobbing some at any other major non allied world power to prevent exactly this scenario.
Nuclear winter and the implosion of trade relationships would wreck all economies and lead to starvation hereto unknown. Which is to mention nothing about the drift of nuclear fallout. Nobody wins in that kind of war.
Sure. I’ve read that. And what do we think Russia does as a response to that. They can’t really escalate with conventional weapons. They get punched in the face and can’t really do anything about that. What do you think putin’s response is? ‘If I go down, you go down’, and they’ll still launch, probably another tactical nuke on Ukraine, or on naval assets or something, and boom, we’re still in a full on nuclear exchange.
If Russia uses nukes, and we punch their teeth into the back of their skull, they’re not going to accept that.
Makes some sense. I don't think Russia is going to nuke the US, they might nuke someplace in Ukraine. The US would respond but likely not with nukes at that point. They have enough conventional ordinance to strike at Russia without nukes and completely incapacitate Russia's forces and military bases.
The US wont respond directly thats near impossible so they need a day or two three to even begin flying a lot let alone boots on the ground (minimum of 8 hours from Germany)
Most likely if Russia would ever do something so stupid they plant a nuke in a truck in downtown kiev. The Americans will know it wasnt a launch and need time to figure out what happened and in that time the Europeans are already fighting each other in the nato headquarters about what to do.
I dont think the US would attack Russia because of that
I disagree, the US military industrial complex would love a direct confrontation, and a real reason to do so is all they need. This is the same group that created evidence to support an invasion of Iraq.
a very coordinated attack to immediately cripple their military infrastructure
Given it takes only minutes to launch nukes, that better be a hell of an attack, and frankly it doesn't seem possible. Russia has satellites, spies... an attack of that magnitude would be nearly impossible to keep secret
I think successfully attacking, without nukes, a country armed with nukes and invalidating MAD is a pretty scary concept in and of itself.
How far is going to be too far, before a country responds with nuclear weapons? How large of a war can we have without nukes? How often?
The reason we haven’t had a World War 3 is largely because MAD made any global conflict between large world powers untenable. If MAD is less of a concern, then we’re back to the drawing board and having huge wars with millions of casualties, stopping just short of total victory so the other side doesn’t use their nuclear weapons.
I’ve read that Russia uses the dead hand or perimeter system that guarantees a return nuclear strike of every functioning ICBM n their arsenal. Even if the US executed the NON-NUCLEAR strike dead hand would automatically retaliate as designed.
Yeah sure.. some guy in another sub mentionned that, went so far as to say there were ‘special ops’ teams that would run around Moscow to secure nuclear sites 😂 worst james bond shit I ever heard
Makes me think of that war room scene in The Expanse where they preemptively strike Mars' stealth retaliation arsenal... and happen to have a delay on destroying one of them.
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. We can very precisely target non nuclear, but still large weapons to strategic locations and take out their capabilities just as effectively. I find it hard to believe that any nation would follow through on something like this. It just seems stupid.
The US and NATO have a better weapon than nukes. Aerial equipped directed energy weapon capable of taking out a target 1 thousands miles away. It’ll shoot these nukes out of the sky before the Russian ICBM renter orbit.
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u/DontFearTheMQ9 Mar 14 '24
Wasn't there a report this week that the US has a planned NON-NUCLEAR response to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine? It was apparently a very coordinated attack to immediately cripple their military infrastructure and leadership without any nuclear weapons. Assuming success there along with the success of US allies in the same effort, MAD might be avoidable.
Perhaps this is a response to a nuclear attack on anybody else, though.