Anaxagoras
Banned
My thoughts exactly. Sure, this scenario involves an exchange of ten thousand weapons rather than forty thousand, but for all practical purposes the world is still toast.
2008 Thermonuclear War
- Thread starter John Farson
- Start date
My thoughts exactly. Sure, this scenario involves an exchange of ten thousand weapons rather than forty thousand, but for all practical purposes the world is still toast.
lordapocalipsis
Banned
so, any case USA and Russia are goona suffer more, Europe a little,
the southern hemispheres could take advantage of the stituation?
the southern hemispheres could take advantage of the stituation?
I was talking about external politics. One scenario posited that Europe sat this out. However, if Beijing was attacked, then you'd naturally turn the Europeans into bloody rage against you, as well as alienate any possible allies across the rest of the world. Plus, even if the US began this, if Russia launched an attack on Beijing you would almost certainly see future historians justify the nuclear attack on Russia as one to take out a 'clearly immoral and world-hating' state, or something like that.
This is a FULL EXCHANGE scenario. By the time it was over there wouldn't be a major city, hell medium sized community, in the Northern Hemisphere left. The same goes for every significant oil refinery on Earth. The probability of the exchange expanding to all other nuclear powers (India & Pakistan in particular, with India reacting to the certain attacks by the PRC, and Pakistan reacting to India's use).
There is some chance that some of the major cities in the Southern Hemisphere would survive, one has to assume that the modern version of SIOP has changed to take the smaller inventory into account, but the North is simply gone.
You will see famine on a scale never before experienced with the loss of U.S. and Canadian supplies, although this will be slightly offset by the vastly smaller population of the Northern Hemisphere, especially Japan and China. The lack of transport for grain from other surviving exporters will make the situation even worse. Africa will lose at least half its population by the end of 2009.
Nuclear scenarios are depressingly easy to describe.
One thing is certain, no one will give a damn about public opinion.
Europe would be devastated. The UK and France are both NATO members and nuclear powers. Germany still is host to significant U.S. military bases and one would have to be mad to believe that the Russians would leave a strong Germany to survive in a war of total destruction. No one in Russia would wait to see what the other nuclear powers were planning to do, nuclear war doesn't work that way. It is all based on a strike plan that is pre-written, you simply don't have time to do much else. Probably 80% of the weapons are used or lost in the first hour (this used to be much higher, but the relative reduction of land based weapons as part of the Triad means that more weapons are likely to survive the first strike/counter-strike).
The Southern Hemisphere is likely to do much better than in the scenarios from the 1980s due to the reduction in available warheads. The difficulty will be the lack of food and fuel. The world will not have any refineries or major oil export facilities left, they are prime targets, mainly to deny them to the enemy in the post exchange world, so no oil to speak of will be available. Without fuel, and without the granaries of the U.S. and Canada, the countries that are reliant on import of food (which is most nations on Earth) will suffer severe famine. Expect half of Africa and the undamaged parts of Asia to die in the year after the exchange. South America will have serious famine, although it may be slightly less severe and be more transport related that actual food availability (I haven't seen recent data on imports to the Continent).
This all assumes that the REAL Pale Horse doesn't appear. If the Russians still have an active Bio-weapons program, all bets are off. Even if Moscow didn't use it, the chances of the germs getting loose due to something as simple as a power failure/containment failure is exceptionally high. For that matter the horde of nastiness (small-pox Anthrax, etc.) that exists in the various Northern Hemisphere Level Four Labs could provide quite the pandemic.
Let's look first on US and Russia strategic Nuclear Stockpile in 2008 (source Wiki in several language)
USA
2200 warheads (in total 1826 MT)
450 Minuteman III ICBM
288 Trident II D-5 SLBM on submarines
113 Bombers:
93 B-52 H
20 B-2 Stealth Bomber
Russian
4147 warheads (in total 2373 MT)
104 heavy ICBM
207 mobile light ICBM
12 submarines carrying with total 609 warheads
79 bombers carrying with total 884 cruise missiles.
but this will be not use totally
the USA keep a portion of strategic Nuclear Stockpile back
In case of Russia strike back after US nuclear strike or China use the opportunity to attack
what China will NOT do
China leaders will look to the massive spectacle, how USA and Russia destroy each other.
and make plans who they take control of the leftovers of wester civilization...
USA
2200 warheads (in total 1826 MT)
450 Minuteman III ICBM
288 Trident II D-5 SLBM on submarines
113 Bombers:
93 B-52 H
20 B-2 Stealth Bomber
Russian
4147 warheads (in total 2373 MT)
104 heavy ICBM
207 mobile light ICBM
12 submarines carrying with total 609 warheads
79 bombers carrying with total 884 cruise missiles.
but this will be not use totally
the USA keep a portion of strategic Nuclear Stockpile back
In case of Russia strike back after US nuclear strike or China use the opportunity to attack
what China will NOT do
China leaders will look to the massive spectacle, how USA and Russia destroy each other.
and make plans who they take control of the leftovers of wester civilization...
If every nuclear decided to break out its arsenal, maybe, and even then India and China aren't capable of fully destroying each other.
Another problem with your supposition is that Russia and America simply don't have enough nukes. of the c. 6400 weapons available (demonstrated in the last post), how many are targeted at cities, and how many will even reach their targets? Also, who is doing the first strike? If it's America (which, in the OP, it seems to be), it's not like the Russians will get a chance to use anywhere near its full arsenal. And what it can use, will be directed at the US and its direct allies.
The reality is that, in today's environment, you have both sides using much more SLBM deployed weapons than in the past. These are far less vulnerable to counterforce than previous land based systems. You would have a number of systems that were able to survive and launch on targets, including the ability for retargeting based on data from up-linked satellites, either through TACAMO (or whatever today's code word is) or independent command orders from SSBN commanders operating under second strike authority. You also have the still present IRBM force of Russia that would be used against NATO.
Even of the Russians use only against NATO, "direct allies" and the U.S. (and the PRC, there is ZERO chance that the PRC is left alone here, by either side), that leaves pretty much all of the Northern Hemisphere a smoking hole, along with the Persian Gulf Region. India is likely, almost certain in fact, to be hit by the PRC and in return will strike back, usage against Pakistan is likely as well, with Pakistani response. If Russia goes after direct U.S. allies that would include Israel, putting the Israeli's into the "use 'em or lose 'em" category.
Nuclear War is not logical, it is impossible to limit, escalation is inevitable . There are far more than enough open source studies that demonstrate this. The birds fly, they all fly.
frlmerrin
Banned
Probably not. In the 1980s the Swedish Academy of Sciences did a study of the impact of a 10,000 Megaton exchange. As part of the study they discovered that both the USSR and the USA intended to fire upon the cities of both neutrals and allies in the southern hemisphere in order to prevent those countries from becoming possible competitors to themselves during the recovery period. Having said that 2012 is not the early 1980s and stockpiles are supposed to be smaller these days. It may well be that munitions could not be spared for this purpose?
It is interesting that in this scenario the rising superpower, China may not need to get involved. It would suffer terribly, probably famine, certainly fallout, perhaps taking several strikes but if it does not become fully engaged it will come out of the war as the world power and have more or less free access to the riches of western Siberia which does not contain that large a number of targets.
Europe would of course be involved, probably to the point of cinderhood but the French no longer have the Force Frape (Sp.?) and the British nuclear deterent is a vengence weapon, I think there is a good chance it would not be used.
whitecrow
Banned
Alex1guy, you are making a lot of assumptions. One, you assume Russian nuclear arsenal is crap. Two, you assume that even if Russian nuclear arsenal is crap the numerical superiority of Russian warheads won’t close the gap. Three, you assume US Missile Shield is good enough to stop Russian warheads. All the assertions are untested and can’t be tested unless there is a nuclear war. (So I hope they remain untested)I'm sorry, I don't see the Georgia conflict evolving into a nuclear war. Putin isn't that stupid and neither is Bush. Putin knows the USA would wipe Russia off the face of the earth. His goal is to have Eurasian supremacy and make Russia a great power again, not reduce it ash and radioactive ruin so he wouldn't fire first. Bush isn't that stupid either, he wouldn't risk a nuclear war over a little nobody nation (sorry to any Georgians) like Georgia, which has no strategic relevance to the USA whatsoever.
At most the USA might do a show of force and Russia via airstrikes against Russian targets in Georgia, but even that is far-fetched. I don't see a war, let alone a nuclear war from this at all, you don't go from, skirmish, to airstrikes, to nuclear ICBM's, it's not practical for either side and Russia would back down and wonder why on earth the USA was being so pushy. If the USA and the Soviet Union didn't go to war over bigger things, Russia and the USA aren't going to war over this.
Nuke's aren't used to make a point, nukes are used as a last ditch weapon when you see no other alternative. Yes in WWII there was an alternative, but it was an occasion when using nuclear bombs would result in LESS deaths. There isn't anyway for the USA or for Russia, in 2008 to feel like they need to resort to nuclear weapons. Tit for tat resulting in nukes is not plausible, unless you are going for one side outright invading the other and making a beeline for the capitol, something neither side would really be willing or would be able to do. Boring I know, but them's the breaks.
HOWEVER! Let's say Putin and Bush are dumber than a sack of hammers.
Damage wise, as others have pointed, the USA is going to flatten Russia, who wouldn't be able to compete on a nuclear level. Russia nuclear arsenal, while large, is poorly maintained and bringing it out of the closet for one last dance at the last minute isn't going to do Russia any favors. I disagree that the USA will become a third world nation, some major cities might be hit, but I doubt the Russian capacity to retaliate on a major level. It depends on who fires first, if it's the USA, then Russia probably wont be able to retaliate much, if its Russia, then I see a few cities being evapourated, and strategic sites bombed, but US anti-missile shields and a better arsenal will ensure many nukes never reach US soil. Europe is slightly different, they have missile shield to some extent too and a better arsenal (albeit an American controlled one). Also, would we be looking at a land assault?
As fro why a nuclear war would occur – I could see a gradual escalation leading to both sides getting very tense and saber-rattling with their nukes. Eventually maybe one side takes it too far and you get a 1983 Archer Incident analog go hot.
Could the European powers, seeing the rising tensions between US and Russia, promise to stay out of the growing conflict in exchange for Russia not turning off the gas and thus avoid being hit when nukes fly?
Yes they do; they have a very modern and very competent SSBN force receiving improved missiles. They still have air-delivered nuclear theatre weapons too. The only thing they've changed is removing the (obsolete) land-based component.
That is quite unclear. SSBNs are not just vengeance weapons to be used when other nukes have been used; they have a first-strike capability too. As to whether the UK (or French) nuclear weapons would be used, who'd know until the time? Hence deterrence.
I may seen excerpts of that study (God alone knows what obscure journal I found in the library that had it, lots of water under the bridge since them) or at least references. In any case it pretty much matches up with other open source materials I've come across over the years.
The thing that is generally forgotten is that Nuclear War isn't really war at all. It is a matter of ensuring that you defeat the enemy more permanently than he defeats you. That means you go after as much potential supporting infrastructure as you can, even if the enemy doesn't own it. If the enemy could use it, you hit it if you can. That is where you get the irony of BOTH SIDES hitting some targets, simply to be sure the other side is denied them.
I just am not sure that the 2008 inventory allows the Russians to slag Melbourne and Cape Town and the U.S. to do the same to Damascus.
frlmerrin
Banned
You are quite correct. I was refering to the land based component. It used to be common parlance in the Anglo-phone defence world that the Force Frape refered to the land based missiles. Since they got rid of them this practice has changed and I haven't, bad old me.
The capability for first strike against some targets is there but Government Policy has been that the submarine balistic missile force is a vengence weapon. This has never changed through various flavours of Prime minister, Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Major and Blair. Interestingly this was not the case with the long defunct V-bomber force.
lordapocalipsis
Banned
I agree that Sotuh America don't have enough oil reserves, even Venezuela could be a target for being anti USA
but in the topic of food, i could say, we could survive at least,
I'm not saying the Russian arsenal is crap, I just don't see Russia being able to compete in this situation, unless they are firing first. US systems are more up to date, yes they Americans are going to bleed a lot, but I see them surviving far better than Russia who is relying on antiquated systems and less coherent military. While the missile shields won't stop everything, they are bound so help to some degree. If the US fire first, many Russian missiles will be caught on the ground. I'm just going bywhat I've read on the nuclear notebook. Much of Russia's ICBm systems have been dismantled (500 silos cpaable of launching to 45 as of 2009) and most of it's tactical warheads and weapons are in storage. It's weapons lie mainly in naval yards and in it's fleets or which would be the target of American bombing first. Be clear, I don't think the USA is going to "win" I think the USA will "survive" in a very bad shape, but Russia is toast.
The thing with the Able Archer indicent is that we are dealing with Russia not the USSR, which are two different entities. Neither side is "on the button" like they were in the 80's and nuclear escaltion isn't the first thought of either administration in 2008.
Also, on China and Europe, in the event this went nuclear, they aren't getting out of this unscathed. For China, whether it's Russia taking them down with them, or Pakistan and India going hot, they are getting nuked. Russia isn't going to leave Europe alone, they are going for broke and Europe will fall too. The Olympics don't matter, public opinion in a nuclear war doesn't matter one iota. Credibility is already long gone by this point.
This is however assumuming this would ever happen. Over Georgia? No, that is ridiculous, one side would back down (if the USA even got involved). Georgia is not worth it for either side and to try and say it could escalate to be is ridiculous. A potential and very far-fetched one could be the 1995 Norwegian rocket incident, but not Georgia.
Orville_third
Banned
Given that an attack on the Roki Tunnel would be an attack on Russian soil, there would likely be a quick escalation in force.
But to go nuclear? I don't think so. As I have said, nuclear conflict is a last resort thing. I can't see either side getting that desperate.