The only people not scared of nuclear weapons seem to be Ukrainians. They do not give a fuck what Putin thinks and just keep fighting on.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
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@along_the_road Their existence is threatened anyway, so they are rightfully so. Plus, I do think their intelligence services know a thing or two about their arsenal, especially if it works or not.
Putin has effectively vowed (and for the better part of three years also attempted) to slaughter them anyway. To them the threat of nukes just translates to "if you don't stop fighting back while I try to kill you, I will try to kill you even harder!" That certainly wouldn't stop me, that's for sure.
Atomics isn't the worst way to go.
There's no broken body or bleeding out. No threat of torture, rape or mutilation.
More than likely the pressure wave will kill you before you even realize what that really bright light is.
I dunno, I've read some downright horrific accounts from Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Sure, if you're right at the hypocenter you're immediately dead, but lots of folks didn't die right away, but were horribly burned or got lethal doses of radiation and died slowly and horribly.
Yeah if there is a nuke coming and you can't get to shelter, you want to be near where it hits not a few miles away IIRC
Radiation poisoning is a hell of a way to go
Those where the first generation of nukes. Very inefficient. Like comparing muskets to artillery.
So I'm not an expert in nuclear weaponry. However, more modern warheads don't somehow magically vaporize everything within a certain radius and then not cause effects outside that radius - that's not how things work. They may have a larger fireball, which is the area within which things (and people) are going to be vaporized, but they still have very large areas where people will receive burns decreasing in severity depending on distance, and (if the warhead is detonated at ground level) radiation doses that will kill within 5 days to 1 month. Check out Nukemap to see those areas in different scenarios. Here's one that I did for a ground burst of a 800 kt Topol warhead. You can see that the areas for radiation are larger than the fireball itself, and the areas for 2nd and 3rd degree burns are quite large. Setting one of these off anywhere populated would cause an immense amount of human suffering even if the folks in the ~220m fireball never saw it coming.
I'm aware of that. It's mostly to point out that the bombs used on Hiroshima & Nagasaki are basically dirtybombs by comparison with the modern variants.
But at the end of the day, I guess it's a matter of personal opinion.
Death isn't pleasant. And I'm personally less scared of atomic bombs than soldiers. Humans capacity for cruelty is only limited by their imagination.
So in other words you are saying. Any nation with nukes has a right to walk in and take over any non nuke nation. And those nations have no right or duty to defend their borders.
Unless there's something I'm missing, your response doesn't seem related to the original comment
I am way less scared of piss baby Putin than I am of micro plastic lymphoma. Fuck it light me up at least it will be quick.
@schizoidman highly likely imo. Nuclear weapons are generally a sensitive thing for all the countries that have them. Perhaps they did not want to set a precedent or something, or maybe China's businesses in Europe would have been affected if a nuclear explosion occurred anywhere on the continent.
Who knows...
I think China is just in full facepalm mode about how shockingly incompetent the Russians are and assume that they will fuck up such a delicate situation like strategic dick waving.
I'm very glad that nothing important depends on my opinion on this and I can freely theoretize and rant, but I doubt Putin would use nukes so easily. At his core he's still a coward, and he has to know that the 'West' couldn't afford to not react to Russia nuking a European country.
Having said that, even if the threat of Russia using nukes were very real, it shouldn't weaken our resolve to support Ukraine and put a stop to Russia's aggression. Because no matter the circumstances, people like Putin cannot be allowed to have any way of forcing the world to stand back and let them commit crimes at will.
Throughout history, appeasement has never worked in anybody's favour except the aggressor's. If it turns out that a nuclear retaliatory strike in response to a Russian nuclear attack on another country really is what it takes to stop Putin, then so be it. It can't be worse in the long term than letting him just take whatever he wants. In that case I just wish we could get this over with already.
During the Cuban missile crisis Kennedy asked about using a tactical nuke against Cuba.
Kennedy's generals explained that the only possible options would be enormous first strike against the USSR, or nothing. Because if the US used a tactical nuke Khrushchev would be forced to respond. Then you'd have a nuclear exchange between superpowers anyway, but would also be giving the enemy time to react.
Yes, I'm aware of that. I just hope Vladimir is, too. At any rate he cannot be allowed to hold the whole world* hostage by playing chicken with unsubstantiated threats. The sooner he is stopped the better.
(* Except for China and his other buddies he's scared of, of course. Which is somewhat ironic, considering how young Communist China used to be such a fan of the USSR, which in turn treated its poor and underdeveloped neighbour with so thinly veiled contempt. How the tables have turned...)