maverickmark25 t1_iym9hwu wrote
Being able to shoot down all nukes might sound like a great thing but it’s actually extremely destabilizing for the system. It makes mutually assured destruction irrelevant. This makes all other nuclear powers feel extremely vulnerable which will lead to a proliferation of more weapons.
Ancalagon_TheWhite t1_iyme8pv wrote
The US and Soviet Union actually made a treaty to restrict the number of anti ballistic missile systems to 2 each. This was to stop either side believing they could survive any nuclear warm
maverickmark25 t1_iyn0tz5 wrote
Yeah but the US pulled out of this treaty in 2002 I believe.
-Spin- t1_iymtjnm wrote
It really doesn’t make “MAD” irrelevant. Generally it’s much easier and cheap to build an ICBM than it is to shoot one down. So if your opponent can shoot down 100 ICBMs, you just send 200. This is the reason why the US and Russia have and have had so giant stores of warheads.
maverickmark25 t1_iymxvl6 wrote
I mean I agree it potentially wouldn’t make MAD irrelevant. What you just said is exactly my point. It is destabilizing to the assumptions nuclear powers operate under. Meaning countries would likely do what you suggest build more weapons due to their feeling of insecurity.
UniversalMomentum t1_iymuxb3 wrote
Mutual assured destruction was never real. Nukes don't blow up a large enough area for that to have ever worked and modern nukes are mostly fusion explosions so the radiation is actually far more limited than you imagine. Fallout is mostly not radioactive and doesn't kill many people and loses intensity very fast, almost everybody dies just from the explosion, so for mutual assured destruction you have to blanket impractically large areas with explosion and it's probably safe to say nobody ever really had that many nukes. Nuclear fallout from a power plant last much longer as we saw in Chernobyl vs Hiroshima. Radiation release also does not scale well with megatons so larger nukes are still not likely to cause mass fallout casualties. Basically the fireball just gets bigger and the radiation release is similar because it relies on fallout as the radiation itself is fairy short range and has to absorb into matter to be spread.
Even the area of the epicenter would be livable again in 1-5 years because a nuclear explosion is just a FLASH of fission and a bigger flash of Fusion. It's not like a sustained reaction that produces tons of radiation, it's mostly just a massive thermal energy release.
In Hiroshima there wasn't even a detectable raise in birth defects, people who died from radiation at those who were close enough to get exposed directly and live through the blast (not likely but possible) and those who stayed around and breathed in the worst of the fallout/ran back into the epicenter. The total long term results of all the radiation was a 10% cancer increase in the survivors of the blast, but only the survivors.
Sooo for mutual assured destruction you have to blanket the area in explosion just like conventional war, except the nuke warhead is much small/lighter for the size of explosion it creates, that's the real danger of nukes. It's just so much power release in a package you can shoot a long distance because it has super high energy density.
John-florencio t1_iymz337 wrote
Explode every major cities and I can tell you that the country is wrecked for many years to come.
grundar t1_iyn60df wrote
> Mutual assured destruction was never real.
Published research says otherwise.
That paper predicts global mass starvation from a nuclear exchange involving 250 smallish warheads, mostly from reduced agricultural output caused by reduced sunlight caused by massive soot emissions from burning cities.
Given that the USA and Russia still have 40x that many warheads between them even after arms reductions, mutual assured destruction was -- and is -- a realistic concern.
SGTWhiteKY t1_iynzl8x wrote
People often think MAD means that every life in the planet will cease. This is false. It is that every major country will fail. There would absolutely be survivors, maybe even a thriving world again. But the destruction of the governments involved in a nuclear exchange is assured.
maverickmark25 t1_iyn0h4m wrote
Can you cite some reliable literature that supports these claims?
[deleted] t1_iyn3dhi wrote
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danteheehaw t1_iyno6um wrote
Plenty of nations saw relative levels of destruction in the world wars. Things bounce back rather quickly.
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