EDIT: For clarification, I feel that the current situation on the ground in the war (vs. say a year ago) might indicate that an attack on Russia might not result in instant nuclear war, which is what prompted my question. I am well aware of the “instant nuclear Armageddon” opinion.

Serious question. I don’t need to be called stupid. I realize nuclear war is bad. Thanks!

103 points

Nato would completely overwhelm Russia, but not before nukes would fly from various places and hit major cities in the western world. In the retaliation, all of Russia would be destroyed, world in turmoil…

permalink
report
reply
37 points

I have some doubts that Russia’s nuclear weapons are even in operational order.

maybe they try to launch them, and they just self-destruct inside their silos. or, they fly, but fall out of the sky still in Russia, or, they actually fly all the way to the destination, but fail to detonate.

to be sure, this is not something that we should wager on. I just think it would be funny if it turned out that way. just a fun little daydream of imperialist fascist scum getting put in the ground where they fucking belong.

permalink
report
parent
reply
137 points

Russia is believed to have about 6500 nuclear weapons. Even if ninety-nine percent of them fail, that’s still 65 cities turned to ash.

permalink
report
parent
reply
62 points

That’s a very effective visualization.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

That seems like a ridiculous number of nuclear munitions. Like why so many?

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Even Doctor Manhattan can’t be all places at once.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

More likely several hundred, not 65.
Each nuke carries multiple warheads that split up in space and fly to individual targets.

permalink
report
parent
reply
35 points
*

You don’t have to take Russia’s word on it. USA and Russia inspected each other’s nuclear arsenal as part of the New START treaty until the beginning of covid.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Thanks for the tidbit

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

The imperialist fascist scum would be launching the nukes from the safety of their elaborate, well-stocked, and expensive bomb shelters. I don’t disagree with your opinion of those people, but it’s vital to remember that the biggest victims would be the millions of civilians who have already suffered under their rule.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

They have considerable overkill, to the point where only a fraction has to hit their target.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Even failures could be bad, for nearby areas or the world. Just a missile falling and then burning is going to release stuff into the air and water. A far cry from a working launch, but still a mess and that’s just one missile. What is the probability that they all fail to even launch or just do something and crash inert? Not big, I would guess. Even a badly maintained nuclear arsenal has its own deterrence.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

The IAEA and the START treaty mean we have inspectors that can monitor the actual capabilities of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. According to these inspectors Russia has, at least, 2000 completely operational nukes.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

No one is willing to bet the existence of human civilization on that.
Even 2-3 working nukes (out of thousands) would destroy dozens of cities (they each carry multiple warheads that split up in space).
And it would still trigger a retaliatory strike that could cause a nuclear winter.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-6 points

Russia has 5000 nukes, if the US is not involved, Europe will be toast

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

NATO would ensure that the US is involved. We’re aligned with the Europeans.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Doesn’t Drumpf plan to remove us from NATO? Or am I remembering wrongly what I read?

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

Even without US. UK has nukes, France has nukes. You don’t need a lot to destroy Russia. Basically just two.

permalink
report
parent
reply
79 points

nuclear war

permalink
report
reply
60 points

There’s a problem with your premise. NATO (much like the UN) is not a military force of its own. Rather, it’s an agreement between many nations, each with their own militaries. There is no NATO army. There is an agreement of the United States (with its army), the UK (with its army). Germany (with its army), etc.

Each of them could independently invade. They could even negotiate an agreement to invade. But that would have limited impact on NATO. The big thing would be that any invading country loses the agreed upon defenses of the rest.

permalink
report
reply
34 points
*

That’s rather pedantic, but I guess it’s a valid point, so I clarified my question to mean what you already know I was asking.

permalink
report
parent
reply
18 points

Technically, NATO has multiple multinational battalion battlegroups at Russia’s border in Poland and the Baltic States, although they consist of only a couple of thousand soldiers.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Well, the armies have standardised a lot of things and train together, so they very well can act as one army

permalink
report
parent
reply
51 points

Do you like tablewear?

Because this would create a lot of glass in a few short moments.

permalink
report
reply
8 points

Took me a sec to realize what you meant by this lol

permalink
report
parent
reply
40 points

Assuming no one nukes the world or that all air defenses work, it’d be a mess. There’s no force in human history that can stop NATO in a traditional war. (Maybe the Mongols because they’re always the exception.) But it’s very likely China, North Korea, Iran, and others would be much harder to conquer/occupy at the same time.

It would be widespread suffering in most of the world. The truth is that war is obsolete as a means of accomplishing 99% of political goals. Most of the world would descend into chaos and civil war. Food would be scarce and in times of scarcity, the drunkest, most violent people usually end up in charge. You’d have warlordism in the vast, vast majority of the world.

The natural state of humanity isn’t trade and property rights. It’s warlords offering protection in exchange for whatever they need. No one “wins” wars in 2024. Groups like ISIS would thrive, not law and order.

permalink
report
reply
9 points

What makes you think humanity has a natural state?

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Yeah, I don’t think we’ve had a real “natural state” since we discovered agriculture. Our whole thing is kinda setting ourselves above/apart from nature

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

Like I mean after Rome fell the kingdoms that arose were pretty warmongering picking fights with other kingdoms for mearly having a different religion and even when Rome was a thing capital punishment was pretty common and brutal and Rome was a super power for being military strong nations only really started to be widely civil to one another by id say 1880 somewhere in the late 1800s leaving about 1,850 years of constant wars between all nations

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Easy way to kill a country: Disrupt the critical infrastructure at multiple points.
Just imagine how crippled we are without AWS, Azure, Cloudflare and Gcloud. Kill electricity, damage water supplies and destroy medication supply and the chaos is perfect.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

“Without their heads, they’re powerless!”

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

“Bullets! My only weakness!”

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Wait I’m confused. Why would a NATO invasion of Russia destroy the rest of the world? Sure, Russia would be fukd. And if China tried to defend Russia for some insane reason, it would be one heck of a war. But not “entire world falls into anarchy and chaos” levels, that’s absurd.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*

I think the assumption is China would join in with defending Russia for fear that it would be next and alone. I’ll edit this and add Iran to the assumption that they don’t want to be next and alone either.

China clearing wants more resources and land. China has historical ambitions in Taiwan. China has historical grievances with Japan.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Gotta think of the Mongols.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

It’s kinda sad to see Mongolia now. Not a lot going on, almost completely dependent on China.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

That’s what they want you to think.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

As long as we’re living in the past, let’s revive the golden horde to deal with Russia

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Hmmm. Ok, let’s.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Vote for me as your warlord plz!

permalink
report
parent
reply

Ask Lemmy

!asklemmy@lemmy.world

Create post

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for ‘how do I?’, type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


Community stats

  • 11K

    Monthly active users

  • 1.9K

    Posts

  • 50K

    Comments