198
Russia is signaling it could take out the West's internet and GPS. There's no good backup plan.
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
198 points (90.6% liked)
politics
19090 readers
6352 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's like a mini MAAD...
To Putin, any significant threat to his power in Russia is destruction. Ukraine is making inroads as I type this, if they get too far into Russia, it could dominoe into Putin losing power.
If it ever actually looks close to that, he ain't going to be attacking Internet cables, he'll be launching nukes.
But once a nuke launches, it's over for all of us. So he needs an intermediate step that he could do and would fuck a bunch of shit up by doing, but it's not a nuclear bomb.
No, it really isn't. Nuclear winter and the idea of thousands of Tsar Bombas belongs to the 70s. Even in an all out nuclear war today using the full (working? - doubtful regarding Russia) arsenals it would be a catastrophe with hundreds of thousands of dead but mostly we'd be continuing on as before afterwards.
I grew up during "duck and cover" and iodine in the cupboard. That's not where we are anylonger.
Also rockets are a pain to maintain, theres a reason the US military is trying to move away from the minutemen over towards gravity controlled nukes. Does anyone think Russia can properly maintain theirs.
Uhhh I’m not trusting nobody named vault dweller about this particular topic
Its the fact that my name is vault dweller and not thw fact that my picture is of the Mer remover Pelinal Whitestake.
Anyways my name is a reference to Fallout one which is a lot more depressing about the whole apocalypse thing, tonally its probably closer to a boy and his dog. I dont fear the bomb but I aint welcoming it either.
Totally. I was just being silly.
Fair 'nough I just woke up from a shitty nap so my humor is kinda non existent.
If life taught me anything it is that all you need to do is hide under your desk, duck, and cover. You can survive anything from a tornado to nuclear holocaust with that one.
So you're saying if the Russians struck Manhattan it would be relatively little impact. You think of the ten thousand nukes the US and Russia have on average will kill less than a hundred people. Or if just Russia, less than two hundred people per.
I think each nuke is tens of thousands of immediate deaths followed by hundreds of thousands of mid to long term radiation fatalities. If we pretend that 25% of their 5000 or so nukes works, that's still 1250 nukes. If each nuke of that 1250 works and kills 100,000 each, that's 125 million people. I don't think this is so far fetched given that a little over 80% of Americans live in urban areas.
I just don't know how a society can recover if the majority of it's urban centers gets nuked and there is residual radiation there for the foreseeable future. Japan recovered because the nukes were small and there was only two sites, and that still caused about 110,000 casualties.
How many submarines do you think they have in the Atlantic and Pacific with nuclear strike capabilities? How many nukes do you think are in range of major north american cities?
Most nukes are targeted at the other side's nukes. Those aren't in population centers.
Uh, my state would like a word about that....
https://www.kuow.org/stories/the-secret-history-of-nukes-in-washington-state
For those unaware, Puget Sound contains the largest cities in Washington as well as many dense suburbs.
Also, for revenge as part of mutually assured destruction, targetting empty silos doesn't sound very useful.
Congratulations, this is officially the most stupid thing I have read on the internet, ever.
You have no idea how interconnected the world is, do you? How reliant the US is on its ports. Not just any place on a coastline is big enough to pull a cargo ship up to, as well as having the infrastructure to unload it and coordinate all that. All they have to do is hose every port capable of handling cargo ships and we are entirely fucked. The cherry on top would be nuking the oil refineries, completely wiping out our ability to move goods even if the ports were open. We will not have enough food to feed the country within a few days. Mass starvation starts a week or so afterwards. Two to three weeks later and at least a quarter or more of Americans will be dead from starvation. Then comes the massive waves of diseases due to all the unburied dead. Inside of two months at least half of America will be dead or dying. More likely to be closer to three-quarters.
All out nuclear is not something we survive.
I think the literal flood of shits due to failed sewer system will hit us first in big cities.
What?
You really need to look up the yields of modern ones compared to what's been used...
Have you? Or have you fallen for russian influence operations?
The ~1500 or so nuclear weapons Russia and the USA have in active service each are mostly much smaller tactical nukes compared to the insane my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours stuff that happened in the 60s.
Putin won't do that. It's been made very clear to him he has 2 choices in that scenario, leave power peacefully for the old dictators home, or attempt to launch his nukes and immediately get yeeted by the USAF. Possibly the USN if he's vacationing near a coastal area. It's been made known to him that he does not have the operational security to keep the CIA from tracking him at all times and that his location would be target number 1 in such a situation.