The Gulf States have plenty of money for making nukes. They have not tried to match Israel. Because they are not afraid of Israel. Because Israel is not a psychopathic dictatorship. — Hippyhead

And they do not think that Israel is a threat to them. But then again, Israel can with impunity bomb both Syria and Lebanon as they don't have a nuclear deterrence, while both Jordan and Egypt have peace agreements with Israel and do monitor that no third parties will make for example rocket attacks into Israel from their grounds.

In fact, now you have an unholy alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Both Israel and the US hope that the Saudi's won't acquire nuclear weapons. That would be a genuine possibility if Iran say that it will have nukes.

Talk about Machiavellian politics.

Talk about Machiavellian politics — ssu

Yup, and it all may be irrelevant given that American and Russian nukes can destroy the entire planet in about 30 minutes, and it could happen at any moment, by mistake.

The huge explosion in Lebanon seems instructive, for those willing to be instructed. So apparently they stored some highly explosive chemicals in a warehouse, and then pretty much forgot about them. So the chemicals sat there waiting patiently for somebody to screw up. And then somebody did, as somebody always does.

We're doing the exact same thing. And if we don't get our head out of our butts, it will likely have the same result, just on a vastly larger scale.

Yup, and it all may be irrelevant given that American and Russian nukes can destroy the entire planet in about 30 minutes, and it could happen at any moment, by mistake. — Hippyhead

In truth, it is great that a huge amount of the Cold War build up of nukes were indeed destroyed and both the US and Russia have now only a fraction of the number of warheads that they had. India and Pakistan, Israel and North Korea don't have anywhere near these numbers of nuclear weapons. Perhaps they are smarter than the US and the Soviet Union were. Only Ukraine might be a country that really is disappointed about giving away it's nuclear arsenal as likely Putin wouldn't have dared to annex Crimea if Ukraine would have had nuclear weapons.



Many of the Russian nukes were used as nuclear power plant fuel for American cities (see Megatons for Megawatts Program). That is one of the happier notes coming out of the Cold War which the media naturally has totally forgotten to write about, because it tells that politicians can indeed sometimes do the right thing.

In truth, it is great that a huge amount of the Cold War build up of nukes were indeed destroyed and both the US and Russia have now only a fraction of the number of warheads that they had. — ssu

Sadly, this is largely irrelevant as they still possess enough weapons to completely destroy modern civilization. A single nuclear submarine can destroy any country in the world. Just 50 nukes dropped on America's largest cities would destroy the food distribution system, leading to mass starvation and social and political chaos.

I recently spent about 6 months studying this subject full time. I built a website of a couple hundred pages on the subject, followed every expert on Twitter every day for months etc. I'm sorry to report that we are in truly deep doo-doo. We've been lulled to sleep by the facts you accurately report, with the gun still firmly placed inside our mouths.

I recently spent about 6 months studying this subject full time. — Hippyhead

That's interesting.

Yet I guess Russia and the US having about 5000 each and not 24 000 and 40 000 respectively does mean something. Third World war having been fought at the middle of the 1980's would have been utterly devastating. Especially the Soviet war plans were crazy. Or the time when we had WW2 era generals that had seen the carnage of millions dying and there wasn't yet tens of thousands of nuclear weapons on each side.

The topic is interesting, but there is a huge problem with debating the issue. Firstly, no other topic has so much virtue signalling going around and seems like it's politically incorrect to ever doubt the worst case scenarios. Even to make the case that the World wouldn't be totally destroyed, or that the all the nuclear weapons exploded simultaneously make a small dent compared to the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs is viewed as bad as it somehow means that nuclear war is more possible. To describe the most catastrophic outcome is viewed as beneficial as it will "awaken people" to the threat of nuclear weapons. I do get the point, but then this creates mass hysteria, just like with nuclear radiation in general. And no other topic is so speculative, so kept secret that typically it seems that nobody hasn't been thinking of it clearly in the end. The fear that nuclear weapons raised later in Robert McNamara and people like William J. Perry shows how real the threat is.

Yet the politically incorrect truth is obvious. They make a hell of a deterrent, literally. And that's why they are an issue in the Middle East, where you have one dominant regional nuclear power: Israel. So it is actually reasonable that enemies of Israel have thought to acquire these weapons. And once you have them, welcome to the club! You can see it how the US responds with countries in the "axis-of-evil" that have actual nuclear weapons and have only "potential" nuclear weapons. Some countries like Libya, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Sweden voluntarily stopped their nuclear weapons projects. Some have given away their nukes. Of them Ukraine is a country that is now truly regrets giving all the weapons away. It's now age old tech, but still under wraps.

And having nuclear weapons makes countries prone to attack with impunity non-nuclear states. The only case of a non-nuclear state attacking a country with a nuclear deterrent that I remember is when Argentina invade the Falklands, but I guess they understood that the British would not nuke Buenos Aires for some puny islands with sheep in the middle of nowhere.

In the case of the Middle East more countries having them will not make things easier.

Third World war having been fought at the middle of the 1980's would have been utterly devastating. — ssu

And it still would be. 50 nukes dropped on the big cities of any country would collapse the food distribution system and so on.

If you haven't seen this already, perhaps this site will interest you. It shows the damage from various nukes on any particular city.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

And it still would be. 50 nukes dropped on the big cities of any country would collapse the food distribution system and so on. — Hippyhead

I think the most dangerous aspect of nuclear weapons is the modern Russian doctrine of "nuclear de-escalation". I know, the West has had thoughts along similar lines. What makes it so dangerous is that people genuinely can think it can work. The Russian have now in many of their large military exercises trained after starting conventional operations and have ended it with making a nuclear attack to "de-escalate the situation". Sounds crazy at first, but let's think about it.

There is the hideous logic behind it, because a) we genuinely think that the use of the smallest tactical charge will inevitably lead to all out nuclear exchange and b) our fear about nuclear radiation has no limits (the public reaction around the World to the Fukushima accident tells this).

If you haven't seen this already, perhaps this site will interest you. It shows the damage from various nukes on any particular city. — Hippyhead

Oh yes, it one of the most eye-opening programs there are. I'd really welcome others to use it. It really makes a great case just what equivalent of 300 tonnes, 300 Kt and 3 MT mean. (The Beirut explosion some estimate to have been equivalent to 1 Kt).

I think the most dangerous aspect of nuclear weapons is the modern Russian doctrine of "nuclear de-escalation". I know, the West has had thoughts along similar lines. — ssu

Such a policy doesn't sound helpful for sure.

I would cast my vote for "Most Dangerous" the widely held assumption that we are safe because no current geo-political situations seems headed for nuclear war. You know, folks think they can calculate the risk by watching the news.

What this ignores is the hair trigger nature of nuclear deployments, and a long record of FUBAR screw up mistakes, some of which brought us within minutes of civilization crushing catastrophe.

One time somebody stuck a training tape in the NORAD computers and for precious minutes the entire US national security system thought they were witnessing a Russian first strike underway. The "incoming first strike" got reported all the way up the chain to the national security advisor.

In another case, a Russian satellite mistook sunlight bouncing off the clouds for the exhaust fires of ICBMs. All the Russian fail safe systems reported this was a real attack. A single launch commander put his life at risk by breaking all the rules and guessing the system was wrong. Had he instead reported it up the chain of command as a real attack, Russian leaders would have been under enormous pressure to launch immediately.

In another case, a research rocket launched from Norway was mistaken as an incoming first strike, because lower ranking Russians forgot to report this previously announced launch up the chain. The Russian generals rushed to Yeltsin, whom we shall recall was chronically drunk, and told him to launch immediately. Luckily, Yeltsin has his wits about him that day, or we'd all be dead right now.

And so on...

Point being, everything could be going great, and then out of the blue with no warning...

Game over.

Here's a funny story about Yeltsin. He stayed at the White House for a few days during his first meeting with Clinton. In the middle of the night Yeltsin was discovered, drunk as a skunk, in his underwear, out on Pennsylvania Avenue trying to hail a cab so he could go get a pizza. Best I can tell, true story.

Point being, everything could be going great, and then out of the blue with no warning...

Game over. — Hippyhead

How relations can turn sour is actually breathtaking.

It only takes one sunk aircraft carrier in the South China Sea and there's no trace of globalization, no trace of friendly relations and talks in a G20 summit, no eating cake at Mar-a-Lago. And it absolutely doesn't matter if it Trump or Biden when that happens.

In the 1930's smart people could understand that war was coming. In the early 1910's it wasn't so. Back then, it was more like now.

Here's a funny story about Yeltsin. He stayed at the White House for a few days during his first meeting with Clinton. In the middle of the night Yeltsin was discovered, drunk as a skunk, in his underwear, out on Pennsylvania Avenue trying to hail a cab so he could go get a pizza. Best I can tell, true story. — Hippyhead

Western arrogance was then to think that Russia is passed, that after the fall of the Soviet Union it had become an Austria on the Volga, quite harmless with only a somewhat glorious past. Yeltsin and especially the poor performance of the Russian military in the first Chechen war were seen as the final nails in the coffin. The situation in the end was so poor that it's said that some military personnel died of starvation at a radar outpost in Siberia because they weren't supplied. And I remember the views of Russian officers and families living in tents once they had been withdrawn from East Germany.

The only thing that the Yeltsin administration put money was into...the strategic rocket forces. The tanks could rust outside in huge parking places, but the nuclear deterrence was always financed, even if the number of weapons was drastically cut.

The real tragedy was that after the fall of Soviet Union, Russia could have been brought to the West or it could have had a more peaceful role to play. But that would have been a huge undertaking with larger than life politicians on both sides to successfully do it. But we had just the average or above-average politicians. When NATO went on with the Kosovo bombings, Russians had been already lost and finally the FSB director that became president, Vladimir Putin, had his new potential enemy in the West.

It only takes one sunk aircraft carrier in the South China Sea and there's no trace of globalization, no trace of friendly relations and talks in a G20 summit, no eating cake at Mar-a-Lago. — ssu

Yes, agreed, we are riding the edge every day.

One thing I've come to find interesting is our relationship with being in this position. Our relationship with civilization death is so much like our relationship with personal death. We are so skillful at sweeping inconvenient information under the rug. We know all this, and yet we don't.