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...
Ask Lemmy
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:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
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.
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.
That’s a very effective visualization.
That seems like a ridiculous number of nuclear munitions. Like why so many?
I recall hearing something about real arms reduction making nuclear war seem like a sane, viable option.
The theory is that we’re safer if all sides know they can completely annihilate each other. No world leaders genuinely want nuclear war (despite what they say, threaten, or imply), so nobody launches a nuke. Flaw - that theory assumes all leaders are sane and rational.
The US and the USSR engaged in a race to have the most nukes. After the fall of the Sowjet Union international treaties were put in place to reduce the number of nukes in both east and west.
Don't quote me, but if I remember correctly, at the height of the cold war, both sides had more than 12.000 nukes each.
Humanity had enough fire power to delete the entire globe roughly 40x over then. Why? Because bigger is better.
So that even if 99% fail or get shot down, 65 cities are still turned to ash.
MAD theory and both sides realize that nuke silos are targets for nuke weapons so they had "extras" because everyone knows some won't leave the tube.
The existence of this post (and its title in particular) might give you a clue..
Imagine your opponent gets the jump on you in some massive way. Your land based nukes have to launch from somewhere and the enemy is pointing to every one they have sussed out.
You want to still get a meaningful # in the air if the worst happens
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.
Thanks for the tidbit
They have considerable overkill, to the point where only a fraction has to hit their target.
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.
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.
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.
nuclear war
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.
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.
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.
Do you like tablewear?
Because this would create a lot of glass in a few short moments.
Took me a sec to realize what you meant by this lol
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.
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.
It's nearly impossible to mobilize a large force quickly, or covertly. There would be plenty of warning, especially if the US is involved because there's an ocean in the way in either direction.
If Western nations decide to attack Russia, I doubt the conflict will stay limited to Russia.
- North Korea will probably support Russia militarily very quickly. They're already supplying weapons, they have a close relationship, and they're reasonably secure against counterattack because China would react very badly if NK were attacked directly.
- Iran will join with Russia, but uncertain whether Iran will actually deploy its military in Europe (probably not), or take the opportunity to pursue their own goals in the middle east while the west is distracted.
- China will probably play neutral for awhile, but continue to trade with Russia and sell them military equipment. China is circumspect, they won't jump into a conflict for ideological reasons, though they'll certainly quote ideological reasons in their propaganda. They will join the conflict when it benefits them and doesn't present extreme risk. Most likely they will pursue their own goals in the south China sea (Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines) while the US is busy elsewhere.
An attack from the West on Russia will balloon into a global conflict. It will be bad for everyone, even if it stays limited to conventional warfare.
It is a complete crapshoot because it all fepends on whether thechain of people between Putin and the missles are more interested in going out with him.
What I expect to happen with an invasion:
NATO invades and quickly disables a ton of Russian military objectives. This is because Russia is already flailling with Ukraine due to lack of discipline and outdated tech that theybhave mostly lost already. Plus they can't do waves of conscript tactics at a moment's notice.
Putin loses it and tries to launch the missiles knowing it is the end of hos time in power. His military advisors refuse the order and stage a coup, killing Putin and blaming NATO, then fight a half hearted conventional defense for show before negotiating a ceasefire.
But that is just my thought and the risk of a nuclear launch makes it a terrible idea to launch a surprise invasion as some nuclear sub might respond tonthe invasion if their cummunication is cut off.
Considering that Ukraine is advancing inside Russia without so much problems, probably bad, for Russia
If Russia uses nukes, Russia, the state, will cease to exist. The Oligarchs know this, Putin knows this. Only an existential threat to the Oligarchs and Putin would result in a nuclear strike. And that's why there was no nuclear response to the Kursk incursion so far.
If NATO invades, Russia is doomed. Putin doesn't care that Russia would still exist after a NATO victory, all he cares about is himself and his legacy. Both of which would be destroyed in a NATO victory.
So he would launch the nukes and watch Russia get wiped off the map, because if he can't have it, no one can. And at least he would go out with a bang, rather than suiciding in a bunker.
The oligarchs would not be able to prevent it. They might hold the political power, but the military order to launch the nukes comes directly from Putin. The best we could hope for is conscientious officers refusing the order.
If the oligarchs ever thought Putin was legitimately about to use nukes, there would be a coup attempt.
Whether it would successfully stop the nukes is anyone's guess.
Nuclear annihilation. Got nothing to lose at that point
Pakistan and India have enough nukes to cause major famine across the world. Russia alone has enough nukes to nearly if not surely end humanity even if only 1% of the human population were killed directly from a nuclear explosion. I think the only way NATO could take Russia is if they were to somehow disarm their nukes.
Also, we have to consider alliances. Russia and North Korea are closely aligned. If the entire world went to war with NK, it is still possible that South Korea would be devastated because they have setup their entire military to shell the fuck out of South Korea at a moment's notice and have an extensive underground tunnel system for retaliatory purposes. However, it's possible that NK would value self-preservation over maintaining it's alignment with a Russia that will definitely not exist anymore.
Not to argue, but shit hitting the fan on this scale makes loyalties much harder to predict.
In a conventional war they would crush Russia. Remember when the United States captured Baghdad in a week? It would be like that. But the chances are high that Putin would start launching nukes, and then everyone loses.
I'm not willing to gamble but I don't think they'd go nuclear. The trick is to offer amnesty and support to everyone but Putin so they have a better option than death for themselves and their families. Loyalty to dictators is always about self preservation.
A lot of people are focusing on what Russia would do but this would also alarm every single country that isn't in good terms with NATO and they would also start mobilizing their armies. China, NK, and maybe even the middle east would retaliate if nato was this aggressive.
I think it's more likely that Nato would quickly just storm the occupied regions of Ukraine. Would probably be less risky of a nuclear Armageddon
into Russia full force with no warning
That is wrong on so many levels.
Unthinkable.
No more than a wet dream.
Because Putin is a “So much for your fucking canoe!” kind of leader. I think most world leaders are if they have the chance. Look what we still say about France for surrendering in WW2, they get plenty of mockery despite being the very nation that helped the US exist in the first place.
So the default is that the worst of the rich and powerful like Putin have the relationship with their citizens and country that a narcissistic, severe domestic abuser has with their partner:
“If I can’t have you, no one will…”
Short answer: the end of the world.
The resultant nuclear war would kill a good portion of Earth's population, but it's likely far more would die from the chaos of civilisation being instantly forced back to the iron age by the EMP frying every silicon transistor.
kinda depends on what china would do.
china is one of the only reasons russia is still standing on their feet. if china wanted, russia would be out of ukraine tomorrow.
nato vs china is ww3