Nuclear War

[xelasnave]

I recall the cold war and the constant fear that we could have a nuclear war.
I recall the Cuban missile crisis and wondering how long the world would survive.

I have not worried about such a threat for many years but it occurred to me that we probably have more to worry about today than in the past.

Do you think there is a real and growing danger of a nuclear war starting anywhere in the world. There seem to be a couple of places in the world where neighbours have nuclear weapons, or trying to get them, that the parties would seem ready to use such an option.
I am curious to hear what others think.
And if such a war happened would it mean the human race would vanish, go back to cave like life style or someone win and life goes on?
Alex

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I recall the cold war and the constant fear that we could have a nuclear war.
I recall the Cuban missile crisis and wondering how long the world would survive.

I have not worried about such a threat for many years but it occurred to me that we probably have more to worry about today than in the past.

Do you think there is a real and growing danger of a nuclear war starting anywhere in the world. There seem to be a couple of places in the world where neighbours have nuclear weapons, or trying to get them, that the parties would seem ready to use such an option.
I am curious to hear what others think.
And if such a war happened would it mean the human race would vanish, go back to cave like life style or someone win and life goes on?
Alex

The obvious candidates are North Korea V ? (They reckon they can hit the U.S. now but are psycho enough to do anything), Pakistan V India; some radical islamic nut job and, of course, we now have the Trump factor. He's stupid enough to escalate something during a tantrum, but I suspect someone in govt there may arrange a new conspiracy theory for us if he really loses the Taco.

Consequences;
Limited exchange scenario, like India V Pakistan; we may finally get the idea that we need to grow up as a species; couple of hundred million dead and dying would open a few eyes.
Escalating exchange scenario, (like the start of WWI), Well, we can hope the rodents will make a better go of it.
Judgement Day scenario is pretty accurate except there is no sky net... yet.

Nobody wins a nuclear war, that was the whole premise of the MAD doctrine. In an insane way, it works until some numb nut thinks otherwise. Declassified documents have revealed we have already come very close a number of times because of insanity, paranoia or human error.... very common traits in the species and all on display at the highest levels right now.

There was a film a few decades back where the northern hemisphere nuked itself but the southern hemisphere did not. A U.S. nuke sub came to Melbourne and Australia waited to see if the fall-out would head south or not during the monsoon. It does and the population suicides... noice...

The planet would go on but it would certainly be different to what we know. Don't know if I'd want to survive the aftermath. Knowing human nature, I suspect it would be very ugly.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Unlikely.
You could actually argue that they have prevented major wars, as both sides know what would happen if the other side realised they were about to lose.
In any case, living your life in fear of this is not a good way to be.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

I suspect it's the scenario that most alien races succumb to. Along comes the development of technology and the discovery of the atom. Sooner or later, big global boom. End of that alien race. Next planet. And so forth. Solves the Fermi paradox.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

Unlikely.
You could actually argue that they have prevented major wars, as both sides know what would happen if the other side realised they were about to lose.
In any case, living your life in fear of this is not a good way to be.

What if we get a leader appear who always wanted to become a suicide bomber?
Or someone in power listened to the voice of God in his head telling him to do it?
I had not thought about those possibilities I was just thinking about routine sane escalations to war.
Then there is the make someone else look like they started it so we can retaliate.
I think I will stay in bed and read astronomybooks.
Alex

[glend (Glen)]

Keep an eye on what Russia is doing around Lithuania and Estonia. They have positioned their new fast strike nuclear cruise missles facing NATO forces. The US has just landed a tank brigade in Poland to reinforce NATO capability, but tanks are little use against fast delivery nukes. The Ruskies are stirring up trouble among Russian minorities in these countries, just like they did in the Ukraine. They ptovude support for a local gureilla war to start, then move in to protect Russian speakers and their interest. Its the Ukraine playbook all over again. But this time nukes are on the ground and NATO is suppose to defend. Trump probably won't care what Putin does there, but if they nuke the tank brigade that is another story. I suspect Trump will pull the tanks out and tell NATO to look after itself in that area. This is the hot spot imho.

[Orionskies (Julian)]

I think a large scale conflict or even extinction event is highly probable,( we don't seem to learn from the past and violence is ingrained in us) I'll be keeping an eye for the annual report on doomsday-clock.com later this month.

As for the aftermath I think the human spirit is strong and good and will probably just rebuild if we are lucky enough to survive.

.....so cheers!

[clive milne]

Alex, the trouble with nuclear weapons is they cannot be used without the user suffering great loss from retaliation from those that also have them, as well as suffering political backlash if used against those that don't

But if it were the case that they could use them without suffering a foul, then they probably would. Nuclear bunker busters would be a no brainer...

I highly recommend a non fiction book by the title: Mandela's Nuclear Nightmare - Peter Hounam.

It lays out a fairly compelling case that the fourth generation nuclear weapons (which Sam Cohen alluded to) are in fact real.

These are pure fusion devices that do not require a critical mass of fissile material to trigger them.

There are 3 points of note that should be of great concern to everyone:
They don't leave any radioactive contamination behind, so there is no public backlash / political consequences in that respect.

They are 3 orders of magnitude easier to construct than a fission device, and the materials would be trivially simple to obtain for any government or large corporation that chose to do so.

Third point, the yield can be as small as a couple of tonnes of TNT... so hypothetically, for example you could set one off in the main street of a city and blame it on ISIS to justify an otherwise unjustifiable war on a country you didn't like... Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran... pick one.
Some argue that the (second) Bali bomb fits this description (I don't know)
What I do NOT believe is that the damage caused by the Bali bomb is consistent with a van loaded with anfo.... it had to be nothing less than the highest end military explosives at the very least. Therefore, it must have been state based terrorism riding shotgun behind the veil of their Jemaah Islamiah patsies.
Qui Bono?

Anyway, if we work on the premise that 4th generation nukes are in fact real and deployed, then we consider that a nation state could use them and get away with it... For example, you could bomb a target in a city in some middle eastern country, and if someone was lucky enough to catch it on tape... No western media outlet would actually run the footage. But even if they did break ranks and aired it, then it could be explained away as an ammunitions dump going off... or just blame it on the Russians.
The conclusion then is that you can bet your house that it is only a matter of time before some bunch of nutters, somewhere, will try and win a war that way..

For what it is worth, there has been some serious shenanigans going on in Yemen & Syria over the last couple of years... and none of it reaches us via the western media... I wonder why?

Watch the following explosions.. I don't make any claim with respect to what caused them, other than that these do not look like Jdams to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTE_Eshm2xw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoRIWXpHoxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm7ObVSix7w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS4jIqV5zDU

Cosmic ray hits on the CCD?
Lightening in the mushroom cloud...?

[drylander (Peter)]

Originally Posted by el_draco

There was a film a few decades back where the northern hemisphere nuked itself but the southern hemisphere did not. A U.S. nuke sub came to Melbourne and Australia waited to see if the fall-out would head south or not during the monsoon. It does and the population suicides... noice...
The planet would go on but it would certainly be different to what we know. Don't know if I'd want to survive the aftermath. Knowing human nature, I suspect it would be very ugly.

The film was called 'On the Beach' and was based on a book I read many moons ago. Never saw the film but I would have liked to. The book was a eye opener to those of us living then. It never seemed to worry the pollies then or now but then they have bunkers to protect them though who they would govern in the aftermath is academic.
The other amusing thing was the thing to do if the sirens sounded while at school ...get away from windows and hide under your desk.....Yep that would save you.......NOT. Bloody moron leaders we had/have.
Pete

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by drylander

The film was called 'On the Beach' and was based on a book I read many moons ago. Never saw the film but I would have liked to. The book was a eye opener to those of us living then. It never seemed to worry the pollies then or now but then they have bunkers to protect them though who they would govern in the aftermath is academic.
The other amusing thing was the thing to do if the sirens sounded while at school ...get away from windows and hide under your desk.....Yep that would save you.......NOT. Bloody moron leaders we had/have.
Pete

The first movie was done in the 1950s, then another one more recently. It's excellent especially if you want to see what Melbourne looked like back then.

As to the 'duck and cover', it may be worth remembering that they weren't well understood back then. There are many videos of old tests, with people standing waaay too close.
Given that the alternative was "stay in your seats kiddies and hope for the best", it wasn't actually all that bad advice anyway. Maybe increases survival from 0.1% to 0.2%...

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

The UK version of this scenario was a series called "Threads" which I think as I recall was based on a nuclear strike on Sheffield.
I remember this and "when the wind blows " by Raymond Briggs terrifying us all at school into CND badge wearers.
We don't really learn do we?

[clive milne]

One further point that seldom gets discussed is a matter of who directs America's defence policy....

It most certainly is not steered with the intent of benefitting the American people.

There are arguably three groups that pull the strings.
Multinational corporations (especially the banksters, oil and gas, ie) - Wall st)
The Military Industrial complex that profits from endless conflicts.
And last but not least... the Israeli lobby.

The president is nothing more than a glove puppet figure head who's function is to give the prol's the illusion of democracy.

Anyway, the Israeli lobby pretty much calls the shots. The US is basically like the strong arm that pays for and takes most of the blame for Israel's expansionist agenda... it's called the Yinon plan (their own words)... The danger here is that the Israeli's do not believe that they will be held accountable if they manipulate America in to a war with Iran that escalates to the point of incinerating Tehran...

And if you think that that scenario is fanciful, I will direct your attention to the last time they tried to do it (but thankfully, got caught out). That would be during the 6 day war in 67, when the bombers were less than 2 minutes away from nuking Cairo before they were called back. This was after the Israeli defence force tried to sink the USS Liberty in international waters and pinned the blame on Egypt... with the full knowledge and consent of the executive level at the Whitehouse!!!! Unfortunately for them, even after being torpedoed, strafed with rockets, cannon fire and the decks napalmed... the ship didn't sink, and one of the sailors under machine gun fire managed to fix a an ariel, so the game was up... And there is a footnote to this.. during the two hours of the attack, the Israeli's machine gunned the life boats as they were being lowered in to the water.
No survivors means no witnesses.

It was covered up and the sailors were threatened with court martial if they ever spoke a single word of it even amongst themselves..

That's about as a clear a window in to the true nature of US middle east politics as you can get.

Going back a little further... even a couple of years before the Zionists (in 1933) declared war on Germany <--- yes you read that right
here's the propaganda flag showing the territorial ambitions of the terrorist organisation called the Irgun in 1931.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:I...ez_Jisrael.jpg
The translation is literally "Only Thus"
Implicitly, only by force of armed conflict can we create the exclusively Jewish state of Israel.
The Irgun terrorist organisation morphed in to a political entity called the Lukid party, and they control Israel to this day.
And they are NOT content with the 1967 borders.

Is this a Jewish conspiracy?... No, it most certainly is not.
I know that for a fact because my (extended) family is Jewish and regard Zionism with utter contempt. Point of fact; the side of our family that didn't leave Prague before WW2 were rounded up and sent to the labour camps never to be seen again. But... here's the context that reveals everything you need to know about Zionism... I forget his name, but one of the chief Rabbi's tried to bribe the Obergruppenführer for the safe passage of Jews out of the country...
His response?
Sure, $2 per head.
The Rabbi contacts the Jewish protection agency in Switzerland to plead for the cash.
The response: Not one penny will they give.
The Jews must suffer a great holocaust if we are to sit at the bargaining table to secure Palestine as a Jewish state, and the Jews must be made to want to leave Europe for Israel.

Would it surprise you to learn how much Jewish capital was given to Hitler to prosecute his war on Jews? They could have pulled the plug on him at any time they wished.

Suffice it to say that our (Jewish) family regard Zionism, which basically argues for the theft of land from its traditional owners, supposedly legitimised by the deaths of a good portion of our family (1/2 a world a way) Well, we regard that ideology as absolutely repugnant and consider it to be amongst the most dangerous political movements on the planet.

Now, here's the kicker.. and yes, Alex, this post is germane to the discussion.. There is a small sect of Judaism called Sabbatean Frankists.. They are the rich Jewish bankers, your Rupert Murdochs and your Wall st Billionaire club.
They believe that Jesus was an apostate heretic. (Interesting to note that they don't deny his existence - apparently he is now in hell boiling in hot excrement - a quote from the encyclopaedia Judaica) They also believe that they can coerce G-d to hurry up his plans for the real Messiah by precipitating Armageddon directly...

Would it brighten you day to know that religious fundamentalist psychopaths (in Israel) have somewhere between 200 to 400 nuclear weapons, G-d on their side and a holy mandate to fulfil.

What could possibly go wrong?

[pmrid (Peter)]

These days, with MAD a well-understood doctrine and obvious disincentive to overt nuclear aggression, I believe the more belligerent state actors are more likely to use methods that conceal their source - a Stuxnet-like virus or an equivalent slipped into a reactor or power grid for example. Or biological weapons which leave infrastructure intact for the victor's use (after a suitable period of decontamination). These are not too hard to achieve - a little anthrax in the water by some lunatic fringe person with a mission and a grudge etc etc.

Our geographical remoteness would not be any real protection in such scenarios. In fact, since we could be taken out more or less in isolation with reduced risk of spreading the contagion, it may well be a big negative.

There are too many unhinged types out there these days to allow us to be complacent. I think that, sadly, our perceptions of personal liberty and personal safety are becoming mutually exclusive. You can have one but not both. So choose!

Peter

[JA]

Originally Posted by clive milne

One further point that seldom gets discussed is a matter of who directs America's defence policy....

It most certainly is not steered with the intent of benefitting the American people.

There are arguably three groups that pull the strings.
Multinational corporations (especially the banksters, oil and gas, ie) - Wall st)
The Military Industrial complex that profits from endless conflicts.
And last but not least... the Israeli lobby.

The president is nothing more than a glove puppet figure head who's function is to give the prol's the illusion of democracy.

Yep - 110%!!!

Dwight D Einsenhower warned of guarding against the rise of Military Industrial Complex ......

Click here to load the video

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John F. Kennedy was very clear on this and had the guts to speak out against the conspiracy, only to sadly pay the price...... hear his words against this ilk (up to approx 1 min)

Click here to load the video

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Sadly
JA

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by drylander

The film was called 'On the Beach' and was based on a book I read many moons ago. Never saw the film but I would have liked to. The book was a eye opener to those of us living then. It never seemed to worry the pollies then or now but then they have bunkers to protect them though who they would govern in the aftermath is academic.
The other amusing thing was the thing to do if the sirens sounded while at school ...get away from windows and hide under your desk.....Yep that would save you.......NOT. Bloody moron leaders we had/have.
Pete

That's it, On the beach. The film was actually very good including the return to Frisco by the sub on its last mission. It demonstrated the effects of shadowing from the blast such that some areas appeared untouched. Crap of a way to go though, for all concerned.

I did the duck and cover bit... Gawd. Politicians..., should have shot the lot of them on principle... but oh well.

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by JA

Yep - 110%!!!

Dwight D Einsenhower warned of guarding against the rise of Military Industrial Complex ......

John F. Kennedy was very clear on this and had the guts to speak out against the conspiracy, only to sadly pay the price...... hear his words against this ilk (up to approx 1 min)

Sadly
JA

It's really interesting that people still believe the 'lone gunman' conspiracy theory with respect to JFK... Surely you would have to realise that the bullet hole entry wound in the front of Kennedy's neck cannot be explained rationally within the framework of the official narrative...
I don't have to explain 'Who dunnit' to call it for what it is... BS.

[xelasnave]

Hi Clive
Unbelievable explosions.
The ME is a problem which will not go away.
Unfortunately thousands upon thousands will die.
But it is Gods plan unfortunately.
Alex

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

It will be interesting to see how Trump handles the Israeli lobby. It seems just incredible that such a small country on the other side of the world can wield such immense influence on US foreign policy.
Trump doesn't seem to owe any favours the way that so many other DC politicians do.
Given that his stated policy is to reduce overseas involvement, and his friendly attitude to Russia, he's probably more likely to have a peaceful term than Clinton would have.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by clive milne

It's really interesting that people still believe the 'lone gunman' conspiracy theory with respect to JFK... Surely you would have to realise that the bullet hole entry wound in the front of Kennedy's neck cannot be explained rationally within the framework of the official narrative...
I don't have to explain 'Who dunnit' to call it for what it is... BS.

There was an interesting doco out about a year ago where an Aussie forensic Scientist was able to point the finger at one of the secret service agents in the car behind JFK. The suggestion is they were "under the weather" from the night before and one of them had a rife that was accidentally fired after the first shot. The analysis of the trajectory of the shot to the back of his head, the forensic cover up and the responses from those involved were pretty interesting to say the least. Well worth looking at if you get a chance.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Ben

It seems just incredible that such a small country on the other side of the world can wield such immense influence on US foreign policy.

They wield it here too ;-)

Andrew