The Myth That Nuclear Weapons Can Kill Everyone On Earth-many times over

1) I do not believe your claim
2) 500 missiles is more than enough to nuke the USA back into the stone age.

 

Well done. MAD was not a doctrine formulated on the basis of chicken little running around. It was a doctrine that was founded in science.

The reason we moved away from "MAD" is that it was not good for profits of the military industrial complex. Peace is not good for business.

 

One could do it with a successful EMP attack. A 5 megaton device detonated 250-300 miles above Kansas would fry every non-hardened electrical system in the continental US.

 

Hence why protections against this eventuality are factored into the design of modern nukes.

It is not particularly complicated from what I can tell.

http://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-protection.html

 

Nuclear weapons will cause our infrastructure to collapse, and countless millions of people dependent on that infrastructure for food, water and medical care will die when it is cut off.

That is what will cause the collapse of humanity. It’s anyones guess whether or not a species weakened in the way described above will be capable of surviving the environmental impact of all out nuclear war.

 

No ****, anyone who has played Fallout could have told you that.

 

Some of what I have read about EMP blasts is quite freaken disturbing. I mean .. obviously it would likely require the technology of a nation state but, for most nation states this is a relatively simple way to cause a serious amount of damage without killing anyone - necessarily starting a nuclear war. Any nation that can put a satellite into low earth orbit could do it. (assuming they can get their hands on a nuclear bomb. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the material that went missing during the collapse of the Soviet union made it to the hands of some "non nuclear" nation states).

 

And since those non hardened systems would include 99% of all vehicles, manufacturing, energy production, food production and distribution, water distribution, communications, emergency services, etc. with no way to restore them for years, we could suffer higher casualties than a full nuclear exchange even with a global relief effort.

 

For sure - I posted to this effect previously - that the majority of deaths from a nuclear attack would come from the chaos that would ensue. Mind you I included the fallout equation which is massive... Drinking water is the biggest issue. The amount of contamination in water supplies would render that water undrinkable .. even if the tap still worked - which most wouldn't.

In the case of an EMP - it is harder to predict but, how long would food supplies last without power ? The competition for scarce resources could easily result in mass chaos. A kind of zombie apocalypse without as many zombies - those suffering from radiation sickness.

People do not realize how reliant our police services are on communications. There would be mass chaos for sure.

 

Upon what facts to you base this assessment?

Regardless, I think it's silly to assume a nuclear first strike by the US would be completely painless for Americans.

 

I don't think anyone suggests "completely painless" if the U.S. conducted a nuclear first strike.

But if say China is only able to respond to a nuclear first strike by hitting the U.S. successfully with a couple of nuclear strikes, one military, one city then overall its a win by any standard for the U.S.

 

Then what are you claiming? Did I misunderstand your post that the US could knock out all of the Chinese nuclear weapons without adverse consequence or retaliation from the Chinese? (forgetting the Russians and everyone else for the moment).

LOL. Yes, just like the Buck Turgidson quote I posted earlier: "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."

 

Actually, a single large nuclear warhead detonating in one of the largest cities in the United States would probably killed less than 500,000 people tops.

 

Heck yea! Not even muss our hair!....unless you consider the economic impact. Remember how many people freaked over the SARs crisis? While you and I may be brave and not give a damn about half a million deaths, the fact remains many Americans do care and that fact itself has an impact.

 

Trump said on Sunday it was “possible” that a deal he claimed ended the nuclear threat posed by North Korea would not “work out”.

A day after it was reported that Pyongyang has increased its production of enriched uranium at secret sites, Fox Business broadcast an interview with the President.

Trump was pressed on whether he trusted Kim Jong-un, whom he once described as "really been very open and I think very honorable based on what we are seeing." He and Kim met last month in Singapore and Trump said Kim had “a great chemistry”, to make good on promises to destroy Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

“I made a deal with him, I shook hands with him, I really believe he means it,” said Trump. “Now, is it possible? Have I been in deals, have you been in things where, people didn’t work out? It’s possible.”

The naiveté of this man is incredible. I said this was a farce four months ago. I described the Singapore summit as a three-month melodrama played out on daytime television, present by Trump Productions with Donald J. Trump as the star. I said the summit itself was an expensive, useless photo op with great fanfare.

Now Trump is saying it didn't work out. Sheesh! This is unbelievable. Has all of Washington gone nuts?

 

Uuuuummmm... no...

 

Those types of sites are very cool and fun to play around with. But they aren't remotely accurate.

 

Once again, you are claiming I said things I did not say. Yeah 500,000 people would be a terrible loss of life and the economic impact would be terrible as well.

But.

Face it, 500,000 civilians compared to what other major countries have lost population wise during a major war is relatively small.

 

Well, that's cause your an ...What this site describes.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/idiot

Anyone would be a fool trusting Trump on anything...

 

Nukes could kill everyone in major cities. That's about it.

 

Heh...no that is false.

What killed the dinosaurs again?

 

Those 500 missiles will mostly be targeted at military targets.

 

And every military system, especially those involved in fighting a nuclear war, are hardened, so the EMP attack just ensures we conduct a counter-value strIke against whoever conducted it.

 

You don't think a nuclear exchange would kill Americans?

Ultimately, climate change caused by a large rock landing in what is now the Gulf of Mexico. Why do you ask?

 

Correct as long as we could track who did it. Any attack from space would be identifiable. If it was just in a cargo plane flying from South or Central America to Canada or in a cargo container at a US port awaiting customs inspection then it would be more difficult to retaliate with nukes. Consider if ISIS smuggled in a nuke and detonated it. What of theirs would we nuke? One of their captured cities containing thousands of innocent people? I think we'd have to hit them conventionally and with a massive force of boots on the ground.