Can Russia beat the US? Maybe. In theory they have as many strategic nukes as all of NATO and Russia is a lot larger than the USA or Europe. A lot more ground to cover with the cake amount of paint. Then we need to factor in the after- if the US slugs it out with Russia, China is still lurking and they have their own military and their own nuclear weapons. Even if the US “won” against Russia- Russia could still give the US the wounds to let China subjugate or kill the beast. China is also gigantic, and splitting our nuclear arsenal between the two nations would mean an even greater disadvantage when we already can’t cover one or the other. Russia and China have massive populations as well- so when and if a ground war came, especially on anyones home soil- hoards can overcome a lot. The Russians swept the entire theater and into Berlin in WW2 relying largely on hoard power. American might in that war came largely from the massive amounts of troops and material we could churn out.
We also have to wonder what is going on in Ukraine. Russia is sending lots of older equipment, mercenaries, foreign fighters, reservists, conscripts, prisoners… and it does make one wonder as they have historically often used attrition warfare and tested the battlefield as a meat grinder because they just won’t run out of people. But… here’s where it gets interesting. We’ve seen Russia really get whomped before. Chechnya is one example where the Russians had every advantage and it wasn’t enough. Of course Russia later came back with some lessons learned. So we do have to ask- is this a case where the Russians are just stumbling like they have before, or did they know when they enters Ukraine that they’d lose lots of men and equipment no matter what, so they are sending “expendable” persons and equipment and holding back their more seasoned troops and their equipment better suited to modern nation to nation war because they are anticipating a fight with a military of a larger scale…
In simple terms- Russia is big and has lots of people. If their politicians and people have the will, they could literally bury their neighbors in Russian corpses as a way to win a war. Soviet leaders have never cared about people and Putin is a Soviet.
We must be very careful not to underestimate the Russian military or it’s people. Russia has a history of hardship and of its people as a whole making it through. Russia has a history of military folly and of triumph. When you fight Russia you never know what you’re going to get.
Do not for one moment believe Russia is not a potential threat- but know that they aren’t invincible and also know that America has been beaten before. We have been battered, but beating America ain’t defeating America. Russia can’t deafest America as long as even one American or one person who shares American values and spirit walks the Earth. Hell man- even America couldn’t defeat America. We still got people who won’t give up on our own civil war.
Understand if nothing else- Ukrainians are fighting and dying against Russians right now. Their country is being devastated by war. So when we look at Russia as a military joke and laugh- we are diminishing every brave fighter that gave their life to stop the hoard at their door. Win lose or draw, no one is going to get back all that is lost in war. Repelling an invasion doesn't get anything much that you didn’t have before they came to invade, Ukraine is paying blood and their country is being devastated so that they can just have the relative peace they had before a maniac marched on their country. With war losses and sanctions Russia will not likely be in a good position to make restitutions were they to do the right thing and withdraw today even. In months or years it will likely be a worse situation in that sense.
There almost certainly cannot be peace now in our life times and likely beyond for the region because of what they have done. The Ukrainian people are unlikely to be defeated. Their capital can fall, their military or government, but the strength and will of the people and the feelings of resentment towards Russia and its allies for what each individual Ukrainian has suffered because of this war won’t just go away wether Russia leaves Ukraine or either country is taken off the map. Children have lost parents and siblings and are likely to carry that with them into the next generation. This war is a Soviet war- the USSR ceased to exist a generation ago and yet- the history and memories and grudges are here in 2022 still. Grudges and hate from WW2 almost a century ago still shape our world and in the Middle East and Africa and Asia conflicts from thousands of years ago dictate the conflicts of tomorrow.
Let’s hope for peace, but when someone brings war to you, fighting is the only choice. There aren’t generally any real winners in war but there are certainly real losers. This is a fight to not lose, to not have any more taken from you than is inevitable in war. Russia is big, Russia has population, Russia has shown it has will. The fall of the USSR didn’t get rid of thE USSR, people and practices persist from the Soviet age. Ideology and agendas persist. The “fall” of the iron curtain has always been one bad turn away from just being an intermission. Don’t underestimate Russia- don’t become complacent and don’t devalue the sacrifices and suffering of those who have lost things to Russian ambitions.
russia is losing against ukraine because they arent using nukes
they could easily "win" against them by dropping nukes on a the big places, but thats not what they want, they want the land, the territory, and the resources, and their actual military isnt good enough to do that apparently. They seem to have basically not changed tactics or equipment doctrines since the soviet era. But a nuke is a nuke.
Against the US they probably also want the same things, but as a secondary goal. Their primary goal with attacking the US would be destroying an enemy, removing a threat, "putting them down" as the post says. Their statement isnt wrong, they do have the nukes required to do that. They just also lose if that happens, they just also get nuked, probably by all of nato, much means all of nato also probably gets nuked.
The entire world would be destroyed in more ways than one if a nuke was used. Chaos in the streets in alot of major cities. Runs in the stores no gas anywhere. Half of the world would just stop.
Probably? We can’t REALLY say. A tactical weapon almost certainly wouldn’t provoke a nuclear response- especially on foreign non NATO soil. It then becomes “what are you gonna do about it?” And escalation versus maintaining credibility of arms. A small tactical weapon also might not be much more “shocking” to see than a large conventional weapon depending on yield etc. the fact A nuke was sided would probably cause at least some instability, maybe some rioting in Europe- but that’s not really so worrying when we consider that soccer, Eurovision, tax increases, tax decreases, and long periods indoors can cause riots in Europe.
A STRATEGIC weapon would shock the hell out of the world most likely- but it is again a “what are you gonna do about it?” Scenario. Matching nuke for nuke will obviously kick off WW3 and nuking Russian positions in Ukraine probably wouldn’t be something the Ukrainians would be happy about…
So then NATO has to decide if it is going to Nuke Russia or Russian territory in retaliation for a nuclear strike against a non nato non allied nation. Ground troops could be used- but again- sending ground troops into Russia would probably bring more nukes. Sending them into Ukraine might not get nukes coming inside NATO borders right away- but it would officially start a war with NATO most likely unless one or more parties backed down- and if Russia used another Nuke in Ukraine you now have NATO troops being nukes potentially so that could open the door to requiring a nuclear response and most sane people want to avoid that.
one thing with that too is that there's always the human element. Even if russia nuked all of nato, would the people controlling the nukes on the receiving end be willing to end the world, effectively just taking literally everyone else down with them?
So would ONE nuke throw the world into a spiral….? Questionable. It wouldn’t be just another day as far as peoples fears and perceptions or the markets are concerned most likely. That introduces an element of instability that would to totally lead to some backlash.
That said- it’s debatable the impact of a nuclear exchange period. We don’t need to use ALL the nukes. That isn’t a scenario that gets explored much since MAD is the defacto doctrine- but when and if that decision comes ever, any prudent person making it is going to think tactically and towards minimizing the damage. Depending on who is in the seat to make the call- MAD could be a bluff and it’s even possible that a nuclear power wouldn’t return fire because at that point they may feel more death is all that will happen or think about the destruction and fallout beyond the enemies borders. Ie: MAD could be a “bluff” of sorts to deter use of weapons but not an actual plan that if the time came those responsible would do.
Or not. It could be total nuclear free for all. We don’t really know. It’s unprecedented and whoever is in the position to decide will have the weight of billions of lives and possibly the future of the species on their shoulders as well as their own concerns tactically and politically. Buuuut…. Well…. How much does all that matter…? In the long run? Theories say nuclear winter is real and others say it isn’t. Some say that the physical destruction of the nukes isn’t the threat and that mass detonation would alter the world and its climate. Others say it would just be of of booms and some fallout and radiation.
Radiation is not great in high doses but it is paradoxically far less scary than the public consciousness holds and far more scary than most realize. The blast zones would totally kill a lot of people and destroy a lot of infrastructure. The fallout would cause problems. That said… Hiroshima and Nagasaki are actually…. Pretty fine. Mazda was pumping cars out of their Hiroshima factory by 1960. In 1946 oleanders bloomed in the ground. Most of the isotopes and dangers from an atomic blast are short lived. Heavy metals like the core material that survive in dust etc. will persist forever. The major danger from the weapons themselves and most of their fallout tends to be around 5 years after the blast for those not killed instantly or from injuries in the blast event. If the nuclear barrage is concentrated on Russia and the U.S. or on NATO countries and Russia or Russia+China- that leaves a whole lot of the earth untouched by the blasts and only having to mitigate fallout risks and deal..
with any climate and supply chain issues to survive. We can say based on historical evidence that if as few as 5,000 or so viable population members survived, the human race would likely endure so long as the worst predictions of nuclear winter weren’t true. The world changes for sure- but devastation on a local scale isn’t unprecedented. Natural disasters and climate or weather events, wars…. Humanity proves pretty resilient in history and the “whole world” as it is known has been destroyed before in history. Governments and empires toppled, knowledge and stability lost. Don’t get me wrong- it would suck. Even without “nuclear winter” scenarios, famine and likely water scarcity would sweep over vast populations and likely most of the world. Economies would probably buckle. You’d have chaos and lawlessness and rebellions and warlords and mob rule and power grabs.
The face of the world would change. But… humanity has seen that before too. The detestation would be arguably more severe than WW2- we can argue over scale and scope and a protracted war vs. a sudden event. We can debate how to weight the differences in technology- would out globalized and highly digital technology make us worse off? Would the fact that the technological level- especially over most of the world- being so rudimentary in the 1930’s-40’s just more or less put us on equal ground? We can’t argue against the fact post war and once resources were available from the war that many nations had transport and production capabilities of unprecedented scale waiting to be converted from war spec to rebuilding. We can’t argue against the fact that places like the USA were basically untouched by the wars destruction so were in a position to “help” rebuild the world- and those are theoretically conditions that a massive nuke exchange today wouldn’t have after the fact.
So it isn’t as simple as to say that there is a direct comparison in history but it is fair to say that there is evident to suggest the world can bounce back from large scale global catastrophe. How quickly and what the world looks like after that are not the same. It is also true that soft and hard cancer risks among the likely hundreds of millions or billions exposed to high dose ionizing radiation in such an exchange would likely shoot up. Historical data indicates that the person person life time cancer risk for full body bear fatal radiation exposure doesn’t exceed 5x the persons base risk. That’s still ALOT but it also isn’t necessarily so bad in a broader view. Children exposed to ionizing radiation are at high risk. In utero exposure for pregnancies that survive birth has increased risks of various developmental and mental issues as well as increased risk of mortality before or after birth, but children conceived after the event don’t appear to have significantly increased
odds of issues if their parents are not further exposed to high dose ionizing radiation or dangerous byproducts in significant measure. So…. I mean- it’s unprecedented so we can’t say. A single nuke would at the least cause quite a stir but at the tamest likely not be any more disruptive that something like this conflict itself as far as global politics and economics are concerned. At the extremes if people flipped out enough it could start WW3 maybe.
Multiple nukes or total nuclear war is… super unprecedented. At the tamest it would be just like a regular war more or less except it would take less time to level a city than with carpet bombing and be more unforgiving in its destruction.
At its wildest… we could kill every living thing in earth or wipe out humanity.
No matter what we can say that if a single nuke pops off-at least someone,
Somewhere is going to have a very bad day, and things are at the least bit going to be super pleasant anywhere near the detonation point
for at least 5 years. We can also say that certainly the day even one nuke goes off, the market dips or dives and some world leader or government somewhere is going to be getting a lot of angry phone calls among other things.
That’s about all we can say for certain though. Hopefully we never find out for sure what would happen.
@bethorein- sorry. I don’t see replies until the last comment is posted and the page refreshes. But 100% agree. We just don’t know. There have been cases in the past where those tasked with nuclear response had reason to believe or suspect that there may be a nuclear attack and they did not respond. Most of those cases involved malfunctions and people who at least suspected malfunctions. There is at least one case where a strike was initiated in response to a malfunction but was luckily stopped when the issue was discovered. We don’t know that the world leaders in charge of the response would order it- most people don’t want to kill millions or more or wipe out humanity. Most people who aren’t nut job nationalists realize countries rise and fall but humanity outlives them all- so they may not actually want to wipe out the globe as retaliation for the potential fall of a nation. And even if the high ups will it- there are never promises that the person on the trigger so to speak will..
.. go along with it or won’t stop it. So I agree. There is a human component. Do most Russians or most Americans feel that if their government was going to fall and their country was going to be ruined they’d rather that themselves and their families and loved ones and millions of others far away all just die too? Mmmm… I feel like if most people needed to move to another country or die most people (not all but most) would move- and if the question becomes move to another country or you spouse and children etc. will die… I’d say the majority of people would give up their country to save their whole family-so the support for nuclear war for nationalist ideals is probably not there except with the real die hard nationalists and whack jobs.
We must be very careful not to underestimate the Russian military or it’s people. Russia has a history of hardship and of its people as a whole making it through. Russia has a history of military folly and of triumph. When you fight Russia you never know what you’re going to get.
Do not for one moment believe Russia is not a potential threat- but know that they aren’t invincible and also know that America has been beaten before. We have been battered, but beating America ain’t defeating America. Russia can’t deafest America as long as even one American or one person who shares American values and spirit walks the Earth. Hell man- even America couldn’t defeat America. We still got people who won’t give up on our own civil war.
they could easily "win" against them by dropping nukes on a the big places, but thats not what they want, they want the land, the territory, and the resources, and their actual military isnt good enough to do that apparently. They seem to have basically not changed tactics or equipment doctrines since the soviet era. But a nuke is a nuke.
Against the US they probably also want the same things, but as a secondary goal. Their primary goal with attacking the US would be destroying an enemy, removing a threat, "putting them down" as the post says. Their statement isnt wrong, they do have the nukes required to do that. They just also lose if that happens, they just also get nuked, probably by all of nato, much means all of nato also probably gets nuked.
A STRATEGIC weapon would shock the hell out of the world most likely- but it is again a “what are you gonna do about it?” Scenario. Matching nuke for nuke will obviously kick off WW3 and nuking Russian positions in Ukraine probably wouldn’t be something the Ukrainians would be happy about…
That said- it’s debatable the impact of a nuclear exchange period. We don’t need to use ALL the nukes. That isn’t a scenario that gets explored much since MAD is the defacto doctrine- but when and if that decision comes ever, any prudent person making it is going to think tactically and towards minimizing the damage. Depending on who is in the seat to make the call- MAD could be a bluff and it’s even possible that a nuclear power wouldn’t return fire because at that point they may feel more death is all that will happen or think about the destruction and fallout beyond the enemies borders. Ie: MAD could be a “bluff” of sorts to deter use of weapons but not an actual plan that if the time came those responsible would do.
Multiple nukes or total nuclear war is… super unprecedented. At the tamest it would be just like a regular war more or less except it would take less time to level a city than with carpet bombing and be more unforgiving in its destruction.
At its wildest… we could kill every living thing in earth or wipe out humanity.
No matter what we can say that if a single nuke pops off-at least someone,
Somewhere is going to have a very bad day, and things are at the least bit going to be super pleasant anywhere near the detonation point
That’s about all we can say for certain though. Hopefully we never find out for sure what would happen.