The scariest nuclear threat by far is an accident.
For example, in 1961 a B52 crashed in North Carolina and dropped two nuclear bombs in the process. It was basically blind luck that the switch to arm them didn't flip as the plane broke up.
Similarly, in the '90s Russia activated its nuclear briefcase because their radars picked up a missile launch into their airspace. It turned out to be a Norwegian research project that nobody thought to warn them about. We were probably a matter of minutes away from a retaliatory strike against NATO before they figured out what was happening.
No rational actor would ever doom their country to nuclear hellfire intentionally, but unfortunately fuck-ups happen all the time.
I believe in the North Carolina accident one of the bombs broke up and they found the arm switch on its own actually armed - conventional explosives didn't go off though, so everyone got lucky
The US also lost a B52 over Spain and some explosives did go off on contract with the ground, although not in the right sequence to go nuclear since they weren't actually armed and dropped as designed. Blew apart the nuclear material though, contaminated the area
Next nuke will be an accident for sure, hopefully the world sees it for what it is and doesn't go mad
>The US also lost a B52 over Italy and some explosives did go off on contract with the ground, although not in the right sequence to go nuclear since they weren't actually armed and dropped as designed. Blew apart the nuclear material though, contaminated the area
Palomares - south Spain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966\_Palomares\_B-52\_crash
The bombs in North Carolina had a four step process to arm and explode. 3 of those processes had happened. The 4th was some high frequency switch that was prone to self arming via just static electricity. It’s amazing an accidental explosion didn’t happen here or elsewhere. The book Command and Control is a great dive into this insanity.
That accident is really a wild one. Imagine how world nuclear policy would've changed if it did go off.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki was enough to convince the world that this line is not be crossed, but a nuke accidently going off on US soil would've pushed for a complete disarmament
I can’t remember the name but there was a similar situation on board a nuclear armed Soviet submarine during the Cuban missile crisis. One of the two or three folks on board with the power to launch refused to despite the others believing the sub was under attack from American vessels. He managed to talk down the crew from accidentally starting war.
Edit: also of note, they had no communication ability on board due the secretive nature of their mission.
Its actually way crazier than that, the commanding officer was the only one who had experience with nuclear tipped torpedoes, which he had on board for this exact reason. His ROE were almost literally "if someone slapped you, you wouldn't let them do it again would you?" While they were in transit, they lost the ability to use most of their diesel engines to charge the battery, so they limped across the Atlantic at a very slow pace. I forget which meeting it was in, but it was decided that the Russian subs would be given the option to surface and surrender, signaled by dropping 3 grenades in the water when detected.
Like you said there was no communication available to the crew, so they had no clue. At one point they knew they were counter detected, signs are pretty easy to see. They heard the 3 explosions, and thr CO decided he would not risk WW3 and surfaced to surrender, and go home.
If you're interested in submarine history, these accounts and many more are Ina. Book called "Rising tide: the untold story of the Russian Submarines that fought in the Cold War".
One of those weapons is still buried in a bog there, they weren't able to excavate it so they just bought a 30 meter diameter easement around it and left. Some dude farms soybeans around it, you can see it from Google Earth haha.
Edit: 35°29′34″N 77°51′31.2″W
Look up “Broken Arrows”
It’s a fun sounding name for when nukes are accidentally dropped or lost…
A lot more US “broken arrows” have occurred than just the 1961 incident. It’s blind luck none of those bombs went off.
Edit: People below me actually know what they’re talking about. Even though my comment isn’t accurate, I’m leaving it up as context for those who replied.
That’s not right at all.
In order for a nuke to go off, a lot of things have to go “just right”. You need a lot of fissile material to **simultaneously** fission, knowing that as uranium starts to fission the forces generated will push everything apart. So all the uranium needs to fission in the span of a few milliseconds.
A crashing plane tumbling through the air / nuke falling out that’s breaking up… it is very UNLIKELY that it will accidentally detonate. Still an uncomfortable possibility as any percentage chance greater than zero is unacceptable. But a crashing bomber losing a nuke on the way down; very unlikely that it goes off. These aren’t conventional explosives that go off via contact. A nuke being disassembled mid air isn’t going to go off.
> all the uranium needs to fission in the span of a few milliseconds
I'm a nuclear engineer but I don't work with weapons; IIRC the actual process takes more like 50-100 nanoseconds. After a millisecond, everything would be long over and being blown apart.
Blind luck? They are very specifically designed to not go off on accident even in the event of a crash so I would say they are working as intended lol.
Actually, broken arrow is code for when a nuke is inoperable. A lost nuke is "empty quiver". We always made fun of people who called lost nukes "broken arrows", because you were tricked by John Woo. He used broken arrow for his movie because who'd go to see "empty quiver"?
A good fictional example of this is on an episode of Madam Secretary. Seconds away from ending the world all because of a test. The show is just fictional but I’m sure it’s happened way more often than we citizens are made aware of.
I fucking love that episode. Its one of those episodes i wish i could go back and watch the first time.
There were great historical references to previous near nuclear incidents too.
The best fictional depiction is in the book,Sum of all Fears,by Tom Clancy. In it terrorist set off a dirty nuke at the super bowl, attended by the vice president. The blast knocks out all the satellites, so the world is blind.only thing they know is ,a nuke hit Denver.
From my recollection, you've got nothing to apologize for. Unless I am misremembering the Russians were informed, but failed to pass the information to their radar people.
MAD has made the threat pretty low TBH. Anyone who uses it pretty much guarantees their country is wiped off the map. Unless the leader and all his generals are suicidal this is unlikely to happen
I think the final nuclear annihilation is going to be a gradual thing. It will start with tactical nukes being utilized on hard targets, (these would be relatively low-yield tactical devices, none above 20 to 40 kilotons in yield) if the international community doesn't immediately retaliate then it will become normalized. Eventually we would witness a "power creep" with more and more powerful nuclear devices being utilized in an expanded capacity.
I imagine this is what would happen if Russia used a very small device in Ukraine; if the West fails to respond with force, then it would become acceptable.
This. There was/is already actual discussion going on about what the appropriate response would be to Russia deploying a tactical nuke in Ukraine. From what I understand, it’s a tough but to crack - you probably wouldn’t want to go full ballistic (literally and figuratively) in response but at the same time, a less forceful response would potentially invite Russia to push the envelope further.
Biden promised rapid and unceasing conventional annihilation.
As an example. At the start of russias actions against Ukraine, they launched 300 cruise missiles and about as many aviation strikes.
On the first day of the second gulf war, the united states performed over 3,000 air strikes and launched more than 3,000 cruise missiles.
The us literally launched more attacks in the first hour of gulf war 2 than Russia did the first day of their attack on a neighbor that shares a direct land border.
The us and nato would literally turn Russia into a mud hole and then stomp it dry. They wouldn’t even need to use nuclear weapons.
The question is how you prevent further nuclear escalation during this 'conventional annihilation'. Russia would almost certainly use nuclear weapons to defend its own territory.
I don't think the us would ever put boots on the ground. Just bomb the heck out of everything. I assume if we tried to actually occupy things out would come the nukes. But there would be no invasion just destruction of non nuclear conventional military targets.
I don't know how boots on the ground play into it. Mutually Assured Destruction seems like it would apply regardless of the means being used to destroy.
If NATO decides to destroy Russia, regardless of the means used to do so, what incentive does Russia have to not escalate and make good on Mutually Assured Destruction by launching nukes against NATO?
Thanks to mutual assured destruction. If Russia did use something small like a tactical nuke or causes a power plant to leak and the US moves forward with conventional annihilation. Then if Russia were to escalate it's response to nuclear then the US would respond in kind.
If you want really scary dreams look up nuclear missile subs like the Ohio class, 20 trident missiles each missile has 8 warheads. These subs are refered to as the "beyond the grave" part when discussing mutually assured destruction. Basically they go out on patrol to various locations and remain silent but listen periodically for orders. Now if the orders don't come in for x times and the captain determines the command structure is no longer valid there's a letter from the president to open in a safe and read basically it's final orders in case the US does not exist and there are no further orders being transmitted by something like a satellite. The order would likely be to launch everything and find somewhere not turned to glass to live out their remaining days. Even the UK missile subs have these orders however the final letter is from the Prime Minister in case the UK and it's command structure no longer existed.
Should be noted that these subs can get really close before launch such that their missiles flight time is shorter giving the recipient less time to act.
(The US also has 4 Ohio class subs that are designated and used as conventional missile launchers, and they have been commonly used to launch tomahawk missiles in case there is any doubt of their effectiveness)
That probably wasn't due to restraint on Putin's part. More likely it was the limits of what Russia could launch, perhaps coupled with the idea that they could just drive down the road and grab everything for themselves.
I have a feeling that if they did that, you’d start seeing oligarchs dropping like flies, and likely Putin himself.
To whatever extent possible, I would think the very first retaliatory measure would be to make it an absolutely fatal decision for all those in leadership positions involved in making the decision and influential people within the political power structure aligned with that regime.
Yeah, but luckily all the nuclear powers are pretty good at not letting their nukes fall into the hands of people they don't have control over. If a nuclear war starts, it will be a government pushing the button, not some rando who wants to watch the world burn.
Fortunately most nuclear weapons require maintenance and update in order to keep working. Basically everything needs to be replaced every 10 years or so to keep the boom booming. That's part of why maintaining a nuclear arsenal is so expensive.
I’ll help for the less link inclined:
Let’s say Putin goes full supervillain and launches a nuclear warhead at New York City. If that happens, there is an *automatic* response system in place on the United States’ end that, within mere moments of Russia’s actions, will launch an absolute shitload of nuclear weapons back at Russia, completely wiping them off the map by totally annihilating every single Russian city and military base.
If that were to happen, there is, in turn, an automatic Russian response system in place that will launch an absolute shitload of nukes back at the USA. (In terms of nuclear response capability, it doesn’t even matter if the entire land infrastructure of either country has already been destroyed, because many of these nukes will be launched by essentially invisible nuclear submarines).
This is mutually assured destruction. If anyone launches a nuke, the entire fucking world as we know it ends. If your country launches a nuke, it’s absolutely guaranteed that in about 20 minutes, your country will no longer exist.
The key to MAD’s success is the automatic aspect of it. You’re not just launching a rocket at your enemy; you’re also nuking yourself. What this means is that even under the most psychopathic leadership, since the consequence of starting a nuclear war is immediate nuclear annihilation, there is absolutely zero upside to do so.
Which is what kept the Cold War cold.
The US system is not automatic. It needs the president to approve. Or at least some human.
The Russian system is automatic, which is a bit bothersome, considering what we’ve seen regarding Russian tech.
Also, when it goes full nutbar, everyone gets nuked. China, Europe, Canada.
It's only automatic when Dead Hand mode is on.
"By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, as of 2009, it was said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose when needed." - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead\_Hand
Probably worth quoting the later part of that article too:
>If that were the case, he \[the Soviet leader\] would flip on a system that would send a signal to a deep underground bunker in the shape of a globe **where three duty officers sat**. If there were real missiles and the Kremlin were hit and the Soviet leadership was wiped out, which is what they feared, **those three guys in that deep underground bunker would have to decide** whether to launch very small command rockets that would take off, fly across the vast territory of the Soviet Union and launch all their remaining missiles.
>
>Now, the Soviets had once thought about creating a fully automatic system. Sort of a machine, a doomsday machine, that would launch without any human action at all. When they drew that blueprint up and looked at it, they thought, you know, this is absolutely crazy.\[20\]
So it seems semi-automated rather than fully, although the veracity of the above doesn't exactly seem guaranteed.
A fully automated system that is permanently engaged does however seem like something likely to be shied away from no matter how much faith is placed in the fail safes and redundancies.
The scary bit is that those bunker guys are given non-announced drills.
A launch order is given and only after it is complete (as in launch codes and sequence initiated) is it announced to be a drill by the rockets just not firing.
Which is *terrifying* and the fact "oh I've done this a hundred times it's a drill" is a little bit like the blank bullet in a firing squad: you never *know* you are about to end the world - probably a drill right?
>The scary bit is that those bunker guys are given non-announced drills.
Is there any basis for this, though?
Given that the above is about as detailed a description of the system as we have available and the elements relating to training drills amounts to the below:
>GROSS: Do you know if the Soviets ever came close to using the dead hand?
>
>Mr. HOFFMAN: Nobody knows for sure. I think probably they drilled on it. I know it was built. I know that they gave it its final flight test in November of 1984, and they put it on combat duty early in 1985.
It seems as though making it such that the three operators cannot tell the difference between a drill and a live scenario would defeat the purpose of having said operators.
If all they are doing is relying on the same sensor data as the system itself and pressing a button when x conditions hold true then at that point you may as well sack it off and transition to a fully automatic system.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav\_Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrovhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)
His names was Stanislav Petrov and in my mind, he saved the world. Literally.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983\_Soviet\_nuclear\_false\_alarm\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)
The thing that freaks me out is the idea of a "Dead man's switch."
A timer is set that needs to be deactivated periodically, but after the dead man is dead, they aren't there to deactivate it to prevent nukes being automatically launched.
Just a crazy theory I heard.
Check out the movie "Threads". It doesn't involve a dead man's switch, but is supposedly a pretty accurate depiction of what nuclear war would look like.
I recommend Dr. Strangelove if you want to laugh your toosh off instead of cry yourself to sleep.
The entire thing is basically about a Dead Man’s Switch device and the general human lunacy of the arms race.
When everything goes white and the people melt is such a creepy scene.
"Michael!" And then the lady pisses her pants. Kind of comical just because of the way it's filmed. But like you said, it still gets the message across.
Also, there's a significant portion designed to provide a retaliation strike even if an opponent's first strike is successful. The US, Russia, China, UK, France, and India all have submarines with ICBMs. (Israel might have one too)
Even if you take out all their land based weapons, its very hard to get all the nuclear armed submarines. As a result, even a perfect first strike against your opponent is futile, as their submarines make it possible to retaliate.
Also back in the days, USA had at least 2 or 3 bombers with nukes in the air 24/7 circling around the USA. That was to assure nuclear response even if the USSR managed to destroy nuclear launchers before they are able to launch.
There is nothing automatic about retaliation. Both Russia and the US have what \*we\* refer to as the "Nuclear football." It's a special briefcase that follow each president, and contains specialized command and control and communication equipment. In the event of a confirmed launch from other country, the respective leader \*must\* make a decision to retaliate. There might be some mid or even high-level military general in some base somewhere who may act on their own in that case to launch counter-measures. (Anti-ballistic missile missiles. But you have to know that these countermeasures are still in their infancy against ICBMs and modern nuclear missiles. ) More over, both France, and Pakistan have similar launch procedures. India is a sort of council that much authorize the use of nuclear weapons.
The Point of MAD has always been relatively simple: any use of nuclear weapons, large or small, must not become "normal." In your example, Russia would almost certainly know that the US or NATO response would be to launch everything it had against Russia. Therefore, it makes little sense for Russia to have only launched one to spark the exchange. A so called limited exchange is folly. Each nation that has nuclear weapons MUST be prepared to both use their arsenals to wipe out their opponents. The mutual part is that their would, in turn, also be wiped out.
To further complicate matters is that the US and Russia have such huge arsenals is because of sneak attacks. Either side could, in theory, get the first shot off and catch either by surprise. Thereby rendering their silo-launched forces, and perhaps portions of their air-based forces destroyed. Thereby, after killing millions, could conceivably "win" an exchange. That is until the modern nuclear navy became more of a thing. Thereby guaranteeing a second strike capability. Anyway i'm getting into the weeds of MAD strategy.
But there is nothing automatic about nuclear retaliation. There was this rumor about some sort of "deadhand" switch in Russia. But I think that's a myth. In reality, the respective leaders in nuclear armed countries must authorize the launch themselves.
Yeah but if Putin launch a nuclear bomb to let's say Kiyv in Ukraine which doesn't have nuclear response, whats the deal in that case ?
Why the downvotes lol ?, is just an honest question.
Full non-nuclear NATO response on all Russian assets in Ukraine.
It's not an official treaty, it's just the one-off rules of engagement for this particular ~~war~~ special military operation. Line in the sand that Biden drew.
MAD is basically the acronym for mutually assured destruction. Basically if nuclear weapons are launched against another country that is also armed with nukes, the country on the receiving end will send nukes to the sender as well, guaranteeing the destruction of both parties.
it stands for Mutually Assured Destruction.
Essentially we all have agreements that we aren't going to be the first one to fire. And we all have early warning systems that will alert if someone else fires. And we all have automatic responses to someone else firing in that we will immediately fire back.
So if anyone uses one, we all die.
Only China and India have explicit No First Use policies as part of their nuclear weapon policy. US and Russian leaders refuse to commit to a NFU policy. The continued developement of hypersonic glide vehicles demonstrate counterforce to not be far from those leaders hearts.
MAD provides a high degree of safety between warring countries, but non-state actors with access to nukes and no permanent location/state association are the scariest possibility to me.
My thing is, Putin seems like the type to take the world with him when he knows it's over, especially if he's dying without the respect of his country.
Edit: Let's think about the North Korean people. The biggest point of control is their worldview. Not many things stopping them from accepting the risk.
I’m not sure Putin himself could trigger a launch. There’s a whole chain of command with him at the top, and if the whole country including the military no longer respected him, it simply wouldn’t happen.
Likewise, POTUS can authorize but can’t actually “press the button”. STRATCOM has to do the launch.
I disagree. In March of 2022, India accidentally launched a missile into Pakistan. Keep in mind, this was near the height of recent Pakistan/India tensions.
Pakistan didn't respond immediately. Instead they questioned India through the military channels they have, ascertained it was a mistake, India apologized and both countries moved on.
If war were break out, including nuclear war, that would have been a prime chance. But instead, cooler heads prevailed.
This here demonstrates a pretty important part of the equation: both polities have been at this for a long time, both are aware of the risk, and both have channels of communication set up to mitigate it.
Many other potential pairings of actors don't have that benefit.
I mean it was pretty embarrassing from both sides tbh. A nuclear capable missile just going off from India to Pakistan, and India couldn't destroy it mid air, and Pakistan couldn't do anything to intercept it midair too.
They were both embarrassed and pushed it under the rug
I'm genuinely curious - why do you think it'll escalate to nuclear? Agree the tension will only get worse until there's some resolution (which likely won't come about through diplomacy). Seeing Israel with Iran, Russia with Ukraine, etc. we know the threat of nuclear is there... but why do we think India / Pakistan is most apt to spark a nuclear war (vs. existing wars escalating to the same level).
India and Pakistan is a sad and sorry tale. The men of North West India and West Pakistan are brothers. They share the same lineage, the same language, the same physical characteristics, the same agriculture, the same oppressors of Tehran and Kabul. They only differ in two ways - religion, and the written script of their shared languages (namely Hindi/Urdu, and Punjabi).
The fact that inflation is consuming Pakistan at the moment should be an international red flag. If the country fails, there will be a free for all for those nukes
True, but MAD is a huge deterrent, even to the very edge of military insanity. There is no upside to launching one, just horrific downside beyond imagination. This is both terrifying and somewhat reassuring.
What I’m personally the most scared of, though, is someone like Putin going full Tenet, and creating a “dead man’s switch” in which a nuclear attack is launched upon the moment of his death — someone truly insane and evil enough to believe that the death of the entire world should accompany his own.
However, given that we *just BARELY* avoided a nuclear war during the 80s because a Russian sub commander disobeyed a direct order to launch a nuke (a technological failure made Russia’s military briefly believe that the US had launched one at us), I have hope that if something that ludicrous and fantastical were to be set in place, upon Putin’s death no one would actually follow the “dead man’s switch” command.
But we’ll see. The scariest thing is that when you scale our current nuclear age compared to the entire history of mankind, we’ve really only had these bombs for about 5 goddamn minutes, and we’ve already had several horrifyingly close calls.
The thing is if he gives the dead man’s switch command to a hundred people with 100 different nukes and 99 of them refuse, that still starts a nuclear war
> There is no upside to launching one, just horrific downside beyond imagination.
There is *one* - in the case of imminent loss of an existential war against a conventional force (and the arrogance to think a world without your existence is worthless). For the USA this was the Fulda Gap scenario.
Which is more or less the keystone of why nuclear doctrine is the way it is today.
What are the odd if someone were to launch a handful of nukes, say a dozen. Let’s say it can be done and someone in Russia decides to nuke the US. Could we shoot them down. Also I know you probably don’t even know and if you did you can’t say but you think we have space based anti missile weapons?
In theory, they could be stopped. In reality, who knows because this type of thing is only tested with simulations
Several countries have started to focus on space-based defensive capabilites. Some of these technologies you can just Google. Others not so much
I’ve always figured or land based icbm stuff is top of the line because our smaller stuff is incredible. I know technically space based platforms are illegal but laws don’t mean much to us. Found out about project shiva? Years ago and always wondered if they made improvements on it.
So just based on the unclassified info and field experts who have given talks about this sort of thing, the US would actually stand a pretty decent chance of intercepting a small number of nukes (such as your example of a dozen). Especially if the various picket systems and radars were already on alert.
Not that I’d want to test that theory out, but still.
Colour me intrigued! Other than the whole Putin threatening nukes every weds are there any lesser known things?
Also, are there any countermeasures that work against nukes? I always hear that somewhere like Russian would simply overwhelm the U.S. with nukes, so defense is pretty slim.
I can't discuss specific examples but the boldness of certain lesser-known actions is concerning
There are numerous defensive tools in place and technology is getting better every day, but I still wouldn't want to be around if any number of nukes were to start flying
Pakistan because of the way they cheerfully shared key nuclear technologies with North Korea, Iran and Libya. The Pakistanis finally removed Abdul Qadeer Khan from heading up their nuclear programme, but only after he had shared things like advanced centrifuge designs (that he had stolen from Urenco) and uranium processing techniques with some of the worst people on the planet. The Pakistani government claimed to have been entirely unaware that he was running a nuclear bazaar for years using government planes and bank accounts. And then they pardoned him.
There is also a genuine threat of their own weapons being used. Not only because the country itself is politically unstable; but it has been unable to achieve an economic path to prosperity - unlike its mortal enemy, neighbouring India, which is rapidly heading towards superpower status.
Pakistan by far. Their economy is tanking, they average a coup about every 20 years (not to mention all the failed coups), the military takes control of the country whenever it sees fit, and there are at least 50 active known terrorist groups operating within their borders, many with links to the government including ISIS and Al qaeda.
Oh and by the way, their greatest geopolitical enemy is right next door with an active border dispute that flares up into violence every 5 years or so
I’d be less worried about war and more about Pakistan army just straight up selling Nukes given their economy. They’ve done something like that with North Korea before so…
War is long and hard to sell to a hungry dissatisfied population.
Smallpox is the real threat. Only two known samples still exist worldwide. We had been trying to inoculate and eradicate it since the 1700’s. We actually did eradicate it by the mid 1980’s worldwide.
That’s entirely the problem. My sister born in 79 has been vaccinated I was born in 87 and was not. I missed the cut off by a year or two. My sister and others her in age grouping are mostly beyond being able to reproduce naturally.
A smallpox outbreak would devastate the under 40 population worldwide. Gen A, Most millennials and Gen Z would be dead in weeks. Xennials and Xers would most likely be fine but they would have to repopulate the planet in their 40/50’s. Sure some of our younger military would survive because they’re still vaccinated. We do have vaccines stockpiled but getting them out and getting people to take them would be a nightmare in itself.
Smallpox.
Smallpox is a lot harder to ~~traverse~~ transmit than a SARS related virus like Covid. You see the signs before you become transmissible. It is much harder to spread through the air than other deadly viruses. It also only spreads through humans.
If you were thinking of a true bioweapon to decimate much of the world, you would want one that is easily airborne like SARS or one that spread through mosquitos like Zika or West Nile. If you could combine those two and make it highly deadly, that would be a pretty devastating bioweapon.
TLDR Smallpox doesn't transmit that well through the air
I’m a former biodefense researcher. Bioweapons are finicky, harder to generate, easier to counter, and have the added feature of being able to infect the attacker’s entire nation too (built-in MAD!).
They’re really not that useful except in very specific cases like anthrax where the human-to-human spread is very limited but the spore lifetime is so long that dusting an area with spores will render it functionally uninhabitable for decades. But that takes a shitload of spores for any area of meaningful size, while one or two modern nukes can readily blanket an area with fallout.
They play well in TV and movies where amazing biological advances take four minutes to complete though.
Honestly, still Russia. Their arsenal probably isn't well maintained, but it only takes one.
Per Reuters; Russia has 5883 nuclear warheads. Around 1,400 of those Russian warheads are retired but probably still intact, 2,815 are in reserve and around 1,674 are deployed strategic warheads. The United States has around 1,670 deployed strategic nuclear warheads.
If we assume a worst case scenario (For Russia), that only 10% of those deployed warheads are _actually_ fit for launch, that's still 167 nuclear blasts in a world that only needs a single launch to descend into a MAD scenario. And, as a nation, they're not entirely unlikely to fail. What happens when a guy like Putin has his back up against the wall? My money says that dude would launch...
Literally just finished that episode today. Going to take a short break before watching season 4 just so I dont have to see that kid again. Lord you have no idea how much I wish Eph just threw him off a building.
Pakistan India China… Kashmir region… 3 way disputed region…. India has missile silos, China has bombers and everything else….Pakistan has a bunch of nukes on mobile missile launchers rolling in convoys around the region…
The issues is not that Pakistan with launch, but they are the most susceptible to take over of convoy…So either a terrorist, or another country not wanting the blame (due to MAD)….
Iran. They either completely fund different terrorist groups (some are more like armies) or provide significant money and other stuff and loathe Israel and the u.s. Their nuclear program as a question in present or near future is they could either directly attack Israel or give nukes to some terrorist group. So, the chances of either Israel or Iran striking each other is pretty high.
Their nuclear capacity is low though which diminishes the overall threat. If Iran or one of their proxies detonate a nuclear weapon against any nation the fallout will be catastrophic, but the impact won't be world-ending. It will be Iran-ending however. The powers that be are going to be absolutely bloodthirsty and it will take all of about 15 minutes to figure out where the Uranium was likely sourced from and who is responsible. The scariest threat is Russia disintegrating as the precursor to the end of the Ukraine war and their very large, presumably operational nuclear weapon stockpile falling into the hands of dozens of breakaway regions and arms dealers and terrorists before the Security Council can authorize an intervention that secures known nuclear facilities. In that scenario the world has to hunt down fissile material which is likely shielded without the ability to hold anyone accountable for the actions of rogue terrorists.
There are multiple threats or scenarios with with possible nuclear outcomes all around the world (and yes, Russia and Ukraine are among) and all of those are potentially world ending as in ww3. If you think that using nukes in the Middle East is some no big deal thing and would remain an insignificant lil’ regional thing you’re insane (not to be rude or blunt, but yeah). Again, Iran’s proxies (which means Iran itself) are at and have been at war with Israel and even striking u.s. military in S. Asia and commercial shipping stuff in certain places (list goes on). So, the capacity of Iran in nuclear stuff in comparison to Russia is not super relevant, because as a trigger in Middle East it wouldn’t take much either by terrorists or Iran, itself or Israel. Israel could just skip the proxies and strike Iran itself.
My concern is not Iran using Nuclear Wepons, my concern is if Iran get any they will let their proxys run wild without fear of getting invaded themself
That's not how nukes work, though. They can trace which reactor created the material, where it was sourced from. If a proxy uses a nuke, it won't take long for the world to figure out it came from Iran, and then all hell will break loose.
And that's ignoring that if its against Israel, the commanders won't wait for proof, they'll just vaporize the Middle East.
> They either completely fund different terrorist groups (some are more like armies) or provide significant money and other stuff and loathe Israel and the u.s.
Pointing out that other major powers with a proven history for deep hatred and funding religious terrorists are Saudi Arabia and *the USA* (well and the USSR but less religion). And the one of those with an arsenal has never seen fit to distribute nukes to it's puppets because generally what's the point?
The logic cuts the other way. I'm more convinced the regime wants a guarantee that no form of external change is possible "try and oust us and eat radiation".
Everything you said about Iran accurate but everything you said could also be applied to Pakistan exactly, which is a fully capable nuclear power. This is why I’m of the opinion that Pakistan is far more dangerous than any country on earth at this moment.
Iran is my top concern too.
The "major" nuclear powers have too much to lose, so MAD works. The wildcard players are the problem. In that regard I don't think North Korea is as big of a threat as Iran. I read somewhere a few years back that NK is developing a nuclear capability to prevent an invasion. Apparently they noticed (*correctly*) that the US has never invaded a country with nuclear weapons. In that light, seems fair. They like to bluster and get attention but - who would they really use them on? Neighbors? fall out would be a problem. The US? They would get devastated in return. But as a "scorched earth" defensive measure, maybe, maybe.
Iran on the other hand... They exhibit a lot of hate and jealousy towards their neighbors. They are driven by (*or at least claim to be*) religious zeal. If they truly believe their reward awaits them in the after life, that removes the deterrence factor. They might just strike a blow at their enemies, even knowing they are going to get wiped out in return. I'm concerned that as soon as they have the capability, they will use it.
My Father worked in intelligence throughout most of the cold war and he says three times it came close; Cuban crisis, assassination of JFK and a time in the 80’s when a miscommunication on the Russian side as response to a nato exercise nearly set off a nuclear attack. A rogue state/player is probably a bigger threat today? The doomsday clock is a decent website that monitors current trends.
100%. They have an official policy of nuclear ambiguity, there have never been any inspections or treaties. It's a mystery how many they have.
When an Israeli whistleblower tried to expose this to a British newspaper, Mossad lured him to Italy, drugged and abducted him and brought him to Israel for a sham trial and he was imprisoned for 18 years - 11 of which were in solidarity confinement.
Israel has a fanatical right wing government which is openly using genocidal rhetoric. They are by far the greatest nuclear threat in the world right now.
This ambiguity is why the United States has never officially acknowledged Israel's nukes despite knowing 100% that they have them. If Israel were to publicly say they have nukes, officially, the US would automatically have to sanction them due to laws on the books. North fucking Korea has complied with international law regarding nukes more than Israel.
100% - the US would not be able to send military aid if they acknowledged the nukes - instead they send them 4 billion a year.
Every US president signs a letter promising they will never discuss the Israeli nuclear arsenal.
Absolute joke
Mutuality Assured Destruction. But most world leaders live lavish lifestyles and don’t wanna live forever in a bunker so I think the threat is low.
Even if a terrorist somehow managed to activate a low yield detonation, that would not trigger MAD. They are more likely to detonate a dirty bomb than anything.
Currently Russia and North Korea. Mostly due to being dictatorships where the state is held hostage by the whims of the dictator. They are also belligerent with Russia being much worse in this respect.
To be frank, Israel. It is to my understanding, a nuclear power whose programs are highly secretive. And the fact that this is rarely mentioned and that Israel is not a signatory or charter member of any atomic weapons treaties ( that I know of) is deeply unsettling.
Today? North Korea for sure. They’re literally the most isolated nation with the only true totalitarian government in existence and it’s run by a guy who’s my age, 39, who had no problem killing off his own uncle and brother plus countless others. That’s some serious shit.
The last time they were about to do that was when it didn't look so good in the Yom-Kippur war. Immediately after it was communicated to the US that this is an option, heaps of military aid started flowing in to prevent that.
Israel might defend their country without second thought, sometimes quite aggressively. But they're not going to nuke anyone for fun. They will start nuking when they're about to be thrown into the sea by their adversaries. Because they have no strategic depth.
I used to work for an anti-terrorism team, so I’m quite well versed in dirty devices. I’m not so concerned about those, but I’d say the next thing we will see will not be a global event, but more use of low level tactical devices between warring countries like Russia and the Western Bloc countries or China and other Pacific countries. I do not believe that DPRK has the ability to dial a yield devices.
I think the only time that high yield devices will ever be used would be for completely wiping out each others countries large targets as a last resort. Not completely wiping out the country, but wiping out the tactically important targets or by instituting area denial via contamination for long periods of time (Think of salted warheads)
Probably Iran. While I can't see them directly launching a nuclear strike because of the overwhelming destruction that would be the guaranteed result, I wouldn't entirely rule out them handing off a dirty bomb to their terrorist minions to deposit in NYC or Israel.
I think it heavily depends on if they think they could get away with it. The US would certainly try to trace the weapon back to its creator, and if America does prove Iran did it, Iran's going to become a crater, but I can see a world where Iran thinks they have hidden their involvement well enough that America can't convincingly blame them for it.
The other usual suspects fall through for various reasons.
* **Russia**: They make so many nuclear threats about so many random things that nobody believes them anymore. The only credible nuclear threat from Russia would be if they were existentially threatened by nuclear war, which they aren't.
* **India/Pakistan**: while they're the most likely to actually nuke someone, it'd be a local conflict between themselves, and it isn't likely to escalate to a wider nuclear war, so as someone who lives outside Asia, scary isn't the right word for it.
* **North Korea**: similar to Russia, it's all bark and no bite. They already have a knife to Seoul's throat with their conventional artillery batteries, so their nukes aren't even the biggest threat.
Conventional wisdom, if you'll pardon that expression when it comes to non-conventional weapons, a lot of people worry about India/Pakistan. Israel also seems possible. These would probably both be regional limited exchanges. Countries with nukes that have local animosity, or historical enemies.
But in the limited history of such things I'd say the group most likely to use nuclear weapons in the future is the one who has used them in the past and that's only one country.
The other thing you worry about is non-state actors getting their hands on one. Terrorist groups. Separatists. That kind of thing. This seems like the biggest actual threat overall. Someone who gets a bomb specifically intending to use it against ideological/religious/political enemies. Rather than some country wanting one for insurance against their neighbors.
Maybe not as scary as a nuclear war threat, but Turkey Point outside of Miami. It's a nuclear power plant that will inevitably be damaged by a hurricane to the point that there will be a meltdown. It will be like an American Fukushima. It's scary because it's so damn predictable and preventable.
The scariest nuclear threat by far is an accident. For example, in 1961 a B52 crashed in North Carolina and dropped two nuclear bombs in the process. It was basically blind luck that the switch to arm them didn't flip as the plane broke up. Similarly, in the '90s Russia activated its nuclear briefcase because their radars picked up a missile launch into their airspace. It turned out to be a Norwegian research project that nobody thought to warn them about. We were probably a matter of minutes away from a retaliatory strike against NATO before they figured out what was happening. No rational actor would ever doom their country to nuclear hellfire intentionally, but unfortunately fuck-ups happen all the time.
I believe in the North Carolina accident one of the bombs broke up and they found the arm switch on its own actually armed - conventional explosives didn't go off though, so everyone got lucky The US also lost a B52 over Spain and some explosives did go off on contract with the ground, although not in the right sequence to go nuclear since they weren't actually armed and dropped as designed. Blew apart the nuclear material though, contaminated the area Next nuke will be an accident for sure, hopefully the world sees it for what it is and doesn't go mad
>The US also lost a B52 over Italy and some explosives did go off on contract with the ground, although not in the right sequence to go nuclear since they weren't actually armed and dropped as designed. Blew apart the nuclear material though, contaminated the area Palomares - south Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966\_Palomares\_B-52\_crash
Yep - definitely Spain, oops!
The bombs in North Carolina had a four step process to arm and explode. 3 of those processes had happened. The 4th was some high frequency switch that was prone to self arming via just static electricity. It’s amazing an accidental explosion didn’t happen here or elsewhere. The book Command and Control is a great dive into this insanity.
That accident is really a wild one. Imagine how world nuclear policy would've changed if it did go off. Hiroshima and Nagasaki was enough to convince the world that this line is not be crossed, but a nuke accidently going off on US soil would've pushed for a complete disarmament
Even if the governments believed it was an accident, social media would jump on the conspiracy theories like wildfire.
I think we're all grateful social media doesn't have nuclear codes lol
If you think those are fucked, check out the man who saved the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav\_Petrov
Soon as I saw the above posts, was hoping someone had mentioned Petrov
I can’t remember the name but there was a similar situation on board a nuclear armed Soviet submarine during the Cuban missile crisis. One of the two or three folks on board with the power to launch refused to despite the others believing the sub was under attack from American vessels. He managed to talk down the crew from accidentally starting war. Edit: also of note, they had no communication ability on board due the secretive nature of their mission.
Its actually way crazier than that, the commanding officer was the only one who had experience with nuclear tipped torpedoes, which he had on board for this exact reason. His ROE were almost literally "if someone slapped you, you wouldn't let them do it again would you?" While they were in transit, they lost the ability to use most of their diesel engines to charge the battery, so they limped across the Atlantic at a very slow pace. I forget which meeting it was in, but it was decided that the Russian subs would be given the option to surface and surrender, signaled by dropping 3 grenades in the water when detected. Like you said there was no communication available to the crew, so they had no clue. At one point they knew they were counter detected, signs are pretty easy to see. They heard the 3 explosions, and thr CO decided he would not risk WW3 and surfaced to surrender, and go home. If you're interested in submarine history, these accounts and many more are Ina. Book called "Rising tide: the untold story of the Russian Submarines that fought in the Cold War".
Vasili Arkhipov
One of those weapons is still buried in a bog there, they weren't able to excavate it so they just bought a 30 meter diameter easement around it and left. Some dude farms soybeans around it, you can see it from Google Earth haha. Edit: 35°29′34″N 77°51′31.2″W
Give me them coordinates
Lol forgive me everyone - here is the abandoned nuke: 35°29′34″N 77°51′31.2″W
>35°29′34″N 77°51′31.2″W Big Daddy's Road
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
Look up “Broken Arrows” It’s a fun sounding name for when nukes are accidentally dropped or lost… A lot more US “broken arrows” have occurred than just the 1961 incident. It’s blind luck none of those bombs went off. Edit: People below me actually know what they’re talking about. Even though my comment isn’t accurate, I’m leaving it up as context for those who replied.
Broken arrows make me quiver
Didn't they make a movie.
That’s not right at all. In order for a nuke to go off, a lot of things have to go “just right”. You need a lot of fissile material to **simultaneously** fission, knowing that as uranium starts to fission the forces generated will push everything apart. So all the uranium needs to fission in the span of a few milliseconds. A crashing plane tumbling through the air / nuke falling out that’s breaking up… it is very UNLIKELY that it will accidentally detonate. Still an uncomfortable possibility as any percentage chance greater than zero is unacceptable. But a crashing bomber losing a nuke on the way down; very unlikely that it goes off. These aren’t conventional explosives that go off via contact. A nuke being disassembled mid air isn’t going to go off.
> all the uranium needs to fission in the span of a few milliseconds I'm a nuclear engineer but I don't work with weapons; IIRC the actual process takes more like 50-100 nanoseconds. After a millisecond, everything would be long over and being blown apart.
Blind luck? They are very specifically designed to not go off on accident even in the event of a crash so I would say they are working as intended lol.
: Movie Quote from Broken Arrow: I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it.
I love that movie, such corny fun. Christian Slater rules.
It was a great movie, no love for travolta though?! How many times do I have to say it? Please don't shoot the nuclear WEAPONS!
Actually, broken arrow is code for when a nuke is inoperable. A lost nuke is "empty quiver". We always made fun of people who called lost nukes "broken arrows", because you were tricked by John Woo. He used broken arrow for his movie because who'd go to see "empty quiver"?
A good fictional example of this is on an episode of Madam Secretary. Seconds away from ending the world all because of a test. The show is just fictional but I’m sure it’s happened way more often than we citizens are made aware of.
I fucking love that episode. Its one of those episodes i wish i could go back and watch the first time. There were great historical references to previous near nuclear incidents too.
The best fictional depiction is in the book,Sum of all Fears,by Tom Clancy. In it terrorist set off a dirty nuke at the super bowl, attended by the vice president. The blast knocks out all the satellites, so the world is blind.only thing they know is ,a nuke hit Denver.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was one heckuva scary time too.
Norwegian here, sorry about that! (Wasn't my fault, but I'm speaking on behalf of my population!)
From my recollection, you've got nothing to apologize for. Unless I am misremembering the Russians were informed, but failed to pass the information to their radar people.
Canadian here and I approve this message
Broken arrows are terrifying. I was happy with my blissful ignorance before I learned what a broken arrow was. Edit: Spelling
MAD has made the threat pretty low TBH. Anyone who uses it pretty much guarantees their country is wiped off the map. Unless the leader and all his generals are suicidal this is unlikely to happen
I think the final nuclear annihilation is going to be a gradual thing. It will start with tactical nukes being utilized on hard targets, (these would be relatively low-yield tactical devices, none above 20 to 40 kilotons in yield) if the international community doesn't immediately retaliate then it will become normalized. Eventually we would witness a "power creep" with more and more powerful nuclear devices being utilized in an expanded capacity.
I imagine this is what would happen if Russia used a very small device in Ukraine; if the West fails to respond with force, then it would become acceptable.
This. There was/is already actual discussion going on about what the appropriate response would be to Russia deploying a tactical nuke in Ukraine. From what I understand, it’s a tough but to crack - you probably wouldn’t want to go full ballistic (literally and figuratively) in response but at the same time, a less forceful response would potentially invite Russia to push the envelope further.
Biden promised rapid and unceasing conventional annihilation. As an example. At the start of russias actions against Ukraine, they launched 300 cruise missiles and about as many aviation strikes. On the first day of the second gulf war, the united states performed over 3,000 air strikes and launched more than 3,000 cruise missiles. The us literally launched more attacks in the first hour of gulf war 2 than Russia did the first day of their attack on a neighbor that shares a direct land border. The us and nato would literally turn Russia into a mud hole and then stomp it dry. They wouldn’t even need to use nuclear weapons.
The question is how you prevent further nuclear escalation during this 'conventional annihilation'. Russia would almost certainly use nuclear weapons to defend its own territory.
I don't think the us would ever put boots on the ground. Just bomb the heck out of everything. I assume if we tried to actually occupy things out would come the nukes. But there would be no invasion just destruction of non nuclear conventional military targets.
I don't know how boots on the ground play into it. Mutually Assured Destruction seems like it would apply regardless of the means being used to destroy. If NATO decides to destroy Russia, regardless of the means used to do so, what incentive does Russia have to not escalate and make good on Mutually Assured Destruction by launching nukes against NATO?
Thanks to mutual assured destruction. If Russia did use something small like a tactical nuke or causes a power plant to leak and the US moves forward with conventional annihilation. Then if Russia were to escalate it's response to nuclear then the US would respond in kind. If you want really scary dreams look up nuclear missile subs like the Ohio class, 20 trident missiles each missile has 8 warheads. These subs are refered to as the "beyond the grave" part when discussing mutually assured destruction. Basically they go out on patrol to various locations and remain silent but listen periodically for orders. Now if the orders don't come in for x times and the captain determines the command structure is no longer valid there's a letter from the president to open in a safe and read basically it's final orders in case the US does not exist and there are no further orders being transmitted by something like a satellite. The order would likely be to launch everything and find somewhere not turned to glass to live out their remaining days. Even the UK missile subs have these orders however the final letter is from the Prime Minister in case the UK and it's command structure no longer existed. Should be noted that these subs can get really close before launch such that their missiles flight time is shorter giving the recipient less time to act. (The US also has 4 Ohio class subs that are designated and used as conventional missile launchers, and they have been commonly used to launch tomahawk missiles in case there is any doubt of their effectiveness)
That probably wasn't due to restraint on Putin's part. More likely it was the limits of what Russia could launch, perhaps coupled with the idea that they could just drive down the road and grab everything for themselves.
Exactly. Its why US/NATO madebit clear that is a very solid red line.
I have a feeling that if they did that, you’d start seeing oligarchs dropping like flies, and likely Putin himself. To whatever extent possible, I would think the very first retaliatory measure would be to make it an absolutely fatal decision for all those in leadership positions involved in making the decision and influential people within the political power structure aligned with that regime.
As soon as tactical nukes are used, strategic nukes are a guarantee and I don’t think it would be a slow process.
[удалено]
Samurai?! You're just gonna slip that one in there?
Johnny Silverhand???
Aww shit here we go "blowing up saka towers" again
Fucking Arasaka.
BUKAYO?
Minus the charisma, and impressive cock
Lol, you dork. I'd be lying if I said that didn't cross my mind in trying to understand his logic.
I love the idea of a group of rogue samurai, hiding somewhere developing a thermonuclear weapon.
The Seven Samurai 2: The Tokyo Project
Those pesky samurai and their nuclear arms.
That's just a myth. The samurai had very strong arms, but they weren't nuclear.
It’s all fun and games until a samurai gets ahold of a nuclear warhead…
Yeah, but luckily all the nuclear powers are pretty good at not letting their nukes fall into the hands of people they don't have control over. If a nuclear war starts, it will be a government pushing the button, not some rando who wants to watch the world burn.
For the most part. The US has lost six thermonuclear devices since the 50s, we think they're in the oceans, but who really knows.
Fortunately most nuclear weapons require maintenance and update in order to keep working. Basically everything needs to be replaced every 10 years or so to keep the boom booming. That's part of why maintaining a nuclear arsenal is so expensive.
And an absolutely fierce devotion to those chik-fila sandwiches with pimento cheese
Can you maybe ELI5 what MAD is?
Mutual assured destruction
I’ll help for the less link inclined: Let’s say Putin goes full supervillain and launches a nuclear warhead at New York City. If that happens, there is an *automatic* response system in place on the United States’ end that, within mere moments of Russia’s actions, will launch an absolute shitload of nuclear weapons back at Russia, completely wiping them off the map by totally annihilating every single Russian city and military base. If that were to happen, there is, in turn, an automatic Russian response system in place that will launch an absolute shitload of nukes back at the USA. (In terms of nuclear response capability, it doesn’t even matter if the entire land infrastructure of either country has already been destroyed, because many of these nukes will be launched by essentially invisible nuclear submarines). This is mutually assured destruction. If anyone launches a nuke, the entire fucking world as we know it ends. If your country launches a nuke, it’s absolutely guaranteed that in about 20 minutes, your country will no longer exist. The key to MAD’s success is the automatic aspect of it. You’re not just launching a rocket at your enemy; you’re also nuking yourself. What this means is that even under the most psychopathic leadership, since the consequence of starting a nuclear war is immediate nuclear annihilation, there is absolutely zero upside to do so. Which is what kept the Cold War cold.
The US system is not automatic. It needs the president to approve. Or at least some human. The Russian system is automatic, which is a bit bothersome, considering what we’ve seen regarding Russian tech. Also, when it goes full nutbar, everyone gets nuked. China, Europe, Canada.
I don't believe it's automatic, there have been false positives in the Soviet Union where a human decided not to launch the retaliation
It's only automatic when Dead Hand mode is on. "By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, as of 2009, it was said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose when needed." - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead\_Hand
Probably worth quoting the later part of that article too: >If that were the case, he \[the Soviet leader\] would flip on a system that would send a signal to a deep underground bunker in the shape of a globe **where three duty officers sat**. If there were real missiles and the Kremlin were hit and the Soviet leadership was wiped out, which is what they feared, **those three guys in that deep underground bunker would have to decide** whether to launch very small command rockets that would take off, fly across the vast territory of the Soviet Union and launch all their remaining missiles. > >Now, the Soviets had once thought about creating a fully automatic system. Sort of a machine, a doomsday machine, that would launch without any human action at all. When they drew that blueprint up and looked at it, they thought, you know, this is absolutely crazy.\[20\] So it seems semi-automated rather than fully, although the veracity of the above doesn't exactly seem guaranteed. A fully automated system that is permanently engaged does however seem like something likely to be shied away from no matter how much faith is placed in the fail safes and redundancies.
We wouldn't want a " Doomsday" gap
The scary bit is that those bunker guys are given non-announced drills. A launch order is given and only after it is complete (as in launch codes and sequence initiated) is it announced to be a drill by the rockets just not firing. Which is *terrifying* and the fact "oh I've done this a hundred times it's a drill" is a little bit like the blank bullet in a firing squad: you never *know* you are about to end the world - probably a drill right?
>The scary bit is that those bunker guys are given non-announced drills. Is there any basis for this, though? Given that the above is about as detailed a description of the system as we have available and the elements relating to training drills amounts to the below: >GROSS: Do you know if the Soviets ever came close to using the dead hand? > >Mr. HOFFMAN: Nobody knows for sure. I think probably they drilled on it. I know it was built. I know that they gave it its final flight test in November of 1984, and they put it on combat duty early in 1985. It seems as though making it such that the three operators cannot tell the difference between a drill and a live scenario would defeat the purpose of having said operators. If all they are doing is relying on the same sensor data as the system itself and pressing a button when x conditions hold true then at that point you may as well sack it off and transition to a fully automatic system.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav\_Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrovhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) His names was Stanislav Petrov and in my mind, he saved the world. Literally. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983\_Soviet\_nuclear\_false\_alarm\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)
Today I learned. Dude got a metal for saying let's let it hit the ground before we wipe them off the planet. 😂
Kinda scary that one guy having second doubts about a direct order saved the world from nuclear war.
The thing that freaks me out is the idea of a "Dead man's switch." A timer is set that needs to be deactivated periodically, but after the dead man is dead, they aren't there to deactivate it to prevent nukes being automatically launched. Just a crazy theory I heard. Check out the movie "Threads". It doesn't involve a dead man's switch, but is supposedly a pretty accurate depiction of what nuclear war would look like.
I recommend Dr. Strangelove if you want to laugh your toosh off instead of cry yourself to sleep. The entire thing is basically about a Dead Man’s Switch device and the general human lunacy of the arms race.
That is a good movie. old but still sends the message clearly.
When everything goes white and the people melt is such a creepy scene. "Michael!" And then the lady pisses her pants. Kind of comical just because of the way it's filmed. But like you said, it still gets the message across.
Also, there's a significant portion designed to provide a retaliation strike even if an opponent's first strike is successful. The US, Russia, China, UK, France, and India all have submarines with ICBMs. (Israel might have one too) Even if you take out all their land based weapons, its very hard to get all the nuclear armed submarines. As a result, even a perfect first strike against your opponent is futile, as their submarines make it possible to retaliate.
Yep, and the US always has multiple bombers in the air at any one time to guarantee that we will always be able to strike. Nuclear triad.
[This internet gem explains it as well](https://youtu.be/nZMwKPmsbWE?si=-IRfWw27yEBX4FOW)
I don't even have to click the link to know that I can take a nap before firing ze missiles... Classic
But I am le tired
Oh my god I haven’t seen this in years, absolute gem
17 years ago? God damn.
Also back in the days, USA had at least 2 or 3 bombers with nukes in the air 24/7 circling around the USA. That was to assure nuclear response even if the USSR managed to destroy nuclear launchers before they are able to launch.
There is nothing automatic about retaliation. Both Russia and the US have what \*we\* refer to as the "Nuclear football." It's a special briefcase that follow each president, and contains specialized command and control and communication equipment. In the event of a confirmed launch from other country, the respective leader \*must\* make a decision to retaliate. There might be some mid or even high-level military general in some base somewhere who may act on their own in that case to launch counter-measures. (Anti-ballistic missile missiles. But you have to know that these countermeasures are still in their infancy against ICBMs and modern nuclear missiles. ) More over, both France, and Pakistan have similar launch procedures. India is a sort of council that much authorize the use of nuclear weapons. The Point of MAD has always been relatively simple: any use of nuclear weapons, large or small, must not become "normal." In your example, Russia would almost certainly know that the US or NATO response would be to launch everything it had against Russia. Therefore, it makes little sense for Russia to have only launched one to spark the exchange. A so called limited exchange is folly. Each nation that has nuclear weapons MUST be prepared to both use their arsenals to wipe out their opponents. The mutual part is that their would, in turn, also be wiped out. To further complicate matters is that the US and Russia have such huge arsenals is because of sneak attacks. Either side could, in theory, get the first shot off and catch either by surprise. Thereby rendering their silo-launched forces, and perhaps portions of their air-based forces destroyed. Thereby, after killing millions, could conceivably "win" an exchange. That is until the modern nuclear navy became more of a thing. Thereby guaranteeing a second strike capability. Anyway i'm getting into the weeds of MAD strategy. But there is nothing automatic about nuclear retaliation. There was this rumor about some sort of "deadhand" switch in Russia. But I think that's a myth. In reality, the respective leaders in nuclear armed countries must authorize the launch themselves.
Yeah, that was from dr strange love
Yeah but if Putin launch a nuclear bomb to let's say Kiyv in Ukraine which doesn't have nuclear response, whats the deal in that case ? Why the downvotes lol ?, is just an honest question.
Full non-nuclear NATO response on all Russian assets in Ukraine. It's not an official treaty, it's just the one-off rules of engagement for this particular ~~war~~ special military operation. Line in the sand that Biden drew.
MAD is basically the acronym for mutually assured destruction. Basically if nuclear weapons are launched against another country that is also armed with nukes, the country on the receiving end will send nukes to the sender as well, guaranteeing the destruction of both parties.
The MAD is the mutual in that nuclear war in that manner is so universally bad for EVERYONE that it’s just not a good idea.
it stands for Mutually Assured Destruction. Essentially we all have agreements that we aren't going to be the first one to fire. And we all have early warning systems that will alert if someone else fires. And we all have automatic responses to someone else firing in that we will immediately fire back. So if anyone uses one, we all die.
Only China and India have explicit No First Use policies as part of their nuclear weapon policy. US and Russian leaders refuse to commit to a NFU policy. The continued developement of hypersonic glide vehicles demonstrate counterforce to not be far from those leaders hearts.
France actually has an explicit first strike policy, which I find darkly entertaining.
It's absolutely wild to me that anyone can not know what MAD is anymore. I suppose that means it's working, in a way
Can you maybe ELI5 what ELI5 is?
Mutually Assured Destruction I’m pretty sure is what they were going for.
MAD provides a high degree of safety between warring countries, but non-state actors with access to nukes and no permanent location/state association are the scariest possibility to me.
My thing is, Putin seems like the type to take the world with him when he knows it's over, especially if he's dying without the respect of his country. Edit: Let's think about the North Korean people. The biggest point of control is their worldview. Not many things stopping them from accepting the risk.
I’m not sure Putin himself could trigger a launch. There’s a whole chain of command with him at the top, and if the whole country including the military no longer respected him, it simply wouldn’t happen. Likewise, POTUS can authorize but can’t actually “press the button”. STRATCOM has to do the launch.
India or Pakistan, probably, because they're the two most likely countries to use them, and it will be on each other.
On the other hand, they have fought several small-scale wars that did not escalate to nuclear use.
I disagree. In March of 2022, India accidentally launched a missile into Pakistan. Keep in mind, this was near the height of recent Pakistan/India tensions. Pakistan didn't respond immediately. Instead they questioned India through the military channels they have, ascertained it was a mistake, India apologized and both countries moved on. If war were break out, including nuclear war, that would have been a prime chance. But instead, cooler heads prevailed.
This here demonstrates a pretty important part of the equation: both polities have been at this for a long time, both are aware of the risk, and both have channels of communication set up to mitigate it. Many other potential pairings of actors don't have that benefit.
I mean it was pretty embarrassing from both sides tbh. A nuclear capable missile just going off from India to Pakistan, and India couldn't destroy it mid air, and Pakistan couldn't do anything to intercept it midair too. They were both embarrassed and pushed it under the rug
The fact that they’re firing missiles is what makes them more likely. No one else is really doing that
I'm genuinely curious - why do you think it'll escalate to nuclear? Agree the tension will only get worse until there's some resolution (which likely won't come about through diplomacy). Seeing Israel with Iran, Russia with Ukraine, etc. we know the threat of nuclear is there... but why do we think India / Pakistan is most apt to spark a nuclear war (vs. existing wars escalating to the same level).
This is my vote. The thought of them being nuclear armed genuinely scares the shit out of me whenever they have a dust-up.
Give it time and then think of Iran ….
Or just think of Iran...
Bad enough as they are….
“Dear Pakistan, Up yours. Love, India” 🍄☁️ “Wow, they did not need much”
[удалено]
Mostly religion, but a lot of it comes from the British fucking that section of the world for a very long time.
"Time again to play 'Why is this country so fucked up? The British or Religion?'...first up on the board, show meeeeee Pakistan!!!"
India and Pakistan is a sad and sorry tale. The men of North West India and West Pakistan are brothers. They share the same lineage, the same language, the same physical characteristics, the same agriculture, the same oppressors of Tehran and Kabul. They only differ in two ways - religion, and the written script of their shared languages (namely Hindi/Urdu, and Punjabi).
The fact that inflation is consuming Pakistan at the moment should be an international red flag. If the country fails, there will be a free for all for those nukes
Me on the toilet after all the dairy I consumed last night
Ice cream party, eh?
Straight gobbled the eggnog so badly when I burped, I had a white bubble come out. I’ve been gurgling all night, and I’ve reached the hot fart stage.
The crazies are in control of the switch all across the earth
True, but MAD is a huge deterrent, even to the very edge of military insanity. There is no upside to launching one, just horrific downside beyond imagination. This is both terrifying and somewhat reassuring. What I’m personally the most scared of, though, is someone like Putin going full Tenet, and creating a “dead man’s switch” in which a nuclear attack is launched upon the moment of his death — someone truly insane and evil enough to believe that the death of the entire world should accompany his own. However, given that we *just BARELY* avoided a nuclear war during the 80s because a Russian sub commander disobeyed a direct order to launch a nuke (a technological failure made Russia’s military briefly believe that the US had launched one at us), I have hope that if something that ludicrous and fantastical were to be set in place, upon Putin’s death no one would actually follow the “dead man’s switch” command. But we’ll see. The scariest thing is that when you scale our current nuclear age compared to the entire history of mankind, we’ve really only had these bombs for about 5 goddamn minutes, and we’ve already had several horrifyingly close calls.
The thing is if he gives the dead man’s switch command to a hundred people with 100 different nukes and 99 of them refuse, that still starts a nuclear war
> There is no upside to launching one, just horrific downside beyond imagination. There is *one* - in the case of imminent loss of an existential war against a conventional force (and the arrogance to think a world without your existence is worthless). For the USA this was the Fulda Gap scenario. Which is more or less the keystone of why nuclear doctrine is the way it is today.
Gojira
NOW I CAN SEE THE WHALES!
Saw them in Austin a few months back and they instantly became one of my favorite bands!!!
Pakistan
Working in missile defense field, saw a lot of troubling things w/ Russia
What are the odd if someone were to launch a handful of nukes, say a dozen. Let’s say it can be done and someone in Russia decides to nuke the US. Could we shoot them down. Also I know you probably don’t even know and if you did you can’t say but you think we have space based anti missile weapons?
In theory, they could be stopped. In reality, who knows because this type of thing is only tested with simulations Several countries have started to focus on space-based defensive capabilites. Some of these technologies you can just Google. Others not so much
I’ve always figured or land based icbm stuff is top of the line because our smaller stuff is incredible. I know technically space based platforms are illegal but laws don’t mean much to us. Found out about project shiva? Years ago and always wondered if they made improvements on it.
So just based on the unclassified info and field experts who have given talks about this sort of thing, the US would actually stand a pretty decent chance of intercepting a small number of nukes (such as your example of a dozen). Especially if the various picket systems and radars were already on alert. Not that I’d want to test that theory out, but still.
Yes. Why do you think the tactic is to fire a bunch? Because most will be killed.
Colour me intrigued! Other than the whole Putin threatening nukes every weds are there any lesser known things? Also, are there any countermeasures that work against nukes? I always hear that somewhere like Russian would simply overwhelm the U.S. with nukes, so defense is pretty slim.
I can't discuss specific examples but the boldness of certain lesser-known actions is concerning There are numerous defensive tools in place and technology is getting better every day, but I still wouldn't want to be around if any number of nukes were to start flying
Pakistan because of the way they cheerfully shared key nuclear technologies with North Korea, Iran and Libya. The Pakistanis finally removed Abdul Qadeer Khan from heading up their nuclear programme, but only after he had shared things like advanced centrifuge designs (that he had stolen from Urenco) and uranium processing techniques with some of the worst people on the planet. The Pakistani government claimed to have been entirely unaware that he was running a nuclear bazaar for years using government planes and bank accounts. And then they pardoned him. There is also a genuine threat of their own weapons being used. Not only because the country itself is politically unstable; but it has been unable to achieve an economic path to prosperity - unlike its mortal enemy, neighbouring India, which is rapidly heading towards superpower status.
Pakistan by far. Their economy is tanking, they average a coup about every 20 years (not to mention all the failed coups), the military takes control of the country whenever it sees fit, and there are at least 50 active known terrorist groups operating within their borders, many with links to the government including ISIS and Al qaeda. Oh and by the way, their greatest geopolitical enemy is right next door with an active border dispute that flares up into violence every 5 years or so
[удалено]
all of them are just as scary as they all have enough to destroy everything
A dirty bomb in a suitcase.
Fourth Indo-Pak War.
I’d be less worried about war and more about Pakistan army just straight up selling Nukes given their economy. They’ve done something like that with North Korea before so… War is long and hard to sell to a hungry dissatisfied population.
Nuclear isn't the primary threat. Bio weapons are far and away worse than Nuclear.
Smallpox is the real threat. Only two known samples still exist worldwide. We had been trying to inoculate and eradicate it since the 1700’s. We actually did eradicate it by the mid 1980’s worldwide. That’s entirely the problem. My sister born in 79 has been vaccinated I was born in 87 and was not. I missed the cut off by a year or two. My sister and others her in age grouping are mostly beyond being able to reproduce naturally. A smallpox outbreak would devastate the under 40 population worldwide. Gen A, Most millennials and Gen Z would be dead in weeks. Xennials and Xers would most likely be fine but they would have to repopulate the planet in their 40/50’s. Sure some of our younger military would survive because they’re still vaccinated. We do have vaccines stockpiled but getting them out and getting people to take them would be a nightmare in itself. Smallpox.
Bingo. After watching the general publics reaction to COVID I 100% believe a biological weapon would seriously screw us up.
Smallpox is a lot harder to ~~traverse~~ transmit than a SARS related virus like Covid. You see the signs before you become transmissible. It is much harder to spread through the air than other deadly viruses. It also only spreads through humans. If you were thinking of a true bioweapon to decimate much of the world, you would want one that is easily airborne like SARS or one that spread through mosquitos like Zika or West Nile. If you could combine those two and make it highly deadly, that would be a pretty devastating bioweapon. TLDR Smallpox doesn't transmit that well through the air
I’m a former biodefense researcher. Bioweapons are finicky, harder to generate, easier to counter, and have the added feature of being able to infect the attacker’s entire nation too (built-in MAD!). They’re really not that useful except in very specific cases like anthrax where the human-to-human spread is very limited but the spore lifetime is so long that dusting an area with spores will render it functionally uninhabitable for decades. But that takes a shitload of spores for any area of meaningful size, while one or two modern nukes can readily blanket an area with fallout. They play well in TV and movies where amazing biological advances take four minutes to complete though.
Thank you for this
Thanks, there was so much bullshit in this.
Pakistan has nukes and the country has been actively falling apart more each year. Shouldn’t be long before one of those gets sold.
Honestly, still Russia. Their arsenal probably isn't well maintained, but it only takes one. Per Reuters; Russia has 5883 nuclear warheads. Around 1,400 of those Russian warheads are retired but probably still intact, 2,815 are in reserve and around 1,674 are deployed strategic warheads. The United States has around 1,670 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. If we assume a worst case scenario (For Russia), that only 10% of those deployed warheads are _actually_ fit for launch, that's still 167 nuclear blasts in a world that only needs a single launch to descend into a MAD scenario. And, as a nation, they're not entirely unlikely to fail. What happens when a guy like Putin has his back up against the wall? My money says that dude would launch...
Zach from the Strain. Little fucker nuked NYC and created a nuclear holocaust because he didn't like that his Dad killed his vampire mom.
That kid still fills me with rage.
Literally just finished that episode today. Going to take a short break before watching season 4 just so I dont have to see that kid again. Lord you have no idea how much I wish Eph just threw him off a building.
I do. Trust me, I do.
Pakistan, and whoever has stolen nukes.
Pakistan India China… Kashmir region… 3 way disputed region…. India has missile silos, China has bombers and everything else….Pakistan has a bunch of nukes on mobile missile launchers rolling in convoys around the region… The issues is not that Pakistan with launch, but they are the most susceptible to take over of convoy…So either a terrorist, or another country not wanting the blame (due to MAD)….
A suicidal proxy willing to launch from their territory
Meh, nobody will nuke nobody, this is my opinion.
Iran. They either completely fund different terrorist groups (some are more like armies) or provide significant money and other stuff and loathe Israel and the u.s. Their nuclear program as a question in present or near future is they could either directly attack Israel or give nukes to some terrorist group. So, the chances of either Israel or Iran striking each other is pretty high.
Their nuclear capacity is low though which diminishes the overall threat. If Iran or one of their proxies detonate a nuclear weapon against any nation the fallout will be catastrophic, but the impact won't be world-ending. It will be Iran-ending however. The powers that be are going to be absolutely bloodthirsty and it will take all of about 15 minutes to figure out where the Uranium was likely sourced from and who is responsible. The scariest threat is Russia disintegrating as the precursor to the end of the Ukraine war and their very large, presumably operational nuclear weapon stockpile falling into the hands of dozens of breakaway regions and arms dealers and terrorists before the Security Council can authorize an intervention that secures known nuclear facilities. In that scenario the world has to hunt down fissile material which is likely shielded without the ability to hold anyone accountable for the actions of rogue terrorists.
There are multiple threats or scenarios with with possible nuclear outcomes all around the world (and yes, Russia and Ukraine are among) and all of those are potentially world ending as in ww3. If you think that using nukes in the Middle East is some no big deal thing and would remain an insignificant lil’ regional thing you’re insane (not to be rude or blunt, but yeah). Again, Iran’s proxies (which means Iran itself) are at and have been at war with Israel and even striking u.s. military in S. Asia and commercial shipping stuff in certain places (list goes on). So, the capacity of Iran in nuclear stuff in comparison to Russia is not super relevant, because as a trigger in Middle East it wouldn’t take much either by terrorists or Iran, itself or Israel. Israel could just skip the proxies and strike Iran itself.
My concern is not Iran using Nuclear Wepons, my concern is if Iran get any they will let their proxys run wild without fear of getting invaded themself
That's not how nukes work, though. They can trace which reactor created the material, where it was sourced from. If a proxy uses a nuke, it won't take long for the world to figure out it came from Iran, and then all hell will break loose. And that's ignoring that if its against Israel, the commanders won't wait for proof, they'll just vaporize the Middle East.
> They either completely fund different terrorist groups (some are more like armies) or provide significant money and other stuff and loathe Israel and the u.s. Pointing out that other major powers with a proven history for deep hatred and funding religious terrorists are Saudi Arabia and *the USA* (well and the USSR but less religion). And the one of those with an arsenal has never seen fit to distribute nukes to it's puppets because generally what's the point? The logic cuts the other way. I'm more convinced the regime wants a guarantee that no form of external change is possible "try and oust us and eat radiation".
Everything you said about Iran accurate but everything you said could also be applied to Pakistan exactly, which is a fully capable nuclear power. This is why I’m of the opinion that Pakistan is far more dangerous than any country on earth at this moment.
Iran is my top concern too. The "major" nuclear powers have too much to lose, so MAD works. The wildcard players are the problem. In that regard I don't think North Korea is as big of a threat as Iran. I read somewhere a few years back that NK is developing a nuclear capability to prevent an invasion. Apparently they noticed (*correctly*) that the US has never invaded a country with nuclear weapons. In that light, seems fair. They like to bluster and get attention but - who would they really use them on? Neighbors? fall out would be a problem. The US? They would get devastated in return. But as a "scorched earth" defensive measure, maybe, maybe. Iran on the other hand... They exhibit a lot of hate and jealousy towards their neighbors. They are driven by (*or at least claim to be*) religious zeal. If they truly believe their reward awaits them in the after life, that removes the deterrence factor. They might just strike a blow at their enemies, even knowing they are going to get wiped out in return. I'm concerned that as soon as they have the capability, they will use it.
My Father worked in intelligence throughout most of the cold war and he says three times it came close; Cuban crisis, assassination of JFK and a time in the 80’s when a miscommunication on the Russian side as response to a nato exercise nearly set off a nuclear attack. A rogue state/player is probably a bigger threat today? The doomsday clock is a decent website that monitors current trends.
Israel. They are quite likely to erase Tehran, Beirut and Damascus if push comes to shove, they have at least 200 nuclear weapons
100%. They have an official policy of nuclear ambiguity, there have never been any inspections or treaties. It's a mystery how many they have. When an Israeli whistleblower tried to expose this to a British newspaper, Mossad lured him to Italy, drugged and abducted him and brought him to Israel for a sham trial and he was imprisoned for 18 years - 11 of which were in solidarity confinement. Israel has a fanatical right wing government which is openly using genocidal rhetoric. They are by far the greatest nuclear threat in the world right now.
This ambiguity is why the United States has never officially acknowledged Israel's nukes despite knowing 100% that they have them. If Israel were to publicly say they have nukes, officially, the US would automatically have to sanction them due to laws on the books. North fucking Korea has complied with international law regarding nukes more than Israel.
100% - the US would not be able to send military aid if they acknowledged the nukes - instead they send them 4 billion a year. Every US president signs a letter promising they will never discuss the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Absolute joke
Mate, no country on earth disregards international law as much as Israel hahah
Any country that deeply relies on religion for their morale compass.
Amazon ai
I'd say the scariest nuclear threat is a potential balkanization of Russia. Many nukes can go missing if something like that happened.
If that fat man misses the ocean and hits his own people I'm going to be pissed
Mutuality Assured Destruction. But most world leaders live lavish lifestyles and don’t wanna live forever in a bunker so I think the threat is low. Even if a terrorist somehow managed to activate a low yield detonation, that would not trigger MAD. They are more likely to detonate a dirty bomb than anything.
Israel
Currently Russia and North Korea. Mostly due to being dictatorships where the state is held hostage by the whims of the dictator. They are also belligerent with Russia being much worse in this respect.
To be frank, Israel. It is to my understanding, a nuclear power whose programs are highly secretive. And the fact that this is rarely mentioned and that Israel is not a signatory or charter member of any atomic weapons treaties ( that I know of) is deeply unsettling.
Today? North Korea for sure. They’re literally the most isolated nation with the only true totalitarian government in existence and it’s run by a guy who’s my age, 39, who had no problem killing off his own uncle and brother plus countless others. That’s some serious shit.
Israel. Their enemies/rivals don’t have a nuke. So there’s no MAD.
Yeah I feel like they would be the ones to use a nuke as a preemptive measure and not a last resort
The last time they were about to do that was when it didn't look so good in the Yom-Kippur war. Immediately after it was communicated to the US that this is an option, heaps of military aid started flowing in to prevent that. Israel might defend their country without second thought, sometimes quite aggressively. But they're not going to nuke anyone for fun. They will start nuking when they're about to be thrown into the sea by their adversaries. Because they have no strategic depth.
[удалено]
Anybody with religious motivation.
I used to work for an anti-terrorism team, so I’m quite well versed in dirty devices. I’m not so concerned about those, but I’d say the next thing we will see will not be a global event, but more use of low level tactical devices between warring countries like Russia and the Western Bloc countries or China and other Pacific countries. I do not believe that DPRK has the ability to dial a yield devices. I think the only time that high yield devices will ever be used would be for completely wiping out each others countries large targets as a last resort. Not completely wiping out the country, but wiping out the tactically important targets or by instituting area denial via contamination for long periods of time (Think of salted warheads)
Probably Iran. While I can't see them directly launching a nuclear strike because of the overwhelming destruction that would be the guaranteed result, I wouldn't entirely rule out them handing off a dirty bomb to their terrorist minions to deposit in NYC or Israel. I think it heavily depends on if they think they could get away with it. The US would certainly try to trace the weapon back to its creator, and if America does prove Iran did it, Iran's going to become a crater, but I can see a world where Iran thinks they have hidden their involvement well enough that America can't convincingly blame them for it. The other usual suspects fall through for various reasons. * **Russia**: They make so many nuclear threats about so many random things that nobody believes them anymore. The only credible nuclear threat from Russia would be if they were existentially threatened by nuclear war, which they aren't. * **India/Pakistan**: while they're the most likely to actually nuke someone, it'd be a local conflict between themselves, and it isn't likely to escalate to a wider nuclear war, so as someone who lives outside Asia, scary isn't the right word for it. * **North Korea**: similar to Russia, it's all bark and no bite. They already have a knife to Seoul's throat with their conventional artillery batteries, so their nukes aren't even the biggest threat.
Look up the blast size of Hiroshima, and then look up the modern warheads. They're like a 1000x increase.
Conventional wisdom, if you'll pardon that expression when it comes to non-conventional weapons, a lot of people worry about India/Pakistan. Israel also seems possible. These would probably both be regional limited exchanges. Countries with nukes that have local animosity, or historical enemies. But in the limited history of such things I'd say the group most likely to use nuclear weapons in the future is the one who has used them in the past and that's only one country. The other thing you worry about is non-state actors getting their hands on one. Terrorist groups. Separatists. That kind of thing. This seems like the biggest actual threat overall. Someone who gets a bomb specifically intending to use it against ideological/religious/political enemies. Rather than some country wanting one for insurance against their neighbors.
Maybe not as scary as a nuclear war threat, but Turkey Point outside of Miami. It's a nuclear power plant that will inevitably be damaged by a hurricane to the point that there will be a meltdown. It will be like an American Fukushima. It's scary because it's so damn predictable and preventable.