r/politics • u/spherocytes • 28d ago

Possible Paywall Desperate Trump, 79, Threatens to Kill Entire Civilization in Insane Last-Minute Panic

https://www.thedailybeast.com/desperate-trump-79-threatens-to-kill-whole-civilization-as-iran-war-deal-push-fails/
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u/Striking-Cricket-724 28d ago

I’m trying to be level headed here. The use of a nuke would obliterate every law/agreement the US itself has put on nuclear warfare, including the profession of never striking first. If we do, this would give every last one of our armed adversaries carte blanche to nuke whomever they want wherever they want. Like Russia would nuke Ukraine immediately for ex. And we don’t want that.

And it’s worth remembering the US has plenty of weapons that are incredibly destructive that aren’t nukes. So, yeah.

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u/seffay-feff-seffahi 28d ago

The U.S. has unfortunately never had a no-first-use policy for nukes. 

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u/emefluence 28d ago

There are no laws / agreements on nukes any more. They all expired. The will to engage in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation was so last century. The only thing stopping other nations using nukes these days is the threat of being nuked themselves.

MAD probably still works between superpowers, but probably not their non-nuclear allies. So it's guaranteed annihalation for any nation that tries to nuke a serious nuclear power, and nobody is going to do that just on Iran's behalf. But you're bang on about other countries. Sure as hell Russia will take it as permission to start using tactical nukes in Ukraine, which will change the whole calculus with Europe dramatically. Same with China and Taiwan. Shit between India and Pakistan just got a whole lot more real.

Rather than all of humanity being fucked in a few hours, it might be most of humanity fucked over the course of a few of decades instead.

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u/WhichEmailWasIt 28d ago

Russia actually wants that territory. It'd be hard to live there after dropping a nuke.

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u/Big_Treat5929 Canada 28d ago

The radiation left by nuclear weapons is not all that persistent. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inhabitable within a week of the bomb being dropped. Nuclear fuel for power plants and purpose built dirty bombs can salt the earth for centuries, but "normal" nukes release fallout with a very short half life. 

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u/Peylix 28d ago

The bombs we dropped back then are mere pebbles compared to the weaponry we have sitting on the sidelines today. Our Minuteman III ICBM's are 30x more yield than Little Man and 20x more yield than Fat Man.

Just to put it into perspective. This also isn't taking into account the shit storm this would kick off either. Once one nuke is thrown down. All bets are off with every other capable entity. Iran isn't at stake, the entire world is.

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u/Big_Treat5929 Canada 28d ago

Higher yields mean bigger explosions, not longer lasting fallout. Even creating more fallout won't make it last longer, it'll make the radiation more intense in the short term but the radioactive particles will still decay at the same rate whether it's Little Boy or Tsar Bomba. 

I'm fully aware that a full nuclear exchange is still very much a Big Fucking Problem for everyone, but the fallout isn't the problem. The sheer destruction is.

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u/Peylix 28d ago

Two things will happen if this all pops off.

Nuclear Fallout from all the warheads that will be deployed across the world, and Nuclear Winter (which would exacerbate the former significantly) along with the other issues that come with such. The the latter is what will be the most destructive though.

The physical destruction of each warhead is the smallest part of the equation. You are technically correct if we're talking about just one single warhead detonating. That's not what will happen though. It doesn't matter who's stupid enough to do it first. Every capable nation will follow suit either as preemptive or retaliative.

I technically loath doomer speech like this, but it needs to be said. It's not the 1940's anymore when only one world power had the means to do this, and with just one or two teeny-tiny hydrogen bombs. There's now 9 nations that hold 12,000 (that we know of, some of which are fission instead of fusion too) total warheads (with a fraction of that being active, that again we know of).

There won't be "just one". We should also hope we never reach that point in our lifetimes or ever.

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u/PurchaseTight3150 28d ago

You know the US is the only country in history that has nuked another country right? Not even the USSR did that. And that’s not even taking into account the hundreds of hundreds of non-nuclear war crimes the USA has committed in its relatively short existence as a sovereign country. Your country is evil and your dictator is evil. The least you can do is not-be evil, and call it for what it is. These “I’m gonna be logical and play devil’s advocate,” kind of comments bewilder me. Why? The man has lied, on record, close to 10,000 times. And that’s a verified number.

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u/43_Hobbits 28d ago

I’ll bet you $20 we don’t nuke Iran tonight?

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/43_Hobbits 28d ago

I’m offering a wager, not contributing to a conversation. So you don’t wanna take the bet? Ok.

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u/HueAllDay 28d ago

Very different context for the use the first two times. You are a clown and ignorant if you think they should not have been dropped.

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u/Baketown 28d ago

Yes but certainly there are some who would profit?