insane we're back here.
Germany hasn't invaded France (or vice versa) for two generations now. The Soviet Union dissolved itself peacefully by act of parliament. (Compare to Germany/Japan/Napoleon)
Edit: to be more clear: I can't believe that after 4 fucking years, a hostile nation is still permitted to wage war against a sovereign country.
When the USSR broke up, Ukraine gave up its nukes in exchange for security guarantees (lot of good that has done them)
Also Epstein was probably also a spy, but more likely for Mossad. BIG COINCIDENCE he was so close with dear leader?
Then tell me you think that doing things in Russia isn't possible.
Reasonable observers don't think ukraine could have kept russia's nukes, firstly because they were russia's and not ukraine's, and secondly because a country with less than $100B economy (in shambles at the end of the ussr) can't afford to maintain nuclear surety. Additionally, it's very unclear whether any nukes would have been employed by now. Any nuclear attack on russia would result in total annihilation, and if ukraine could only strike a few high-value targets in exchange, it's not a winning weapon or even a deterrent.
Finally the rest of the thesis above is likely to result in a wave of assassinations and sabotage across europe and a wider war that almost all parties have sought to avoid. It's a fever dream shared by angry dummies who are completely incapable of rational thought.
What exactly do you think their response to attempted forcible disarmament would be?
Then you're not paying attention. They have nukes, europe needs their gas, and the other major powers don't care about what they're doing to Ukraine.
America doesn't have hegemony any longer and its leaders and people have been subjugated by foreign powers intelligence actions.
Needed, past tense. The hold-outs today want it, they do not need it.
There's still concern about the nukes though.
This time around we must demand that it fully gives up WMDs before any help or humanitarian aid reaches it.
I think you’re missing a few other countries
Canada has all of the resources too; SK is the 2nd largest source of uranium in the world.
We're in crazy-town because of Trump and the Republicans, with very real consequences.
But the collapse of the EU/US relationship means you probably want to plan for the potential of a similar collapse within the European alliances.
They largely rejoined in 2009 (and very deliberately never rejoined NATO's Nuclear Planning Group), but if any NATO member is capable of going it alone on this one, it's probably France.
240 nukes on subs is plenty to wave around as a stick, too.
Even if American defences stopped 80% of them, estimates say France has enough (290*(1-0.8)=58) to destroy every state capital.
Is more really necessary, if the goal is simply to deter?
The Democratic Party is merely the other half within the narrow confines of allowed political discourse in the mainstream. I won't go so far as to say they're controlled opposition but it is very clear that they have had no intentions of upsetting the status quo for a very long time and it has lead to the what is currently happening today.
staymad, nerds; if you think Daddy Democrat is saving the day, you are in for a rude awakening
This is all a horrible development for the overall future of humanity, but it's the world we live in now. At a minimum hundreds of billions of dollars will be siphoned off from more beneficial uses over the coming decades, and the risk of major accidents will increase. The worst change is of course the fact that the odds of a complete societal collapse have increased dramatically.
Almost all of the world's nukes are controlled by aging old dictators or aspiring dictators who are surrounded by sycophants and treat competence as much less important than personal loyalty. Geopolitical risks are only going to increase as these rulers become more erratic and demented.
Yes, it definitely is.
> The worst change is of course the fact that the odds of a complete societal collapse have increased dramatically.
A nuke means that anyone who wants to invade you needs to price in a total loss of their largest city as a possible outcome. That is a great disincentive, one that Ukraine probably wishes it had against Russia.
> and the risk of major accidents will increase.
I don't think that's reasonable to say about a bunch of countries getting their first nuke. The concern should be more with countries like the US and Russia that have so many nukes, which they can't possibly use effectively, and don't have the ability to properly maintain.
If every western country had exactly one nuke, the world would probably be much safer than if the US has all of them.
I hope my state is because the alternative is being at the whim of the powerful nuclear states around us in a political climate of rising authoritarianism.
They couldn't have launched the Russian warheads as-is, but disassembly and reuse of the warhead material is another thing entirely.
The fact that Europe unified against the US, threatening to shoot first, proved they'd rather have an empty piece of ice / dirt, than our friendship and protection. It made me re-evaluate the whole Russia / Ukraine affair.
While Western Europe claimed to be mortal enemies with Russia... the US was providing much of the weapons. While the US was seizing Russian oil tankers, Europe was buying their gas. There's no dispute that the US is against Russia... and yet Europe would turn to fight the US too?
However, Europe doesn't view the US as an ally. Greenland is not enough to change their position, but it's enough to reveal their true position.
Europe is far more aligned with Russia than they are against. Both sides have the same goal. Russia is killing swaths of European men, and that's about it. Ukraine is killing swaths of European men. The territorial control doesn't explain the war. The killing is the purpose.
> Europe is far more aligned with Russia than they are against
This does not follow.
I think I need to leave Hacker News soon. It has become MAGA territory
Our relationship has been deteriorating because it was very clear that the US was not behaving like the ally they said they were.
Is North Dakota worthless land? Is Hawaii? Willing to hand them over?
What the hell is the point of an ally if it's seizing territory from you.
Oh, bullshit.
They threatened to shoot back if invaded.
By this logic Japan was aligned with USA during WW2, because both sides were killing people.
If they don't have a sufficient secret stock pile of nuclear weapons already, then they have been utter and total fools.
If they don't have secret nuclear weapons in orbit, they have been severely irresponsible.
Let's hope the plans of their leaders is not to send all young men as infantry to the meat grinder to die for a country which hates them, like they are doing in the Ukraine war. But who knows? Life is full of surprises.
Any country (this includes both democracies and petty dictatorships) which wishes to be safe and independent must get nukes and means of delivery now.
Russia will be prepared to launch another attack in just a few years after the war on Ukraine ends and the US cannot be relied upon.
In fact, it's even worse as the US may end up as the enemy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra...
Everything is service or finance economy now. Nobody cares about science sadly (me included).
It's all Netflix & TikTok, Foodora scrolling until the end now.
Please read Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book by Annie Jacobsen that discusses the insanity of nuclear war.
The UNSC has long been toothless on this issue; see North Korea.
Of course, it has later been argued that by entering into various more or less hidden agreements with the US, we made ourselves nuclear targets anyway, with no formal guarantees whatsoever to show for it...
What is not discussed well is delivery systems, which we are lacking for second strike capability… submarines or complex siloes?
My only wish for the program is that we keep the capability within our control to prevent political overhead and give the current government the ability to destroy the current capabilities at a moment’s notice in case the following govt seems irresponsible. Who knows what we will look like in 200years.
Even if tomorrow they decided to actual work together and invest in their own capabilities it would be decades before they would be free of the US defense sector and they know it and it's why they are so resistant to the idea. I think you would need to see more aggression by the Russians combined with substantially more shenanigans by the US (more than just bombastic announcements for the sake of grabbing media attention) for that to change because you are talking about trillion dollar investment, every year, for decades to walk a different path.
christkv•1h ago
Onavo•1h ago
ceejayoz•1h ago
Rockets, submarines, aircraft, or even a nuke in a container ship parked in a big harbor work.
tshaddox•1h ago
ortusdux•1h ago
Reminds me of the Rapid Dragon missile system the US uses to weaponize cargo planes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system)
ceejayoz•1h ago
I'd fully expect China and the US to be working on such things.
bob1029•1h ago
For something to be a deterrent it must have a few properties. Delivery taking a non-zero amount of time and producing a gigantic visible ordeal from outer space is a feature here. A container bomb going off somewhere in a civilian logistics chain is a surprise. Surprises cannot be deterrent by their very definition. The inability to ~instantly attribute the attack to some party would only invite additional instability.
ceejayoz•1h ago
You don't have to have them on a container ship. You need the credible threat of being able to do so.
bob1029•50m ago
The only way for this to work as a retaliatory measure is to have the weapons already in place at the target locations. Now, imagine if someone were to discover the weapon and trace it back to whomever installed it. This is effectively a slow motion nuclear exchange that was initiated by the "defender".
ceejayoz•42m ago
"Yeah, you can drop bunker busters on the silos you know about, but six months later one of your cities evaporates."
The five big nuclear powers use subs for this, but it's hardly the only option.
fragmede•38m ago
ForHackernews•1h ago
marginalia_nu•1h ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra...
hsuduebc2•1h ago
marginalia_nu•1h ago
TomatoCo•1h ago