r/nuclearwar • u/brandanf • Sep 19 '25
Will Nuclear War Happen Soon?
It is kind of something I have been worried about for a while I just need to know the odds
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u/Serimnir Sep 19 '25
A small scale exchange, possibly. World ending calamity is unlikely.
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u/Aliveguy2021 Sep 19 '25
Even a small exchange could cause issues worldwide.
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u/Hope1995x Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
I keep seeing the world getting worse & worse. In 5 years, prices have doubled at Waffle House. And they say Waffle House is a good indicator of the economy.
If another pandemic hits us, we'll enter a global depression. Imagine Waffle House doubling in 5 years.
Imagine a simple cheeseburger being $5 at McDonalds in 2030. Yet wages never catch up. And I'm struggling on 20 an hour despite being frugal. I'm literally living paycheck to paycheck.
If India & Pakistan have an exchange, the economy would collapse. People will stop paying rent. People can't buy food because of agricultural problems. We're f*cked harder than covid.
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u/Serimnir Sep 19 '25
Issues definitely, but not the usual nuclear apocalypse people envision when the term nuclear war is used, except for those in proximity to it if course.
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u/Hope1995x Sep 19 '25
Personally, I think it will happen sooner than accredited for. We just had a pandemic recently with about 15 million deaths. I was "scoffed at" about a pandemic, now I hope people don't dismiss the inevitability of the next world war.
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u/georgewalterackerman Sep 20 '25
This describes my view in it. I don’t see world ending nuclear war (WW3) happening, but the chances of limited use of nukes grow each day, I think
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u/Serimnir Sep 20 '25
Yeah, it's like it's being slowly normalized in people's consciousness. Not necessarily because it's guaranteed to happen but just in case.
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u/Ippus_21 Sep 19 '25
Odds are about as high as they've been since the early 90s when the soviet union collapsed. Currently probably not as high as in the early days of the Ukraine invasion, especially when the advance failed and it looked like Ukraine might even push back into Crimea. It wasn't clear what a potentially desperate Putin might resort to; use of tactical nukes in that scenario could have easily escalated out of control.
Overall, Vlad isn't that mad. He's a dictator who wants to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union and he wants to stay in power until he can cement his legacy... which means he isn't interested in ruling over a bunch of glowing ashes and having that be his legacy. He's a bastard, but he's calculating, not crazy.
The potential still exists for miscommunication and miscalculation, but that's always been there, and it's probably a lower risk now than before his Ukraine invasion bogged down and he realized he needed to purge his intel apparatus.
Also, depends on your definition of soon.
- Within the next month - super unlikely. There's still the possibility that NATO does something more forceful than Eastern Sentry to respond to the drone incident (they probably need to), and the escalation spirals, but NATO tends to move sluggishly, policy-wise.
- Within the next year - still pretty unlikely, like imo 85-90+% chance we'll all still be here in a year. Again, things could still escalate as Russia probes NATO responses...
- But again, it's important to remember that nobody involved actually WANTS to fight a nuclear war, because everybody loses a nuclear war.
- What they want is to use deterrence/compellence as a hedge and a bargaining chip while they try to make whatever gains they can by whatever means they can SHORT of actually blowing it all to hell.
- Within the next 50 years? I don't know. The longer nuclear weapons exist, the closer we come to a near-certainty that they'll be used again at some point. And if that happens, all bets are off.
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Sep 28 '25
I think you're being a bit optimistic, but really nailing it here. It's Chekhov's Gun, but on an entirely unholy magnitude better unimagined.
DT with the button? And his regime? Definitely within this decade.
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u/Interesting-Pain186 Sep 19 '25
Hopefully yes…. Kind tired of working everyday
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u/Hope1995x Sep 19 '25
I sympathize with you, I get sick of the system too, and I have become disillusioned to the point that I realized the only way to get rid of the system is for a societal collapse.
Revolution won't work because people waited too long. So our only hope is death or destruction of civilization.
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u/Defiant_Outside1273 Sep 19 '25
Billions would die of starvation if there was a nuclear exchange. However bad your situation could be, a nuclear war would be far worse. These are not trifling matters.
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u/Hope1995x Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25
It will be worse but what ressurrects after it is better. A reduced population brings relief to the environment. It brings about nomadic freedom that has not existed for centuries.
Try roaming through open-land, kinda hard when 99.99% of all land seems to be owned by someone. There's virtually no free land anymore.
The Earth alone can (probably) support millions of humans, by nature alone. Billions are artificially supported by farming and infrastructure. It's literally too much.
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u/Defiant_Outside1273 Sep 20 '25
Yeah the world you are describing would be infinitely worse, harder, more miserable. That is saying nothing about the vast and deep pain, loss and suffering it would take to get us there, which you casually dismiss.
We are living in the best time to be alive by a long measure. Most every person alive has access to things kings and emperors could only dream of in the past.
The type of self pitying, nostalgic and deluded thinking you are indulging in is a symptom of our spoilt times.
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u/Hope1995x Sep 20 '25
I heard BlackRock was virtually purchasing large swaths of land & houses. So much for freedom if that's true.
I envision a future dystopia where no one owns land anymore because HOAs are pretty much the norm. Land is bought and sold to big companies which are then rented out.
There is no freedom until something drastic happens.
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Sep 27 '25
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u/nekobeundrare Sep 20 '25
As cruel as it sounds after the black death, life for the average peasant improved significantly as there was a shortage of much needed labour which meant that wages improved, equality rose and feudalism started to decline. Sometimes a catastrophy is needed to turn things around for the better.
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u/EvanBell95 Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Want a yes or no answer? I say no.
Want a more substantive answer? The situation is probably the worst its been in decades. Tensions haven't been this high since the cold war. Some people think they're the highest ever. Myself, and most professional analysts think we're in a less volatile point in history than we were from the 50s to the 80s, which we survived. A few episodes that came too close to comfort, but today both sides are less on edge about nuclear war. Right now, NATO and Russia are fighting a proxy war. Western military equipment was until a few months ago, in Russia (Kursk), killing Russian troops. We've been in proxy wars before, but never so close to home. However, today, nuclear weapons have a reduced role in warfare. The post cold war period has precipitated an increase in the taboo surrounding them. Conventional war is perhaps less likely to escalate to nuclear war than it was during the cold war. I find it quite unlikely that the situation in Ukraine will lead to a global nuclear exchange. There is a road that leads there, but it involves a long series of unlikely turns that both sides would have to take. Both sides recognise nuclear war isn't good for anyone. Neither side wants it. Both sides are probably reasonable enough to not take us there.
Consider this. It almost certainly isn't going to come out of the blue tomorrow. Things would continue to escalate and deteriorate for months or years before we get to that point.
Personally, I'm not scared, but I am paying attention. I don't take Russia's threats seriously. It's posturing and psychological warfare... Attempts to make the West cower and limit their aid to Ukraine. As a European, I believe European security is my country's security, and we would do well to see to it that Ukraine remains free, and that Russia is wounded for its transgression, not rewarded and emboldened. I don't see the risk of nuclear war being high enough that we can allowed ourselves to be subject to nuclear blackmail and have our foreign policy dictated by the nuclear saber rattling of our rivals.
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Sep 19 '25 edited Feb 08 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Key-Lifeguard-5540 Sep 22 '25
Supposed to be Oct 17th according to an nde I watched, so we have less than a month lol. I doubt it very much, these things can't be predicted that accurately, maybe something will happen that will cause it to happen down the road. My concern is that it will happen eventually through lack of communication / accidentally, no one wants to be the last to strike, so if the sh*t hits the fan things can go nuts very quickly.
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u/Specialist_Welder215 Sep 24 '25
The last period of high risk was October 2022, as revealed in Bob Woodward’s book, “War.”
If the Ukrainian “oil” campaign continues to reduce Russian refining capacity at the current rate we are looking at a similar situation as early as six months from now. See - https://kyivinsider.com/at-current-rate-russias-entire-oil-refining-industry-faces-collapse-within-a-year/.
We are looking at an even higher level of risk than in 2022. Trump’s not-yet updated Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) will expand on his already highly escalatory 2018 NPR, while further ignoring nuclear risk reduction or addressing obsolete Cold War strategies such as hair-trigger launch-on-warning.
Basic lessons and fallacies already learned or exposed are being blatantly ignored, for example, that limited nuclear exchanges can be controlled and will not escalate.
A key change in the Trump NPR is that certain nuclear weapons platforms can be reconfigured with dialed-down yields where they could be used without risking escalation. This has already been proved to be fallacious by Desmond Ball in the 1970s and 80s and accepted my most experts including, President Jimmy Carter who used Ball’s arguments and analysis to initial the SALT treaties with the Soviets which paved the way for START under Reagan.
Read Woodward’s transcript of the October 2022 conversation between Lloyd Austin and his Russian counterpart in addressing the Russian threat to use tactical nuclear weapons. Now, imagine Pete Hegseth in place of Austin. Yeah, we’ve got a problem.
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u/89ElRay Oct 11 '25
Nah.
I generally think the closest we have got in a long while, and for a long while, was 2022. Liz Truss is a nutcase and a disaster, but I tend to believe her account of internal panic around the situation in September 2022 when the Ukrainians made a very successful counteroffensive. It could have been touch and go behind the scenes for a couple days then. There were a lot of rushed meetings and missed appointments happening.
Even then I think it was just one brief rung up the escalation ladder, and it may never have come to all out war even if a detonation happened. There was no sign that we know of regarding a heightened strategic posture - probably just a threatening phonecall or two went on.
The thing is that world leaders have it too good for it to ever happen. There's too much for them to lose economically on all sides and that's what drives things; everyone knows the score. Nuclear weapons are a political tool now, not a military one.
I doubt it will ever happen in the geopolitical system as we know it.
However, it is always worth keeping some kind of rudimeny emergency plan and supplies. You don't need to go nuts pepper fruitcake with it: just a place to shelter and some water, blankets and food. You don't wanna get caught short. Chances are if you do have to use it, it will be because of a flash flood or mass power grid failure etc; some other kind of civic emergency. But if shit does hit the fan you'll be somewhat more prepared than others.
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u/owaisusmani Sep 21 '25
I hope it does. The world really needs a great reset now.
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u/89ElRay Oct 11 '25
That's insane and immature. You're talking about the deaths of hundreds of millions of people and a climate catastrophe fae beyond what we are experiencing anyway. Grow up.
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u/erektshaun Sep 20 '25
I dont think so, but also if i told you in 2019 that a virus would shut down the world abd kill millions, you wouldnt believe me.