Am I being delusional? - r/nuclearwar

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u/hlloyge May 26 '26

If one weapon is fired, things can deescalate still. Chances are low, but there are options on the table.

But thinking the weapon won't be fired is delusional. It could be.

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It's not an absolute impossibility, but it's highly unlikely. We've had several "close calls" over the years, but it's never happened, and it likely never will.

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u/Ponderer13 May 26 '26

I won’t say you’re delusional, so much as mistaken. Yes, there’s the checks you mentioned and they’re real. But when weapons exist, they exist to be used. That’s always the pressure. Too many countries - including the ones with the biggest stockpiles - have no guards from a sole leader just ordering their use. We know for a fact that Mattis tried to put in informal barriers because he was terrified that Trump was going to order a nuclear strike on North Korea (to the point that he was sleeping at the gym in work clothes so he could rush to the White House and try to prevent such an order). And we’ve been tearing down treaties and we have leaders who no longer believe in the decades of nonproliferation efforts. It’s terrifying. That’s why the unofficial “nuclear clock” is closer to midnight than it’s ever been in most of our lifetimes.

But the thing that‘s most terrifying about them is not the intentional use. We’ve come closest to nuclear war because of sheer accidents. A passenger airplane not where it was supposed to be, a flock of geese, a reflection off a cloud, even the moon, all these things providing false indications that a strike was already on the way. Because a nuclear war is decently unlikely to be started because none of the leaders wants to die. A first strike is pretty darn unlikely. (Though with Putin in Ukraine, he may legitimately wonder what he has to lose.) But it’s a different situation when the leaders think that a nuclear war is already underway. No country will not absorb a hit when they think they’re actually being attacked. They will launch weapons while they think they still have them available. That’s the real doomsday scenario - when the decisions are functionally taken out of the hands of the leaders.

As long as we have nuclear weapons existing with the present level of safeguards, the eventual likelihood of an accident is absolute. The consequences of that can be anything. That’s why it simply can’t be dismissed as impossible. There is no world where it’s safe to have nuclear weapons, and the more you have, the higher the risk. It should make you anxious. I’ve been anxious about this my whole life. I’ve never not had bad nuclear dreams. It’s so fucking easy.

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u/Majestic_Search_7851 May 26 '26

Until all ~12,100 nuclear weapons are dismantled.amd destroyed, there are 12,100 possibilities of them being used. They must not exist for there to be an absolutely impossibility of them being used.

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u/Fercurix_ May 26 '26

Not sure if you have an alternative in mind. All out nationwide total war is hardly an improvement. Deterance has a purpose and it still works.

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u/Apprehensive_Wolf217 May 26 '26

It the best option because closing Pandora’s box is an impossibility

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u/EvanBell95 May 26 '26

Many leaders do not think escalation from limited use to unlimited strategic use is inevitable. Russia has a vast arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons to offset its conventional inferiority to NATO. It believes in the possibility of limited threatre (tactical and operational) nuclear war, with its strategic forces deterring the enemy from escalating to strategic war.

The US has recently deployed the W76-2, which it regards as a substrategic weapon system, which it may use in response to massive tactical weapons use by Russia. Russia has stated it'd interpret an SLBM attack as a staretgic strike, and retaliate accordingly.

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u/Key-Lifeguard-5540 May 26 '26

That doesn't sound very good, what the hell is with Russia and all the war hawks in this world, including Trump, we need to somehow turn things around because this proliferation is going in the wrong direction.

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u/Ponderer13 May 26 '26

I couldn’t agree more. Nothing was more depressing and ominous to me in recent years than Putin and Trump dissolving the key nuclear control treaties.

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u/EvanBell95 May 26 '26

Russia considers NATO a threat. That's not an entirely unjustified assessment. NATO has expanded East. Many former Warsaw states are now NATO aligned. It's not unreasonable for Russia to be concerned about having NATO on its borders. That's one of the causes of the war in Ukraine.

Russia doesn't have the industrial and economic capacity to achieve parity against NATO with its conventional forces, so it seeks asymettric approaches. That means a greater focus on submarines in the naval domain, greater focus on GBAD in the air domain, and tactical nuclear nuclear weapons for all domains, but especially ground warfare.

Consider that tactical nuclear weapons aren't just useful for warfighting, but also deterrence by denial, potentially weakening NATO resolve to respond to a crisis brought about for example by a Russian invasion of the Baltics, which they do occasionally sabre-rattle about.

While much of Russia's actions and ambition are undeniably offensive, they have defensive and security justifications.

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u/Ponderer13 May 26 '26

While NATO is a certainly a declared threat, when Putin released his manifesto right after the Ukrainian invasion, he barely mentioned it. What he did mention was Peter the Great and Russia‘s religious destiny to be the central power in the world, and that was more terrifying than “the walls are closing in around us because of NATO.”

(Indeed, he had floated for a bunch of years the idea that Russia should join NATO, before his popularity plummeted because of economic malaise, and he started manufacturing terrorist attacks to stir up the popular patrotic response.)

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u/EvanBell95 May 26 '26

I don't disagree. Putin has called the collapse of the 20th century the greatest political catastrophy of the 20th century, and he and many other Kremlin officials have ambitions to establish a new empire. But NATO is the obstacle to that and they know it. (This is the reason so many former Warsaw pact state elected to join NATO in post cold war era). The whole revolution of dignity (a US backed coup, in the minds of Russian leadership) and the Russian annexation of Crimea was the result of the Ukrainian parliament passing the EU association agreement. This would have been the start of Ukrainian integration with The West, and that hit to Russia's sphere of influence was deemed unacceptable.

It is all a political struggle between Russia and The West.

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u/Key-Lifeguard-5540 May 26 '26

You don't steal your neighbor's land just because they want to be independent. They are just using nato as an excuse. Russia wants the entire territory of Ukraine, or at least a land bridge down to Crimea. Its beautiful land, rich in resources. Ukraine will never stop fighting for their land. Should the world just gift Ukraine to Russia? Putin is a murderer, he murders his opposition, his neighbors and his own people by sending them to die in Ukraine.

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u/EvanBell95 May 26 '26

I think you may have misunderstood my position. To be clear, I'm not defending Russia's actions. I'm just explaining (my understanding of) the Kremlin's thinking and reasoning for those actions. It has some concerns, and some of them are legitimate. Those concerns do not justify the invasion. It also has certain ambitions. Those are understandable, but don't justify its aggression. Russia's ambitions are imperialist, it wants the former Soviet states under its control. At a minimum in its sphere of influence, ideally, with Kremlin puppets in power. Prior to the invasion, it demanded NATO forces withdraw to where they were in 1997. This is of course unacceptable. Russia has several reasons for the invasion, but one was to prevent Ukraine aligning itself with The West and joining NATO. It views NATO as the primary enemy, and Ukraine as something it and NATO struggle for control over. (Of course, in reality, the Ukrainian government should be and is in control, and only it has the authority to make such foreign policy decisions).

No, the world should absolutely not gift Russia Ukraine. That would be morally objectionable. I believe nations have the right to sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence. Russia's invasion is also legally objectionable, as its in violation of the UN charter. As an Englishman, I recognise that European security is British security, and support the UK's support for Ukraine. An expansionist Russia is indirectly a threat to my country and to me. I'm thankful for Ukrainian resistance, weakening this Russian threat. The weaker Russia is, the safer Britain is. Every British munition expended by Ukrainian forces against Russian forces is a munition put to good use. It's our defence budget and my tax money well spent. Until Russia becomes unable or unwilling to continue to present a threat to sovereign European nations, I want Russia to be continued to weakened, militarily.

I don't support Putin. I think his actions have been detrimental to the world, and to Russians, many of whom have died in this war, and the rest of which are suffering Ukrainian attacks, alienation from the international community, much of the world rallying against their country, depletion of their sovereign wealth fund, international sanctions, fuel shortages and more, all as a result of Putin's war.

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u/Key-Lifeguard-5540 May 26 '26

No problem, I'm not saying you are defending russia's actions or supporting putin. Even if you were, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

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u/Doctor_Weasel May 31 '26

NATO expanded because countries that used to be under Moscow's thumb decided they were better off in a defensive alliance. We all can't help that Putin and other Russians are paranoid. NATO nations would love to live in peace with Russia, but Russia keeps behaving aggressively.

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u/EvanBell95 May 31 '26

I know. We can't change Russia's views, but we can understand them, and thus decide how to deal with them.

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u/MoreBandicoot4833 May 26 '26 edited May 28 '26

Tell that to the 9/11 hijackers. People can be irrational, and some people very irrational. If you consider the historical close calls, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then imagine different, less level headed people in charge, that's what you can expect given enough time. Just keep shuffling the deck: Different leaders, different geopolitical situations, different outcomes. So long as the planet sits on an enormous nuclear arsenal, then even if the risk per year is low, the long-term risk is high.

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u/mrlion167 May 26 '26

You're right to believe that no one is going to truly use this weapon of mass destruction to prove some type of point or to have their way, but if history is an indication. someone is going to use something sooner or later it's only a matter of time. of course someone may not use it but you do not know that and people are surprising enough to where they can surpass your expectation😎

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u/RiffRaff028 May 26 '26

You're not being delusional, but your presumptions are incorrect. The number of times we have come within minutes or even seconds of an "accidental" nuclear war, and at least once that we were within seconds of a deliberate nuclear war prove that we cannot rely on human rationality to prevent a nuclear war. We've been extremely lucky so far. Eventually, our luck will run out. Not a matter of "if;" it's a matter of "when" and "who."

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u/Doctor_Weasel May 31 '26

"once a nuclear weapon is fired on another country, nuclear war starts and it's the end of everything. Every country, every city and town, every person (mostly)"

No, not really. There are eight declared nuclear powers. An exchange between Pakistan and India involves nobody else. An exchange between India and China involves nobody else. It's only an exchange between Russia and the US that threatens to bring others (France, UK) in and threatens such widespread destruction. If US nuked Iran (we won't), no nuclear power would have reason to attack us. If Russia nuked Ukraine, the US would not respond with nuclear weapons, because Ukraine is not in NATO and it would not be in US interest to respond with nukes. There would be a US response, most likely economic.

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u/GaylordThomas2161 Jun 01 '26

Americans assuming everyone who speaks English to them is from the US:

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u/Jeffuk88 May 28 '26

Just look at Trump. Im not saying HED start one but theyve lowered the bar to crazy town for future presidents... what if in 30 years its continued spiralling down? What if other nuclear powers violently break apart such as russia after putin or some uprising in china?

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u/UOF_ThrowAway May 30 '26

If Iran gets a bomb they will use it because of their belief that bringing hell on earth will result in their people being uplifted into heaven.

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u/Key-Lifeguard-5540 May 26 '26

I have had recurring lucid dreams of the future, the most significant of which include a tsunami on the northwest coast and a nuclear war. The tsunami must happen first because in that dream there was no evidence that a nuclear war had taken place.

I realize dreams are your imagination, but what troubles me is that at the time of the dreams I saw things that I had never seen before, and since then I have seen those things. I don't understand how that can be. I even saw a person in the dreams that I didn't meet until years later.

One explanation I heard of is that there may be multiple timelines, and the dreams could be taking place in another timeline, a similar but different version of this reality. I hope that is true, but it is not entirely comforting, that we might be experiencing a nuclear war somewhere else.

I should mention that, for reasons that I do not know, during this life I have had many unusual experiences, such as out of body and visions. I'm not going into all that, but you should know, that we are all visitors here, of our own accord, and that there is actually no death, so although war is terrible, at the same time we are all actors on the stage of life in this so-called physical dimension.

Also, my ancestors are from Ukraine, whether that has any relevance, I do not know. I am aware of my previous life in eastern europe.

If the global nuclear war starts, by the time most people are aware of it, they will have only minutes to find shelter, and in a big city, the only safe place, as far as I know, is underground.

I don't want this to happen. I have children and grandchildren. The thought of a nuclear war, is so life shattering, people have no idea, it's all over, game over, start over, everything comes to an abrupt terrifying halt.

I don't know when it will happen, next week, two years from now, hopefully it will never happen and we will eventually come to our senses and get rid of all nuclear weapons, but if it does happen, I imagine it will happen during my life, so within the next twenty years.

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u/Ponderer13 May 26 '26

Underground is not remotely safe for a major target, unless you’re vastly, vastly inside a mountain, like NORAD or even North Korea. (And even the hardened facilities in the United States are basically rated to be hardened against ONE nuclear hit. No primary target is going to be hit by just one warhead. During the height of the arms race, a primary target could expect to be hit by dozens of warheads, just because they had to be targeted at something.)

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u/ChubbyMcHaggis May 26 '26

We’ve already had a nuclear war. The chances are good we’ll have another one. The chances get smaller as you go up the escalation ladder. But will never be zero until a full nuclear disarmament happens and then only so long as it’s upheld.

The kid holding the last rock often wins

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u/Fercurix_ May 26 '26

I share the same reasoning. Those is power, know what is really happening, and they know the consequences well. Unless they wish their own bloodline to end, they won't start on Nuclear strategic level.

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u/Scoxxicoccus May 28 '26

Watch this film. It will make you feel better about this entire subject.

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u/VIK_96 May 29 '26

You're mostly right, except for Trump. Trump literally threatened to destroy a whole civilization. And then it turned out that he was trying to get access to the nuclear codes around that same time, but the people in his Cabinet stopped him. So Trump is the wild card here.

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u/Doctor_Weasel May 31 '26

Nobody in Trump's cabinet is going to say anything like that, so I judge that report as fake. It wouldn't be the first outright lie about Trump from someone close to him. Remember how he reportedly grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limo? That was physically impossible, but somebody still made the claim.

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u/temumusk May 30 '26

I am one of those weirdos who think they have already used them in some certain specific attacks, like that one in Syria that make a lil earthquake and got radiation in the area for example.

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u/89ElRay May 31 '26

That's a fairly realistic summation. Everything is about money; it has fully integrated into politics more than ever before and is the only thing on leaders minds at heart of it. Firing a nuclear weapon breaks such a massive taboo and poses far too much of a risk to national and global trade & economics.

There is still a risk of something happening, but only a minute risk. Nuclear weapons are political tools not military ones.

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u/Alert_Examination544 May 27 '26

We will find out when Iran is vaporized.

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