The realities of nuclear mega death because of the Ukraine.

Posted by Pointman on December 17, 2022 · 8 Comments 

The noted historian A.J.P. Taylor caused a big stink when he wrote a fascinating book on WWII that instead of attributing its root causes to various cunning schemes of almost Machiavellian complexity, put forward the simple idea that it was all caused by various miscalculations on the part of the many parties involved. In other words, cockups. The Western powers actually believed Hitler would keep his word over various things and he himself never believed they’d actually go to war over him and Russia simultaneously invading Poland. All the genius statesmen and strategists totally misjudged each others intentions and the result was 50 million dead.

After the book’s publication and the resultant storm of offended blood, snot and feathers had settled to the ground, it gradually dawned on the history establishment that there was more than a grain of truth in the proposition. People assumed, said things and provoked each other into such an outbreak of mass hysteria that after a certain point some sort of conflict not only became universally expected but almost inevitable. All policy, treaties, good intentions and promises were forgotten in all the excitement.

Since the end of April, it became apparent to all that the US-led West block’s hybrid war against Russia was an abject failure. Their economy wasn’t wrecked and they achieved their military objectives in a slow grind into the Donbass basin to both denazify and annihilate Ukrainian regular forces. Yes, in response, a few sanctions were imposed but let’s face it, they were water off a duck’s back. The economies of Western Europe are in ruins, the EU is toe dancing right on the edge of the disintegration abyss and despite a lot of spin and presentation, the US economy is already in recession, whatever the Biden administration does to technically redefine that economic state.

Even though the measures enacted to humble Russia have proved exactly how weak West block were against Russia, the appearance of a great and successful show must go on. Take the propaganda up a notch. First of all, big up any Ukrainian successes, imaginary or otherwise, and secondly invent some victories of the variety where you’ve stymied the Russians from doing things by doing a show of muscle flexing and testosterone pissing. Of course, all those things you’ve prevented them from doing they never had any intention of doing in the first place, but it plays well to a house trained press corps who don’t need a hint hammer tap on the noggin to be reminded what the official narrative is.

The biggest example of this drawing of false red lines is supposedly dissuading Russia from using nuclear weapons in the Ukraine. Why on Earth would Russia be tempted to use nuclear weapons when they’re already winning the ground offensive? But by using it the Biden buffoons will have demonstrated how successfully they’ve intimidated the Russians out of using them, so that’s a big win for the propaganda machine, innit? It’s a meme they’ve used several times and was starting to crescendo to something like the West block talking themselves into WWIII and a nuclear exchange à la A.J.P. Taylor’s theory that world wars can start from hysteria and misreading your opponent’s intentions.

Putin, a scholarship kid and extremely well read despite what you’ve read, is no doubt aware of Taylor’s theory of history occurring because of one cockup after another, gave a speech a couple of months back about Russia and its rules of engagement with regard to nuclear weapons. If attacked, they’d reply in full. He finished the speech with the simple words – “this is not a bluff.” All the nuclear sabre rattling from West block went away in a hushed no comment silence storm and hasn’t been heard from since. If anything, the effect of the speech was that the US made a point of announcing it would not be supplying long range munitions to the Ukraine that would enable them to do something insane like fire a dirty shell into the Rodina. There is absolutely no doubt that Russia would have to do a nuclear reply to something like that.

Roll it on a few months and we had the Polish incident where the Russians are accused by the puppet Zelensky of overshooting a target within the Ukraine by over 500 Km and hitting a nondescript village in Eastern Poland and killing two extremely unlucky civilians. BTW, they were most probably hit by the debris of the missile’s self-destruct mechanism. The Ukraine and Poland start screaming for a retaliatory strike on the Russian home land which was greeted by supreme silence by the USA who know via satellite tracking exactly who fired that missile. The real question was – was it deliberate or not? Was the cokehead Zelensky trying to bounce NATO and the US into WWIII?

What really mattered was that Russia without hesitation immediately went to their equivalent of DEFCON 3, which is a five point scale of preparing to go to war with DEFCON 1 being a full nuclear exchange. Not a few specific missiles had been spun up in their silos, but everything they had in the whole arsenal had been warmed up and ready to launch at the first sigh of a launch bloom from continental USA. It was that fast and we came very close to Einstein’s prediction that if we ever fought WWIII, the next world war would be fought with sticks and stones.

The Akula hunter killer subs had sortied out of the Baltic ice-free ports ahead of and protecting the missile launching subs, commonly called boomers for obvious reasons. As they headed to transit across the largely neglected GIUK line of Cold War fame, what had been the four minute warning was quickly degrading to a three minute warning the closer they got to America’s coast. Give it a few days of steaming and your ass could be history in less than sixty seconds. Old plans that hadn’t been looked at since the fall of the Soviet Union about how to defend against a million man plus Russian invasion through the central German plain via the Fulda Gap got dusted off in the harsh light of almost empty NATO arsenals that got donated to the African black market in arms via the Ukraine.

Factor in the imponderables like the sanctions regime preventing Russian verifiers of the SALT agreements even being allowed into America, and the Russians therefore retaliating in kind, Christ knows how much they might have ramped up nuclear arms production. Remember, these days building an ICBM delivery vehicle is a relatively simple industrial procedure. It’s producing the nuclear materials to put into the warhead that is the real challenge and Russia is still by far the biggest exporter of commercial nuclear materials. Put that in your Rand corporation sponsored pipe and smoke it Mr Nash.

Any conventional war between NATO and Russia would have to turn into a nuclear war very quickly. NATO has empty arsenals, Russia doesn’t, so they’d roll westwards with no significant resistance. As I write this, Russia is already ramping up its arms production factories from a five to six day week and an eight hour day to a twelve hour day. When they look like losing the land battle, some bright spark in NATO will try the tactical nuclear ploy – let’s see what they’ll do if we nuke Krasnoyarsk. No brainer. Russia would respond with perhaps a bigger tactical nuclear strike most probably followed by a massive nuclear one.

Let’s face it, nobody in West block ever invested in a decent ABM system whereas the old Soviets did, as well as the fabled Doomsday system of Dr. Strangelove fame which apparently exists and is still active. Don’t forget, they’ve still got the biggest number of nukes and the sanctions regime has totally broken down the inspection protocols that were such a vital part of the SALT treaties of yesteryear. The median estimate is they’ve already got between 5,000-6,000 nukes which if accurate gives them the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world anyway.

Add in the population dispersal problem we have and the advantage they have in terms of how vast even the much slimmed down size of Russia versus the old Soviet Russia and it’s still twice the land mass of the USA with lots of room left over to slip in a Belgium or two.

If you really want to jack up your nuclear war anxiety index, consider Russia releasing details of its new Sarmat delivery system which it’s in the process of rolling out. As usual, our wonderful intelligence community was so busy illegally surveilling its own populations that it completely missed the development of what’s been memorably nicknamed the Satan 2 system because if you thought the Satan 1 system was badass, you’ll love this apparently unstoppable baby. It’s so hot, it encourages the lethal notion of a winnable nuclear war.

I’ve barely outlined the scenarios that we could rapidly find ourselves in with regard to nuclear sabre rattling over the Ukraine but as all the writers on war from antiquity onwards, through to Machiavelli and von Clausewitz have repeatedly reminded us, as soon as you go to war, you lose a huge amount of control over the events unfolding.

Once you ring that unringable bell, subsequent events take on a horrible and unpredictable life all of their own.

©Pointman

Related articles by Pointman:

Remind me again, which country’s economy was sanctions going to devastate?

The Ukraine war – the military realities.

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Filed under Article · Tagged with Russia, Ukraine, West block, WWIII