I think they maybe talking during the preceding situation/conflict but the moment the decision to go nuclear is made by either one it's all or nothing for both as per MAD, no talking
Last edited:
AHC: have Nuclear warfare that does NOT start the apocalypse
- Thread starter SpaceRome
- Start date
A decade ago, one @Giobatista wrote a long, thought-out 1983 WW3 TL that was basically a thought experiment aimed at demonstrating a nuclear war was "winnable", ie non-apocalyptic, by 1983.
In a nutshell, he imagines a conventional conflict breaking out in 1983 and bogging down. The conventional phase of the war represents several months put to use by western nations to (1) weaken Soviet nuclear arsenal by conventional strikes, (2) develop makeshift anti-missile defense, (3) develop civil defense. As a show of force, the Soviets decide to start a nuclear war against China, which they roll over; nonetheless, it portrays them as ruthless mass murderers and lifts political obstacles to a first strike against them. NATO launches a first strike, savaging the USSR and containing the damage from counter-strikes with (A) aforementioned active and civil defenses measures during the war months, (B) conventional attrition against Soviet forces, and (C) first strikes on nuclear launchers and nuclear C&C capabilities.
The end result is that the USSR and China are devastated (but neither is turned into a complete wasteland either), Europe (except Germany) suffers WW2- level destruction with several cities destroyed in most countries, and Germany as well as Manchuria are turned into unlivable hellscapes by "tactical" nukes. Which Giobatista considers an acceptable outcome (he's Italian, not German). Thought several of his assumptions are questionable, it makes a convincing point that there was a at least a snowball's chance in hell to keep damage in a 1980s nuclear war to less-than-apocalyptic level.
In a nutshell, he imagines a conventional conflict breaking out in 1983 and bogging down. The conventional phase of the war represents several months put to use by western nations to (1) weaken Soviet nuclear arsenal by conventional strikes, (2) develop makeshift anti-missile defense, (3) develop civil defense. As a show of force, the Soviets decide to start a nuclear war against China, which they roll over; nonetheless, it portrays them as ruthless mass murderers and lifts political obstacles to a first strike against them. NATO launches a first strike, savaging the USSR and containing the damage from counter-strikes with (A) aforementioned active and civil defenses measures during the war months, (B) conventional attrition against Soviet forces, and (C) first strikes on nuclear launchers and nuclear C&C capabilities.
The end result is that the USSR and China are devastated (but neither is turned into a complete wasteland either), Europe (except Germany) suffers WW2- level destruction with several cities destroyed in most countries, and Germany as well as Manchuria are turned into unlivable hellscapes by "tactical" nukes. Which Giobatista considers an acceptable outcome (he's Italian, not German). Thought several of his assumptions are questionable, it makes a convincing point that there was a at least a snowball's chance in hell to keep damage in a 1980s nuclear war to less-than-apocalyptic level.
The USSR almost certainly launch's at this point, why would they allow for their nuclear deterrent to be weakened / removed, the whole point of MAD is the Nuclear deterrent must be maintained no matter what.
Think about it the other way round if the USSR started knocking out say US based ICBM site with strikes what would the US do?
This has been the ongoing goal for decades, there is no makeshifting this,
Why would the USSR do this, even in this scenario and ignoring the above points they are already in a conventional conflict with NATO?
Sorry not having a go at you (you are just posting the scenario) but this thought experiment really just seems to be about getting to the end situation not justifying how it would happen realistically
Last edited:
Maybe somebody pulls a General Ripper and is quickly disavowed by their own side, and (unlike in the movie) there's no "Doomsday Weapon" that automatically gets launched if a few of the nukes slip through.
The issue is that tit for tat nuclear strikes can easily lead to an all out nuclear exchange if either side doesn’t back down. Political leaderships don’t have to be suicidal to decide that nuclear war is the best option. They’re human beings, not perfectly rational robots.
I think it would have the opposite effect of putting a damper on nuclear exchange in my view. Suppose Russians use a nuclear warhead to create an opening for an army corp to move trough a fortified position. Then that same group that is making use of it gets nuked in turn essentially turning the net gain of use into nothing. Pointlessness of nuclear weapon use would come to the fore. Losing Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad for nothing is still better than losing all of Russia for nothing. And I think the same goes for America. I think losing entire states wholesale would still be preferential to everyone dying and nation being wiped out in total nuclear exchange.
I think MAD and our view of it is simply the theoretical conjecture on how we’d act rather than realistic understanding of it. Would you rather die than be a slave? Ask any man that and they’d say they’d rather die. But put a man in such a situation and for thousands of years humans chose slavery over death.
No worries, I understand that you were criticising the TL itself and appreciate you making the effort to make it clear
If I may, I'll still precise a few points, as my previous post was a quick and imprecise summary.The launchers that are being damaged during the conventional phase of the war are the medium-range SS-20, which iirc are dual-use. When reading the TL it did irk me a bit but, why not, it's WW3. I should have made it clear NATO does target ICBMs with conventional weapons.
It's the wildest part of the TL
Giobatista imagined that during a conventional war all safety concerns would be put out the window and three different methods would be put to use; the first reasonable and the second, well, exotic but apparently proposed IRL. First, existing AA missiles such as the Nikes Hercules would be fitted with nuclear warheads, allowing for a "better than nothing" interception capability. Second, "nuclear mines" would be positioned in space disguised as satellites, to be detonated above launching ICBMs. Third, nukes would be buried in US soil and intentionally detonated upon reentry of Soviet nukes, so that the cloud of earth dust created would disrupt incoming nukes. I have to admit I didn't quite understand the latter two, but simply took the point that if peacetime concerns were forsaken a Soviet strike might be blunted.I will add that Giobatista actually emphasised civil defense at least as much as those active measures. In fact, he envisions a significant share of both NATO and USSR population moving out of cities towards rural areas.
It's one of the points in the story that made me raise an eyebrow as well. I suspect the real reason is that Giobatista needed political obstacles to a NATO first strike lifted, and the course of the war in China fits the bill nicely. Nonetheless, he makes an acceptable job of justifying it by showing how the Soviet leadership is trapped. After several months of fighting, the course of the conventionnal war is turning against them, so that they feel like they have to escalate. They debate between various forms of nuclear strikes directly against NATO, then opt for nuclear war against a non-NATO country as a convincing demonstration. Ample use of tactical nukes allow them to roll over the Chinese army (as well as author's fiat that the Chinese leader surrenders), but one of their cities is destroyed by a single Chinese ICBMs and they retaliate with anti-cities strikes.
That's it for me. If you are curious about that TL or want more detail, I encourage you to see the original thread - it also had its share of naysayers, and I must say the author attempted to engage with them thoughtfully and apparently retconned a couple of chapters on their advice
To answer that, I would have to start looking up Indian nuclear delivery systems and warhead inventories, and you're probably just as good at that as I am.
The US using nuclear weapons in the Korean War against Manchuria would be the "best" option as far as nuclear war goes. They came closest in 1951 if I remember correctly and the US had 640 warheads at the as opposed to just 25 Soviet ones. Moreover, the Soviet Union's strategic bomber force was small. Chances are the continental US might not be hit at all, or maybe a handful of times. That's still better than 1962 or 1983, where the US would be hit by dozens, hundreds or maybe even over a thousand warheads. Besides that, early 1950s nukes are in the 20-50 kiloton range rather than the 300 kiloton to 1+ megaton range.
Would a 1951 nuclear war be bad? Yes, it would be, but not to apocalyptic levels. If Stalin is smart he butts out and China eats a bunch of nukes in Manchuria, each one no stronger than 3x Hiroshima or 2x Nagasaki. I imagine casualties to be in that range too, partially depending on geography. This may or may not be enough to reignite the Chinese Civil War, which will open up a much bigger can of worms. If the Soviets do intervene, they will be on the receiving end of a few hundred 20-50 kt range bombs. Many will suffer and die, but civilization will go on, even in the Soviet Union. A significant number of European capitals are toast. As mentioned earlier, few bombs will reach the CONUS and maybe even none at all if the US get lucky.
Last edited:
Agreed. What could happen is the scenario in Larry Bond's book, Vortex, where apartheid SA gets invaded by the Cubans and Pretoria drops a nuke on the invading column.
Only the choice isn't slavery or death, it's death or persuading the other side not to do it by threat of doing it yourself,
there is no losing one or two states or cities because the threat is always going to be the same the other side launches everything and you lose everything
Both sides could annihilate each other (and their friends) and there is only one slim chance of your side surviving in any shape and that's launch first and launch everything and hope that you catch the other side's deterrent enough to not be 100% destroyed by it in return. And that's true for both sides*. However as it went on and the technology got better (not just more damaging but faster to target, less able to be intercepted, detection of enemy launches quicker etc) this hope got less and less and the scenarios took that into account and so even the advantage of launching first lessened.**
So the choice to turn the key or not was not "if I do this I die, if I don't I may live a slave", it's "If I'm at this point then I'm dead either way as is likely everyone I know and love so what do I want do about that in terms of putting my counterpart on the other side in the same position".
MAD was very much designed to be unwinnable and thus unthinkable, but the perverse thing was in order for that to work both sides had to fully commit to it as each side acts as the check on the other, and if you remove yourself as the check on the other side you thus endanger yourself. And so the goal is to persuade the other side that you are 100% committed to launching if need be, and the corollary of that is you have to take the risk of the other side doing the same as 100%. Because both sides are playing this game not just one.
*and this is both sides and that's a fundamental thing that I think a lot arguments based around someone deciding not to do it misses. The question not just would "we" do it, it's also what would the other side do. So to take your first post it not just enough for one side to decide 'we going to go limited with one missile' they have to take that decision and also say to themselves 'we hope the other side will also only send back one missile in response'. And the two are not the same, and both sides would have to make the same decision every time.
**this however why anything that increases that hope can end up dangerous as it incentivises one side launching and the other side will know that.
No worriesNo worries, I understand that you were criticising the TL itself and appreciate you making the effort to make it clear
Sorry does or doesn't target ICBMs? Either way attacks on SS20 will likely also be responded to as I said, as IRBM's were part of the deterrent
It's the wildest part of the TL
I agree some of that I don't think would work even in theory. more importantly none of it could be done on the fly
That's not going work, mas movement like that is very hard and very slow (or involves a lot of dead people)
Cool cheersIt's one of the points in the story that made me raise an eyebrow as well. I suspect the real reason is that Giobatista needed political obstacles to a NATO first strike lifted, and the course of the war in China fits the bill nicely. Nonetheless, he makes an acceptable job of justifying it by showing how the Soviet leadership is trapped. After several months of fighting, the course of the conventionnal war is turning against them, so that they feel like they have to escalate. They debate between various forms of nuclear strikes directly against NATO, then opt for nuclear war against a non-NATO country as a convincing demonstration. Ample use of tactical nukes allow them to roll over the Chinese army (as well as author's fiat that the Chinese leader surrenders), but one of their cities is destroyed by a single Chinese ICBMs and they retaliate with anti-cities strikes.
That's it for me. If you are curious about that TL or want more detail, I encourage you to see the original thread - it also had its share of naysayers, and I must say the author attempted to engage with them thoughtfully and apparently retconned a couple of chapters on their advice
Last edited:
My guess is anwhere before the Soviets get the bomb, or at least before the Soviets catch up in terms of number of stockpiles.
The Present Day, more or less, also feels like we could go nuclear-sans-Armageddon. There are fewer nukes today than in decades hence, as well as the nuclear arsenals generally containing somewhat smaller nuclear weapons, and modern nuclear doctrine seemingly involves primarily airbursts these days. While sure, a nuclear war in the 21st century would be horrifically devastating, I suspect it may be possible that even the modern Nuclear Powers (America, Russia, China) could survive in some form or another that isn't a desolate nuclear hellscape.
Back in the day I recall seeing stats that the US had more deliverable warheads than the USSR in the late part of the Cold War but the USSR had more deliverable megatonage.
IMHO things can get a bit murkey when considering bomber delivered weapons and the possibility of reloading missile silos.
Last edited:
Maybe some of that stuff could have been done fairly quickly.......
It's the wildest part of the TL
I will add that Giobatista actually emphasised civil defense at least as much as those active measures. In fact, he envisions a significant share of both NATO and USSR population moving out of cities towards rural areas.
......
Presumably the US could conceivably have pulled some older warheads out of storage and buried them along with some form of means of providing physical security for them and detonating them if needed. I vaguely recall the dust cloud defense being discussed back in the day and it seemed a bit dodgy to me, but perhaps it might have been of some value in terms of defending hardened targets (perhaps "clean" warheads could have been used to keep the fall out levels down..) I do wonder about what the effects of the resulting fallout might have been on cities and other similar areas.
Some other stuff that I recall being discussed back in the day such as constructing fields of spikes around critical hardened targets might also have been able to be done fairly quickly in an emergency. (I believe the intent was to make direct ground bursts near hard targets less likely..) On the other hand there would likely have been competing requests for materials, equipment and man power for such schemes and perhaps there would also have been a reluctance to draw attention to the locations of certain key targets by surrounding them with fields of spikes, and building fields of decoy spikes to confuse the Soviets would have needed more time, people, materials, equipment, fuel etc.)
I also recall reading discussions of proposed plans to employ contractors with heavy equipment to dig and cover various forms of fall out shelters outside of large cities. Perhaps partial evacuations combined with fall out shelters might have been of some use for at least some of the population (especially for providing fallout protection to people who were not in areas that were directly targeted.) Again though there would likely have been competition for the needed workers, equipment, fuel etc.
One can speculate endlessly I suppose.
Except that this would lead to a world where nuclear wars are seen as fightable and winnable. So... well... World War Four... Or Five... WOULD be apocalyptic.
Your best bet is a country with nuclear weapons that is not a superpower, has a limited arsenal and has rivals with no nukes.
So of OTL members of the nuclear club that means Israel and North Korea are the most viable contenders for a nuclear war they doesn’t become apocalyptic. (Yes North Korea has China and Russia as allies but that alliance is gonna drop the moment they drop a nuke on Seoul or Tokyo). Other options that could have gotten nukes include Iran and South Africa.
So of OTL members of the nuclear club that means Israel and North Korea are the most viable contenders for a nuclear war they doesn’t become apocalyptic. (Yes North Korea has China and Russia as allies but that alliance is gonna drop the moment they drop a nuke on Seoul or Tokyo). Other options that could have gotten nukes include Iran and South Africa.