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Russia Unveils 'Satan 2' Missile Powerful Enough To 'Wipe Out UK, France Or Texas' (telegraph.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Telegraph: Russia has released the first image of its new nuclear missile, a weapon so powerful that it could wipe out nearly all of the United Kingdom or France. The RS-28 Sarmat thermonuclear-armed ballistic missile was commissioned in 2011 and is expected to come into service in 2018. The first images of the massive missile were declassified on Sunday and have now been published for the first time. It has been dubbed "Satan 2," as it will replace the RS-36M, the 1970s-era weapon referred to by Nato as the Satan missile. Sputnik, the Russian government-controlled news agency, reported in May that the missile could destroy an area "the size of Texas or France." Russian media report that the missile will weigh up to 10 tons with the capacity to carry up to 10 tons of nuclear cargo. With that type of payload, it could deliver a blast some 2,000 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Russia reportedly tested a hypersonic warhead in April that is apparently intended for use on the Satan 2 missiles. The warhead is designed to be impossible to intercept because it does not move on a set trajectory.
Remember when Putin said that the defense systems installed in Poland and Romania will be useless because they are working on "something else"?
Why does this need to be innovated?
That is a big firecracker, but it is no Tsar Bomba. The Tsar Bomba was tested in 1961, so the technological capability for high yield bombs is old news. Best bit about the Tsar Bomba: "In theory, the bomb had a maximum yield of 100 megatons if it were to have included a U-238 tamper, but because only one bomb was built, this theory was never demonstrated."
Here is a short documentary film on the Tsar Bomba.
...to let Russia in on the fact that all this fearmongering and dick-waving they've been doing lately is just part of their scheme to do everything in their power to distract people from wikileaks, keep Trump out of office, and preserve their ultra-lucrative oligarchy.
At least, they certainly didn't make a missile with that kind of damage potential.
While it could throw a single 40 megaton warhead, it would more likely carry a handful of weapons topping out at about 50 megatons, total. Maybe.
Which is a lot, but nowhere near big enough to "wipe out" a medium-sized country like France.
They could pretty much destroy up to 15 separate cities with 300 kiloton airbursts (if the MIRV systems gives them that much spread and control, which it probably doesn't), but everything in between would be effectively untouched, and with a single weapon, most of Paris itself would only be lightly to moderately damaged. Modern high-efficiency weapons don't drop a lot of fallout in air burst mode, so that's not a consideration.
If they used ground burst targeting, they could cause a lot of downwind fallout, but it would leave large areas untouched upwind.
Forty to fifty megatons sounds like a lot, but when you compare it with how big the world is...
I think my girlfriend has one of these in her drawer.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Why can't we detect alien civilizations? One answer to this question is known as the filter theory, that sufficiently advanced civilizations voluntarily or involuntarily wipe themselves out. This does not require wiping out the whole species, only enough to fall back into the dark ages and make advanced civilizations cyclic. Like what Oswald Sprengler said in the first half of 20th Century.
It seems that Russia just made a big step towards confirming this thesis, because one thing is sure: If such rockets should ever be used accidentally or intentionally, a global nuclear holocaust is practically certain.
unless you are in Texas or near Texas, which also could be loosely defined as on the same planet as Texas.
In some ways this changes nothing MAD ensures that the launch of the Satan2 would result in a counter strike which even with smaller Warheads would do just as much damage. I won't say harder to defend against because there is no defence, against nuclear weapons only retaliation and the threat of retaliation works.
Maybe Donald Trump might get a clue as to the answer to his question why can't we use nuclear weapons? serously thou the Russans are equally as crazy building this thing as if their existing missiles were not sufficient to effectively end life on this planet anyway.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
The Telegraph article got the details wrong. Check out the RT version instead.
It is a 100+ ton missile that can carry about 10 tons of payload. They are also designing a new warhead that is maneuverable in order to avoid anti-missile defenses. They are claiming that it can hold 10 heavy warheads or 16 light warheads and/or a combination of warheads and decoys/countermeasures.
The whole "destroy an area the size of France or Texas isn't clear, but this is a missile announcement, not a warhead announcement, so they are probably talking about the area which could be covered in a single launch. I.E. one spread of warheads from a single launch could theoretically hit Paris, Barcelona and Milan. That would be pretty hard for anti-missile defenses to deal with.
You'd think by the time it was soo bad that it deserved the name "Satan", they'd have stopped.
It's surprising what people will do in the name of "patriotism". And even now, other nuclear powers will have looked at this and immediately instigated a program to design and build an equivalent which will involve their some of their own populace who will be happy to participate.
And there's many countries who do not have nuclear weapons but want them and undoubtedly have many citizens that would enthusiastically work toward that goal.
Rather than being "inhuman", it seems to be very human to develop these weapons. It's really only a matter of time before they are used again.
One that doesn't want to see his own country nuked. That's the thing about an arms race you see. It's compulsory. The peace loving hippy gets his stuff taken away by the guys with the guns. Every time.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Russian media report that the missile will weigh up to 10 tons with the capacity to carry up to 10 tons of nuclear cargo.
The story here is that Russia has escaped the tyranny of the rocket equation, and designed a missile that is 100% payload and apparently 0% fuel.
I knew I needed to stop reading Slashdot and finish my PhD when I started to miss articles by Bennett Haselton.
...with the original article. If "the missile will weigh up to 10 tons" then it's not going to get very far laden down with "up to 10 tons of nuclear cargo".
Deary deary me. I suspect the translation service they used (Google Hackslate, perchance or Bing Ablator) got stuff very very wrong.
Looking at it without the hype the new missile is an upgraded version of an older design with similar capabilities. It's probably constrained to fit into existing land-based silos the same way the US Trident missile upgrades were. The MIRV payloads may be getting updated to ensure penetration of close-in missile defence systems like Standard and Patriot plus possibly a target-seeking option to allow for hitting a US CVBG on the high seas, and that extra capability may be why they're building something with more payload capability than the older SS-18. I'd expect them to reduce the total number of ready missiles as they decommission their older missiles though.
Theres a big difference between "helping" and "saving". Russia contribute man power and equipment like tanks that the west has no concept of. For example there were literally 10x more Russian armies when Germany surrended. The truth is Russia WON ww2 by blood and guts.
Please dont tell me bullshit about LL. LL was arranged in late 41, just a few months later Russia won the biggest fight in history, involving about 4 -5 million soldiers - the battle of Stalingrad. That was the start of the end of the NAZIS. Befor eyou jump... theres no way anythign got thru to Russia by the time of Stalingrad.
Stop you hubris. America would not have landed in Europe without the UK as well, just like the UK would have had serious problems without its friends like Canada and the rest of Empire helping it from day one.
That's Russians being sensitive.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The warhead is designed to be impossible to intercept because it does not move on a set trajectory.
Cremlin: Oh Shit ... it is coming back to us
Why would humans create a weapon like that? :(
Nobody in their right state of mind wants it to be used.
If it is ever used, it could mean the end of the world is nigh.
Why would anyone invest the resources in developing such a weapon?
Fuck the Russians, and the Americans, and the defense departments, and the technicians and engineers willing to take on such a job, and the generals and presidents commissioning such a thing. You are all assholes.
I'd say there are all ready plans on the table for a missile that can easily blow up the whole Planet Earth.
Your pathetic Mexico / French size destruction BB gun.
Take that Russia ! Wanna see Us blow this thing hah ? Wanna ?
End of transmission...
Presumably anyone who lives in a country that is mentioned in sentences like "I think a preemptive nuclear strike against [countryname] would be a good idea."
The next question would of course be, "what kind of inhuman piece of shit would even consider a preemptive nuclear strike?"
A cynic might suspect Putin is trying to reverse the smoke and mirrors strategy epitomized by the Strategic Defense Initiative to trick the US into spending itself broke countering a non-existent threat.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The insanity of Trump's admiration/support/connections for a leader who murders his opponents/journalists, commits war crimes deliberately attacking humanitarian convoys and hospitals (yes, I know the U.S. hit one but at the very least they admitted their wartime error and presumably is making reparations), breaks arms control agreements and violates fundamental agreements on not seizing land by force (Crimea was taken despite the Russian pledge to respect Ukraine's border in exchange for them giving up their nukes), drives his nation into an economic dead-end by focusing on one commodity (oil) instead of diversifying (which, of course would have required him to respect rule of law and cut down on the kleptocracy), etc. well this is amongst many many reasons why Trump is completely unqualified (should be disqualified) for being the president of the U.S.
So of course supporting a guy who basically says "I have a gun that can clean blow your head off", I guess that's nothing new for Trump. (and don't tell me that the announcement of this weapon wasn't authorized by Putin). Let me be clear, I do mean Trump supports Putin; by refusing the unanimous consensus of (all?) 17 intelligence agencies that Russia was behind the hacks of the Democratic Party (gee I wonder why no Republicans were hacked?) saying, he can't say who hacked the Democrats, he is supporting Putin.
Likewise Assange, by selling himself out to Putin because of his problems with Sweden (and presumably the U.S.) indicates that he is willing to sell us all (and especially for his fellow journalists* who have been dying in Russia) out for his own skin. It has really debased the once sterling reputation of Wikileaks, hasn't it? So sad.
*but I don't think very many journalists would still be willing to say he is one of them now
Why are people still developing/improving/refining lunatic weapons like this? The one we have already (even the ones we had in the 1940's) are plenty powerful enough. Being able to incinerate an entire capital city is surely enough "deterrent".
I call it "Satan 2".
Eat the rich.
I remember reading a number of years ago that the yield size of nuclear warheads was decreasing as the missiles became more accurate. Interesting to see what's happened to accuracy under Putin.
Nearly everything the mainstream news has been feeding you about Trump is either taken out of context, twisted, or just an outright lie.
Nice troll. There's almost nothing about Trump that is out of context. He's the one putting it all out there like a monkey flinging poo. You have to be either a troll or a completely moronic fanboi to actually believe that statement.
I'm amazed at how otherwise intelligent people can be so easily manipulated by lies that come from so-called experts that the media routinely trots out on stage.
You support Trump and you're complaining about people easily manipulated by lies? Hahahahaha.... I haven't laughed that hard in quite a while. That's one of the more astonishingly stupid things I've read in quite a while. Let me guess, you think folks like Hannity and Coulter are telling you the gospel truth too, right?
One that doesn't want to see his own country nuked. That's the thing about an arms race you see. It's compulsory. The peace loving hippy gets his stuff taken away by the guys with the guns. Every time.
An arms balance is necessary, an arms race implies an out of control positive feedback loop. It might be because one side genuinely wants to be the agressor or both sides are confusing shows of strength and willingness to defend themselves with escalating aggression, but mostly it's because we don't want to be vulnerable. But the less you can be harmed, the more everyone else is at your mercy. And they don't want to be vulnerable either, so they want better weapons so they can hurt you too. Disarmament is taking down this stress level, we won't point big guns at you if you don't point big guns at us. But with nukes and MAD both sides want to hold that "FUCK YOU TOO" card, just in case it's a deception.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
We have 4 candidates.
Not in any meaningful sense. Two of them have an actual chance at being elected with one of those doing everything in his power to lose the election. The other two have as much chance of being president as I do. So really we have at most two candidates just like always. Only way that will change is if we change the voting system and get rid of gerrymandering.
While Trump is busy buddying up with Putin, Putin is building a bomb called SATAN. I can see that going down well with Tump god squad base.
Ballistic setups are old tech. Even if you outfit them with maneuverable warheads, some of todays systems we're using to knock them down are maneuverable as well post launch. We have multiple to choose from. Patriot, THAAD, and pretty much any naval ship ( or shore installation ) outfitted with Aegis and SM-3 interceptors. It will not be long before directed energy weapons or rail-gun tech is fielded rendering pretty much anything incoming with a radar signature obsolete.
So we basically have a giant missile. The US MX-Peacekeeper had similar specs from 1986 - 2005. We decommissioned them in favor of smaller units that we can hide on submarines and super sneaky cruise missiles instead. Note, it's difficult to move giant ass heavy missiles. They tend to live out their lives in silos. Besides, MAD is very much alive and well in the 21st century. The major powers understand that using nukes on anyone else all but guarantees the target will return the favor before the first missiles even reach their apex.
In short, Russia now has a shiny new ballistic missile that has similar characteristics of a missile we first fielded thirty years ago. The only new component being the currently-theoretical maneuverable re-entry vehicles.
I don't see where this really changes anything other than the fact that all the old treaties prohibiting these things are pretty much off the table now. Though I doubt they were ever worth the paper they were printed on to begin with.
So why do we not give all countries some nukes? That way there will be world peace. Or is it more of a "Do as I say, not as I do."
Oh wait, the countries with the bombs ARE the countries that take away the stuff from the peace loving hippies.
Remember: Nuclear missiles don't kill people. People kill people.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
They are justifiably paranoid.
Paranoid yes. Justifiably no.
That's what Westerners do not get about the Russian national psyche. They trust no one, especially the US.
True but a bizarre stance since the US is actually not a threat to Russia unless Russia gets really out of pocket. Why? The US is halfway around the world. China is a FAR bigger threat to Russia than the US could ever hope to be outside of a nuclear missile exchange. There is zero chance of the US ever invading Russia. Even if the US wanted to there aren't enough people and resources to make it happen. China on the other hand has 8X the population of Russia and a physical border with them and is an emerging super power. Russia worrying about the US makes almost zero practical sense.
The Trump 1 is many times more dangerous than the Satan 2.
While the Satan 2 can wipe out only Texas, the Trump 1 in contrast can wipe out the USA including Hawai and Alaska not harming Canada but harming Mexico.
And its paid for by russian tax payers.
Russia has a nuclear weapon capable of destroying Texas, the question is: why would they do us such a favour?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Certainly, but the process is a little hard on the cow, and thus would draw protests from PETA and the like.
The problem with disarmament is when the other side cheats and doesn't disarm. Note the date - 2002. But go ahead and blame Russia.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
AGAIN
And this time openly admitting it. Time to bring back either the MX to replace the MinutemanIII, and re-MIRV the MMIII while we are waiting
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
For g*d's sake pick one and let us know!
Signed
A Concerned Londoner
.
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
Not according to every single UN report on the subject, up to and including just days ago, but by all means, keep being a dictator's internet propagandist.
FYI, since you're late to the party, there no longer is anything called "Al-Nusra". The name changed to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham when they broke from al-Qaeda.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
As Dr. Strangelove put it: 1) How is it possible for this thing to be triggered automatically and at the same time impossible to untrigger? 2) Mister President, it is not only possible, it is *essential*! That's the whold idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of placing in the mind of the enemy the *fear* to attack! So because of the automated and irrevokable decision making process which rules out human meddling, the Doomsday Machine is terrifying, simple to understand, and completely credible and convincing. 3) Gee, I wish we had one of them Doomsday Machines! (full quote)
And of course don't forget:
Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world?
Mutual Assured Destruction makes little sense....
Actually, my question is, what do any of these three nations have to gain by invading any of one another?
Nothing. Which is why it hasn't happened. The advantages of working together actually hugely outweigh any conceivable benefits of going to war. The only reason countries like Germany ever invaded Russia is that they elected a psychotic person with aspirations of conquering an empire.
If you want your voice heard, you should probably vote for the person who you align with best.
I think people should vote for the person who most closely fits their worldview who actually has a prayer of getting into office. Voting for a third party candidate who might get 2% of the vote is a waste of time. It just is. If it makes you feel good I won't quibble as long as you understand that it will accomplish nothing of value. If you actually want your voice heard then you should actually get involved in politics directly. There are far better ways to make yourself heard than through a protest vote for a fringe candidate.
The two-party lock-in is pure rhetorical garbage. I can't in good conscience vote for a completely unqualified demagogue or someone who is the closest thing to a living embodiment of the establishment.
I'll agree that the two party thing is annoying but it definitely is not "rhetorical" in nature. It's an inevitable function of how our voting system is set up.
I take a more realpolitik view of who I vote for. I rarely have warm feelings for either of the major party candidates and this election is no exception. I basically am trying to pick what I think is the least worst option among the available candidates that have a real shot at office. In this election Hillary is clearly the least worst option when the alternative is Trump so that is how I'm voting. It's not that I think she's amazing but she fits my worldview far better than Trump and I she is clearly far more competent to hold public office. Donald Trump is easily the worst presidential candidate I've seen in my lifetime.
This is a very common myth about peace loving hippies that lacks any evidence whatsoever. If at all, what can be said on the basis of history is that heavily armed aggressors tend to loose big most of the time. Best example is Germany which has lost two world wars and nearly every other war it started, even though it was armed to the teeth each time.
Pick Texas, that let the US with 49 remaining states, at least!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
God you morons have short memories. Spying was NOT invented by America or Americans. Read up on the history of it. Your governments were spying on you well before 1776. As for corporations corrupting your democracies... maybe you should talk to the brainless, spineless, gutless, dickless assholes who voted for the corrupt people you have in power. Again, not America'S fucking fault.
Or maybe you like a thousand warring mini-kingdoms and as many bickering, self-important petty kings like you had not too long ago.
Go cry into your stale, room-temperature beer elsewhere.
Are the Russians planning to take over more territory? Or are they afraid that another country may be a military threat? And which one? I can see North Korea or Iran doing this on the basis of perceived ideological threats. I could see China doing this on the basis of perceived economic threats. But the Russians? What the heck do these people want?
Then again, the United States is often perceived as being a bully by many other nations too, so maybe these moves by the Russians seem completely calm and rational to them.
...if humanity didn't squander its resources on national defense.
Greed is the root of all evil.
I guess you'd have to define 'destroy'.
It could be a boatload of MIRV warheads, which would be destroying that much geographic area for all practical definitions of the concept. It doesn't say it is a single warhead.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
That would put this bomb's yield at 30 megatons. This is itself only a little less than third the size of the Tsar bomb, the largest man-made explosion of all time.
For comparison, it is also only slightly larger than the energies released in 1980 by the Mount St Helens eruption in Washington, USA (equivalent to about 24 megatons).
Radiation, not simple devastation area, is the real danger of nuclear weaponry.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No, it wouldn't. Nuclear weapons may be the most destructive thing we know how to build. But they're not black magic. And witless alarmism does no one any good. A 400MT nuke airbursted over Paris at the optimum height would pretty well wipe out it, its suburbs, and quite a lot of the surrounding countryside. But the majority of France would survive. and the UK would be untouched:
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nuke...
Imagine all the people...
You mean preventing illegal aliens and dead people from voting? Good.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Spying is in the Old Testament. Some things are so obvious they are ubiquitous and have been for all known history.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
No one knows how much it would destroy because nothing like that has ever been detonated.
In any case, the yield information is from Sputnik, which is less reliable than the Weekly World News.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
France currently has 290 nuclear warheads.
The 290th largest city in Russia is Vidnoye, with a population of 56,752.
Say bye bye to all Russian cities with more than 57 thousand people.
(For our American friends the same logic takes out everywhere bigger than El Cajon, California, with a population of around 103,000).
(Yeah, ok, not all of those could be launched, but even if only one SNLE gets to launch that's still 96 warheads, to which you have to add the 40 odd aircraft deliverable bombs).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
So how many of these things have to go off before the planet has a nuclear winter causing ALL of Russia to die?
My understanding is that the kill radius goes up as the cube root of the explosion size. Hiroshima had heavy damage out to about 3 miles - let's call that the kill radius. Cube root 2000 is about 12.6. Even number, kill radius approx 38 miles. Smaller than Texas. Also, 2000 x 20 kilotons is 40 megatons. I think 10 megatons was a common size in the cold war so this isn't a huge leap in size for deliverable weapons.
In all seriousness, is this blustering by Putin (if we are correct in assuming that Putin=Russia in totality now, which seems to be the case) something we should be seriously concerned about? The Soviet propaganda machine was a force to be reckoned with during the Cold War (make no mistake, so was ours in the US). Is this just a resurrection of that PR engine or should we actually be concerned of a real threat of nuclear armageddon?? Won or lost, the Cold War isn't something for which anyone should be nostalgic.
drop two or three Satan2s on Texas, fool, they'll send a Texas Ranger over to visit you. after all, one war, only one Ranger to end it. takes a few nukes to give a Ranger a twitch, you know.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"Russian media report that the missile will weigh up to 10 tons with the capacity to carry up to 10 tons of nuclear cargo."
Clearly an incorrect statement, as anyone who's read the rocket equation will realize. The actual weight, which one can look up in seconds, is 100 tonnes.
" could wipe out nearly all of the United Kingdom or France"
For argument's sake, let's assume the Soviets use a warhead roughly equivalent to the US's W88, one of the more efficient warheadsin the world. The W88 weights an estimated 360 kg, which means the 10 tonne capacity could hold about 26 warheads with about 480 kT each, or about 12 MT. That's maybe 2 to 3 cities worth, depending on the coverage you want.
In the 1950s the US Navy calculated you would need 400 MT to wipe out the Soviet Union. This number has been recalculated endless times since then, and remains basically the same. The US is somewhat more decentralized, so you'd need maybe 50 of these to kill the US, assuming that they spread out fairly evenly.
Really no change here - the numbers remain the same since the 1960s, although the bombs have gotten more efficient. Putting all those eggs into 50 baskets is cheaper than 500 baskets with one each, but the US has a lot more than 50 cruise missiles...
The 50megaton Tsar Bomba:
"All buildings in the village of Severny (both wooden and brick), located 55 kilometres (34 mi) from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero wooden houses were destroyed, stone ones lost their roofs, windows and doors, and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. One participant in the test saw a bright flash through dark goggles and felt the effects of a thermal pulse even at a distance of 270 kilometres (170 mi). The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns 100 km (62 mi) away from ground zero. A shock wave was observed in the air at Dikson settlement 700 kilometres (430 mi) away; windowpanes were partially broken to distances of 900 kilometres (560 mi)."
TX is 660 mi wide, 800 mi long. A bomb with a burst-damage radius of 100 mi wouldn't "destroy" Texas - although it would certainly mess some shit up.
-Styopa
The American bases were planted during an UNwanted occupation post-WWII. I am not sure that the Germans have entirely "accepted" the idea of foreign bases on their soil, even today. It may have been beneficial during the Cold War but post-1991, I don't see why they would want them anymore. I say that having been to at least one of those bases.
That said, Poland and Hungary asked for what they got.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Decisions, decisions.
Back in my mil days, they could already fire enough Russian missiles to take out the Puget Sound area 500 times over.
It's like saying you have a giant monster truck but there's nowhere to park it.
Big missiles mean small hands, if you get what I mean.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Until you need quality BBQ. Then, you'll miss us.
So, on the one hand we have Putin making ever larger nukes and others trying to get to first base. On the other hand, we have Hawking an co. finding possible signs of intelligence elsewhere in the Universe. Let's hope our alien friends stay well away from us. We can't get along with someone on our own planet; don't even think about how we'd manage extra-terrestrial diplomacy! I guess that goes for colonising Mars too.... Some people think big, others think they are thinking big.
Well, of course the claim is absurd. The only thing that could destroy such a big area would be a dinosaur killer asteroid, which would, of course, cause mass extinction all over the planet, including possibly even H. sapiens.
But a large yield nuclear device detonated in France could make large areas of the country uninhabitable for quite a long time, as well, as spreading radioactive fallout for tens of thousands of square miles.
Now, of course, striking a NATO country would inevitably lead to retaliation. Both France and the US have nuclear arsenals, and while France's is relatively small, it is certainly enough to do some significant harm to Russia, and the US, of course, has more than enough firepower at its disposal to do some nasty harm. Naturally this would lead to a near-universal conflagration which would likely lead to major geopolitical instability.
Which is why, of course, neither Russia or the United States are going to be lobbing nukes at each other or at each other's allies, and why, even if Clinton were to institute a no-fly zone in Syria, and Russian or American jets got into a firefight, while it would certainly lead to some pretty angry outbursts, isn't going to see World War 3.
We've been down this road before. The West and Russia spent forty years staring each other down, with some pretty close near misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there was no WWIII. The idea that Russia, so much weaker in every respect than the USSR, represents that kind of threat is absurd. The USSR had some ability at force projection, whereas for Russia, Syria is just about the outer limit. Whether the Russians like it or not, the US has largely downgraded it to regional power, and its chief long-term concerns are now China.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The internet was NOT British invented, the web was. And you're uneducated if you think the two words are even remotely interchangeable.
The two words are interchangeable outside of the tech community, and maybe even inside large parts of it. Ordinary people don't know the levels of the OSI model and will parse going "on the web" and going "on the internet" interchangeably. It's like how a person is not uneducated just because they think "scientist" and "physicist" are interchangeable words. For 99% of people 99% of the time, they are.
If you're in the 1% of people (you are) or the 1% of the time (like discussing who invented what), of course, it sounds ridiculous.
Real lawyers write in C++
punch in 400000 (kt) in the yield box, and see what happens. Yeah it's big, but not as big as Texas. That would take something about 100 times the size of tsar bomba. I don't even know if that's theoretically possible.
The entire purpose of nukes in the modern age is as an existential and territorial guarantee. They are not offensive weapons, because to use them as such would lead to the much dreaded nuclear war. Countries with nuclear weapons and a reasonable delivery system, or countries who are under a nuclear power's nuclear shield, simply won't be invaded. If Ukraine had been a NATO member, there wouldn't be a Russian-backed civil war and Crimea would still be part of Ukraine, but because it gave up its arsenal for a now clearly useless guarantee of territorial integrity, and because it didn't join NATO like a number of its former Warsaw Pact neighbors did, it could easily become Russia's plaything.
This I completely disagree with. The Allies demanded unconditional surrender from Japan, just like they had from Germany. The Allies refused to accept Admiral Donitz's Flensburg Government as a de facto or de jour government, so why would they have accepted any wartime Japanese ministry? After the Hiroshima bomb, the Japanese cabinet still refused the unconditional surrender, attempting rather for a conditional armistice and surrender. The US refused absolutely, just as the Allies had done when the Flensburg Government had tried to make overtures. Even after the Nagasaki attack, a group of Japanese officers took part in an abortive attempt to kidnap the Emperor before he could command his government to surrender unconditionally.
It is a myth that Japan was ready to unconditionally surrender before either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
My 2 cents....
Romney: "Russia is America’s number one geopolitical foe”
Obama: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back becausethe Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Hillary: "“It’s somewhat dated to be looking backwards”
If you'd all have voted for Romney you wouldn't be in this position and wouldn't have to choose between twiddle dee and twiddle dumb.
But Obama said the Russians weren't a threat.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I think part of the problem is that 'heavily armed aggressors' don't know when to quit. (Or maybe they can't quit, because the power elite is too heavily invested in conquest.) Hitler didn't have to invade the Soviet Union for instance. Neither did Napoleon.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
The USA today is nowhere near the USA of the WW2 era. Freedom and Liberty have given way to Socialist doctrine, PC police, and a perception by most of the public that facts are whatever soundbite media gives you.
This is not the USA I want, and absolutely not the USA I grew up in.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
How would you know? Seriously, this is not trolling. How many countries has Russia invaded for profit or global politics
Thirteen that I can think of offhand:
Afghanistan
Albania
Czechoslovakia
Estonia
(East) Germany
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldavia
Poland
Romania
Ukraine
Yugoslavia
Probably more that I'm not thinking of.
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But maybe there would be a lot less people targeting others or they'd set their sights lower, or maybe there aren't as many of them as the US wants everyone to run to them to protect them from. Ever thought of any of that?
When it happens, it will hopefully be over very quickly.
That said, I live in Switzerland and my apartment-building has bunker in the basement, complete with steel-enforced concrete door, ventilation and chemical toilet.
Out of reflex, I'ld probably flee there and survive a couple of days until the fallout brings me an agonizing death.
Maybe evolution is smarter next time.
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This is a helpful graphic:
https://twitter.com/DrJillStei...
Here's the linked article:
http://www.news.com.au/world/m...
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Your link article is confusing, they seem to be use "expired" and "Withdraws" interchangeably, are you saying that not voluntarily being bond by an expired treaty is cheating?
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What other species would work so hard on its own extinction?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I don't even know if that's theoretically possible.
Well, fusion explosions routinely rip entire stars to sheds, so I'm not betting on any theoretical limits on a human scale, even if it is only a fission reaction.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
CERN stands for Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire. In English, it's the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Slashdot, come on, leaving it with inflammatory naming designation is practically propaganda!
UK, France or Texas are quite bad examples of countries to destroy, because they all have enough nuclear power to strike back.
This is probably a response of NATO missiles installed in eastern Europe. The NATO missiles geared at Russia made no sense, neither does the threat to UK, France and Texas.
Actually that is completely false. I really wonder where you got such tripe.
If you do some actual research you will find that while old style English is dead (as commonly happens) it is generally thought the closest living form is new Zealand English.
Which is very very different from American 'English'.
So.. No. You are completely wrong.
Well, fusion explosions routinely rip entire stars to sheds, so I'm not betting on any theoretical limits on a human scale, even if it is only a fission reaction.
The fuck? It's the fusion coming to a stop that "rips entire stars to sheds" (exercise for the reader: why?). As long as the fusion is going on, the star is perfectly happy thank you very much.
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Hey, this is the USA you're talking about. 'Merica. We'll see your Satan II and raise you Satan III. We'll invent a warhead that digs Putin out of his 300 foot deep nuclear war bunker, and glassifies Moscow and the other top 50 Russian cities. We may be dead, but we'll die with our dagger in Putin's heart.
Not quite - the slowing o fusion as hydrogen runs out just causes the star to collapse. If it's massive enough though, the greater pressures and temperatures that creates then cause the helium and other heavier elements to begin fusing, releasing far more energy far more quickly than in the original star, causing an explosion (and creating a wide spectrum of even heavier elements)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
That capule overview of the lend lease act was so......inaccurate and just plain ol wrong....I dont know were to start.
It is the same phenomenon pattern. Schizophrenics do not understand the mechanics of their communications and fail explaining them. People being heard have an incentive to NOT BE what they ARE, in the mind of schizophrenics. Add range issues, throughput, interpretation, normal people, carrying fields... they simply do not make good sense of it! It is NOT girls they are hearing, it is NOT males they are killing, there is NO GRANNY telling them what not to do, there is no MOMMA, it is a GUY! People are NOT the country they claim they are in but are LOCAL. Etc. All this can be more or less clarified to the less severe cases but it is not being published in all languages! I am sure Russia is falling prey to people being called AMERICANS by real ARABS and _CHINESE_, By Arabs speaking in FRENCH and promoting the Quran. By CHINESE saying they are in Texas, and so on and on. My thesis does not change: harbage in, garbage out, schizophrenics TRY to act rationally on more than dubious REAL information, and fail. And lots of this information is purposefully misleading, and incomplete. The field is hostile. So what do you expect? IT is not that easy to explain all this in abstract when you CAN bring into the picture (sic) over 50000 real, real connected people to explain the STATE of the channel. It is people (Humans) who hear voices who have to be made UNDERSTAND they DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. Lots to be done, but I neither have the time nor are the tools to make it so... SMOOTH. - DJB
Not quite - the slowing o fusion as hydrogen runs out just causes the star to collapse. If it's massive enough though, the greater pressures and temperatures that creates then cause the helium and other heavier elements to begin fusing, releasing far more energy far more quickly than in the original star, causing an explosion that is barely noticable at the surface
Sufficiently massive starts will happily fuse all their He, then all their C, and then whatever comes next until Fe. This wouldn't be possible if the star was already ripped to sheds when the He burning started.
The star "explodes" when the fusion stops, and there's NO "next stage" fusion to start at the increasing pressure and temperatures, to counter gravity.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Probably where this went to - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...
Then what, pray tell, do you imagine causes stars to explode? Gravity only pulls inward after all...
Most stars are mostly hydrogen and helium, right up until their final days. Truly massive ones may indeed build up substantial reserves of heavier elements in absolute terms, but the heavier, stabler ones, especially iron, tend to settle into the core and remain there, stable and "dead", until enough accumulates to exceed the Chandrasekhar limit (about 1.4 solar masses, less than 1% of a large star's mass) at which point gravity overcomes the electron degeneracy pressure and the core collapses to become a neutron star or black hole.
At that point my understanding gets sketchy, but as I understand it the sudden heating and compression of the remaining mass triggers a runaway fusion reaction, further superheating the infalling material to the point that even energy-negative fusion occurs, generating the myriad elements beyond iron, and of course blowing apart the star as the blast wave nears the surface.
At a smaller scale, type 1a supernovae are a somewhat different mechanism - believed to occur when a white dwarf (a dead star remnant consisting primarily of carbon and oxygen, without enough mass to fuse all the way to iron) accretes enough matter from a companion star that it's mass exceeds the electron degeneracy pressure, and it begins to collapse again. But before collapsing all the way to a neutron star, runaway carbon fusion reaction begins, releasing over the course of days more energy than it did in the rest of its lifetime, and tearing itself apart in the process.
Thanks for the motive to research this a little more thoroughly. Wikipedia has some very interesting pages on stellar physics, and I rarely have an excuse to read them.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
To be pedantic, they announced that they broke from al-Qaeda. No-one seems to have taken that seriously.
Only if you are short sighted.
Short sighted about what?
This is all about energy. Russia wants to control it.
Energy is a piece of the puzzle but there is FAR more to Russia's world view than merely controlling energy supplies. If you think a major nation state and culture like Russia can be simplified down to one short sound bite then you don't understand Russia at all.
Also, not even remotely halfway around the world if you look at it like this:
Are you familiar with the term "figure of speech"? Yes I'm well aware that Alaska is actually only 55 miles from Russia. But substantially all the population of both countries lives between 3000-8000 miles apart and there are oceans and polar caps in between. Stop being so pedantic because you are missing the point.
Europe should take some responsibility for itself. If pre WW2 Europe wanted America's help, it should have forged a treaty
Unbreakable treaties was EXACTLY what led to World War I in the first place. Everyone got drawn into the war because of mutual defense treaties until a pissing match between three nations spread into a conflict involving almost every major country in the world.