Nuclear attack

I noticed we don't have much chat about nukes yet.

What are your opinions, do you think a nuclear war is likely? If so, between who and how would it play out.

Or, do you feel a "one off, isolated" incident like say a terrorist attack is more likely. And if so what you you envision that scenario looking like.


What do you think is more likely to happen first, we get EMPd or Nuked?

First, to answer the specific questions, and then we can move on to the generalities.

Drinkthekoolaid wrote:I noticed we don't have much chat about nukes yet.

Not yet.

What are your opinions, do you think a nuclear war is likely? If so, between who and how would it play out.

All out nuclear, very very very unlikely.
Multiple exchanges between someone like India and Pakistan, not very likely, but possible.
The problems for us would be:
What foolish thing would our government do in response?
There would be serious impact on certain supply lines, and
it would be difficult to predict which ones, unless someone
with education in international trade were to "war game" it.

Or, do you feel a "one off, isolated" incident like say a terrorist attack is more likely. And if so what you you envision that scenario looking like.

Not much chance in the next few months, but in the next several years after that, increasingly likely. The first eight episodes of the TV series "Jericho," from 2006 does a good job outlining that. Right now, someone could sail a nuke into a seaport aboard a container ship, but detonating it there would do limited damage. If they manage to off load it without it being detected, and drive it up to Memphis or St. Louis, or into Houston it could cause a domino effect in our economy and society that would cause the US to descend into chaos.

What do you think is more likely to happen first, we get EMPd or Nuked?

It is a horse race, and Satan owns both horses.
Anybodies guess who will come in first.

I see two realistic scenarios at the moment:

1) India and Pakistan escalate to a regional nuclear war and China and the US get drawn into it. Hopefully it's just limited to the Indian peninsula, but it could easily get wider and start a global thermonuclear war. Frankly I'd prefer a nice game of chess.

2) Someone (most likely NK, Iran, Russia or China) pops off a nuke in a satellite while it's over the continental US setting off a huge EMP, throwing us into chaos.

I like to think I'm as prepared as possible for scenario #2, but scenario #1 could be a full TEOTWAWKI and I'm not sure how well I can prepare for that without a blast shelter. Oh well, we do what we can right?

I don't personally think the odds of all out nuclear war ww3 are very likely yet. I still think that our main adversaries in this regard (china and Russia) realize everyone loses in that scenario.  In the future if any of the US/CHINA/RUSSIA have some secret new technology or strategy where they feel they can pre emptively win a nuclear war then that is when we are in danger.

I haven't ruled out limited "tactical" usage of nuclear weapons or a tactical EMP strike by china or Russia especially in specific theaters (south China Sea, Ukraine)
For example, I wonder if china love a tactical nuke or EMP at Guam or Okinawa or a carrier group how would we respond? Would we go full out release the inventory or a proportional response?

I think in our lifetime china will make a move to reunite or conquer (depending how you look at it) Taiwan and they want full control of the s.china sea for their anti access area denial strategy. In this scenario I would not be surprised if the use NK as a Patsy to knock us off balance while they make their move.

I think in America our greatest threats in no particular order

Iran
North Korea
Muslim extremists terrorist groups

I see it as most likely a nuke will be delivered via unconventional means (not via icbm). I see any of the following as possible delivery methods
-carried a shipping container
Launched from a shipping container missile system (club k) or similar
A truck over the Mexican border to a city in the SW
A commercial aircraft (bomb in cargo hold).  This particularly so. Iran could definitely pull this off.  In this scenario the nuke would detonate on approach to JFK or Washington.

I think in terms of targets high on the list of strategic targets would be
NYC
Washington
Houston
Los Angeles
Chicago
Norfolk
Philadelphia

Symbolic targets
Las Vegas
Orlando
San Francisco


Then there are just targets that may be chosen at random or for logistical reasons (for example if smuggled in via truck) they may want to Target a city close to the border so as to minimize opportunity to be detected.


I think the most likely usage of nukes will be Pakistan/India. I just hope we stay out of it.  In this scenario my biggest concern is if the conflict grows and expands bringing in neighbors that have scores to settle and might sense an opportunity to do so. (Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, turkey, china etc..)

Answering post from dmwalsh568:

Scenario 1 escalation is highly unlikely, since the biggest players want to win, and are not suicidal. (Don't know if I will be able to say that, once Trump and/or Putan are gone.)

While N.K. currently does not have any satellites that are heavy enough to be nukes, plenty of other nations do, so that scenario is possible. One thing against it, however, is that (unless they have a fast maneuvering capability that I am not aware of) it would be fairly easy for our government to determine whose satellite it was, so we could retaliate.

The possibility of a launch from a heavily disguised SLBM testing barge (disguised as a freighter) is a third possibility, since then they could hide the identity of the perpetrator. They probably wouldn't affect the whole US, but they could affect enough to cause mass chaos.

I found a link to a group that does a good (not perfect) job of tracking news of events that may or may not lead to TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).

It might be interesting to some of the posters here to keep an eye on what they post, and if there are several people with that kind of interest, it might be worth opening a thread to discuss what they post. While I don't agree with everything they say, overall, they do a better job than I could.

Defcon Warning System (not government)

What is the purpose of DWS?

DWS is designed to be a digest of information related to the possibility of nuclear war. While there are many sources of news and information out there, we try to be one-stop-shopping for important and relevant information. We can’t possibly report everything, but we do try to pick out the stuff that can have the greatest impact.

We also feel that nuclear war is such a terrifying subject that most people don’t want to think about it. When nuclear war comes, the government is likely not going to say anything until it is much too late if ever. Our system is designed to be a barometer which will (in theory) see nuclear war coming much earlier than the government will admit. We will then issue a warning which the public can decide for themselves what to do about.

I have been following them for a while. What is really nice is that they will send out alerts if things start to go sideways...

I follow them on You-Tube

TRex2 wrote:I found a link to a group that does a good (not perfect) job of tracking news of events that may or may not lead to TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).

It might be interesting to some of the posters here to keep an eye on what they post, and if there are several people with that kind of interest, it might be worth opening a thread to discuss what they post. While I don't agree with everything they say, overall, they do a better job than I could.

 Feel free. With an intro and maybe a disclaimer of sorts!