• Taleya
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    2 days ago

    Can we get him on technicalities? 'Cos millenials start in '81 and there was very much nuclear threatening

    • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      Nuclear threats never went away. There’s a proxy war between nuclear powers happening right now. India and Pakistan just had a spat. Seems like some American elites want to fight China.

      Sometimes I wonder if nuclear winter will cancel out climate change.

      • psud
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        2 days ago

        Yeah but in 1984 we really worried that we might not make it through the week.

        Weird Al released Christmas at ground zero in '86

        Now we don’t really believe Russia’s missiles will even work

        And back then there was no credible defence

            • fullsquare@awful.systems
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              1 day ago

              you would need something silly like 50x more interceptors than ICBMs and SLBMs and these are more expensive and technically harder than either

              • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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                22 hours ago

                As someone with experience in this field, I can tell you with utmost certainty that the missiles the West fired at ICBMs are certainly not more expensive or technically harder than either of the aforementioned missiles. ICBMs in particular are almost a non threat to the world

          • psud
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            1 day ago

            Wikipedia disagrees, though notes that there are weapons that can beat current defence technology

            The Soviet Union could produce enough missiles to overwhelm any defence. Russia now couldn’t afford to maintain a large arsenal, though China can. China doesn’t seem as likely to launch a first strike as the USSR did.

            Of course those systems aren’t protecting you unless you live somewhere important

            • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
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              1 day ago

              What? You can’t say wikipedia disagrees when it lists weapons that can beat current defenses.

            • fullsquare@awful.systems
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              1 day ago

              The NMD program is limited in scope and designed to counter a relatively small ICBM attack from a less sophisticated adversary.

              also ground-based interceptor is more expensive than ICBM, and you need one for each warhead and maybe also for decoys, and probably more than one to be reasonably sure. since everyone operates under MAD it doesn’t matter if you destroy most probable adversary’s nukes on the ground or in the air, so that’s one of reasons why ICBMs are a thing, and then SLBMs as a second line. cue arms race. ABM are considered destabilizing and are limited by treaties

        • lars@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 days ago

          ground zero in '86

          Crazy how many times the World Trade Center musta been attacked by Weird Al. I only heard about ’93 and, of course, ’911.

        • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
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          1 day ago
          1. those missiles will work. They have been modernizing.

          2. There still is no credible defense to a full on attack by Russia. Trump’s golden dome is as real as Reagan’s star wars.

            • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
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              20 hours ago

              They’re using this little one in Ukraine, but that aside, would you like to call their bluff if you think their missles don’t work? I’d rather this shitshow continue than play real life fallout.

              • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                Nah I’m sure at least a few work, but the world has been stepping over putin’s “red lines” for years now and he hasn’t done much except bluster.

            • GoodLuckToFriends@lemmy.today
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              1 day ago

              Remember that the united states and russia were routinely inspecting the nuclear arsenals of each other. They may have been hiding how bad things were, but we can be certain they do have functioning nuclear weapons at a scale large enough to matter.

              • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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                1 day ago

                The US believed Kiev would fall in weeks, tops. I’m not putting much faith in their assessment of Russia’s arsenal. If anything, it’s in the best interest of the US MIC to lie about it and spend to fill imaginary capabilities gaps as we so often have.