Even Yeltsin made a few nuclear threats in his time.
And frankly those threats were more meaningful, with all the bravado of today Yeltsin’s poor depressive Russia was much stronger militarily than the one we have.
I’ve never wanted to be wrong about anything more than WW3…
But I keep seeing all these articles that make it really look like WW3 is right around the corner…
Like, the entire point of SSBNs is to hide and no one knows where they are. Popping up just to flex is not a good sign. It’s trading the actual point of their existence (no one knows where our nukes are) for a show of force.
It’s not a rational choice to do this, Russia knows we have SSBNs all over the globe, they don’t need to actually see one and know where it is
And don’t dismiss that they’d kill to know the location of a SSBN at any time under normal conditions.
Like, I don’t know how high of a federal clearance you e ever gotten, but literally everything about a SSBNs schedule is at least secret. The people on them don’t even know where they are 99% of the time.
Russia isn’t shooting down a nuke anyways, it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from, it’s hitting what it’s aimed.
It’s literally an intercontinental ballistic missile…
America isn’t even confident we could shoot one of NK’s down. We could launch from a SSBN literally on the other side of the planet and absolutely nothing would stop it from hitting Moscow.
We gave up valuable intelligence for literally zero reason.
It shows that we’re irrational for doing it. Or even worse, that we thought Russia is so irrational that they needed to see it. Making both of us irrational.
The entire reason SSBNs are the threat they are, is you can only beat a ICBM by taking it out before it launches, and no one has a clue where the SSBNs are.
When were acting rational and want a show of force. We park an LHD or even Aircraft Carrier squadron off a coast.
Edit:
Like, if Russia happened to have sonar going in that area, and they just saw it surface…
They can compare sound signatures of that time period and may possibly isolate the distinctive sound of a SSBN. Something they’ve been trying to find for decades and could possibly lead to them being able to find SSBNs out in the wild.
This is a god awful decision that has potentially huge ramifications…
I get people wouldn’t know about all of this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal.
While I agree with the broad strokes of what you’re saying, we do have enough intelligence penetration into the Russian military to predict an invasion even their own soldiers did not know about. We could potentially find out where their listening stations are. One would have to be very nearby.
Also, we have multiple subs. Revealing one temporarily does not compromise our deterrence. Nor is this move without any value, I think it’s important that we occasionally sabre-rattle back at them. It seems to be a language they understand.
All that said, I doubt nuclear WW3 is around the corner with MAD still being the case. I doubt non-nuclear WW3 is around the corner unless China joins Russia in a military alliance. What I do think is within the next few years is chipping away at the Russian economy and morale of the populace until they sue for peace in Ukraine.
Also, we have multiple subs. Revealing one temporarily does not compromise our deterrence
I think what the person you’re replying to meant was something like:
“These subs are known to exist by Russia, and their particular sound signatures may NOT be known to Russia. So, having one appear in a known location, Russia may now be able to link sounds previously unknown to them to this type of sound. With this new information, Russia may now be able to locate these types of subs, when that was previously not possible.”
I’m not sure if they’re right about this or not, so the issue may be moot if Russia already had this information. I do, based on my military experience, generally tend to agree about the OPSEC component of their statement though.
I don’t know… admittedly, I only remember some vague bits from Tom Clancy novels, but didn’t Soviet attack subs wait outside the home ports for the SSBNs to try to stay on their tail, and they never managed to?
I should dig up The Hunt for Red October, I guess, but given current geopolitics maybe Red Storm Rising is a better fit :)
if it helps give you any comfort WW3 has always been around the corner in one way or another for as long as most of us have been alive. if you are reading articles about it. Then it’s not going to start and if it does start it will all be over before you even hear about it. So try your best to just live the life you can.
I’ve been paying attention for decades, hell, I was in the military. I definitely paid more attention to geopolitics back then. Because even idle threats and shows of force directly effected my life.
Shits not how it used to be. It’s a lot worse now. And people ignoring it just makes it keep getting worse.
I was in the military as well but other than voting and writing your local and regional Representatives. Which everyone should be doing no mater what. what do you suggest the avg person do to affect geopolitics other than stress ourselves out. Let me know what we should do and I will be there.
There is no morality in Foreign Policy it all about power be that soft or hard power. That machinery of that power goes back hundreds of years ago. Do you know what I worry about?
I worry about if my neighbors have enough food to eat. Do the teachers have the supplies to teach our kids the best they can. Building a community support network. These are things I can affect change.
The sad thing is climate change will take us out and cause more suffering than a true WW3 will ever do and I’m not just talking about the heat. I’m talking water wars that have already started happening. Supply chain issues caused by climate stopping people getting the right medicine another pandemic.
Let me know what we should do and I will be there.
I used to say “vote in the primaries”
But with the way the DNC has been acting, that’s not enough anymore.
The solution isn’t easy, and it won’t be quick.
But the first step is Dem voters having higher standards than “not a Republican”.
If you think it’s too late now, then it’s going to be too late in every future election.
The sad thing is climate change will take us out and cause more suffering than a true WW3 will ever do
Same solution.
Politicians don’t have to be terrible, they can look out for citizens. But unless voters have standards, we’ll keep settling for corrupt pieces of shit.
i agree with all of that but everything you have listed is voting which I already said you should do without question and really should be the bare minimum of civic duty and as you have said not very effective. Plus that only affects domestic policy and you have to change a lot of domestic policy to even scratch the surface of changing foreign policy.
By no means am I saying give up but the more you look at foreign policy and spend your mental capacity. The more they distract you from changing the local that will change very slowly the domestic that will change the foreign. the powers at be want you terrified of the things you can’t change to distract you from the things you can. so they stay in power.
It’s the same thing with terrorism conventional warfare doesn’t work against an irregular force. It takes slow moves at a very local level like like we leaned from FM 3-23 assuming you are US military, forgive me if you already not.
But the first step is Dem voters having higher standards than “not a Republican”.
The prerequisite to that is to dismantle the NRA and purge the Republican party from power by vote or by force so they can’t ever back another Hitler wannabe again. Then we can talk policy.
Your example hinges on the implication that 100 America Street (ie the Republican Party) is stable and unable to cause further harm. In reality, 100 America Street is a blazing inferno, has billionaires in white hoods tossing cans of gasoline at it, and houses tons of high explosives that will absolutely level the entire neighborhood if/when it goes off.
Ignoring 100 to piss on 102 is only going to make a bad situation much, much, much worse. And at this point in time, one can’t help but wonder whether anyone distracting from 100 America Street is doing so out of ignorance or malice.
If Russia and the west start shooting eachother, one of four things will happen.
1 - Russia grows a brain and backs down when they horribly lose a conventional war. (Unlikely, unless someone takes command authority away)
2 - Russia kept their nuclear arsenal up to date, and a tiny remnant.of humanity gets to enjoy the Stone Age again. It won’t hurt if you live in a city though.
3 - Only a tiny fraction of their nukes launch, and the west responds proportionally. A lot of people die, but at least we’ll fix global warming.
WW3 always around the corner? Sounds like Cold War 2 to me. But like you said, if it isn’t, then it doesn’t matter. It’ll be over before we know it began.
yeah that’s literally the definition of Cold War. The biggest lie we were told is the cold war ended, it didn’t. Think about it the US defeated an economic system Reagan didn’t give two shits about the Authoritarian Mob that took over after the fall. As long as capitalism won the US called it a victory. I’m no tanky by any means but it’s plan as day where the US priority was when it came to the Soviet Union.
I mean, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, everyone didn’t immediately go “welp time to start up our World War”. Nor did that happen when Nazi Germany got rolling on Anschluss.
If WW3 starts, we’ll eventually determine some specific event that got it rolling irrevocably in that direction. Could be the annexation of Crimea in 2014, or the Ukraine invasion in 2022, or something in the future (PRC annexing Taiwan - or trying to and failing; North Korea finally pulling the trigger and trying to finish the Korean War; India and Pakistan finally coming to nuclear blows; any number of other things). Nobody will know until it’s already history.
Back in the early 1960’s my dad had a high level security clearance at a defense contractor. He was one of a handful of people who knew the full details of a project to “identify, track, and destroy a hostile satellite”. This was in direct response to the Soviet Union launching Sputnik. The President of the US was another one of the handful that knew the full details of the project.
After a lot of R&D work a test was performed. A rocket was launched from somewhere in the South Pacific. It tracked a derelict satellite used as a target, closed on it, and disabled it. At that point my dad’s involvement on the project ended.
A few months later while at home he & my mom were listening to a speech by the President. In the middle of the speech he announced to the American public that the USA now had the ability to identify, track, and destroy hostile satellites. My mom says all the color drained from his face but she had no idea why since the entire project was still highly classified. In fact when my dad got to work the next day there was a memo waiting on his desk telling him that he was not to confirm, deny, or even discuss anything he may have heard on the radio or tv the previous night.
The President didn’t make that announcement for the benefit of the American people. He was sending a very public message to the leadership of the USSR.
(And my dad never told this story until well after the 25 year time frame established for routine declassification of such materials.)
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