Yup just check out the nukemap online and you will see the nuke power of destruction doesnt scale with increase in kiloton/megaton yield.... past a point it hits diminishing returns... and nuclear winter is more or less a myth... volcanos spew much more and life hasnt gone extinct yet
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
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plawolf
Brigadier
This is the second time I have seen someone come out and say nuclear winter is a myth and it’s frankly scary how easily educated people can fall to Jai Hind level silly sudo-science manipulation because it fits their preferred outcome.
Nuclear winter happens not because of the dust the nukes themselves throw up, but because of the enormous firestorms nukes going off in major cities will cause. That’s nothing like nuclear tests out in the deserts, frozen tundra or oceans! That’s like expecting a flare to produce as much smoke and pollution once your throw it into a house as the same flare produced when you lit it in the sandbox earlier.
Nuclear winter happens not because of the dust the nukes themselves throw up, but because of the enormous firestorms nukes going off in major cities will cause. That’s nothing like nuclear tests out in the deserts, frozen tundra or oceans! That’s like expecting a flare to produce as much smoke and pollution once your throw it into a house as the same flare produced when you lit it in the sandbox earlier.
solarz
Brigadier
That and the fact that volcanoes are not usually radioactive.
Radioactive dust storms that get blown across the whole continent will be the real killers. In fact, it's likely to spread across the entire globe. That's why nuclear wars are bad, kids!
The US isn't prepared to fight a war with China... period. Nothing about its current status indicates it is preparing for a major offensive or any offensive for that matter. They are focused on developing and procuring next-generation technology. There are also large internal political divisions in the country that take precedence over any action surrounding Taiwan.
The fact of the matter is that the average Westerner couldn't care less who visits Taiwan and view China's objections as some sort of strange hang-up. Pelosi visiting doesn't change the status quo one bit in the grand scheme of things, and the fact that China gets so riled up over one person visiting doesn't make sense from a Westerners perspective, because they don't view Taiwan as part of China. Nor do they think China should be able to take it by force as that would be morally reprehensible as from the Western perspective Taiwan is its own country.
So yeah, I am not sure why some people think Pelosi visiting matters at all. I am personally not even convinced the US would directly intervene if China invaded Taiwan. I think they would just look to isolate China economically. That seems to be a far less costly and potentially more successful endeavour as opposed to fighting a cataclysmic war.
The fact of the matter is that the average Westerner couldn't care less who visits Taiwan and view China's objections as some sort of strange hang-up. Pelosi visiting doesn't change the status quo one bit in the grand scheme of things, and the fact that China gets so riled up over one person visiting doesn't make sense from a Westerners perspective, because they don't view Taiwan as part of China. Nor do they think China should be able to take it by force as that would be morally reprehensible as from the Western perspective Taiwan is its own country.
So yeah, I am not sure why some people think Pelosi visiting matters at all. I am personally not even convinced the US would directly intervene if China invaded Taiwan. I think they would just look to isolate China economically. That seems to be a far less costly and potentially more successful endeavour as opposed to fighting a cataclysmic war.
I think lets put it into perspective why the nuclear winter claim is not realistic. Modern cities in both the US and China are mostly concrete and steel, both materials that aren't flammable to begin with. The total urbanized area of the US 3% of it's area, or ~106000 square miles of buildings which would no doubt NOT be all highrises -> less fuel to burn.
In the 2019-20 Australian bushfires, ~20000 square miles of land was burnt, fuel rich wood and grass fires, it darkened the skies and made it look like the world was about to end. That did not cause a bush fire winter in Australia, let alone the world! Yearly 10s of thousands of square miles of forest burn and release their smoke and carbon into the atmosphere with little permanent effect to show for it. If you actually read the papers those doomsday prediction was based on, they basically assumed that every single city that was hit with a nuclear bomb is made of wood, with 0 fire suppression and all dust get instantly teleported to the stratosphere to block sunlight. Read the soviet and american military reports actually assessing the threat, it really is bad science that got popularized and now nobody want to rebuff it because they don't want to be labeled a nuclear war enthusiast. Even then every time they make a new study on it the effect gets toned down a notch, we went from another ice age to eh it'll be cold for 6 years maybe.
On another note modern fusion bombs are much more efficient than the ones dropped in Japan, most isotopes created will settle in days to weeks, so even the long term implication of radiation is overblown. The more immediate threat is the estimate 40-60% civilian casualties from the blast themselves, the threat of which have kept us out of nuclear war! The only reason the USSR/China/US hasn't ripped each other apart in the last 70 odd years since nuclear bombs were first invented.
Just like we have global warming now in the 70s there was a lot of hysteria about "global cooling". There were serious proposals to cover the polar caps with carbon to increase the earths albedo. Everything was going to lead to an ice age including volcano eruptions, asteroid impacts and nuclear war. It was all based on flawed climate modelling.
Worrying about the weather after a war thats killed billions of people is stupid.
I actually know a bit about this. US construction materials for almost everything except few skyscrapers in the urban core is wood, either full wood or wood with concrete first floor. Concrete first floor, rest wood is called 5 over 1 and is the predominant multifamily housing unit in the US since the 90s. Otherwise single family homes are full wood. Many "concrete" or "brick" building in the US actually uses wood as the primary load bearing structure and interior while the brick or concrete is a facade used to resist weathering, waterproof the building, and to make it look more expensive and high end.
That's right. US concrete buildings are not concrete buildings like Soviet concrete buildings. 1 bomb and a US concrete building collapse. Soviet concrete buildings you can't do anything to those with bombs.
Multiple off topic posts deleted
User Zhangjim warned, due to hot take controversial posts that has caused derailment (of which this is far from the first time of it occurring).
Thread role update -- given recent events, please continue all discussion of the current Pelosi visit in the "Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis" thread, which has been moved to the "Strategic Defense" section of the forum.
User Zhangjim warned, due to hot take controversial posts that has caused derailment (of which this is far from the first time of it occurring).
Thread role update -- given recent events, please continue all discussion of the current Pelosi visit in the "Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis" thread, which has been moved to the "Strategic Defense" section of the forum.
Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis?
What are the odds Pelosi's planned visit turns into a military confrontation?
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