Let's Talk Nukes

Donald Trump wonders why have nukes if you can't use them. Vlad is furiously deploying new warheads and delivery systems including new nuclear subs and ultra-long range cruise missiles.  Team Trump is working on developing a new generation of warheads that are more user friendly. American nuclear nonproliferation expert, professor Avner Cohen, is scared shitless.  But where do we really stand?


Between them, Russia and the US have about 14,000 nuclear warheads, about 5,000 of which are retired and awaiting decommissioning. Overall they maintain about 4,000 nuclear devices ready to go.

For the rest the tallies are: France, 300; China, 270; UK, 215; Pakistan, 140; India, 130; Israel, 80; and North Korea, 60.

Let's ballpark it at 10,000 nukes all in.

What kind of mayhem do you get for that sort of investment?

According to the British newspaper, The Telegraph, there is less to nuclear warfare than we imagine.

According to Telegraph research, it is estimated that the US and Russian arsenals combined have power equating to 6,600 megatons. This is a tenth of the total solar energy received by Earth every minute.

A 2014 study published in the American Geophysical Union Journal contends that even a small exchange, say between Pakistan and India, of just 100 warheads would be civilization-as-we-know-it ending.

A limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15 kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon (BC). This would self-loft to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally, producing a sudden drop in surface temperatures and intense heating of the stratosphere. Using the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, we calculate an e-folding time of 8.7 years for stratospheric BC compared to 4–6.5 years for previous studies. Our calculations show that global ozone losses of 20%–50% over populated areas, levels unprecedented in human history, would accompany the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years. We calculate summer enhancements in UV indices of 30%–80% over midlatitudes, suggesting widespread damage to human health, agriculture, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Killing frosts would reduce growing seasons by 10–40 days per year for 5 years. Surface temperatures would be reduced for more than 25 years due to thermal inertia and albedo effects in the ocean and expanded sea ice. The combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger a global nuclear famine.

"Global nuclear famine." Hmm, never had one of those.