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Top Russian, American and Polish Leaders Warn that Continued Fighting In Ukraine Could Lead to Nuclear War

George Washington's picture




 

Former Soviet leader and Nobel prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev warned today that the battle in Ukraine could result in a nuclear war:

“A war of this kind would unavoidably lead to a nuclear war,” the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner told Der Spiegel news magazine, according to excerpts released on Friday.

 

“We won’t survive the coming years if someone loses their nerve in this overheated situation,” added Gorbachev, 83. “This is not something I’m saying thoughtlessly. I am extremely concerned.”

One of America’s top experts on Russia – Steven Cohen – has also warned that failure to negotiate a peace treaty in Ukraine could lead to nuclear war.

Steven Starr - a nuclear arms expert and senior scientist for Physicians for Social Responsibility - warns that proposed U.S. legislation would be a direct path towards nuclear war with Russia.

Former Polish president – and famed anti-communist activist – Lech Walesa also warned that the U.S. and Nato’s arming of Ukraine could lead to a nuclear war.

Leading American political activist Noam Chomsky agrees.

Australian doctor and Nobel prize winner Helen Caldicott warns:

The expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders is “very, very dangerous,” Caldicott said. “There is no way a war between the United States and Russia could start and not go nuclear. … The United States and Russia have enormous stockpiles of these weapons. Together they have 94 percent of all the 16,300 nuclear weapons in the world.”

 

“We are in a very fallible, very dangerous situation operated by mere mortals,” she warned. “The nuclear weapons, are sitting there, thousands of them. They are ready to be used.”

 

***

 

Caldicott strongly criticized Obama administration policymakers for their actions in forward positioning U.S. and NATO military units in countries of Eastern Europe in response to Russian support of breakaway separatists in the provinces of eastern Ukraine. On –, the U.S. government announced the deployment of the Ironhorse Brigade, an elite armored cavalry unit of the U.S. Army to the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, along the historic invasion route from the West to St. Petersburg.

 

“Do they really want a nuclear war with Russia?” she asked “The only war that you can have with Russia is a nuclear war. … You don’t provoke paranoid countries armed with nuclear weapons.”

And see this, this, this and this.

Indeed, Eric Zuesse says that the risks are so high – and the American leaders so reckless – that Russia is preparing for an expected nuclear attack by the U.S.

Postscript:   In the 1987 book To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans, one of the world’s leading physicists – Michio Kaku – revealed declassified plans for the U.S. to launch a first-strike nuclear war against Russia.  The forward was written by the former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clarke.

In Towards a World War III Scenario, Michel Chossudovsky documents that the U.S. is so enamored with nuclear weapons that it has authorized low-level field commanders to use them in the heat of battle in their sole discretion … without any approval from civilian leaders.

May cooler heads prevail ...

 

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Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:18 | 5646087 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

I think they'll be greatly disappointed when it comes to the "survivability" of a nuclear war.  Sure, a lot of people will survive the initial bombardment, and there will even be a lot of people in areas where the fallout is low enough to not be much of a problem.  But all of the industry that imports or manufactures all of the nice shit that they like will be gone.  Neocons have to eat, sleep and shit, just like the rest of us.  Staying clothed is also a big plus.  Most of these fucks wouldn't know shit from Shinola when it comes to how to produce their most basic needs.  So they go into some super bunker.  What comes after that for them?  They have to deal with the exact same broken and irradiated world as the survivors, that's what.  No electricity.  No running water.  No industry.  No sstocked supermarkets.  People who are so worried about survival that they couldn't care less about national identity. 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:38 | 5645819 Perimetr
Perimetr's picture

I agree with Williambanzai7.

What frightens me the most is that I do not think the overlords have any clue about the utlimate consequences of nuclear war, which will leave Earth essentially uninhabitable for humans and most complex forms of life.

Peer-reviewed studies have existed for 7 years that predict virtually any nuclear war, even one between India and Pakistan, would create a global stratospheric smoke layer, which would block enough sunlight to produce the coldest average surface temperatures on Earth experienced in the last 1000 years. This would lead to global nuclear famine that will kill *billions* of people. http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-2003-2007.pdf

The India-Pakistan scenario uses 100 atomic bombs, which have less than 1% of the explosive power contained in the launch-ready nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia.  A war fought with the strategic nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia would create Ice Age weather conditions that would *eliminate* agriculture for more than 10 years, most people would starve to death. http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/

Those who control nuclear arsenals have yet to publicly acknowledge or discuss these scientific predictions.  It is not clear to me that they even know of them; my experiences at the UN, and the public reactions of US representatives there clearly show they do not know of these findings. 

Neocon propaganda says that the US has "nuclear primacy" over Russia, and can "win" a nuclear war. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61508/keir-a-lieber-and-daryl-g-p...

The overlords may be ignorant enough, and consumed with enough hubris to believe they can survive the death of humanity through a nuclear exchange. 

Steven Starr

www.nucleardarkness.org

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:03 | 5646040 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

Who wants to live in the currents world?

At least a post apocalyptic "nukie thing" has some entertainment value.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 06:47 | 5645222 no more banksters
no more banksters's picture

Absolutely right. Doesn't seem extreme at all. The neocon lunatics will not hesitate to burn the whole planet, because they foolishly believe that they can prevent Sino-Russian nuclear response. God help us.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 06:30 | 5645205 Element
Element's picture

Will, you and GW are far, far too plugged-in mate, you both need a holiday, very badly, complete change of scene, then both consider what to do next with your lives.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:57 | 5645949 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

Look at my photo stream I lead a relaxed but totally aware life here.

But I certainly do think there are far too many people coasting along in la la land.

Oh its ok to take Russia to the brink now...what else are we supposed to lean over and accept without issue? Oh, so we are going to surround them with NATO tanks. Where is that supposed to lead? To a tank battle? It is rank stupidity.

Fuck that noise and the clowns it rode in on. The idiots at the foreign policy wheel are just like the trading idiots who have never experienced a down cycle in their lives.

Don't take my warning. There are plenty of seasoned foreign policy mavens ringing alarm bells. When a cold war geezer like DR K of all people,  says fatal mistakes are being made by the West, perhaps it is wise to take notice.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:27 | 5646451 YHC-FTSE
YHC-FTSE's picture

Hey mate. I hesitated before typing on this interesting thread because I can see the merit in all of them and I'm not sure what I can bring to the conversation that hasn't already been stated lucidly.

I think Ghordius makes a compelling argument (& interesting data on Belarus to boot) using the presumption of reason in "the (super/global/American) elite", since the logical consequence of blowing the world up will be the drastic loss in earnings and power. Far better to move the pieces around to create tensions, goad your friends and foes, prod and incite to fill the order books of the MIC. Besides, as others have already posted, a full scale nuclear exchange is game over for this planet. I know more than I want to about nuclear yields of modern weapons and their delivery systems that make the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima look like a match strike in comparison. Not only that, we have the added joy of a nuclear winter and all the radiation from untended nuclear power stations all over the globe. Game over, as I said.

The trouble is, you only have to look out of the window or walk along the high street to observe that human beings are fucking stupid. Full of pride, empty of self control, full of ego and bullshit and anger at any given moment. Whether you frequent the halls of power, the highest echelons of education, or your local supermarket, people on the whole will disappoint you with stupid behaviour from time to time. Myself included.

If you're trained in science, you would know that human error is an important factor in research. Even something as simple as a thermometer requires you to factor in mechanical and observational error. People can and will make mistakes all the time and global thermal nuclear war is no exception. It was a miracle, a real miracle, that we managed to survive the latter part of the 20th century with all those nuclear arsenals aimed at each other. Several well documented cases come to mind:

  1. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the U2 plane that almost triggered retaliation 1962.
  2. B59 Submarine that almost launched its nuclear tipped torpedos after being depth charged in 1962.
  3. NORAD computer glitch in 1979 that initiated a full retalitory strike against non-existent missiles.
  4. The Soviet satellite false alarm that announced the US had launched 5 ICBMs in 1983. It's a bit of a long story to explain that the Soviets used a tactical war game computer that had already anticipated this and would have recommended a full scale nuclear launch, had it not been for Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov who ignored all the alarms, used his reasoning that the US would launch more than 5 ICBMs if this were real, and decided on his own to report it as a false alarm. He saved the planet that evening on September 26th 1983.
  5. Able Archer 83 exercise in which some bright spark put the US on DefCon1 (Nuclear war), flew 19,000 extra troops to Europe and thereby put the Soviets on symetric alert until the exercise was over.

As you say, if even a sick fuck like Kissinger says fatal mistakes are being made, then we better sit up and take notice. After all, he is the king of fatal mistakes. All the evidence of history supports your (Banzai's) concerns.

And these are the ones that have been declassified and made public. It is the human factor that is the problem. Believe me when I say that there are people, quite intelligent seeming people, who genuinely believe that they can survive a nuclear war. They've seen the movies and think that as long as they have access to a bunker with all the extras, they'll be fine. The fucking pathetic morons. I have no doubt that these morons also exist in the corridors of power too, and if they are the ones at the Fed looking at the abyss of personal ruin, possibly death or imprisonment for life for causing the biggest financial collapse in history (Along with the biggest theft of wealth), they have absolutely nothing at all to lose by initiating the end of everything as they know it. Maybe they have a bugout place in South America, New Zealand, or the islands in the Pacific which they hope won't be affected? I don't know, but you cannot discount stupid, scared, selfish, human beings. We were seriously luckier than we deserve to survive the 20th century and when I survey the Idiocracy that the West has become today, I doubt we will be so lucky again at the brink of this war.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 01:01 | 5647551 Element
Element's picture

 

 

"If you're trained in science, you would know that human error is an important factor in research. Even something as simple as a thermometer requires you to factor in mechanical and observational error. People can and will make mistakes all the time and global thermal nuclear war is no exception."

 

Aviation systems, and resulting Murphy's inputs, are all the physical evidence needed to know accidents will unavoidably happen they can't be systematized out of existence, indeed the systems themselves produce opportunities for novel accident modes.

As your points depict, it's stunning any of us survived the past 60 years. It wasn't just Patton who said "keep going east", the head of SAC openly argued within formal military documents and meetings for over a decade to attack and totally destroy Russia, ASAP.

And the Russians knew this.

Unfortunately for Russia there's no defense to this via first strike. You can't eliminate the threat at all that way, you can't take it down without it wiping you out too.

It doesn't matter who fires first, it's completely irrelevant, it's an act of suicide, there is no rationale that works but to not fire, to not have the war, to not have the tensions, to do the exact reverse.

Which would be a great system, but still prone to Murphy, i.e. thermonuclear armed peace is still guaranteed to result in an unlimited exchange, at some point, by systemic accident alone, as there's no limited-exchange option possible or viable, so any accident will be a maximum release event.

If these two (predominantly these two) thoroughly insane countries and systems won't remove their strategic arsenals, the only viable survivable position for humanity, is for all high-yield nukes to be completely eliminated, and only low yields permitted by mutual and global agreements.

 

Apparently global suicide is still preferable to even this concessional fig-leaf of minimal sanity.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:47 | 5645488 sleigher
sleigher's picture

 

 

 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 07:33 | 5645252 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

second that, Element. a bit harsh, but yes

"Perhaps our overlords have a nuclear acrapolypse on the drawing board..." no. MAD still applies, and whatever this "overlords" thing is supposed to mean, drawing such things has always been part of a posture. A well understood posture. If you cherish the generalization of "our overlords", then why should they blast their world in small pieces? If you take the perspective of the "small man on the street" but then expect elites to be strongly interconnected, so strongly to be "our overlords", then you should also apply such an super-elite perspective on their planning. And either it's a global elite, in which case it would be like the Emperor of The World building a world-busting bomb under his palace and blowing everything up, or it's the perspective of the American elite

and what would this generalization really mean: more profits through MIC sales and more profits through Wall Street. does something ring a bell? or strike a pattern in the last decades? war is profitable, war is a business, particularly the armament and logistic part. the US MIC is not going to shrink away on it's own, and the Russian and Chinese MICs would not be utterly dismayed if they get wonderfully full order books. From a commercial perspective, all the MICs of this world have an interest on seeing their counterpart... grow. counterintuitive, but there it is

Yes, the former Soviet Empire is under external pressure to break down in smaller pieces. This is a valid generalization of a whole process. As valid, though, as

Yes, the former Soviet Empire is under internal pressure to break down in smaller pieces. And this is a process that is going on since roughly 1989

Now I will take a completely, previously not touched field on ZH for a few examples, then I want to avoid a rehash of the Ukraine discussions points

Let's talk about... BELARUS. No, I have no insider information and no, it's not a prognose. Just what could happen, in the sense that there are many options in the future

It is completely in the realm of the possible that we will have lots of articles about Belarus, in future. And it is possible that we will not. In both cases, Belarus matters

Belarus is completely landlocked, and has an immense strategic value for the region, with borders to Russia, Poland, Ukraine and two of the Balts, Latvia and Lithuania

Belarus is a sovereign nation, having completed it's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia has recognized Belarus as an independent nation

I'm writing that because it's completely possible that we will see people here starting to rant that Belarus always belonged to Mother Russia

Now, tensions between Belarus and Russia are rising. It's a fact. It might be temporary and become irrelevant... or not

Originally, the plan was to share an economic zone - The Eurasian Economic Union, EEU - which would have included borderless trade, i.e. a customs union, with the expansion to a common market (this means common regulations, btw, and so a common regulation emitting body/entity/authority) and, eventually, a currency union

Note: all after the european templates, including a commission called the Eurasian_Economic_Commission. This just as a reminder that "all that stuff euro-idiots are doing" is just methods all European AND EurAsian share. If you are having problems with them... then perhaps you either have not understood them or you had too much propaganda washing over you

Now, I will not say anything about how Belarus is governed myself. It's a sovereign country. Because I support the whole concept of sovereignty, I accept that Belarus speaks with one voice, independently if it's ruled by a dictator, half-dictator, it's parliament or it's people through daily referendums

but this voice from Belarus, recently, has been giving new tunes. One of them was a very interesting warning that Belarus is willing and ready to defend itself

another that it will only accept dollars instead of rubles from Moscow. and the third one that border checks have been reinstated, checking almost every vehicle

Belarus is still a sister to Russia. And my sources tell me the Russian media is still talking very badly about the Belarussian opposition, which helps the current Belarussian government

yes, external pressure, including US Neo-Cons. yes, internal pressure, too, including former deals that don't look as sweet as previously

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:41 | 5645846 Farqued Up
Farqued Up's picture

I'm disappointed that your devolvement of central power stopped at daily referendums. I strongly prefer not to let 51 people dictate to 49 people through the force of any entity that you have in mind. I believe if the entity doesn't exist, no enforcement of evil democracy can exist. Tribal councils would probably be OK.

Did hunter-gatherer clans (fuck the term society) have prisons and enforcers? Everyone armed with an automatic weapon would jerk this shit back into something civilized. Societal institutions are screwing everything up.

If some religious fanatic shot up a tabloid office, kill the perps and the shitstirrers that brainwashed them. The Imams would snap to in short order, so would Wall Street. Looters? That would become as rare as fucking while running. MIC? Obsolete. Infrastructure, can be handled through private efforts through consensus.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:00 | 5645386 BigJim
BigJim's picture

 "Perhaps our overlords have a nuclear acrapolypse on the drawing board..." no. MAD still applies, and whatever this "overlords" thing is supposed to mean, drawing such things has always been part of a posture. A well understood posture. If you cherish the generalization of "our overlords", then why should they blast their world in small pieces...

...and what would this generalization really mean: more profits through MIC sale...

Good points Ghordius, I suspect our overlords see several upsides to all this;

i) alarm Russia so they devote much more money to armaments, thus giving 'our' politicians an excuse to divert even more money to our MIC and borrow more to do so.
ii) hopefully pull Ukraine into ZATO's orbit (and make it a Western debt-slave)
iii) diminish Russia's ability to aid Assad/Iran

Probably the best way to view all this is to see the elites involved here as mafiosi running tax farms, constantly trying to augment their holdings at the other mafiosis' expense. It's better to successfully steal an easy acre of farmland from a rival than risk getting involved in a war to try to take 2. And once you've fully accreted that stolen acre to your own acreage, you will be stronger and more able to take that next acre... and so on. Seems to have worked throughout history (until suddenly it doesn't and the empire in question collapses).

I'm sure they are aware they have everything to lose if they push Putin too far. But there's another possibility; our overlords may calculate that people like Putin would rather bend over and take it up the ass, than wind up being beheaded in the exchange of weaponry that would occur if they retaliate. And our overlords may be right; Putin's what, 62? At that age he may have developed enough empathy to think that he's had a long and glorious life and it would be better to admit defeat than see his nation wiped off the map, even if he has the power to wipe all the aggressors off the map too.

The elites are very, very smart and have been learning the lessons of all the previous generations who have been doing this shit forever. But they are also mad sociopaths and liable to miscalculate.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 08:24 | 5645277 Element
Element's picture

What I say there is said with gentleness, not harshness.

--

To your comment, these nuke war threads shit me, people don't have a clue, they comment like there's a plan, that there's a fall-back, like there is a prospect.

There will be no Wall Street because there will be no New York, there will be no MIC and no Lockheed Martin, as there will be no more Fort Worth Texas, sorry, that place alone will be hit by at least five full yield warheads. Don't even look for Washington DC, you'll never find it, the terrain will look like another planet, most of it will fall into the North Atlantic. The names, the places, the borders on all the obsolete maps belong to a different world. Your cell tower is a black pretzel, snapped off at the base and flung 18 km away, but your emails are not on a server somewhere anyhow, there are no servers 'somewhere'. You will not be going to home depot for new window glass. Your neighbors are not going to watch out for you for more than 36 hours. Your taps won't work if you still have a house, because the dam wall is gone, so enjoy the complementary eels before they decompose. If you're not young and fit, it would be best if you found a sufficiently high object as quickly as you can manage, and jump off it. Multi-megaton nukes generate severe damage and fires to 15 km radius (10 miles), from every detonation. These are not the tiny almost microscopic puny nukes of WWII, these are between 15 and 50 times bigger. There is not a brief sudden incredibly bright and hot flash in the sky with these nukes, as there was with the old A-bombs. There is instead a 10 to 20 second long ultra dazzling 'flash' that will permanently blind you, instantly, and impart second degree burns from 30 km away, and melt synthetic cloths to your skin from 40 km radius. At that range dark hair will instantly either catch alight or shrivel and turn to powder. You will look like a bald freshly boiled lobster, and feel like one, as you do an impromptu desperate Hokey-Pokey, and roll around until you finally collapse because the air that you breathed in was so hot that it's scalded your wind pipe and the blisters expanded quickly in them and mercifully suffocated you to death within a few minutes.

Now everyone have a nice fantasy chat about nuclear war.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 20:32 | 5646986 kareninca
kareninca's picture

So I guess I'm in luck, since I have light brown hair and wear all-cotton clothes.  Good times ahead!!!!

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:36 | 5646134 Joe A
Joe A's picture

And everybody who survives all that has the prospect of a slow and agonizing death due to radiation sickness, starvation and/or dehydration, infectious diseases or by your friendly neighbor clubbing you to death because he wants the content of your fridge (that doesn't work anyway).

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:24 | 5645438 NoDecaf
NoDecaf's picture

@ element - It seems to me that you have been having fantasies regarding the effects of nuclear weapons. Based on my recent research I have learned that one does not become instantly blind from the initial burst. In fact there is only one recorded case of permanent blindness.

An important point to keep in mind is not what you or I think is possible but what the militiary planners KNOW of their weapons and their capabilities. It is this calculation, or miscalculation depending on perspective, that will ultimately decide our future.

 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:41 | 5645843 Perimetr
Perimetr's picture

Worrying about flash bindness from a nuclear war is like worrying about the powder burns you will get when someone puts a pistol to your head and pulls the trigger

read this http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 11:17 | 5645528 Element
Element's picture

 

 

Flash blindness
 
Flash blindness is caused by the initial brilliant flash of light produced by the nuclear detonation. The light is received on the retina than can be tolerated, but less than is required for irreversible injury. The retina is particularly susceptible to visible and short wavelength infrared light. The result is a bleaching of visual pigment and temporary blindness. Vision is completely recovered as the pigment is regenerated.
 
During the daylight hours, flash blindness does not persist for more than 2 minutes, but generally lasts a few seconds. At night, when the pupil is dilated, flash-blindness will last for a longer period of time.
 
A 1-megaton explosion can cause flash blindness at distances as great as 13 miles on a clear day, or 53 miles on a clear night. If the intensity is great enough, a permanent retinal burn will result.
 
Retinal injury is the most far-reaching injury effect of nuclear explosions, but it is relatively rare since the eye must be looking directly at the detonation. Retinal injury results from burns in the area of the retina where the fireball image is focused.
 
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects13.shtml

--

In daylight, within 13 nm, you can be permanently blinded. If you are closer it is worse, for radiation intensity decreases with the square of the distance to the light emission surface.

These are not pissy little A-bomb flashes, these last 10 to 20 seconds and many times brighter. Over the top brilliance and unrelenting heat intensity. Cumulative overloads, cumulative damage to those exposed. Intense light will pass straight through flesh at that range, you can't block it out effectively with hands. The light also does not just come from one direction, it back-scatters, coming at the eye from all directions, in a wide range of damaging frequencies.

If you are within 9.5 nm of a 1 MT air-burst you are within the area where second degree burns will be experienced on exposed skin. In those conditions that will often be a lethal injury.

It may take 30 seconds to 1 minute for the resulting plasma ball to lift away sufficiently from the surface to stop from burning you even further.

i.e. if you are in that close, in the open, and suffer such optical and skin exposures, and exposure to flying debris, you don't have long in this world (that's if you even live through the first two minutes), so for many people in that situation the flash blindness they suffer will indeed last much longer than the time they have left to live.

 

So much for your personal research.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:53 | 5645794 Element
Element's picture

Here's a one megaton air-burst, recorded a considerable distance from it. Note the flash duration, its appalling intensity, and time taken to rise away from the scorched zone, and the time taken to cover that dazzling plasma ball behind a cooler surface layer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sw5w5UgJTI

Keep in mind that it was a view recorded through the equivalent of a welding helmet's dark filters (probably several layers of them). Note also that it uses a telephoto lens, the camera was a long way back from the detonation. That dark blob-like layer below it, towards the middle of the video is the shock front cloud still racing outwards toward the camera, as the ball 'slowly' (actually rising very fast), rises and expands.

When the camera moves, that's the shock wave arriving and hitting it (about 3 minutes and 10 seconds after the detonation). The initial plasma ball is about 1 km across after the initial flash dies back, then it grows much wider as it rises from there and the radiative surface increases even as it pulls away.

i.e. flash-blindness is not going to be your biggest concern, but it will be effectively life-long eye damage. And if you've ever had "welders flash" you know its very painful. Now times that by 100.

No, you will not see well for days, even if you are far enough away to eventually get your sight back.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:29 | 5646115 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8n59S8j2C0

 

If you see something like that coming in, look away.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 00:30 | 5646296 Element
Element's picture

Dream on, everyone will be too busy looking at the delightful pretty meteorite shower. ... while others will be convinced it's UFOs, and will be holding a smart phone up in the open air and telling everyone to, "Look at that!! The aliens are finally here!" ... then take it for an alien attack and try to upload the footage while composing the ultimate tweet for posterity.

#marsattacks

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:47 | 5646007 Vampyroteuthis ...
Vampyroteuthis infernalis's picture

Element, if you are close as that camera is to the blast, blindness will be your least worry. If the heat from the initial shockwave does not kill you, the radiation soon will.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:47 | 5646162 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Probably not.  3 minutes and 10 seconds at the speed of sound puts it at roughly 38 miles away.  Heat, radiation and blast wave are going to be very survivable.  Fallout?  From that detonation, there's not going to be a lot of local fallout because of its altitutde, and when a lot of the fallout comes down, it will have already decayed quite a bit. 

 

A 1MT burst at the closest target to me:

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=2000&lat=35.0140957&lng=-106.5328...

 

The Russians have a lot of 550kt warheads in their current arsenal.  The same target, ground burst with fallout patterns approximated:

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=2000&lat=35.0208439&lng=-106.5355...

 

BTW, that is fairly close to the entrance for the Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex.  Probably not the exact location, but close enough to show about what to expect in my area.  That complex has a shitload of nuclear weapons stored in it, so it is a safe bet that it is not only getting hit, but will also be a groundburst due to it being underground.  Ground bursts are where you get the really bad fallout.  While I won't say exactly where I am, I am outside of the radius for all of the initial effects, and, unless there is a storm system, the typical winds here mean that I'm not going to get hammered by fallout.  I'd still GTFO anyway, unless I just happened to know what the winds up to 30k ft or higher were doing at the moment. 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 16:27 | 5646271 Element
Element's picture

Speed of sound at sea level is 661.47 kt

661.47 / 60 min = 11.02 nm

11.02 * 3.15 min (decimal mins) = 34.73 nm

34.73 nm = 39.96 statute miles

i.e. the camera was a pre-surveyed precise 40 statute miles from the detonation point.

I agree with your retort points.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 23:46 | 5654201 NoDecaf
NoDecaf's picture

"The visible light will produce "flashblindness" in people who are looking in the direction of the explosion. Flashblindness can last for several minutes, after which recovery is total. If the flash is focused through the lens of the eye, a permanent retinal burn will result. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were many cases of flashblindness, but only one case of retinal burn, among the survivors."

 

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects2.shtml

 

I can copy and paste just like you...so much for your authority on the topic.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:14 | 5645782 OpTwoMistic
OpTwoMistic's picture

Target DC only.  Fixed.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:57 | 5645397 BigJim
BigJim's picture

 Now everyone have a nice fantasy chat about nuclear war.

Nice reminder there Element. And even if you survive the initial exchange, and the fallout, haven't scientists determined a nuclear winter would very likely follow?

And now that we've seen first-hand what happens when nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools are left unattended for a few days/weeks, we'd have worldwide gamma-shine events breaking out all over the Northern hemisphere.

A full blown nuclear war really would be an extinction-level event.

But Russia may calculate that it could nuke US forces overseas (like carrier groups at sea) and as long as it didn't target the US mainland, the US would withhold targeting Russia itself, knowing that total annihilation would result.

Things could get very dirty in Central Europe though for any country hosting ZATO forces on the move Eastwards.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:44 | 5645798 MrPalladium
MrPalladium's picture

I have never been able to understand how the nations of western Europe could fail to understand that they are ground zero and would be vaporized before the real game of chicken begins between the U.S. and Russia as both wish to escape annihilation.

Also the American neocon and financial elites should understand that in the event of a first strike by Russia, the 50 or so zip codes in which they and their staffers are concentrated will be hit first, and thus the war "won" once those working toward world wide domination die first. There is no incentive whatever for Russia to target the population of the red states in the flyover areas of the U.S. outside of some miliatary installations and launch facilities.

Social and geographic isolation of its U.S. enemies from "The Big Sort" is Russia's most powerful ally in the event of conflict, and if communicated by Russia beforehand and properly understood by our elites, the most powerful guarantor of peace and prosperity.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:23 | 5646464 schadenfreude
schadenfreude's picture

"I have never been able to understand how the nations of western Europe could fail to understand that they are ground zero and would be vaporized before the real game of chicken begins between the U.S. and Russia as both wish to escape annihilation."

That's not true. My generation does know quite well, that we are on ground zero. In my youth there was the hourly reminder of Starfighters and Phantoms flying with supersonic speed (and the BOOM when entering supersonic speed).

But what do Germans or Europe have to decide in this conflict?

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 11:33 | 5647674 MrPalladium
MrPalladium's picture

My heart goes out to you!!

I served a year as a "hostage" on the nuclear trip wire in the Berlin Brigade in 1970-1971 (Regular US Army volunteer). Although of entirely English ancestry, I was saddened by the sight and feel of a great nation like Germany under the heel of continued occupation by foreign powers long after WWII had ended. Needless to say even at the young age of 23, I was uncomfortable in the role of "occupier" and could not help feeling what it would be like if the same happened to my country, the U.S.

Of course 45 years later there are much more insidious, subtle and intensive means of "occupation" by the aliens within. Having seen it in the raw, I recognize it behind the mask.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:47 | 5646346 New World Chaos
New World Chaos's picture

I don't think Russia will get the first strike.  I think Putin has more honor than the satanic cabal.

Forget about national interest.  All Western governments are puppets of the NWO super-elites, who plan to hide out in undergroud bases and emerge later to lord it over the survivors.  They will all be notified before the attack.  They will throw most of their minions under the bus.  A few suckers will be lured underground.  They will wish they had died quickly.

The NWO elites need the attack for culling whitey, as a manufactured excuse for world government, and as a massive distraction and blame-shift for the inevitable financial collapse.  They won't start WWIII until the last bar of phyz is rehypothecated.  Care to guess when that might be?

Despite their best efforts at putting Dominionist cultists and soulless robot-men in charge of the nukes, an order for a first strike on Russia might be ignored.  So they will use a false flag.  I think the most likely scenario is for Israel to launch an EMP attack on America.  They could use a missile that changes course to make it look like it came from Russia.  If they don't have the range, they could use a submarine that allows itself to be discovered, maybe by trasmitting in Russian.

Mutually assured destruction was crazy but it worked.  Maybe Putin could quietly let it be known that he knows who pulls America's strings and if they nuke Russia for any reason, he will turn NY, DC and Israel to glass, plus extra strikes on Brussels, Basel, Paraguay, the London financial district, and the Cayman Islands.  Furthermore, any sign of a mass bug out will be seen as a sign of an imminent false flag.

I am still trying to figure out if this new cold war is just another Hegelian dialectic, a fake struggle with both sides controlled by the same people.  Do Russian and Chinese elites believe the NWO promises of a seat at the table?  If so, then and only worldwide rebellion / minions walking away will stop this.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 21:39 | 5647155 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

"I don't think Russia will get the first strike.  I think Putin has more honor than the satanic cabal."

 

You willing to bet your life on that?  Because it is part of the stakes in this game.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 00:45 | 5647529 New World Chaos
New World Chaos's picture

No.  And that's one of many reasons why I moved to New Zealand.  It's a shame; I quite liked living in New Mexico.  Always good to hear your reports of what goes on there (even if the news is increasingly grim).

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:49 | 5646171 Joe A
Joe A's picture

It is easy: we failed to understand before WWI broke out that that war would destroy the continent and failed to understand that before WWII as well. Now we have a generation of people that are selfcontent, complacent and too stupid to think for themselves and instead trust on our leaders and on television and reality shows that we are walking into the same trap.

The reason that we didn't have a full blown nuclear war since WWII was because people actually learned from that war but these people are no longer in powerpositions. Now we have a new generation of people that are willing to 'take a chance'. A chance with our lives.

Someone a couple of months ago said on ZH that Europeans should not doubt that America would not hesitate to turn Europe into a smoking pile of rubble in order to protect their hegemony. I thought he exaggerated. Am not so sure anymore.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:47 | 5645373 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

you're right, mankind has never done anything stupid, violent or self destructive

we're talking scale not quality 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:22 | 5646453 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

We are dealing with high-function psychopaths. They think that if they bear down on what got them where they are, they can win.

The only tool in their tool-kit is psychopathy.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:18 | 5645340 Sambo
Sambo's picture

The Russians have the Tsar bomba. Not just one or two but dozens.....perhaps. Who knows?

See what one of these can do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNYe_UaWZ3U

 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:37 | 5645980 Latina Lover
Latina Lover's picture

Tsar bomba was never put into production, but was a one off test, the largest hydrogen bomb ever tested  Thank god that it was reduced to a 55 megaton yield, instead of the orginal 100.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 19:11 | 5646747 Freddie
Freddie's picture

One of America’s top experts on Russia – Steven Cohen – has also warned that failure to negotiate a peace treaty in Ukraine could lead to nuclear war.

LOL!  Cohen is another PNAC stooge who is upset that their coup is failing.

The scum thought the Ukrainians would all follow Kiev and the Eastern Ukraine told Porky and Yats to f**k off.

Then Porky and Yats  sent Ukie troops.  Most did not want to fight against their brothers in Donbass and other eastern areas.  Those who did fight got destroyed or were allowed to surrender.

Kiev only wanted a truce because the guys in the east like Govi, Mozgovi, Mototola and others would have liberated the rest of the Ukraine from the scum in Kiev.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 11:55 | 5648249 franciscopendergrass
franciscopendergrass's picture

The Russians may have tsar bomba but we have Tsarbama.  Tsarbama has been denotated in the US.   It will take trillions maybe even quadrillions to cleanup his miss and leave generations devastated.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:07 | 5645332 y3maxx
y3maxx's picture

...Anyone remember Obama shaking hands with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a bilateral meeting before both attending the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit later today in Seoul, South Korea, March 26, 2012.

"This is my last election ... After my election I have more flexibility"

...Looks like the US isn't very trustworthy.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 20:38 | 5647001 darteaus
darteaus's picture

How do we know that Obama isn't doing exactly as he promised?

He just sent Vlad $3B via Ukraine, right?

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 12:11 | 5645653 Omen IV
Omen IV's picture

"...Looks like the US isn't very trustworthy."

 

never was never will be - negotiation is a waste of time 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:15 | 5646428 Anusocracy
Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:25 | 5646467 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

What would happen if your town got nuked?

http://www.gizmag.com/nuclear-bomb-damage-map-nuke/12097/

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 02:55 | 5647694 Element
Element's picture

15 kilotons?!

You really think the Russians would hit New york with just 15 kilotons? Surely you know better than that? I spoke to you just the other day and you seemed quite lucid!

Try 10 x 1-megaton munitions of equidistant MIRVs over the extended suburban area and outskirts, then a similar scale follow-up strike and hour later, just to ensure the if any of the missiles or warheads failed of arrive, or misfired, or were intercepted, that the second bombardment will get the whole population and every rural building around the extended outskirts.

Then they will almost certainly go with a third strike, thereafter, just to be absolutely sure they took all of it out, for the satellites will no longer work and they do have to be sure they completely negate it.

Most people don't seem to grasp there will be far more than one hit per population and industrial concentration.

The more multi tier ABM systems, like RIM-161 SM3, S400, S500, Ground-Based Mid-Course Defense (GMD) Exo-atmospheric kill vehicles, ARROW III, THAAD, PAC-3 point-defense BMDs that there are, perversely, the more likely it becomes that every large metropolis and industrial center will be hit by 10 to 20 munitions in 2 to 3 planend co-ordinated strikes, which follow-up the 2 to 3 separate coordinated continental and hemisphere-wide EMP pre-penetration strike missions, to degrade defenses and keep them ineffective.

ABMs do not deter, they just assure overkill strategy, utilizing multiple strikes, is maximized and carefully planned and optimized.

It's been this way since at least 1964, and probably earlier. Newer ABMs have not changed the strike recipe at all, just accentuated it considerably. The reduction in stockpiles and technical burdens allowed use of freed-up funds and engineering potential to massively sharpen the tip of what remained.

As with all former conventional cold war platforms which have survived in service through to 2015, these have all become much more deadly than they were ever intended or envisioned to become.

The same has occurred to the non-conventional forces as well, especially after GW Bush moved back to the pre-emptive strike option in 2001-02.

The US never suffered the hard times or collapse and total funding losses the Russian forces did during most of the past 25 years so don't anyone there imagine US MIRVs won't get through a Russian ABM network.

They definitely will get through, in swarms, as if it were not even there - you can bank on it.

Moscow and every other city and industrial center in Russia will likewise also not stand a chance. They will never be found nor heard of again, the maps will be rendered meaningless.

Neither the US, nor Russia will be using 15 kiloton weapons on major cities.

That sort of abysmal characterization of what a nuclear attack would "look like" on New York is a scurrilous deception that lulls people into thinking the risk is 'manageable' - probably produced by some lackey(s) in the Offices of various Mayors.

It is not manageable.

There is no incentive at that point to make peace, so the nuclear force remnants will use thousands of munitions each, over many months, hitting anything and everything that is detected merely electronically beeping, or moves.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 13:40 | 5648552 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Kindly reference to what you are talking about.

Mon, 01/12/2015 - 12:18 | 5651441 Element
Element's picture

This image at the top of the article:

http://www.gizmag.com/nuclear-bomb-damage-map-nuke/12097/picture/84787/

 

I had scripts turned off when I went into the site and did not see the script window at all, my pitiful apology for that, my misunderstanding entirely.

Wed, 01/14/2015 - 23:12 | 5663288 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Just wondering.

Thanks.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 22:17 | 5647256 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

History seems to ignore the fact that a dominant superpower will not voluntarilary relinquish control.  There is nothing to worry about, as the world carries on as plannned. Back to work, serfs.

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