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Comment by poulsbohemian | Hacker News Reader

This isn't exactly a secret or new information... it was pretty well known when I lived on the peninsula 10+ years ago (thus the username, Poulsbohemian...). There's a state park right near the Hood Canal bridge where it isn't uncommon to watch the submarines come and go in and out of the canal. Always a bit surreal to push your kids on the swings while watching a first strike weapon capable of destroying the world pass by ;-D. I don't recall the name of the street, but there are houses with views across the water to what locals believed to be the dolphin pens...

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Second strike weapon. It is supposed to be able to survive someone else's first strike. First strike weapons can't survive someone else's first strike. It's part of the whole "assured destruction" thing: doesn't matter if you hit us first, you're still going to end up a self lit parking lot afterwards.

The obvious problem with mutual assured destruction is that an insane person could get ahold of the weapons, launch first, and kill all of current and future humanity.

How about not strike back, just try to survive & show future generations of the world how to be. Go live in that other country that isn't radioactive.

Because then a sane person could get ahold of the weapons, launch first, and kill all current opponents.

Even worse, the aggressor would come to believe there are no deleterious consequences to massive nuclear first strikes.

As counter intuitive as it may sound, a massive retaliatory strike would render a more safe future world for non combatant nations. Yes, despite what Hollywood may have told you in films, most of those nations would survive. Especially nations in the Southern Hemisphere not called Australia.

The US actually believed that for many years, at the start of the atomic age.

"Mutual Assured Destruction" isn't a policy of anyone. It's a game theoretical idea that requires pre-conditions that don't necessarily apply. I mean, you hit on one of them: insane people. Most of the large nuclear powers have checks on that: the guy at the top can order the launch, but there's a bunch of relaying of the order. So the guys who turn the keys can refuse. So you need a bunch of insane people to make it happen.

And... also the Soviets once upon a time had a plan to nuke everyone, not just the US, in order to make sure that you don't have countries that build back up faster than they did. There weren't going to be any other countries that weren't radioactive.

What do you mean, had?

Do you have any evidence their doomsday device isn't running anymore?

  Dr. Strangelove:
  Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?

  Ambassador de Sadesky:
  It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

Source on that last bit? How close to reality did that plan really get?

I’d imagine world war 2 ending just 2-3 years early prevented nuclear holocaust. Certainly the Nazis and Soviets were not going to have any reluctance pushing that button.

"How about not strike back, just try to survive & show future generations of the world how to be. Go live in that other country that isn't radioactive."

The word for that is "surrender".

Wish you weren't downvoted, it's a valid question (if not beaten to death).

I highly recommend the movie By Dawn's Early Light if you haven't seen it. I will offer no spoilers.

Because then there would be no deterrent to stop people nuking you.

"Turn the other cheek" doesn't work for nukes.

Why not? Japan surrendered. They're fine.

Nobody else had nukes back then, so the calculus was completely different.

I've always thought nuclear war is basically Newcomb's Paradox. You want to be perceived as a one boxer (will retaliate) until the exact moment to make a choice when you two box (hold retaliation to let others live).

"Oh hey, we nuked those guys and nobody cared! Let's nuke some other country too!"

Those don't exist, hence why the OP didn't refer to them. They were referring to something from the actual article.

Game theory doesn’t work that way

If game theory was how reality works, WW3 would have started several times already. Game theory is a guide, not the actual playbook.

I love what you're doing here. There is a logical, rational argument. And that's MAD (the acronym). You're saying you "obviously" don't believe people will act rational in 2 different ways

1) with second-strike guarantee people will act irrationally and launch nukes

2) without second-strike guarantee people will NOT act rationally and use nuclear strikes as a threat in negotiation, or outright launch and eliminate opponents without warning

And you present that people will act irrationally without any evidence, in a way that comes off as smug and arrogant despite YOU being the one that presents the far-fetched argument.

Did Game theory prove that Nixxon's Madman theory was the best approach to handle a scenario of mutually assured destruction? I would have expected that playing an irrational, trigger happy bluffer would not be the best approach. Conversely, I do think that the Soviets expected to play rationally.

Let's compare it with the COVID response. Did world leaders listen to their scientists, or did many act irrationally because they have the last word? If some of them don't follow science, why would they follow game theory perfectly? What about their whole pyramid of underlings?

I don’t see how anyone conceivably can compare getting nearly 8 billion individuals to follow COVID orders where failure only requires 1 individual leaking the virus compared to a select few people who can launch nukes who all have to agree to go ahead with it and use that comparison to try to make a point.

Actually that is an amazingly good proxy for how effective MAD would be. Look at each world leader. Did they follow overwhelming scientific advice (backed up by peer pressure from all other world leaders) and publically promote lockdown, or did they publicwlly disown the science, announce their own solutions / policies etc.

Those that made official advice to "use aromatherapy" or something are people not likely to follow Game Theory.

The count is well above zero

No doubt surreal, but a single sub destroy the world? That piqued my interest so took a quick look and found an article [1].

This article states that "even a single vessel [submarine] could reduce as many as 288 city-sized targets into radioactive ash in less than 30 minutes." Later in the article they say that the Ohio class is capable of carrying up to 24 UGM-133 Trident II D5 submarine launched ballistic missiles. Each ballistic missile can carry as many as 12 W88 475 kiloton thermonuclear warheads. For comparison, the one that struck Hiroshima is estimated to have been 10-20 kiloton. So the Ohio class can delivery up to 472 x 12 or 5,700 kilotons (5.7 megaton) or ~285 x the energy release of Hiroshima.

- EDIT: 472 x 12 X 24 = 137 megatons or 6,796 the energy release of Hiroshima.

By comparison scientists have been speculating the scale of the energy release of the eruption in Tonga [2]: "Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano on January 15 released "hundreds of times the equivalent mechanical energy of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion". The article goes on to say that preliminary estimates are between 4-18 megatons. That energy release created a cloud ~650km / 400mi in diameter. "The cloud would obscure most of Great Britain and the east coast of Ireland. It is almost the same size as mainland Spain.".

EDIT: So an Ohio class SSBN could unleash ~136 megatons which is 7.5-34 x the energy release of the Tonga eruption.

The eruption occurred undersea whereas nuclear warheads detonate above ground as an "air blast" or close to sea level as a "surface blast". "Tactically, surface detonations can be seen as an effective means to obliterate a specific target and surrounding ground forces." [4]. "Unlike surface blasts, air blasts produce almost no local fallout upon detonation. Instead, air blasts are more effective in producing high levels of over-pressure over larger areas and increased yields of thermal radiation.".

So what's my conclusion from this short research? The sources suggest an Ohio class submarine could destroy 288 cities in 30 minutes. No argument there. But destroy the world? It seems evident Earth itself would remain in it's current spherical shape but it would be terribly perhaps irreversibly poisoned, taking a lot if not all life with it. As Nevil Shute puts it in "On the Beach" (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1957) "there would be no “over there,” there would only be “here.” Whether scarred by blast and fire from a nuclear war, no place would be spared the inescapable lethality of the resulting radiation". "Global thermonuclear war is just that, a war against the globe, against the Earth itself."

Thanks parent for fueling a perfect little distraction from my long list of important tasks today :)

[1]https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/these-5-submarines-co...

[2]https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/24/asia/tonga-hiroshima-bomb...

[3]https://graphics.reuters.com/TONGA-VOLCANO/lgpdwjyqbvo/

[4]http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/abbate2/

> But destroy the world? It seems evident Earth itself would remain in it's current spherical shape but it would be terribly perhaps irreversibly poisoned, taking a lot if not all life with it.

At risk of being self absorbed, if the world is largely uninhabitable and our way of life irreparably changed, then I'd consider that serious enough to lump in the "destroy the world" category. At that point I probably wouldn't care if the Earth was still an intact oblate spheroid given I'd either be dead or likely wishing I was.

I don’t think they meant literally destroy the Earth. Nothing we have could possibly do that. But it could easily destroy our world here on Earth. I have to imagine the world as we know it would cease to exist after such an attack. Everything we take for granted today would probably be gone pretty quickly, the collapse of civilization in much of the world.

It’s a fun bit of research you did, but I think it’s disingenuous to interpret the comment so literally.

While a complete nuclear war would cause radioactive waste to reach all the globe, humanity and civilization will likely survive, in the form of countries that were not primary targets.

For example, in North America USA would be severely crippled, but Mexico would be mainly unscathed. Canada probably too, as it officially has no nuclear capabilities.

I mean, maybe, maybe not. Depends on a lot of factors. The entire collapse of a major superpower could potentially have a lot of knock-on effects on otherwise unscathed countries.

Spent fuel pools at nuclear reactors not getting cooled is a bit of an issue after a nuke exchange.

Funny story, I'm not sure that's true. If by the earth, you mean the land and not the whole planet, there's some very interesting ways man could flood the whole thing.

>> Nothing we have could possibly do that.

There is some credibility to melting of permafrost triggering runaway greenhouse scenarios that would turn Earth into something more akin to Venus. If we really wanted to destroy the world I think we could do it.

I meant compromise the physical integrity of the planet, which is what I assumed was the metric the commenter I was replying to was using, based on their comment that the Earth would retain its roughly spherical shape.

We can't physically destroy a planetary body yet, not even close to it.

"...The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!..."

   George Carlin

Not that it entirely matters but the most likely scenario for a nuclear exchange would probably have most nukes used on hardened military targets. This is the main reason why MIRV weapons were invented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...

Civilian infrastructure (like your house) is readily flattened by nuclear explosions but if you want to destroy nuclear launch silos, hardened command centers, tanks, etc you need to hit them pretty much head on. It's then a lot more productive to have many independently targetable warheads to hit enemy silos in a first strike or enemy conventional forces in a tactical exchange.

In practice, you'd still get massive civilian casualties given how many bases are built right next to cities. Also, submarines are second-strike weapons so they might go for "countervalue" (your house).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue

It is very hard to imagine a war where nukes are used on enemy homeland and likely on yours that does not become a total war. In such a war, the goal is not merely to secure an advantageous peace treaty, it is a struggle for survival.

I can't foresee a war starting with tactical strikes that doesn't also see further use of nuclear weapons against the population.

Take every one of those numbers with a grain of salt. For instance Hiroshima. By total energy released, the burning city after the explosion released more energy than the bomb. My point: the devestation yield of a nuclear weapon depends far more on where it is detonated than its physical power.

And remember the physics of spheres. Twice the energy in a 3d explosion does not mean twice the damage on the 2d ground. They very biggest bombs are not of much military utility. Far more damage can be done via multiple smaller bombs.

> But destroy the world?

If by "world", it meant "human world", not "the planet", and your intention were to bring our civilization into total chaos, post-Roman-Empire-style, then you'd think that killing a billion people in just the right places would be a pretty good start.

This link definitely deserves to be referenced here: https://qntm.org/destroy

"You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

"Fools.

"The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron."

If you kill all humans then who cares if the planet is still around or not?

While your figures are likely correct for direct damage, it would most certainly destroy human civilization for several generations at minimum. Which is generally what is meant by "destroy the world", not that the planet would be literally destroy but rather human life as we know it would cease to exist.

Even if you survive the blast, and radiation, even if you are not impacted by the environmental disaster, every world government, every world economy, every thing about modern human life would collapse in fall of nuclear war. We have problems now because our trinkets from china are being delayed a few weeks off the shore... What happens when the supply chain is not simply slow, but instead is gone?

    > irreversibly poisoned

Is this the case? While nuclear weapons are, obviously, beyond horrific… I’m not sure that the radioactive fallout is a permanent problem. As a rule of thumb, the more intense the radiation, the shorter the half-life.

In the cases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only a small portion of the deaths were due to radiation poisoning, and the cities were thriving on their former sites within decades.

(I don’t mean to minimize the magnitude of the death and destruction; I’m just focusing on the “irreversible poisoning” aspect)

Of course, there are a myriad of other potentially civilization-destroying outcomes of any nuclear exchange.

The bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also very rudimentary compared to a modern nuclear arsenal.

Correct. But - modern bombs are more powerful, but is there greater residual radioactivity?

If anything there is less. Residual radioactivity is unused explosive potential, they try to minimize that.

Modern bombs are also fusion bombs which have even less radioactivity.

I wonder if there are bombs that leave more radioactivity as goodbye gift, to delay the rebuilding.

The term you are looking for is "Neutron bomb"

The residual radioactivity decays at the same rate, but there's also more of it (roughly proportional to weapon yield). Since modern weapons yield much more energy than the bombs of 1945 they also yield much more radioactivity. Further, surface or ground-penetrating attacks against military targets would tend to rain out much more of the radioactive material locally than the relatively high altitude airburst strikes of 1945. The Japanese targets would have probably suffered fewer casualties but would have had a more persistent radioactive contamination problem if the 1945 bombs had been configured to explode on hitting the ground instead of in the air.

You might expect that modern weapons would have lower yields of radioactive fission products since they all incorporate fusion and don't rely on fission alone. And it's true that the US and USSR (and perhaps other nations) successfully developed thermonuclear weapons that produced over 95% of their energy from fusion, which doesn't create radioactive fission products. This was in the late 1950s/early 1960s.

This is an amazing recently published article about the cleanest American device ever tested:

"Ripple: An Investigation of the World’s Most Advanced High-Yield Thermonuclear Weapon Design"

https://web.archive.org/web/20210616194950id_/https://waterm...

However, devices like that described above were too large for submarine launched missiles. The most effective way to make small, light, efficient warheads for submarine launched missiles is to use the fusion reaction's fast neutrons to fission additional uranium in the tamper around the fusion fuel. So modern submarine launched thermonuclear weapons develop about half of their explosive yield from fission, with corresponding generation of radioactive fission products.

https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-typical-thermonuclear-...

Thank you for the very patient and informative reply!

A single sub can destroy the world any time it's commander wishes, not by launching 288 warheads at 288 cities, but by launching one warhead, at either Moscow, or Washington.

Contingency plans for responding to a decapitating strike will do the rest.

Reminds me of the soviet nuclear false alarm where the fact that computers detected a single missile was important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

> Shortly after midnight, the bunker's computers reported that one intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the United States.

> Petrov considered the detection a computer error, since a first-strike nuclear attack by the United States was likely to involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches in order to disable any Soviet means of a counterattack.

Now I wonder if one missile fired by a submarine would be similarly dismissed as computer error...

So crazy to think that at any given time you have thousands of warheads targeting the pentagon so as to obliterate the place. Same to other strategic US and Russian places.

I highly recommend the book Command and Control.

I really doubt that they have "thousands" of warheads targeting the Pentagon. At most a few hundreds but even that is an overestimate probably.

Not that the difference practically matters. You only need enough to saturate the defences plus one to cause a very bad day for everyone involved.

You would be amazed by which degree those high importance sites have been targeted to ensure total, complete, and unequivocal destruction.

A single submarine commanding officer is unable to destroy the world. For US Navy ballistic missile submarines at least, launch authorization requires concurrence by the executive officer as well. I assume other nuclear powers have a similar safeguard.

It's crazy how so many people are terrified of civilians with powerful fully automatic weapons, while keeping eyes shut to the risk the military and state actors represent to society.

There’s plenty of room to be terrified of select members of both groups.

Risk is always estimated impact times probability. The impact of automatic weapons is low, compared to nuclear weapons. The probability is much higher.

It's almost as if both were problems that need to be tackled in different ways, not issues to be used for whataboutism.

Can a submarine commander even launch a nuclear warhead independently ? I assumed explicit launch codes needed to be given from the top.

You forgot to multiply the warheads' yield by the number of missiles onboard.

475 kt × 12 × 24 = 136.8 Mt, so that's even way more than that.

Thank you. I've updated the post to reflect this correction.

Or you could just play with:

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

During the 50's and 60's many nuclear bombs were tested in the atmosphere. I don't know the exact total megatonnage but I do know that the largest test, the "Tsar Bomba" alone was 50 MT. So the total megatonnage of all atmospheric nuclear tests very likely exceeds 137 MT by quite a good margin, and, whether for better or worse, the world is still here.

Depends how you define "the world" our lives, our ecosystem, our relationships, our family, are things I'd think of when I think of our "world" as opposed to the big ol' rock we roll around on.

Is the hydrogen bomb still the king of mutually assured destruction in terms of megaton payload or have we invented new technology?

The submarine might burrow itself down into the Mariana Trench and then set them all off at the same time. This would open a crack in the ocean floor, draining the ocean. I’m studying how these things work where this guy went to school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q

SSBNs have a launch depth that is much shallower than the Marianas Trench... This isn't the Abyss.

Uh where is all this hypothetical water going in this drain.

Where's the ballistic missile sub that isn't crushed by the pressure long before it gets to the depth of the Marianas trench?

The Turtle That carries the Globe is peeing it to the space duh...

We lived right on Hood Canal a few miles south of the sub base in the early 80s. Such a beautiful, peaceful place but pretty much right at ground zero. As a high school student I worked a summer at the Naval Undersea Warfare and Engineering station. We even had our Senior Prom at the on-base restaurant there at Bangor.

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