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Comment by jskrablin | Hacker News Reader

MAD works both ways. And some European countries (like the above mentioned France) have nuclear weapons. So I don't think Putin would make it to the French coastline easily.

Ukraine should have made use of the material from the Chernobyl power plant while it had the chance. A threat of dirty bomb being delivered to Moscow would have stopped Putin. I guess their politicians are too naive and didn't consider this an option. Facing an overwhelming military power you need to improvise. Certainly Putin thought of this option hence he took the control ot the Chernobyl.

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MAD was only really feasible when just three countries had nukes. It was abandoned a while back. Russia chose to pursue nuclear supremacy over conventional defense. They have the biggest arsenal, as well as super-nuclear and super-sonic ICBMs to deliver them. Russia is the only country I know that thinks it might actually be able to win a nuclear war.

> Russia is the only country I know that thinks it might actually be able to win a nuclear war.

Unless you find some way to simultaneously take out all nuclear installations in the world, or prevent their misiles from impacting your territory, this seems extremely hard.

All ICBMs are supersonic and hypersonic too. What super-nuclear ICBMs are?

Anyway, a retaliation strike from the USA would wipe out enough of Russia to end the war in a draw, if we can say so. They only have to remind Putin the common wisdom from all those years of cold war, if any of us attacks we are all toast.

I said they believe, not that I believe it. But then Russia is absolutely massive. They could have hundreds of thousands people leaving deep under ground, ready to emerge and rule earth when the dust clears.

Also, wasn't there some revelation, after the cold war ended, that Russia had known American nuclear codes or positions all along? That would certainly give them some advantage.

> They could have hundreds of thousands people leaving deep under ground, ready to emerge and rule earth when the dust clears.

That's not 'victory' by anyone's definition. Also there are plenty of areas noone is targeting - remote Pacific islands, rural Australia, etc. Theybare going to be much better than a bunker.

>Russia is the only country I know that thinks it might actually be able to win a nuclear war.

Of course that's what they'd want the world to believe, right?

> Russia chose to pursue nuclear supremacy over conventional defense

No, it didn't; their numerical advantage in main battle tanks over the #2 is, by ratio, much greater than their advantage in nuclear warheads.

This is likely the exact reason Putin took Chernobyl as one of the first targets. He knew that it would give Ukraine an improvised WMD and drastically change the balance of power. They could have rigged the entire thing with high explosives and wired it to a dead man’s switch.

Life isn't a comic book, nuclear power plants don't explode like bombs do. The only thing that would accomplish is poisoning Ukrainians.

The reason Chernobyl was taken is obvious if you look at a map. It's on the border, and there's a massive offensive across the entirety of it.

It's not a target, it's simply on the way to a target.

Chernobyl is the ultimate dead-man's switch.

It needs 24/7 maintenance.

Do nothing and it melts down and destroyers the globe.

> Do nothing and it melts down and destroyers the globe.

The whole globe? Gonna need a citation for that. It won't be fun for Europe or Russia if it melts down, but destroy the whole globe seems a little hyperbolic.

Yes, a giant cooling system dug underneath the reactor after the accident takes water from a nearby river and pumps it out to a cooling pond where it evaporates. This keeps the concrete from melting and the core contained.

Here is a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency:

https://www-pub.iaea.org/iaeameetings/IEM4/29Jan/Voitsekhovy...

(Poor english but good diagrams)

Nothing in that document describes a planetary-scale disaster.

The second link, posted at the same time, does.

Also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown#China_syndrom...

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