Time to build the bomb shelter? WW3 discussion thread

[Disgustipated]

So it seems to me our odds of nuclear war are the highest now than they've been since the early 80's. I'm not intending this to be a Trump bashing thread, so take that elsewhere; I actually like some of what Trump's doing, but he also scares me. Especially his change in policies the last few days. And then seeing those ICBM shells in North Korea today (I know they are most likely hollow and non operational, but they still look impressive), you gotta wonder. Are we heading towards nuclear war? Even if North Korea can't do much, China can, and China will be forced to take North Korea's side at some point. And I'm not even going in to our chances of war with Russia over Syria.

I generally don't worry about these types of things, but it can be interesting to think about. I'm old enough to remember when they used to test the sirens on top of the schools. They weren't tornado sirens like now days, they were sirens to be used in the event of nuclear war. I haven't heard any where I live since the 80's (those were tests obviously).

So what are your thoughts. Are we heading towards WW3? Will it be conventional or nuclear? Or will it just be another Korean war or other regional war? I didn't see a thread directly discussing events happening in Korea, so feel free to discuss that here.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I think there are enough sane people down the chain of command to prevent a full nulear war and just say no to an insane order. Maybe LA and Pyongyang could get nuked and that's it. A tragedy, but not exactly nuclear winter stuff.
As for WW3, I don't know how likely that is. If the next major war is about North Korea it will mostly be fought in East Asia. China, Taiwan and Japan would be dragged in, and maybe Russia, India and Australia, but Europe could sit this one out and sell weapons to all sides. Maybe we could even pull an America: intervene near the end, take credit for winning and benefit from a couple of decades of brain drain and being the only ones left with an industrial economy.
Unless it turns into a nukefest. Then we're all screwed.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

It would be a pretty wicked joke to survive the whole cold war to finally fall in the abyss because THIS:

 

[Kyriakos]

While the chance of a main war (ie a war featuring major powers and superpowers in opposite sides) is rising, even that one may not turn nuclear if the nuclear superpowers aren't fighting for their homeland. So a major/huge war in the middle east doesn't really have a large chance of resulting in nuclear winter.
Eg a "partition of Turkey" war would unlikely result in nuclear missiles used, at least not large ones and in any number.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Problem is using tactical nukes may escalate almost unavoidably to strategical nukes. And in a war with North Korea with all that artillery pointing Seoul and huge armoured formations advancing southwards, using tactical nukes may represent at some point a very strong temptation for US.

 

[Kyriakos]

Using nukes to melt an actual army will set a very VERY dangerous precedent, though. I hope it doesn't happen...

 

[Saldor010]

While MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is still in place, I believe it to be be very, very unlikely that nuclear weapons will be used in war. The only way I could see a nuclear war starting, is if a terrorist or very radical country got a hold of a nuke (which North Korea could very well fit that bill). But while sane people are still in charge of the codes, I think we can all rest safely tonight.

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

EDIT: The only time nuclear weapons were used in war, was in 1945 by the U.S. when they were the only ones with nuclear weaponry. Since that day, no nuclear weapons have ever been used in war, even during the Cold War when the possibility of WW3 was at its peak (even higher than today). If MAD has held the world in check for the past 70ish years, then I believe it can continue to hold us in check.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Before WWII great wars were just on the table. Maybe as in WWI nobody really wanted it (maybe), but it always was a real option recognized as such by all participants. The cold war narrowed that down to two participants.
But nowadays, it IMO has seized to be on any table of note. Great powers don't wage war against each other. That is IMO the unspoken consensus of the 21st century. And this just wasn't the case before. I think that consensus can only be broken if you got a Hitler-like madmen at the helm, with an accordingly mad following. And luckily that is neither the case nor in sight.
I am not worried in the least over WWIII.
How this works is two-fold. You trust the other one will not feel existentially threatened. And you also watch that you don't do something that could damage this trust. All great powers do so and will continue to do so. And if it looks like this trust-system fails, they will get scared and reestablish it.
The power game does test this system occasionally, but I think it is more than stable enough to withstand it.

 

[CavLancer]

Only if China comes in against us does it get mildly disconcerting for human survival. Between the 2 of them they have less than 300 nukes. It may be that US tech, all the black projects, have perfected Star Wars and none of theirs would get through.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

China will be forced to take North Korea's side at some point.

I disagree with this. The countries with nuclear arsenals have a vast array of things to disagree over, but at the end of the day they are all in complete agreement that no one else should join them. Not out of any sense of justice or fairness. Completely the opposite, actually. If the chips come down and the US uses a missile strike similar to what was used in Syria to take out the immanent nuclear threat that NK keeps boasting that they have the rest of the nuclear club will breath a happy sigh and go about their business.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm old enough to remember when they used to test the sirens on top of the schools. They weren't tornado sirens like now days, they were sirens to be used in the event of nuclear war. I haven't heard any where I live since the 80's (those were tests obviously).

So what are your thoughts. Are we heading towards WW3? Will it be conventional or nuclear? Or will it just be another Korean war or other regional war? I didn't see a thread directly discussing events happening in Korea, so feel free to discuss that here.

I'm old enough to remember duck-and-cover drills in school. Even as I was crouched under my desk, I wondered why that was supposed to make us safe. It didn't feel safe.

Fast forward to high school, and my Grade 12 Social Studies and English classes in the fall of 1979. The curriculum in both classes emphasized war and a post-WWIII world. In social studies we did a unit on the Industrial Revolution and then everything switched to nothing but war - the Russian Revolution, World War I, World War II, books like All Quiet on the Western Front, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Animal Farm... those were all on the reading list in that class. The teacher even put the board game Diplomacy on the curriculum. We had to learn to play it, then were divided into gaming groups. The winners in each group were awarded a 5% bonus on the final course mark. No, I didn't win. In my group, the winner was Turkey, with England coming in second. I've since learned better strategy and negotiating skills for games like Diplomacy and the original Civilization board game (pre-computer game). And in that course we also had to write an essay on World War III.

My English class that year was sooo cheerful (not!). Post-apocalypse literature on the reading list, war-related poetry (one poem was about World War III, although the others in my discussion group wouldn't believe it; turns out there was an upside to my having been into science fiction for the past 4 years, as this was something I could imagine and the others couldn't), even our Shakespeare play that year was Hamlet (spoiler: everybody dies, or at least everybody who matters). Curriculum-wise, those 3 1/2 months take top prize for the most depressing time I ever had in school.

That social studies teacher was in university at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He told us that he and his classmates expected World War III at any time during that incident. And then he told us that if - or more likely, when - World War III happened, it would start in the Middle East. I've read that some are of the opinion that we're already in the early stages but just haven't really understood it yet.

I don't know; I'm no expert by far in such things. I can find my way around a Civilization game board, and can even acquit myself decently in Diplomacy, after a lot more practice than I had in school. But RL politics is baffling, infuriating, and depressing. At least we don't have Ronald Reagan around anymore, cracking inappropriate jokes about bombing Russia in 5 minutes.

 

[Commodore]

Problem is using tactical nukes may escalate almost unavoidably to strategical nukes. And in a war with North Korea with all that artillery pointing Seoul and huge armoured formations advancing southwards, using tactical nukes may represent at some point a very strong temptation for US.

North Korea's ability to threaten the south is greatly overblown. That's not to say they won't cause a hell of a lot of damage, but they most certainly can be stopped without resorting to the use of tactical nukes. The real threat from North Korea though comes in their use of sleeper agents planted within South Korea, Japan, and possibly the US.

Also seeing as China has done a complete 180 on their support for North Korea, I'd say that conflict has very little chance of escalating to a global conflict and will stay contained to the Korean Peninsula.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

North Korea's ability to threaten the south is greatly overblown.

No question.

Two words: air power. The artillery threat would be neutralized in a matter of minutes and the "huge armored formations" would be huge piles of scrap metal suitable for pressing into Kia's before they got a mile past the border.

 

[Zelig]

Poll is flawed. Anything above single-digits is nonsense, and single digits for a world war still qualifies as very good odds.

 

[Commodore]

No question.

Two words: air power. The artillery threat would be neutralized in a matter of minutes and the "huge armored formations" would be huge piles of scrap metal suitable for pressing into Kia's before they got a mile past the border.

Precisely. Not to mention that for as much preparation and planning as North Korea may have done for a potential conflict, South Korea and the US have done just as much planning and preparation. That means if hostilities pop off, we already know what targets we are going to hit first and already have the assets in place to hit those targets.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

We are not in an invasion war like Iraq where USA decides when, where and how to strike but a clash between armies with the main objective few miles away from the front line. While North Korea have given up his air force and it can compete not even with South Korean air force alone, his air defense is pretty formidable. US/ROK aircraft would need many days to reduce said defenses and then proceed to destroy 1000s of tanks and artillery pieces. However it would be a matter of hours before North Korea tanks break into Seoul and a matter of minutes before the whole city is blown up by 100s of 1000s of shells. If North Korea breaks South Korea front line in the first minutes which is very probable the only way to stop them from reaching Seoul may be tactical nukes.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

We are not in an invasion war like Iraq where USA decides when, where and how to strike but a clash between armies with the main objective few miles away from the front line. While North Korea have given up his air force and it can compete not even with South Korean air force alone, his air defense is pretty formidable. US/ROK aircraft would need many days to reduce said defenses and then proceed to destroy 1000s of tanks and artillery pieces. However it would be a matter of hours before North Korea tanks break into Seoul and a matter of minutes before the whole city is blown up by 100s of 1000s of shells. If North Korea breaks South Korea front line in the first minutes which is very probable the only way to stop them from reaching Seoul may be tactical nukes.

What exactly do you think these "tactical nukes" are gonna do that regular ordinance delivered by free flying aircraft can't?

Remember the first gulf war? Iraq had the biggest army in the middle east and got it reduced to scrap in what? Three days?

 

[Commodore]

Remember the first gulf war? Iraq had the biggest army in the middle east and got it reduced to scrap in what? Three days?

Not to mention, Saddam's army had much more modern equipment back then than the current North Korean army has now. North Korea's military is using horribly antiquated Chinese and ex-Soviet hand-me-downs and that will show on the battlefield.

We are not in an invasion war like Iraq where USA decides when, where and how to strike but a clash between armies with the main objective few miles away from the front line. While North Korea have given up his air force and it can compete not even with South Korean air force alone, his air defense is pretty formidable. US/ROK aircraft would need many days to reduce said defenses and then proceed to destroy 1000s of tanks and artillery pieces. However it would be a matter of hours before North Korea tanks break into Seoul and a matter of minutes before the whole city is blown up by 100s of 1000s of shells. If North Korea breaks South Korea front line in the first minutes which is very probable the only way to stop them from reaching Seoul may be tactical nukes.

And we will do to North Korea's air defenses what we did to Saddam's back in 1990. We will use a combination of special forces strikes, naval bombardment, and helicopter strikes to neutralize any air defense capability. Also, we are able to strike anywhere we want, whenever we want because North Korea doesn't have the naval assets to stop us from either landing forces wherever we please or from just bombarding them with missiles from afar. Which is another glaring gap in North Korea's defenses by the way. Their air defense strategy hinges on defending against conventional aircraft. Because of that, their military is woefully ill-equipped to deal with either stealth aircraft or missile strikes, both of which are kinda what the US has been known for for the last 20 to 30 years.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Again it is a matter of time. This time you wouldnt have the time to do all that nice things.

What exactly do you think these "tactical nukes" are gonna do that regular ordinance delivered by free flying aircraft can't?

Remember the first gulf war? Iraq had the biggest army in the middle east and got it reduced to scrap in what? Three days?

Errr... It was more like several weeks IIRC... And even then there were plenty of iraqi tanks around which were not reduced to scrap.

And a "tactical nuke" (cant imagine why you use "" here) can destroy a whole division in seconds. Dont see your point here.

 

[Commodore]

I also don't see North Korea achieving a breakthrough of South Korea's defenses in a matter of hours, nor do I see what you are basing such an assumption on. I think you are putting too much stock in North Korea's numbers (which really aren't that much larger than South Korea's by the way), and not factoring in all the force multipliers that South Korea and the US have at their disposal. With the US launching constant disruption operations behind the front lines, North Korea wouldn't be able to focus their air defense at the front, so while South Korean troops hold them back from carefully prepared fortified positions, North Korean ground troops would be getting constantly harassed by US, South Korean, and possibly Japanese aircraft. That would make it very difficult for North Korea to break through quickly and the fighting would almost certainly devolve into a WWI-style war of attrition as North Korean forces would be forced to dig in to protect themselves from the constant airstrikes.

It would also be very stupid for North Korea to focus their artillery strikes on Seoul, as those guns are certainly going to be needed to help break South Korean fortifications at the front. Firing at Seoul instead of fortifications would leave those tank divisions of theirs totally exposed and without fire support, which would be a death sentence for them. Plus, we have these really cool counter-battery systems installed on our artillery now, so every time one of their guns fires, one of ours will fire right back at it and destroy it.