Russia’s Nukes Probably Don’t Work – Here’s Why

[TheOtherHobbes]

Russia has around 6000 warheads in all and 1600 strategic warheads.

While there are a lot of cities in the EU and the US critical infra is concentrated in a much smaller number of locations.

We know from Ukraine that Russia has no problem destroying civilian targets, and it's at least plausible that a nuclear first strike would be aimed at population centres, not - as doctrine has it - at missile sites followed by military and industrial targets.

So even if only 10% of Russia's nukes still work, that's still a very bad day for everyone.

And "work" isn't a binary. A nominal 1MT weapon that fizzles and produces "only" 25kT is still a huge problem.

[bsder]

It's worse than this.

Let's assume that 100% of the warheads never reach the US but 10% of them detonate domestically. Effectively, Russia nukes itself with 600 warheads.

The world consequences will still be devastating.

[metalspot]

this kind of infantile analysis is about a step above flat earth conspiracy theories at best.

it has no place whatsoever in intelligent conversation.

a 50 year old bullet may not work. are you going to put a gun in your mouth and test it? (ironically, there is a name for that)

it makes zero difference whether russia's nukes work or not. if they launch, then the US launches also, and the fallout and nuclear winter kills untold numbers.

if russia really thinks their nukes will have a high failure rate, then they will just launch more, and the US will launch more in retaliation before they ever hit.

the hot takes of twitter arm chair warriors have no place in reality. if you are even thinking of taking this bs seriously, please don't.

[jzb]

Or maybe most of Russia’s nukes don’t work, but a handful of working nuclear missiles can still ruin a lot of people’s day. And it’s a Hell of an expensive bluff to call. I don’t doubt much of their arsenal is in decay, but I wouldn’t bet against a significant fraction of the arsenal being maintained.

[mpweiher]

I've been arguing this for a while, for much the same reasons. Except this additional one: always buy the dip on fears of nuclear war!

If the fears turn out to be unfounded, you win.

If the fears turn out to be correct, well...the performance of your stocks may not be your primary concern.

If the only way your corruption is likely to be found out is the end of the world, there really isn't much downside.

[PerryCox]

Russia has something like 4,000 nukes, only 1 or 2 really need to work to cause massive devastation. It's much more likely that more than 1 or 2 still work and that is more than enough.

[shaky-carrousel]

Enough? Enough for what? This is not mutually assured destruction. If Russia and the US engage, this is a madman shooting a tank with a 9mm. It may cause some damage, but he's going to be obliterated in the process.

[fuzzfactor]

>It's much more likely that more than 1 or 2 still work and that is more than enough.

Obviously.

Historically, with real tanks seen to be performing in action, then cardboard tanks additionally performed exactly as the deterrent fake ones were intended to do.

Also in tank warfare when the majority of tanks have not been brought into action, the cardboard ones accomplished the same things as the majority of real ones.

Edit: not everyone can be expected to believe it's true, some are just more easily fooled than others

Plus my bad, there were a lot of inflatables historically for even better deception:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/ghost...

[lordnacho]

Is it the case that they'll launch a whole bunch at once? Wouldn't they send one or two to Ukraine for effect? If it works it should be enough to scare everyone.

[rutierut]

I commented[0] the same thing a little while ago here on HN and the comments convinced me that tales like this shouldn't be thrown around so casually.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33297151

[narag]

Can a blog post trigger what an open war in Europe hasn't?

Decision makers get their information from other, probably more accurate, sources.

How many times have you heard the line "nobody expected that Russian army was so useless" in the past year?

I'm sure some people knew.

We don't know, we won't know until much later.

[redwood]

The thing is, even if they don't work, what would we actually do differently? No one wants to invade Russia. But helping states in the free world that wish to remain free: we're doing that anyway

[bogeholm]

> No one wants to invade Russia.

History - and perhaps the game of Risk - has taught you well.

[tomatotomato37]

I don't know why, but a future where humanity bypasses the great filter and becomes an interstellar civilization, not because of peaceful intentions, but because we bamboozled our way through the apocalypse via poor maintainence practices seems oddly fitting

[rossdavidh]

More worrying to me than Russia launching its nukes, is that their military is so corrupt they may sell some of them on the black market to someone who will.

[aylmao]

I personally don't worry about this, it's too outlandish to happen. That'd not only be cartoonishly corrupt, it'd also be cartoonishly dumb. You don't sell the ultimate weapon, much less in shady means to shady people— the risks are too high.

In the west we see memes about Russia being all sorts of things, but we've got to remember they're a still a strong military power, a major geopolitical player, and overall a functioning country in spite of lots of interest for their demise, for a reason.

[secondcoming]

Pakistan gave North Korea the know-how to build nukes.

The USA has lost nukes.

Russia isn't the only country to be worried about when it comes the black market.

Is it even feasible for a terrorist group to transport and detonate a nuke?

[lordnacho]

But whoever buys them would need to refill their tritium supply every few years, according to the article. Doesn't seem like something too simple to do.

[eastbound]

There are geiger counters in every port of the world, and entire teams monitor nuclear weapon movements using emissions.

[diimdeep]

You are living under the rock https://www.rt.com/news/576137-us-biden-arms-sales/

[mannyv]

People don't like this, but it does change the calculus in Russia somewhat.

It should make the Russians and their allies doubt their capabilities even more than they do now. If the strategic forces doubt they will work will they still launch?

Nothing will change in the West. The gun is still loaded. But how many rounds do they have? That's a question the Russians and Chinese have to answer.

[cma]

> The entire military budget of the Russian Federation, about $70 bn, is around the same amount that just the U.S. Army spends on maintenance and operations alone.

Should always at least try and adjust for purchasing power parity in these comparisons.

[bluquark]

PPP is for comparing consumer lifestyles. World-tradeable goods like military hardware are precisely the kind of situation where PPP adjustments should not be made.

Of course the sums are not directly comparable for other reasons, such as corruption in Russia and procurement dysfunction in the US. But those factors would need to be estimated explicitly.

(EDIT: Thanks for the replies, I hadn't heard that there also exist specific estimates of "defense-sector PPP", so I acknowledge what I wrote above was wrong.)

[topper-123]

While true, an interesting data point is that prewar Rissian spend less on its military than did Britain. This is in non-ppp dollars terms, but interesting nonetheless.

[benj111]

Surely the ppp is offset by the corruption.

[diimdeep]

The more I read HN, the more I see that Tech competency is completely separate from Geo-politics, international relations, Economics and anyone can be independently and incredibly misled and naive at either of them.

Strong polarization of believes that not backed by ground truths but just indoctrinated by mass media is staggering, and it will get much worse, the more quality of education will drop in western world and more censorship industrial complex get smarter at fabricating and bending reality according to interest of particular elites.

[hotpotamus]

Does the state of the world lead you to believe that anyone is competent in politics or economics?

[henriquez]

> Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling is more maskirovka and politics than it is actual capability.

Probably nothing will go wrong if we invade Russia, then? Not a great threat model.

[xt00]

Both the argument about why it’s reckless to speculate this and not knowing if the nukes will work is exactly why having nuclear weapons is a deterrent.. you can basically assume that it would be used as a weapon of last resort so if your plan is to completely take over a country then likely they will be used.

[marianatom]

Related note: American Patriots nailed Putin’s hypersonic Kinzhal missile. The world has changed https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/17/american-patriot...

subtext: Xi Jinping will be annoyed by this as well

[aftbit]

I doubt (most of) America's nukes work either. They are old and have not been tested in literal decades. Let's hope we never need to find out the fizzle rate on either side!

[aylmao]

This is dangerous rhetoric that feeds into the idea direct war with Russia is an option. In the current international climate, many might think it's a good idea. It is not.

[progrus]

This argument is toxic.

[benj111]

How so? Are we all supposed to pretend that we think that Russia's nukes work for... Reasons?

[laserdancepony]

Define your adjective, otherwise no one is able to follow.

"Toxic" like in "toxic" masculinity or in toxic chemical?

[fauxpause_]

Kind of buried the lede I think. The end states that tactical nukes are probably fine. Those are the ones most likely to be used. Although I think very unlikely still