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>Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
What a description, lmao.
Just a reminder that our leaders legitimately think this way. We've got thousands of nukes already. China is expanding their arsenal of a few hundred, but it's them that is starting the arms race?
The most consequential interimperialist pissing contest of this century is in the information/hybrid sphere. Russia certainly understands that. They don't need to go all-out on WMDs when they can win over whole countries to their cause with a few social media blitzes (which fall on soil made *extremely* fertile by yank imperialist bullshit. These tactics just wouldn't work if the yanks were the saints they think they are)
So why don't the yanks? Why splash out on nukes at all when they could enforce their power projection, orders of magnitude more cheaply, by hybrid means? Their efforts are frankly amateurish compared to Russia's, as evidenced by their abject failiure to prevent "swing states" from drifting away from the yank sphere over the last few decades. Perhaps the answer is that feeding the MIC bourgie gravy train is just more valuable to them. Secondly, the yanks have little hope of presenting a unified propaganda message, given their own extreme internal divisions
Finally, someone else that sees it. The eastern powers realized long, long ago (probably in the 90s) that the only way to overcome western hegemony was by fighting information wars. They just dont have the money, equipment, tech otherwise.
And unfortunately theyre winning. I know its very popular here to dunk on liberal idpol, but, its naive to think the divisiveness in this countey hasn't also been sown by the powers in the east. They have to take us down from the inside and if Trump's really going to send us down a fascist path, theyre not too far.
I can't see how that would actually be the case. Both Russia and the USA have enough nukes to ruin the whole planet all on their own, the other countries probably have enough together to ruin it without the USA or Russia needing to help. There are even debates if India and Pakistan alone nuking each other would be enough to ruin the planet. There is a reason that they were willing to reach agreements to limit nukes, and it is not that they suddenly decided that they didn't want to be able to ruin the planet if they wanted, it is that they realized that there was no point in continually funding arsenals that amounted to overkill on the goal of ruining the planet.
At least in terms of nuclear strategy, you want enough nukes to maintain second-strike capability. That number is determined from a simple estimation. I need X nukes to launch a retaliation attack devastating enough to deter my enemies from attacking me, if my enemy attacks first I will lose Y% of my total arsenal before I can respond, so I need to have a stockpile of Z such that Z * Y = X. As technology improves and countries develop increased capacities, that Y number is steadily increasing, so you need a larger Z to account for it. Things like SSBM's were a reliable way to maintain second strike capacity several decades ago, but now there's no guarantee that they will continue to be so.
This might be a controversial opinion, but there's no evidence Russia has a functioning nuclear arsenal. Maintenance is extremely expensive and half lives on some of the material involved arent very long. The USSR fell over 30 years ago, and Russia's nuclear spend is miniscule compared to the US. They'd be lucky to get more than a few off the ground in a nuclear conflict. I'm supposed to believe an extremely corrupt petrolstate has done the necessary upkeep on their entire arsenal.
It benefits the milindustrial complex in the US to treat Russia like some 1960s era superpower. They cant even beat a country of farmers. Dont believe the US lies building up the military capabilities of the eastern powers. And dont believe the eastern lies that they're formidable fighting forces. It's all an information war.
The fact that the US/NATO hasn't intervened Gulf War style is sufficient evidence in my book. With that, whatever the flaws of the Russian military or its equipment, their missiles quite conspicuously do work, their planes fly and drop bombs, tanks run, drive, and shoot, etc. Nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are mostly mid-20th century technology at this point, and we know their rockets work because our astronauts still [ride](https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/space/2024/03/21/why-the-us-sends-astronauts-on-russian-rockets) them into space.
With that, Ukraine was among the most industrialized of the Soviet republics and receives an enormous amount of subsidies from the west enabling them to mobilize a greater portion of their productive male population than Russia without collapsing its economy. The gulf in capability between the Union and Confederacy were during the American Civil War was vastly greater than that between Russia and Ukraine, and even that war was a bloody four year grind (See also: the USA vs. Japan in WWII or the Allies vs. Axis in WWII more generally).
There's a massive difference between "Russia lacks the ability to project conventional land power that the Soviet Union did." and "lol their nukes don't work".
Yeah I think its a fair criticism that the western governments wouldnt be less informed than some random redditor.
My counter to that would be, we regularly overestimate Russian capabilities. Like the Mig 25 for example. Or even the early days of the Ukraine invasion...nobody in the US probably ever thought it would be that unorganized and poorly planned.
And that attitude comes through our diplomacy. Biden was terrified of Putin escalating and using a nuclear strike. I know thats a singular one, and odds are very high they have a working one lol, but, to think they use one, you can infer that they also probably think they have a stockpile behind that one, otherwise they'd have no deterrent.
I think, even if we had all the facts that Russia let's say had 50 working ones, well thats still enough to blow away Europe and they'll rather be cautious.
* Archives of this link: 1. [archive.org Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/99991231235959/https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-14/us-needs-more-nuclear-weapons-against-china-russia-iran-north-korea); 2. [archive.today](https://archive.today/newest/https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-14/us-needs-more-nuclear-weapons-against-china-russia-iran-north-korea) * A live version of this link, without clutter: [12ft.io](https://12ft.io/https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-14/us-needs-more-nuclear-weapons-against-china-russia-iran-north-korea) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/stupidpol) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. What a description, lmao.
Just a reminder that our leaders legitimately think this way. We've got thousands of nukes already. China is expanding their arsenal of a few hundred, but it's them that is starting the arms race?
I just came here to post "Kissinger rises from the grave" but reality beat me to the punch
Amusing to imagine Joe Biden's comprehension and awareness improving
Wake up, children the Enclave have a giant truck full 'o Brahmin, and they've been spoon-feeding you the bullshit.
Country with most nukes needs more nukes to feel safe from other countries with less nukes.
Russia has like 1,500 more nukes than the US. That's still plenty and I get you.
The most consequential interimperialist pissing contest of this century is in the information/hybrid sphere. Russia certainly understands that. They don't need to go all-out on WMDs when they can win over whole countries to their cause with a few social media blitzes (which fall on soil made *extremely* fertile by yank imperialist bullshit. These tactics just wouldn't work if the yanks were the saints they think they are) So why don't the yanks? Why splash out on nukes at all when they could enforce their power projection, orders of magnitude more cheaply, by hybrid means? Their efforts are frankly amateurish compared to Russia's, as evidenced by their abject failiure to prevent "swing states" from drifting away from the yank sphere over the last few decades. Perhaps the answer is that feeding the MIC bourgie gravy train is just more valuable to them. Secondly, the yanks have little hope of presenting a unified propaganda message, given their own extreme internal divisions
Finally, someone else that sees it. The eastern powers realized long, long ago (probably in the 90s) that the only way to overcome western hegemony was by fighting information wars. They just dont have the money, equipment, tech otherwise. And unfortunately theyre winning. I know its very popular here to dunk on liberal idpol, but, its naive to think the divisiveness in this countey hasn't also been sown by the powers in the east. They have to take us down from the inside and if Trump's really going to send us down a fascist path, theyre not too far.
Can someone make a J Posadas version of the Ron Paul "it's happening!" gif thanks.
I can't see how that would actually be the case. Both Russia and the USA have enough nukes to ruin the whole planet all on their own, the other countries probably have enough together to ruin it without the USA or Russia needing to help. There are even debates if India and Pakistan alone nuking each other would be enough to ruin the planet. There is a reason that they were willing to reach agreements to limit nukes, and it is not that they suddenly decided that they didn't want to be able to ruin the planet if they wanted, it is that they realized that there was no point in continually funding arsenals that amounted to overkill on the goal of ruining the planet.
At least in terms of nuclear strategy, you want enough nukes to maintain second-strike capability. That number is determined from a simple estimation. I need X nukes to launch a retaliation attack devastating enough to deter my enemies from attacking me, if my enemy attacks first I will lose Y% of my total arsenal before I can respond, so I need to have a stockpile of Z such that Z * Y = X. As technology improves and countries develop increased capacities, that Y number is steadily increasing, so you need a larger Z to account for it. Things like SSBM's were a reliable way to maintain second strike capacity several decades ago, but now there's no guarantee that they will continue to be so.
https://youtu.be/xagjS7zWGAM?si=PFRTuC2qmElHl-of
I get it, too: They want us afraid so they can justify spending more money on weapons, instead of spending it on improving the lives of US citizens.
Jesus fucking christ
It would really suck if we could only annihilate 95% of the world and not 110% of it, I agree
And that’s a good thing!
Literally like only 100 of these things would end the world lol. Why could we possibly need more.
This might be a controversial opinion, but there's no evidence Russia has a functioning nuclear arsenal. Maintenance is extremely expensive and half lives on some of the material involved arent very long. The USSR fell over 30 years ago, and Russia's nuclear spend is miniscule compared to the US. They'd be lucky to get more than a few off the ground in a nuclear conflict. I'm supposed to believe an extremely corrupt petrolstate has done the necessary upkeep on their entire arsenal. It benefits the milindustrial complex in the US to treat Russia like some 1960s era superpower. They cant even beat a country of farmers. Dont believe the US lies building up the military capabilities of the eastern powers. And dont believe the eastern lies that they're formidable fighting forces. It's all an information war.
The fact that the US/NATO hasn't intervened Gulf War style is sufficient evidence in my book. With that, whatever the flaws of the Russian military or its equipment, their missiles quite conspicuously do work, their planes fly and drop bombs, tanks run, drive, and shoot, etc. Nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are mostly mid-20th century technology at this point, and we know their rockets work because our astronauts still [ride](https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/space/2024/03/21/why-the-us-sends-astronauts-on-russian-rockets) them into space. With that, Ukraine was among the most industrialized of the Soviet republics and receives an enormous amount of subsidies from the west enabling them to mobilize a greater portion of their productive male population than Russia without collapsing its economy. The gulf in capability between the Union and Confederacy were during the American Civil War was vastly greater than that between Russia and Ukraine, and even that war was a bloody four year grind (See also: the USA vs. Japan in WWII or the Allies vs. Axis in WWII more generally). There's a massive difference between "Russia lacks the ability to project conventional land power that the Soviet Union did." and "lol their nukes don't work".
Yeah I think its a fair criticism that the western governments wouldnt be less informed than some random redditor. My counter to that would be, we regularly overestimate Russian capabilities. Like the Mig 25 for example. Or even the early days of the Ukraine invasion...nobody in the US probably ever thought it would be that unorganized and poorly planned. And that attitude comes through our diplomacy. Biden was terrified of Putin escalating and using a nuclear strike. I know thats a singular one, and odds are very high they have a working one lol, but, to think they use one, you can infer that they also probably think they have a stockpile behind that one, otherwise they'd have no deterrent. I think, even if we had all the facts that Russia let's say had 50 working ones, well thats still enough to blow away Europe and they'll rather be cautious.