• thebartermyth [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Terrifying and irrational state enemies are evil-y mustering their forces… Anyway, that’s why the highest levels of our government secretly formed a plan to literally nuke their countries.

    Perfect framing, thank you

    Mallory Stewart, the assistant secretary for arms control, deterrence and stability at the State Department, said in an interview that the Chinese government is “actively preventing us from having conversations about the risks.” Instead, she said, Beijing “seems to be taking a page out of Russia’s playbook that, until we address tensions and challenges in our bilateral relationship, they will choose not to continue our arms control, risk reduction, and nonproliferation conversations.”

    Gee, no clue why they wouldn’t play ball.

    deeply unserious

    • peeonyou [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      3 months ago

      they won’t continue arms control, risk reduction, and nonproliferation conversations because they don’t want to just provide the US with all the information it needs to figure out how to wipe them out in a first strike

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        3 months ago

        Not to mention the US cotes against anything that limits its arms. They tried to pass a resolution to “ban weapons in space” which Russia and China voted against because an older resolution already banned that while the US’ proposals added a bunch of bullshit that only benefits the US

  • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Jokes aside (of which I’m sure this thread is aplenty), realistically if we’re expecting to be at war with China, Russia and North Korea, you know whichever lunatic president is running the murderhouse is definitely going to fire first; if we’re actually expecting wholeheartedly that there’ll be a nuclear confrontation, the government will absolutely fire first because in a nuclear war you always want to be the first one to fire, and we’ll be doing it with countries that genuinely don’t even want any confrontation, let alone a nuclear one. To the government it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when (to fire first).

    Living on the same planet as America must be like trying to have a nice meal in the vicinity of someone experiencing hyper roid rage.

      • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        3 months ago

        It’s genuinely freaky to see liberals fully convinced that everyone but the US is belligerent and so diplomacy is pointless. The irony is lost on them.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          3 months ago

          I suspect this mentality stems from liberal democracy being portrayed as the sole legitimate form of governance. It amounts to modern-day marketing for colonialism, masquerading western hegemony as benevolent civilizing missions. In this schema, the west can’t be a belligerent by default because countries resisting western dominance are seen as being regressive and fighting progress towards the natural state of things. Western liberals are basically the borg.

          • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            3 months ago

            That makes sense. It aligns with their perceptions of foreigners. If one assumes the natural inclination of humans is to desire some form of liberation democracy, then it follows that citizens of illiberal countries must either brutally repressed or complicit in their governments actions.

    • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      33
      ·
      3 months ago

      you know whichever lunatic president is running the murderhouse is definitely going to fire first

      It will happen after the first American loss

      Any war will begin with a propaganda campaign that will make the ravenous countrywide bloodthirst of 2001 look positively quaint. You’d see “reasonable liberal” reporters from the NYT and MSNBC on the verge of using slurs, while Fox is straight up calling for the annihilation of all [slurs]

      The very second the first US carrier is sunk by a hypersonic missile is the second the US goes into full Khornate blood rage and the president, whoever they are, begins firing every last nuclear weapon at whoever sank the carrier

    • Azarova [they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      3 months ago

      Living on the same planet as America must be like trying to have a nice meal in the vicinity of someone experiencing hyper roid rage.

      Is this implying you’re not from Earth? If so, get me the fuck out of here please

  • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    3 months ago

    The shift comes as the Pentagon believes China’s stockpiles will rival the size and diversity of the United States’ and Russia’s over the next decade.

    except much newer and probably likely to function if you start launching yours dipshit

    Unfortunately it probably doesn’t take many to start nuclear winter but how much responsibility do the networks of contractors and oligarchs scamming public funds hand over fist in every other area possibly take for stockpile maintenance? the things that end the world if used?

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      42
      ·
      3 months ago

      it really would be divine comedy if US tried to start a nuclear war and their nukes ended up failing to launch due to lack of maintenance and skills needed to keep them operational

      • Hexboare [they/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        Citation please?

        This one cites a lot of the recent literature on soot injection but I haven’t read much in terms of counterarguments

        Even if the estimated soot is 10x less than predicted, a large scale nuclear war and the resulting nuclear winter would still be expected to cause a billion deaths from famine as forecast here

      • Collatz_problem [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        21
        ·
        3 months ago

        We have volcanic winter as an example of how nuclear winter will look. Good thing is it would last at most a couple of year. Bad thing is that a lot of people would starve in those couple of years. Radiation damage would be pretty limited and localized compared to agriculture disruption due to nuclear winter.

        • Hexboare [they/them]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          19
          ·
          3 months ago

          More than a couple years at most

          a–f, Changes in surface temperature (a), solar radiation © and precipitation (e) averaged over global crop regions of 2000 (Supplementary Fig. 1) and sea surface temperature (b), solar radiation (d) and net primary productivity (f) over the oceans following the six stratospheric soot-loading scenarios studied here for 15 years following a nuclear war, derived from simulations in ref. 18. These variables are the direct climate forcing for the crop and fishery models. The left y axes are the anomalies of monthly climate variables from simulated nuclear war minus the climatology of the control simulation, which is the average of 45 years of simulation. The right y axes are the percentage change relative to the control simulation. The wars take place on 15 May of Year 1, and the year labels are on 1 January of each year. For comparison, during the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, global average surface temperatures were about 5 °C cooler than present. Ocean temperatures decline less than for crops because of the ocean’s large heat capacity. Ocean solar radiation loss is less than for crops because most ocean is in the Southern Hemisphere, where slightly less smoke is present.

          From Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection

  • Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    3 months ago

    In the event that the nukes start flying as a result of Operation Corn Pop, I would just like to say that it has been an honor and a privilege posting with all of you ladies, m’theydies, and gentlesirs. rosa-salute

  • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    3 months ago

    if these people are the ones drafting official plans, maybe there’s hope the US would completely fail to persecute a nuclear war. fucks sake 4 years ago you didn’t think the DPRK and China’s nuclear programmes would be coordinated? that if nukes were flying toward Russia through Chinese territory the yanks could just pinky-promise to China they’re for Russia and they’d keep theirs away?

    so goddamned foolish. i think you could sell half the pentagon and their ‘think tanks’ the brooklyn bridge. simultaneously.

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      if nukes were flying toward Russia through Chinese territory the yanks could just pinky-promise to China they’re for Russia and they’d keep theirs away?

      Given China’s extreme confidence in “peaceful” “collaboration” shit there is a non-zero chance they’d believe this. They would give exactly the same reason people give here today “oh why should we involve our 1.4 billion people in a nuclear war in Europe?”

      In any case whether we agree on this or not, first and foremost you’re aware that US nukes would fly over the north pole not Asia?

      You’re right about everything else, these people suck and they’re idiots.

      • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        3 months ago

        the US nukes sub in the pacific, if they got involved, would be launched in the pacific. “Territory” was an awkward word to use because it’s well beyond any country’s actual borders where they’d be concerned and threatened by missiles with trajectories that look like they could hit them. say a missile headed toward Vladivostok will look like it could hit a lot of shit in northern China, whichever direction it comes from

  • Hexbear2 [any]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    Reminder that China only pursued nukes after the US threatened to nuke Fujian province during the second Taiwan straight crises. So I guess the chickens came home to roost once again. Also, down with war mongers. China was first to make the no first use pledge 60 years ago, why won’t the US to this day?

    This wasn’t an idle threat either by the US, they had Nike Hercules missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, on the island of Taiwan.

  • Tofu_Lewis [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Not to add to the scary factor, and probably not related, and completely unverified: a work colleague who was a specialist in a military branch was recalled recently and were supposed to be back by now but apparently they may not be back for an undetermined amount of time…

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      3 months ago

      Well that’s not concerning at all. Although this could very much be related to Israel doing everything they can to start a war with Iran.