• JVT038@feddit.nl
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    22 hours ago

    Looks like the arms race with nukes are back on the table… Ugh, whatever it takes to keep Europe safe I guess… I’d rather not have this, but unfortunately it seems like the 180 turn by the US and Russia’s agression is forcing Europe to do this.

    • teolan@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      While macrons a more stable person than Trump or Lepen, he has almost as little respect for democracy and for the truth as them. And anyways in 2 years he’s gone with significant odds that Lepen or Bardella get elected…

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      21 hours ago

      I’m not sure this really qualifies as an arms race. France doesn’t have an arsenal like America or Russia, and this plan doesn’t involve expanding the French arsenal or putting nukes anywhere that there aren’t already nukes

      • skepller@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        I wouldn’t call it an arms race too, although, if France’s nukes are being spread out, it would make sense to expand their arsenal as well.

        • Ziggurat@fedia.io
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          12 hours ago

          it would make sense to expand their arsenal as well.

          A quick search tells me that a french submarine contains 16 M51 missiles, and each of these missiles can contain up to 10 warhead witha power or 300 kt. Such a warhead SHot over New York City would killl over one million people, break the windows up to Newark airport.

          let’s assume a Sub empty it’s load, and 80% of the warhead are intercepted by air-defence. It’s enough to wipe 32 cities/strategical sites from the map. I don’t see how a country even as big as Russia/China/US won’t fully collapse from that much damage.

          So even a small actor as France has enough nuke to bring back a country in middle-age. It’s indeed making sense to have some Nuke abroad as it increases the number of potential targets in case of war. To my understanding France has been offering to share nuke with Germany for decades

            • Ziggurat@fedia.io
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              11 hours ago

              I have no idea of the actual number (and the one who do, aren’t bragging about-it), but I was talking about a 80% loss rate rather than a 80% pass rate.

              • Saleh@feddit.org
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                11 hours ago

                I think you two are talking about the same. With dummies mixed in, you can waste a lot of the air defense on them and have more nukes pass. So far MAD works as a strategy. Problem is, if someone manages to find a reliable way to intercept nukes, it will topple the global power balance.