Forums → WEPR → What would trigger nuclear war?

Perhaps some form of aggression in the Kashmir territory between Iran and India? Both have weapons of mass destruction ready to obliterate each other over that area, and tensions are continuing to rise.

I can't imagine Putin using weapons of mass destruction, despite defying the United Nations, even if the USA has a president with weak-foreign policy in the future.

I do think conventional warfare will play out because with weapons of mass destruction and the quantity and technology we have today, there would be no more land to fight for nor land to go home to (if you're alive).

People don't understand that a nuclear weapon is quite possibly the most useless weapon in modern warfare. That is, simply because the amount of destruction modern nukes can cause is massive.

As long as both sides have nukes, they cannot use them, simply because of the fear of retaliation. For example, even in a war between USA and all of its allies against Russia, while the nuclear missiles possessed by the one side are a lot more than those possesssed by the other, who would dare fire them? Russia definitely wouldn't, simply because of the smaller amount of nuclear weapons, while NATO also wouldn't simply to avoid retaliation, even if said retaliation causes much less damage.

A nuclear weapon today is only for show. Even if one of the sides doesn't possess nuclear weapons, the other side (the one which has) would probably have no reason to use them.

Also, nukes, like everything, have an expiration date. After that, they hold much less destructive force. But safely dumping a nuke is a very costly procedure. So, the top military forces in the world, are engaged in a never ending cycle of producing nukes (it may be for the show, but the show's power cannot be underestimated) while also storing the expired ones, constantly looking for an opportunity to launch them. So, as you can see, building and maintaining a nuclear arsenal is very costly and not so efficient.

You know what is a real weapon in modern warfare? Something that causes economical and social collapse. It is why Banks hold so much power in Capitalism.

So long story short, it is almost impossible to trigger nuclear warfare today in my opinion.

'Pure unmitigated incompetence on the part of one or more political leaders' should cover just about every possible scenario.

Only those who are willing to use such weapon, still have them around. That is what i think.

Nope, I don't think that's the case @xerox . They just can't do otherwise. They obviously cannot fire them, aside from violating major international treaties, it is the fear of retaliation that prevents them from using nuclear weapons. That's what I think at least.

Pure unmitigated incompetence on the part of one or more political leaders' should cover just about every possible scenario

You know what is a real weapon in modern warfare? Something that causes economical and social collapse. It is why Banks hold so much power in Capitalism.

So long story short, it is almost impossible to trigger nuclear warfare today in my opinion.

Perhaps some form of aggression in the Kashmir territory between Iran and India?

I don't believe the way countries are run these days that a minority of stupidity can take such actions, you need approval from too many people. You could probably find a lot of corruption up top, but I don't believe there's too much stupidity.
Besides, stupid people usually don't try to rush actions. They'd rather sit back and do nothing. That's the only way no one would notice their incompetence

I'm pretty.sure you wildly misinterpreted that.

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I think not listening to Matt Damon's words of advice might cause it.

It might. Am I missing on something big?

One disturbingly likely cause of global thermonuclear war is malfunctioning hardware and/or software in missile detection systems.

A few years back Russia almost retaliated to a false positive indicating the US had launched missiles at them. Fortunately, that did not come to pass, but it was dangerously close. I have no reason to believe that systems have become significantly more reliable since then or that calmer heads will prevail if such a situation arises again.

You guys are really stressing yourself too hard then. Everyone uses calm heads when it comes to ending the world as we know it. If any nuke will ever go offit wouldnt be out of the blue. If the Cuba crisis didnt blow up, no pitty tenssions today will.

Elect Ted Cruz for US president with Rick Santorum as VP and be sure we'll have one.

Well you see it would require a very bored U.S President. Imagine being really bored in the Oval Office and in front of you is a big red button that says "Do Not Push".

Self Control is a virtue.

I don't believe the way countries are run these days that a minority of stupidity can take such actions, you need approval from too many people. You could probably find a lot of corruption up top, but I don't believe there's too much stupidity.

Besides, stupid people usually don't try to rush actions. They'd rather sit back and do nothing. That's the only way no one would notice their incompetence.

A few years back Russia almost retaliated to a false positive indicating the US had launched missiles at them. Fortunately, that did not come to pass, but it was dangerously close. I have no reason to believe that systems have become significantly more reliable since then or that calmer heads will prevail if such a situation arises again.

You guys are really stressing yourself too hard then. Everyone uses calm heads when it comes to ending the world as we know it.

Imagine being really bored in the Oval Office and in front of you is a big red button that says "Do Not Push".

@MattEmAngel you are right when it comes to religious fanatics and terrorists but acquiring a nuclear weapon is no simple matter. It would require months of planning, training, lots of equipment from forces that are totally decentralized.

Even if a nuke is somehow acquired by a terrorist organization, aside from the fact that the military force that owned the nuke will probably spare no expense in getting it back, the terrorist organization would also have to plan the delivery of the nuke, which is another time consuming and costly operation.

And to top it all, this thread is about triggering nuclear war. A terror cell acquiring and even successfully delivering said nuke does not mean a total war with nuclear weapons involved, no matter how dangerous the detonation of this weapon may be.

Like I said before, thermonuclear war requires a lot of conditions, some of which cannot be or have a very small chance to be met in the present scenario.

1 Not every present-day country is a well-organized first-world country.
2 Competence ≠ Intelligence.
3 A nuclear war arising by any other means would be exceedingly unlikely in comparison.

Laziness ≠ Stupidity.

You should not assume that everyone is reasonably sane, non-sociopathic, not indoctrinated with thought-stifling propaganda, and aware that M.A.D. applies to them in a real sense. Also, people in positions of very high authority aren't generally competent in their roles, either because they have herculean responsibilities, or because the most competent candidates are too inconspicuous/unpopular to be given a chance.