They used to make desks much more sturdy back in the day.

My home office desk if ikea. I’m fucked.

When the school my mom taught at closed down their drafting shop, it was a sad day for the youth of the San Gabriel Valley, but the silver lining was they were just going to throw away all the tables, so I now have one of the old school solid oak and maple drafting tables that probably would survive a nuclear blast (and quite possibly has survived worse).

Got it! My Halloween costume will be a helmet with a desk mounted on top.

Yep, me too.

Since you've chimed in, I'm immediately skeptical. Show your work.

https://web.evs.anl.gov/uranium/faq/uproperties/faq5.cfm#:~:text=The%20half%2Dlife%20of%20uranium,234%20about%20250%20thousand%20years.

https://web.evs.anl.gov/uranium/faq/uproperties/faq5.cfm#:~:text=The%20half%2Dlife%20of%20uranium,234%20about%20250%20thousand%20years.

I underestimated the half-life of U-238. Lets just say, it's not good for a very long time.

Plutonium can be from 8-9 decades to 8+ million years depending on the isotope. The total amount of nukes is still really a highly guarded top secret information. Dirty deployment can be worse than a highly efficient nuclear explosion with maximum energy yield. The so called number of nuclear warheads declared is all b.s. Multiply that by a magnitude of an order to be more accurate as every weapon grade uranium and plutonium material ever made is still around and available for deployment and use and will still be actively deployable and will be for a long time. To be habitable means habitable without requiring radiation suits and limited exposure time. That will be a long time. In every instance, it's bad. Natural uranium ore is such that the impurities in the ore reduces the energy output. Weaponized uranium and plutonium removes the impurity. Can humans survive long enough? Hard to say and potentially doubtful. Do we have facilities that will support human population in those underground facilities long enough and have the food and water supply to last long enough? Maybe not. Those so called 'nuclear shelters' that people made at their homes in the 50s/60s are useless. They are just tornado storm shelters not actual suitable for nuclear holocaust survival.

If we are lucky, we'll only see decades long... on a best case scenario. ok, not quite. Best case is no nuclear war.

Wow, you’re a nuclear physicist too! Cool

Properties and half life of radioactive materials is well documented in public. You don't need to be a nuclear physist for that but science is something I studied a bit. As for quantity of nuclear explosive devices are not something where the actual numbers are truthfully disclosed to the public and usually there is more than what is disclosed. In any case, the winning solution is not having nuclear war. There are other alternatives that any nation leader is going to employ. Putin being a Soviet KGB officer knows enough to not actually pursue nuclear war. It's potential is for the provocative effect. Putin will pursue conventional warfare and then tactically deployed biological or chemical warfare before he'll proceed with nuclear. The radiological problem would kind of defeat the purpose of acquiring Ukraine if he were to use them there or even in places relatively close to Ukraine causing an incident worse than Chernobyl and Fukoshima combined or even all the nuclear reactor radioactive leak... combined.

x-jla - I have to agree with Richard on this. The basic  information regarding radiation, fallout, and it's duration is readily and easily accessible online. It' took me less than 10 second to Google this.

Jesus, that's a lot of work, but you failed to answer the relevant question. I'll wait.

In any case, nuclear is a bad option, and right now, it's just a provocative threat at this time. I suspect that he'll use other options he has. (he.. being Putin)

The bottom line: Nuclear radiological aftermath is more problematic than it is worth. I suspect Putin would use chemical weapons before he'll use nuclear. 

I'd think even a small nuke could drastically impact our global climate. Look at Chernobyl. We're still experiencing issues to this day and that was 1/10 the amount of radiation that would be issued from a small nuke.

There are local issues for sure, but we aren't seeing a massive difference here in the US, are we? Fukoshima has had more of an effect but even that has not seemed to be as locally disastrous as I had expected.

In the US, not. It's important to remember that we're a world economy though. Nuking a European area will have impacts far beyond the destruction from the actual bomb. 

 Then again the radiation released from Fukushima was 1/8th the amount released from Chernobyl. Also the smallest Russian nuke (that we know of) would produce 10x the amount of radiation and 100x the fallout than Chernobyl.

Who really knows.  

we aren't seeing a massive difference here in the US, are we?

Yep, we will get used to hurricanes like Ian or droughts like in the west, nothing to write home about  - If you keep thinking this way, I have a coal plant to sell you. 

Putin is just an accelerator, he isn't the one who brought on the apocalypse, but I'm sure he would like to take credit for it. Meanwhile the Koch's look on, smiling.

There are nuke scars all over Nevada. Don't have anything to do with the hurricanes in Florida tho.

Climate change is not apocalyptic though. It will cause major disruptions, but not even the most generous models predict an extinction level disaster. A nuclear war could literally destroy the planet in 30 mins.

Hush x-jla. You're talking out of your ass again. Don't make me ask for sources to your climate change claims. We all know you can't provide them.

Comparatively, x-jla is right. Climate change is a much slower process where if water level rises, we rebuild on higher ground. Nuclear war can be a global wide human extinction event taking a lot more out than just humans. Therefore, on a comparative basis, nuclear war can be a lot worse and it can be a lot faster. It might take longer than 20 minutes for ICBMs to reach all targets anywhere on the surface of the world. However, it doesn't matter. It's the problem of radiation levels from the sending out all that radioactive material in the air (the dirtier it is, the worse it may be for life)... could be human extinction within 24 hours of deployment. If you put half the amount needed for critical mass in each warhead and use enough explosive to scatter it in the air, you have a bad mess. High yield may actually be cleaner and less problematic in the radioactive leftover. That's why a 'dirty' bomb can be worse in the long term. Less destructive but much more hazardous in the long term.

The big problem is that any weapons of mass destruction deployed by Russia will almost certainly threaten a NATO county by proximity. Our involvement would be automatic by treaty. Furthermore, we are already in a proxy war with Russia. We are supplying arms to Ukraine. This is not a good scenario. There will be no winners. Anyone with a brain should be working on a ceasefire and territorial negotiation. God forbid he drops a bio weapon (which I believe he already released a small one as a warning shot to the west…hint hint monkey pox).

I mean, I know the TV told you that it was natural origin…but monkey pox has been in Africa for a century…All of a sudden its all over the world in a week. Don’t buy it.

AND it’s something that they admitted to developing in their bio weapon program a few years ago!

Nuclear weapons could mean the destruction of the planet and it's people. Climate change as it's progressing now grantees the destruction of the planet and it's people within 300 years.

Both are bad.  Just because one is faster doesn't mean we should ignore the slower apocalypse.    

SneakyPete There are nuke scars all over Nevada. Don't have anything to do with the hurricanes in Florida tho.

Right on, nothing has anything to do with anything else, all reality is isolated frames where you sip you tea while in other frames somebody dies from a heat wave. Is that the new Metaverse intent?

I agree with Chad that nuclear weapons is bad and adverse climate change can be bad as well. Nuclear war would be more imminent disaster than adverse climate change but then again.... nuclear war would be creating a highly adverse climate change of a different kind. I think both issues needs to be responsibly addressed.

I'd think even a small nuke could drastically impact our global climate. Look at Chernobyl. We're still experiencing issues to this day and that was 1/10 the amount of radiation that would be issued from a small nuke. OCT 11, 22 10:13 AM · · FLAG ▾ Wood Guy There are local issues for sure, but we aren't seeing a massive difference here in the US, are we? Fukoshima has had more of an effect but even that has not seemed to be as locally disastrous as I had expected. OCT 11, 22 11:58 AM · · FLAG ▾ Chad Miller In the US, not. It's important to remember that we're a world economy though. Nuking a European area will have impacts far beyond the destruction from the actual bomb.

Note: Hiroshima and Nagasaki is still radioactively hot where the radioactive material deposited and in those areas it is still hazardous to deadly. 

In any case, the aftermath of nuclear war can be too much for human civilization to sustain itself throughout. If there was luck enough to have an underground facility, it has to be built to sustain a viable human population and gene pool to begin with and enough to support population growth of 200% every 25 to 50 years for at least a century or two if you have implement self-automated robotics to clean up the radioactive mess which would require collection of radioactive material and depositing it deep somewhere. Possibly the ocean where the iodine in the salt will neutralize the radioactive material. It might be better to deposit it to a location akin to the Dead Sea or artificial lake of sorts with same level of salt. Doing this would or could accelerate the timeline to make habitable areas that were radioactive but even then we are looking at a realistic time frame of centuries long especially if there is like 99% of the population dead in the first 7 days. There isn't enough and large enough underground facilities to support a population of a small town let alone any major city. 

So much of the facilities area would be the farming for food but you see you need acreages of land for that and these facilities aren't that big. They are typically smaller than a classic 320 acre land claim for subsistence living for a small family. Now, when you think about what we have to deal with to support a population of sizable level, it needs a lot of farming and such to produce food to support the population. 

We are looking at world-wide... maybe 10,000 across 10 to 20 such facilities around the world. So, that means things are going to be very dire and extinction is very possible. The facilities will have to support up to 50,000 but you have to start at the lower end to allow for population growth or the facilities population would outgrow the facilities capability to support and negative outcomes can happen. We can only hope that the areas farthest from the nuclear targets would have populations that are able to be sustained throughout. 

There may be far-off lands where radiation deposits would not be a major issue. Maybe samoa might survive because it's locations are far off from major target areas and the dispersion of nuclear material and deposit might fall off into the ocean areas closer to the continental land masses and very little flow out to such areas. There may be a few locations like that where the jet streams will generally control the flow of radioactive dust. It's still a big if. 

In any case, there is definite climate impact with nuclear war.

when I was a kid, the only solace I could find was that children were supposed to be the last to die. And the fact that I lived in the farthest country from Europe and the US.

Putin is technically just using the threat. In reality, it won't be nukes that he would deploy. It would be biological and chemical warfare weapons which is actually not good at all but different. Nuclear is just a more 'provacative' threat but russia has plenty of highly deadly alternatives in the biological and chemical weapons category.

Before that, it will just be more conventional weapons usage.

WW III does not necessarily mean thermonuclear war. There's no winner in that option. Everyone loses with that option.

Prove it.

If Putin was going to send nukes, he would have done it not talk about it. It's right now a statement in a brinksmanship game. No sense in making an area you want to annex be radioactive.

Wrong

You do realise there is intercontinental range missiles for deployment of chemical weapons and biological. Russia has sarin and VX, to name a couple. Even Novichok.

Right now, it's a "who has a bigger dick" game at the moment. If Putin wanted to deploy nukes, he would have sent them without courtesy of a verbal warning because we can literally weld their nuke silos shut with the particle beam or laser systems in orbit. We know where those are, after all.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying he won't ever use nukes but he hasn't exercised all his non-nuclear options yet. So, it really at this point in time a "provocative" threat to get U.S. and our NATO allies to get politically pressured to back off of Ukraine and let Russia have Ukraine. That's the apparent intent at this point in time. No sense in panicking yet.

Actually we should be panicking. They hit the German embassy the other day. This is escalating quickly.

Meh, I'm not worried. What would us (as in us people not the government) accomplish panicking? Nothing. There is nothing any of us can to do prepare for nuclear war.

The Warhawks in DC are drooling over this. The contractors are going to play chicken if it means profit. Keep supplying arms, it’s free money! The American people foot the bill and take the risk with nuclear annihilation. The scumbags will hide away in their bunkers while we get evaporated.

With all due respect x-jla no one is safe from nuclear war. Even if you were in a bomb shelter you'd still have to deal with the aftermath. No law. No order. Unstable climate that makes survival almost impossible. Continued war for scarce resources. All hiding in a bomb shelter would do is keep you from dying quickly.

Even a small nuclear war would take around five years for the fallout and radiation to be low enough for people to emerge from bomb shelters.  A lot can happen in five years.  Including the people in the shelter turning on each other or just dying from failed equipment or lack of recourses.  

This ignores the fact the nearly no one would have time to get to the bomb shelters in time.  Even you admitted that you'd have around 20 minutes max.  The 'warhalwks' aren't sitting in or near their shelters while making deals.  They too think this is all for show and understand if it actually happens we're all dead.  

...

Well, at the very least they are gambling with other peoples lives. The risk reward calculation for regular folks like us is much much different than it is for the contractors, politicians, and military hawks.

Dead is dead. You can't take it with you. 

 Sure those people are 'gambling with other people's lives'. That isn't right but it's how society works. You and I do it everyday with other people's lives.  

'Regular folks like us' all rely on other people to be put in harm's way to make our lives better. We don't have any issue 'gambling with other people's lives' when it doesn't directly impact us.Now that it could people become all upset and concerned.

It's a human nature flaw. People you don't know are just numbers and papers. Well, kinda.... it's that line of thinking that puts people in harms way usually for some nonsensical sh-t. 

I have a favorite line from Postman: "Wouldn't it be great if wars could be fought just by the assholes who started them? "

No clear solution to that problem of human nature. Anyway, we have means of disabling missiles in flight. You know the U.S. and Russia, and any human civilization on this planet or orbiting this planet, haven't yet developed missiles that are faster than the speed of light.

Your plans wouldn't matter anyways. I'm sure there are some preppers / survivalists who would disagree but they'd die just like everyone else.

Then again, maybe if I build a shipping container bunker UNDER a desk I'd be fine.  ;)

In all honesty, I live in a major city and sincerely hope I'm taken out in the first strike. If I had enough advance warning, I'd try and move closer to wherever the nearest missile is headed.

I think an ICBM can hit anything on earth in like 20mins. So we probably won’t have much warning.

With any luck, I'd be within the radius of any missile hitting Downtown Los Angeles, or else maybe they'd target JPL and/or Caltech. (I'm just assuming, of course, they'd have no compunction about striking civilian targets...)

Actually, not going to be at that level. It's more likely that Putin would deploy chemical weapons and biological weapons.

Post apocalyptic chicks are hot

So maybe wait until after?

I loved Tank Girl.

Did you watch Station 11? Lori Petty (Tank Girl actor) is in it, and it's appropriate to this conversation as a post-apocalyptical drama. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10574236/

x-jla  wrote:

"Post apocalyptic chicks are hot"

Sometimes literally.  ::rimshot::  

ha, yeah, "hazmat" popped into my head when i read "hot"

I've had the Station 11 book on my "to read someday" shelf since long before the TV show. Did anyone else notice that the show totally normalized polyamory? It'll be interesting to see what the book has to say about it.

I’m thinking my tribe will wear 80’s tracksuits with a samurai swords for the guys and bows for the ladies.

Right now, I'm more concerned with that North Korean guy shooting off nukes as a knee jerk emotional reaction. Putin is far more level headed and not as bombastic as Trump or the NK guy. He's not going to use them when he hasn't exercised other non-nuclear tactical/strategic options that are clearly available. KGB officers are trained to be cold, calculative, and maintaining the non-emotive composure like a poker face. This is part of standard training.

This is why I am less concerned with Putin than I am with NK guy shooting off nukes on an emotional reaction.

For the above reasons, I would not yet panic. If nuclear war was to happen, I'd want to be at ground zero than the alternative.

We are already in a proxy war with Russia. If we go into full war, It will undoubtedly end up nuclear, because they have zero ability to beat NATO in conventional warfare. They can’t even beat Ukraine. The US should not be involved at all. Had we not supplied Ukraine with intelligence and weapons this would have likely ended already and they would have negotiated something. Ukraine is foolishly emboldened by our support, and we are using them to weaken Russia. It’s a sick game.

If he’s not given an off ramp where he can save face we will almost certainly end up in WW3.

As for “ground zero”. You probably won’t be there in a major city. Their main targets are not major cities, but rather missile and military sites in CO, MO, NV, etc. During the Cold War Colorado Was the number one target.

You can’t win nuclear war, but you could try to come out in better shape only by knocking out the enemies ability to launch…these are decisions that are made in minutes, and once they are made they can’t be undone. The hundreds of ICBM’s that we have in silos for example would have to be launched at once to avoid them being taken out by enemy strikes. This is why nuclear war is an all or nothing thing.

"We are already in a proxy war with Russia. If we go into full war, It will undoubtedly end up nuclear, because they have zero ability to beat NATO in conventional warfare." Perhaps... they would lose against NATO in conventional warfare. There is other non-conventional options other than nuclear that would likely be deployed before nukes because there is not a winning solution that is even possible with thermonuclear war. Any attempt to win is suicide because they can not win a thermonuclear war. No one wins. Every calculated scenario of attempt to win had been computed and every single scenario where either side is desperate to win at all costs equal everyone loses. The only winning solution is not to play that game. Remember the movie, "War Games". While the movie itself was fiction, there is truth to elements of the story in the movie. One is that U.S. and USSR, both ran simulations with the mainframes for finding a winning solution and every simulation results resulted in a cost of human civilization. The result would be a planet no nation that may somehow survive would want to inherit. This was the point of M.A.D. This program of both U.S. and U.S.S.R. resulted in the build up of so much nuclear weapons that neither side would seriously contemplate thermonuclear war because no one wins. What's the point of going after Ukraine if you end up causing the prize of war to being a steaming pile of radioactive shit? Putin isn't going to destroy the prize. The whole point of the war is to gain the territory for some strategic objective. If it is turned into an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland... they kind of lost the goal or objective. Does that make any sense?

x-jla, major cities are targets and there are enough missiles platforms for targeting the locations you mentioned but also target the major cities. Such an attack isn't going to all be nuclear ICBMs but also the non-nuclear ones. The non-nuclear ones would be used to take a number of the military sites. What you are not aware of is we also have laser platforms, chemical & xray lasers, that can take out multiple targets simultaneously. We can literally do that across all of Russia. The strategic gain of a nuclear attack by Russia has already past.They loss the strategic advantage by alerting us through the threat. Now, every single one of their silos and vehicle launch platforms are being locked on and targetted along with NK which our military is watching.

You do know we can simply eliminate Putin altogether. Don't need a massive military force to do that. It's not the first time political leaders mysteriously die of an aneurysm.

Tulsi the racist homophobe is a third rate intellect, and dangerous clout chasing chump.

Did the tv tell you to believe that?

And phleeeease with the standard “racist, sexist…”. That’s tool does not work anymore. Biden and company broke it from overuse.

I don't watch the television. She's a clout chasing homophobic prig, that can't get traction from the libs, and is too stupid to be Socialist. She's a warmongering asshat, and is an Islamophobe to boot. Why don't you think for yourself for a change you Jordan Peterson cry baby.

Dumbfuckery, see if you can spot the stupid.

Bahaaaaa.

TULSI'S ALSO A RUSHIAN AGENT! Hillary told me so!

Fuck her too.

Wow... this went straight to the poop pile. Anyway, this thread is apparently ran its course straight to the inevitable.

Have you considered that she is just another victim of the orchestrated smear campaigns used against anyone who goes against the establishment, corporatism, or the military industrial complex? This is so obvious by now that I can’t even believe that some folks are still on the msnbc train.

Don't watch msnbc. I listen to what she's said, she has the mind of a surfer that's been wrecked by too many waves. She's a grifter.

Clooooown

or is it the other way around. (looking towards Trump's now former diet coke valet.)

Did you see AOC get heckled at that event for her support of the war?

Yawn

I distinctly remember being y’all yelling about how the Dems are better.

LFTW

Yep. While I don't agree that it *will* escalate to thermonuclear war. However, I don't rule out the possibility completely. I agree with your essential points. I don't think Putin is actually at the stage of nuking Ukraine or anywhere else, yet. I think Putin may deploy VX and/or other chemical weapons and possibly even some biological warfare weapons before pursuing nukes as their are plenty of non-nuclear ballistic missiles. The same delivery platform to send nukes can also send non-nuclear explosive weapons and chemical & biological weapons. A missile is just a delivery platform. It's the weapon payload on those missiles that matters and Putin will likely pursue those before nuking. It would be pretty dumb for him to nuke Ukraine if his goal is to capture Ukraine. That is why I don't immediately expect that from Putin. The North Korea guy, well, I have more concerns about.

I saw Neil Degrasse Tyson on Bill Maher last week. He said that modern nukes don’t disperse radiation? I think he’s mistaken

I don't believe you x-jla.

Degrasse said that radiation in modern nuclear weapons isn't what would kill the most people.  

https://deadline.com/2022/10/b...

What don’t you believe. Watch the episode lol. He was either being unclear or trying to sound edgy. That’s what he said though

Or at least what it seemed like he was implying.

x-jla -  Your interpretation on what he actually said is not correct. Degrasse wasn't being unclear or edgy. 

 Degrasse never said that modern nuclear weapons don't disperse radiation. He said that they don't disperse as much radiation as people think, and it's not the main thing you should be concerned about.  Degrasse also clearly said that the dispersion of radiation isn't what's going to kill the most people with modern nuclear weapons.

Did you watch the clip?

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/devastating-effects-of-nuclear-weapons-war/

I think this is what he was trying to explain.

I watched the clip. I looked at your link. They are both saying exactly what I said above and what Degrasse said.

First, all nuclear weapons will emit radiation. There's no way around that. High efficiency yield would result in a cleaner detonation compared to low efficiency yield. There is still enough to kill off life. Changing out the explosive process of detonation to a low efficieny yield results a more longer term hazardous condition, hence why those so called "dirty bombs" are so dangerous. There is enough to make the surface of the earth in all land areas lethal for human civilization. Lets just say I know individuals who trained in the matters of nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare and modern nukes are basically the same as they were in the 60s and 70s in terms of fushion detonation as well as fission detonation. Yes, most people will die from the explosions. Then you'll have radiation fallout. Where it is detonated will also make a difference. Small tactical nukes tend to be high efficiency low yield nukes so they are shorter range and intended to be used on ground targets so radioactive fallout is more limited compared to higher altitude detonations. Additionally smaller nukes tend to have less radioactive material. So actually you may want it to disperse far as that would lower the ppm count of the radioactive material. Ultimately, you want as low of ppm of radioactive material per volume of air afterall.

We also had repackaged for more yet smaller nukes than the larger missiles... making for more tactical surgical nuclear strikes. Even a change towards deep penetrating warheads allows nukes to penetrate deeper into the ground before it is detonated. In some tactical ways, it contains radioactive dispersement when means it would be easier to neutralize with high saline water because the salt contains the iodine that helps with neutralizing radiation as used in radioactive decontamination procedures. Radiation emission doesn't travel as easy through many feet of soil. The is why modern day nuke tests are done underground.

How about stop believing in the government and mindlessly voting to raise taxes and increase their power. That’s one thing we can do.

Perhaps but who do you vote for? They all are different sides of the same coin. The people who runs for political offices have key elements of character in common with each other. There are not enough people in the world at one time that are not just more of the same run-of-the-mill politician to fill up even just the senate house let alone the house of representatives let alone the executive branch.

Point: There isn't enough people who want to serve the interests and needs of the people of this country above any self-interest or political party interest. Those that aspires and gets on the ballots for such high level political positions either has their own personal agendas or a party agenda or both but not genuinely care about us faceless people who are just names on a spreadsheet. It always going to come with more taxes because they all want to fund something. None wants a smaller federal government. Only, difference is where the money goes to. 

That you are right about.

In general, and traditionally, it might be a bit more difficult and it really then comes to what agendas are important to me as a voter and choose accordingly. The politcal letter label is kind of meaningless. Now, the far left and far right are problems and I would hesitate to vote for because when you have such, then you have dysfunction that is usually worse than a functional leadership that can at least get some things done. In my opinion, I wouldn't vote for Trump and his kind of crazies because they are worse than run-of-the-mill politicians. We already saw enough of that for 4 years. Unfortunately, we just don't get enough people as candidates that puts the interests and needs of the people of this country above their own personal and political party interest. I don't think we need to spend as much on war budget if we keep our asses out of other countries affairs and mind our own business and stop pissing off everyone or pissing on other countries matters. This doesn't mean we completely abandon our role in NATO and things like that to address some issues but we have to be careful and not make it about the U.S. and play a more supporting role than an up in the front role. I'm talking about longer term geopolitical issues than the Ukraine matter. This would allow us to put more of our tax dollars for the needs of our own people and that includes businesses, too. While I support decriminalizing marijuana, I don't necessarily believe we should decriminalize some of the narcotics and those that are dealing the drugs where as those who are merely possessing and using may need different treatment than just locking them up in jail. They need a different kind of care like rehab. It's about applying the right kinds of treatment and reform some of the laws. It's actually embarassing that we have so many incarcerated per capita for a country that promotes liberty and justice for all.

I don't know the answer to all this so I'm only speaking for myself on this.

There is no answer. Civilizations grow and destroy themselves. If you are lucky you aren’t born on the decline end of that historical pendulum.

Or more specifically at the cataclysmic period of the demise. Now, in any case, its best to live life however much time you have than to worry about the human race killing itself. Right now, it seems that Putin hasn't yet shot off nukes. He raised the threat but he isn't going to get the military leadership in Russia to go along with sending nukes. Since the fall of USSR, Russia had undergone restructuring with some implementation of safeguards against one person having the sole authority to launch nukes. Even Putin doesn't have complete unilateral power to launch nukes. He doesn't have all the 'keys' to launch the nukes. We did this and so has Russia during Boris Yeltsin's time. While Putin has compromised legitimate election in Russia and essentially became a dictator but he's not exactly a 100% unilateral authoritarian dictator. While he can command military operation much like a U.S. President but even then there are safeguards so no one person has the unilateral power to launch nukes by having all the required launch codes to initiate such a launch because if he had them all and someone stole them from him, they can send the entire Russian nuclear missile arsenal even against Russia itself. In addition, it also means there is safeguards against himself taking an action he can not undo once done that he could regret seriously later by sending nukes. Russians have implemented some version of safeguards similar to the U.S. to prevent accidentally launching nukes or launching nukes in a state of emotional distress of one individual.

Similar to the U.S., you heard of the nuclear briefcase sometimes called the nuclear football. These are briefcases where the President has one but there is also other additional individuals as well but they each or at least a sufficient majority number of them have to likewise authorize the launch in order to activate the ability for the missiles to launch. Russia has three such Chegets that are required to clear the authorization to launch but even then, it still requires the silo base commander or submarine captain and XO to key in on their end to activate launch. There is a whole process that requires not only the submarine or ships (with nukes) and bases with nukes or in control of the silos to put their key and code in but also three individuals in Russia administration... the President of Russia, and Head of General Staff and Minister of Defense. Even if the President, the Head of General Staff and the Minister of Defense authorized launch, any of the command in control of the nuclear launch like Russia's equivalent of NORAD and ship/submarine captain & XO can still block launch from their end. There's a bit of safeguards for any of the intercontinental and high yield nukes. There may be some less stringent requirements for high efficiency low yield tactical nukes that may be on some planes which also can be cancelled by the pilot but still require considerable levels of authorizations to essentially greenlight the activation of any nuclear weapon for launch. Missiles on planes, the warhead is activated once it is released and the engines of the missile is active and beginning to head to target about 3-5 seconds or whatever time delay after it leaves the launch bays or released from the mount points on the aircraft for obvious reasons. Nuclear weapons are very much highly controlled and most certainly requires multiple parties to actual launch and arm the warhead. If any one in the chain of persons responsible for launch and use of nuclear weapons is acting irrational and concerning behavior if madness, the others can block the launch process from happening and thus prevent nuclear war. U.S. and Russia has been close too many times to be totally irresponsible. This way unhinged leaders don't end up causing extinction. North Korea is probably the only country that is operating with such lack of such safeguard even if they are not perfect... they are better than none.

The Cheget setup that is used now began actually during the USSR days beginning being designed during Andropov's time and implemented when Gorbuchev became the leader of USSR. This was all part of changes to prevent one single party being able to unilaterally launch nukes and cause human extinction. U.S. did likewise. Considering how close we all got to the nuclear war was close enough that there needed some safeguards so that if two hot-headed opposing leaders get mad, they don't inadvertently kill us all. Now in the U.S. case, you have the president that initiates the order, who then the joint chief of staff to authenticate the order. However, anyone in the chain of command can refuse to execute the order if the order is unlawful because there are limits even to the Commander in Chief of the United States. In essence, the President can not order a soldier to do something unlawful and the soldier has a serviceman under law has a duty to refuse such orders. While the President is Commander in Chief, he is still in general... a civilian and is head of executive branch but is not an active serviceman. Even Eisenhower had resigned from service so he can clearly run for election as President. A President is a civilian and is required to be as part of our government system in which such positions are lead and under Civilian administration and oversight as the public member(s) to oversee the military otherwise we would become a military junta government. Although former military can serve but they are no longer *in* the military itself. In that, because the President is a civilian executive, the President can not be assumed to know all the nuances of military code and rules of armant use and stuff such as that, presidents of the United States are the chief civilian executive administrator during their term(s) in office. Yet, military servicemen are bound to the laws and rules and are required to uphold and defend the laws, the Constitution and would also be required to refuse orders that are unlawful. For example, if the President were to order a soldier to shoot the Speaker of the House, the soldier is required by law to refuse to do so and could tell the President, FUCK YOU. Additionally, a President can not unilaterally remove a serviceman. He can issue a complaint for a military court martial (equivalent to civilian court) and in that situation, the serviceman will likely only get a light reprimand for verbal word choice but commended for refusing to execute such an order that would be clearly unlawful. Likewise, unlawful launch of nuclear weapons would fall under similar principle and can be refused. In Russia, since the Soviet era, there has been governmental restructure and there can be similar principles. Safeguards were implemented precisely so individual hotheadedness doesn't result in global wide human extinction.

One thing we know even from the Trump administration, as bad as it was, we learned there is a point where even Trump's sycophants won't play along. Even brown-nosing sycophants that seems like they would do anything for him will not do. Even Putin's sycophants won't play along with him to do something that would be bridge too far for them cross in terms of lunacy. Humans have a nature of self-preservation. This is why we haven't extinct ourselves yet. If you leave it to one person with unilateral power to the kind of power that can extinct us all, you are playing russian roulette with every lunatic given too much power. When you diversify the control of destiny, there is a greater chance someone say... whoa! Wait a f---ing minute here? The conscience of some sanity comes into play to put the breaks on any say... wake the f--- up guys, I am not in good conscience is going to kill the whole damn planet including ourselves just to get Ukraine. Not worth it. I'm not going to play ball here. Then other sycophants would likewise back away from lunacy. This is kind of the narrative in Russia right now, and why nukes have not been deployed yet. Thankfully, there is some brain function even among many sycophants of Putin.