Congratulations! You're the first generation
since the end of the Cold War, where a nuclear apocalypse is a very real and likely possibility!
So turn that frown upside down because if you've been concerned over unaffordable housing,
crushing student debt, wage inequality, global warming, and more- then nuclear war is the
answer you didn't even know you were looking for! What are the odds that things
will go nuclear in a hurry, though? Happily, for all of us, the
odds are actually quite excellent! The first and most likely source of nuclear
Armageddon that eradicates human life from Earth is the ongoing war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin
has been rattling the nuclear saber ever since the Russian army made a brave advance towards
Belarus from the outskirts of Kyiv. Suddenly, Ukraine was no longer the pushover they and the
rest of the world thought it would be, and things only went from bad to worse when the Russian
army suffered more defeats during the 2022 autumn offensive. Since then, despite House Speaker Mike
Johnson and MAGA Republicans blocking Ukraine aid and allowing Putin's army to begin to score
victories, Russia is still in pretty dire straits. With Johnson threatened with being removed from
the speakership, though, he suddenly found the fortitude to agree to pass a massive Ukraine
aid bill that threatened to create significant problems for Russia. Europe's massive ramp-up in
aid and arms manufacturing is also slated to not just catch up to Russia's now war-time economy
but surpass it in both scope and capability. The question is, now that the West has finally
taken the Ukraine war seriously, what happens when Russia's clown-shoes army starts to suffer
significant, war-losing defeats? How will Vladimir Putin respond to the West at last providing
war-winning levels of equipment while his own factories and oil refineries are increasingly
under Ukrainian drone attack? With no means to score a conventional victory, will Putin turn to
weapons of mass destruction? If he should do so, the United States has already pledged
to retaliate- in a conversation with his Russian counterpart, the US Secretary of
Defense stated that the US would destroy any unit responsible for launching a nuclear
weapon. A second attack would result in the destruction of the facility from where an
attack was launched. A third attack with nuclear weapons would result in US forces launching an
all-out attack against Russian forces in Ukraine. Russia's been doing a pretty lackluster job
scoring gradual victories over Ukraine's exhausted, under-trained, and under-equipped
army. Up against the might of the United States military and its allies, Russia would crumple
like Chris Rock getting smacked at the Oscars- keep NATO's name out your mouth. But that's
a bad thing, not a good one because it forces an already desperate Russia back into a corner,
and Putin's very survival likely depends on not getting completely obliterated in Ukraine-
to say nothing of his massive ego. Thus, the condition for the use of nuclear weapons is
set, and any nuclear attack against US or NATO forces only ends in one way: Russia being turned
into the world's largest radioactive parking lot. Unfortunately, despite the odds
that Dmitri and his buddies sold the nuclear warheads in the missiles for
vodka and turnip money being very high, at least some of Russia's missiles are likely
to find their targets in the US and abroad. But this isn't the only nuclear
flashpoint because everyone's favorite bad boy, Kim Jong Un (use photo https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71BRUy-RvvL.jpg,
but replace Martin Lawrence's head with a cutout of Kim Jong Un's head has got himself nuclear
weapons. Knowing that losing a war against South Korea and the US means an end to his dynasty, Kim
Jong is extremely motivated to use nuclear weapons before they are destroyed by US/ROK special forces
and aircraft. This would prompt a nuclear response from the United States, given that South
Korea is under America's nuclear umbrella. Not only does North Korea have weapons that
can now reach the continental United States, but there's the China question. How would
China respond to multiple nuclear impacts right across its own border, knowing that
massive plumes of radiation and debris will be blown inland by ocean breezes and into
China's most populated regions? In effect, a nuclear attack on North Korea is a nuclear
attack on China, and President Xi is unlikely to sit on his hands. His own political survival
and the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party would be at stake, motivating him to respond
with either conventional or nuclear force. And from there, it's a short spiral
to total nuclear destruction. But the really good news is that we don't have
to wait for war to be mercifully shuffled off this mortal coil by cleansing nuclear fires.
At any moment, with heightened tensions between the world's major nuclear powers, any sort of
equipment malfunction could trigger a nuclear war. But no, we hear you say- there's no way a
simple error could trigger nuclear armageddon; surely nuclear weapons and their related
support systems are only watched over and maintained by the most competent of
individuals and best-maintained equipment. Oh, sweet summer child, we,
too, miss the naivete of youth. There have been so many close calls due to human
error that, frankly, our continued existence on this planet might be all the proof anyone
needs of a higher power. In 1956, NORAD was flooded with reports of Soviet Mig fighters in
Syria, unidentified aircraft entering Turkey, a British bomber being downed, and sudden
maneuvers carried out by the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. This looked to US personnel exactly
like the makings of a first strike against NATO, prompting fears that European partners
would carry out a nuclear retaliation. Except for the unidentified aircraft over Turkey,
which was a bunch of swans flying in formation, and the Soviet fighters in Syrian airspace were
a presidential escort for Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli. The British bomber that was
apparently downed, possibly by Soviet fire? It experienced a mechanical malfunction, and the
sudden maneuvering of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet wasn't preparation for an attack- it was part
of a publicly announced and scheduled exercise. Thanks to the recent solar eclipse,
social media is awash with all sorts of moon conspiracy theories. But
in 1960, the moon wasn't just fake; it was a full-blown Soviet nuclear first strike.
Radar equipment stationed at Thule, Greenland, with the job of detecting incoming Soviet missiles
flying over the north pole, mistook the rising moon as a swarm of missiles. The only thing
that stopped a massive counterattack was the fact that Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was
in New York City at the time for a UN meeting. A year later, Strategic Air Command Headquarters
suddenly lost contact with NORAD and multiple ballistic missile early warning sites. These
communications links were all hardwired and independent of each other, making it incredibly
improbable that they would all experience a simultaneous malfunction. This left only
one option: Soviet sabotage in preparation for a nuclear attack. SAC proceeded to prepare
the entire American bomber force for a strike against the Soviet Union until it was discovered
that while each of these lines of communication was independent and redundant, somebody had
the bright idea to run them through the same relay station in Colorado. A relay station
that had experienced a technical malfunction. In 1962, a bear nearly ended the world. This
was the height of the Cuban missile crisis, and the US military expected the Soviets
to carry out sabotage just before a nuclear first strike. At midnight on October 25th, a
guard at the Duluth Sector Direction Center spotted a figure climbing the security fence. He
activated the sabotage alarm, setting off similar alarms across the entire region. However, at
Volk Field in Wisconsin, faulty wiring meant that instead of the alarm sounding, a klaxon
alerting Air Defense Command nuclear-armed F-106A interceptors to launch immediately.
The crews of these aircraft had been told that there would be no drills and thus believed
that a nuclear war was already taking place. It was only an officer in the command center who
drove his car onto the runway and stopped the aircraft from taking off. The intruder was also
eventually identified as a curious black bear. Those aircraft could have been recalled via
radio- maybe. Recognizing the potential for enemy spoofing, most nuclear crews were instructed
to completely ignore radio calls once they were airborne in a real-world scenario, like the
crew of a French nuclear-armed Mirage IV in 1966, which, due to a thunderstorm
disrupting electrical transmissions, received a wartime takeoff order by accident.
The jet was on its way to deliver its AN-11 atomic bomb to its target and ignored all
radio calls, as per their training. However, the heavily burdened jet required in-air
refueling, and when they reached their rendezvous point, and there was no tanker
waiting for them, they were forced to turn back to base and abort their mission. It was
only then that they learned of the error. If you think that these kinds of errors are
limited to the past, when early warning systems and nukes were pretty new, you'd be incorrect.
In 1995, Norway nearly ended all creation by launching a simple research rocket. Russia
had been informed of the launch beforehand, but nobody had bothered to tell the Russian
radar operators manning the nation's early warning system. The detected launch began
on a trajectory perfectly mirroring that of an expected American first strike using
submarine-launched weapons close to Russian shores. This actually caused Russian President
Boris Yeltsin to activate the nuclear football, and for a few minutes, the world was
a button press away from destruction. Are you feeling better yet? We hope so
because no matter what problems you're facing- nuclear war is close
enough to take them all away. But how would you be personally
affected? Will you be one of the lucky hundreds of millions who get to leave
the world behind via nuclear obliteration, or will you be a cast member in Amazon
Prime Video's Season 2 of Fallout? There are four primary targets for a nuclear
strike, and both the United States and Russia have the hardware to hit all of them in a
full-blown exchange. You might think major cities would be the first target, but you'd be
wrong. First up on the nuclear chopping block is each other's nuclear capabilities- this means
missile fields and nuclear weapons storage depots. The attacking nation would hope to eliminate
their opponent's nuclear capabilities before a retaliatory strike could be launched, or at
least a significant portion of them, to limit the number of weapons that can be used against
them. This move favors the one who shoots first, which is why the nuclear triad is so important.
With the ability to launch nuclear weapons via air, sea, and missile silos, nations become
resistant to devastating first strikes. Next up are centers of government and military
power. This means capitals like Washington and the Kremlin, but also major military installations and
naval bases. Believe it or not, each nation would expect a conventional war to follow a nuclear
one- or at least have to act like such a thing is possible. Thus, major troop concentrations and
stockpiles of equipment would be targets for the nuclear flame. Are you an E-2 with a 45% interest
loan on a brand-new Dodge Charger? Don't worry; a nuclear bomb is en route to renegotiate
that loan to 0% interest and 0 payments. Surely, you're probably thinking, now I'll be
set free from the burden of existence by nuclear attacks that hit major cities. Well, you'd
still be wrong because up next are targets of strategic importance for the long-term survival
of a nation. This is a nuclear war, after all, one of the few types of war left where the
express intent is the complete eradication of a nation-state. This means wiping out food and
resource production areas. Hate the impact that fossil fuels are having on our environment? You're
going to love it when nuclear bombs annihilate and irradiate vast swathes of the Gulf of Mexico,
Texas, Alaska, and other oil and coal-producing areas of the United States. It's the ultimate
Green New Deal, with everything glowing green with radioactivity. Literally, overnight nuclear war
will bring humanity's carbon emissions to zero, so if you're an environmentalist, then
vote for nuclear war in the next election. Millions of people suffer from gluten
allergies that severely impact their health, and exponentially millions more don't
actually know what gluten is and refuse to eat it because it's trendy not to know
science. The good news for both of these crowds is that nuclear war will solve
gluten allergy forever, with the massive grain-producing territories of the United States
and Russia- who provide the bulk of the world's grain- all blanketed with nuclear strikes.
If you hate the cruelty of factory farming, the good news is that nuclear weapons will
forever liberate hundreds of millions of animals across American and Russian farms.
The point of these strikes is to literally starve your opponent into extinction and thus
prevent them from rebuilding their society. Alright, it's finally here- we've teased you long
enough. With nuclear infrastructure destroyed, major government and military centers in
ruins, and most farmland and strategic resource sites irradiated, it's finally your
turn. It's finally time to be set free from the nightmare of late-stage runaway capitalism,
“it's just a prank, bro” social media influencers, and a government dominated by geriatrics. Now,
the cities are targeted, with major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas up first on
the chopping block. The destruction of major financial and cultural sectors is paramount to
the goal of complete obliteration of the enemy. The 9/11 terror attacks in New York City,
in which only a small part of the city's financial sector was destroyed, still resulted
in nearly a 1% GDP loss for the entire nation. Economists will tell you that
nuclear war is bad for the economy, but what their propaganda doesn't show you
is how nuclear armageddon is the fastest and only way to reduce inflation to exactly zero
percent. These same financial experts will also tell you that the runaway housing
market requires careful legislation and market correction. What they won't tell you is
that nothing will permanently fix the housing market and make homes affordable again, like
the annihilation of every major urban center, along with the instantaneous death of over 50%
of the population. Is nuclear war the solution to your problem of buying a home somewhere
you actually want to live because property is unrealistically expensive due to runaway greed
and an unregulated market? We're not saying it is; we're just saying that before you bash nuclear
war, you may want to consider the positives. Nuclear war gets a bad rep, but the truth is it
guarantees that either all your problems will be immediately solved or all your problems will
be immediately solved because the sources of those problems are now radioactive ash. Sure,
there will be new problems—but these can be fun problems with the right mindset. Hypocrites,
after all, will play games like Fallout to escape their daily lives, but when they get to play
Fallout for real, they will complain about it. But what if you have the horrible misfortune
of living somewhere that nuclear weapons aren't currently threatening, somewhere like South
America or Africa? Well, we hate to tell you, but the odds of you surviving a global nuclear
exchange are actually pretty good. Don't worry, though; you'll soon know the sweet
release of death thanks to a rapidly collapsing global order
and the effects of fallout. There are very few nations that are truly
self-sufficient to any degree. Japan, for example, is so self-sufficient in food
production that it recently became a national priority to increase the amount of farming done
at home. Most of the products you buy today are shipped in from somewhere else, and even if you
live in a nation large and diversified enough to have some amount of self-sufficiency, those
goods still need to be shipped to your location. The number of nations who can produce their own
oil, let alone refine it, is significantly low- even lower in case of a nuclear war, as many
of these nations would be targets themselves. During COVID-19, we saw the effect of
disrupted global supply chains or at least got a small taste of what pre-globalization
used to be like. The problem is nations were once used to being largely self-reliant or
conducting most of their trade with nearby neighbors. Globalization has drawn the world
together, but it also means that the components for the things you use every day are built
in ten different countries and assembled in an eleventh. It's not impossible for nations
not directly affected by nuclear war to survive, but it will be very difficult, and their
economies will shrink dramatically. This would lead to widespread chaos and economic collapse
as millions cannot find work or afford food. Many of these nations would be eyeing their
neighbors hungrily, eager to take their resources for themselves in order to maintain
their own survival. And there would be nobody to actually stop them, with major powers like
Brazil and Egypt easily swallowing up neighbors. For all the flak the United States gets for
its global military presence, the US military helps stabilize the world by dissuading bad
actors from starting a fight they'll lose. War never changes, and in the wake of a nuclear
apocalypse, it would once more become mankind's favorite hobby. Brutal resource wars, likely
with the use of non-nuclear WMDs like chemical and biological weapons, would be waged. Mass
migration from nations targeted by nuclear weapons would create the greatest immigration
catastrophe in history, and these migrants would likely still be extremely well-armed. Despite
the destruction of major military infrastructure, affected nations would likely still wield
significant military strength- significant enough to overrun neighboring lesser powers. And with the
gloves at last fully off, these nuclear states, who will have maintained a small reserve of
nuclear weapons, would be very likely to use nukes to get their way- especially against
nations who can't retaliate in the same way. That brings us back home because even
if you survive the initial strikes and, by some miracle, society continues- then
congratulations because you're getting drafted into the military. With Russia and the United
States absolutely crippled by nuclear strikes, both nations would turn their surviving
military might on nations that were not initially targeted. Seizing resources
from regional neighbors would be a matter of national survival, launching
mankind into an age of resource wars. But in all likelihood, the end result for everyone
on earth from such a massive nuclear assault is simply extinction. Nations may limp along for a
few years, but the effect of so much radioactive debris being spread across the planet is both
an ecological collapse and climate disruption severe enough to seal humanity's fate. Mankind
may be able to tolerate violent climate swings or even a background radiation level so
elevated that everyone now has extra limbs- but the complex food web we rely on could not.
The total ecological collapse of the planet is inevitable from a full-scale nuclear exchange,
with the only hope of survival being specially constructed shelters deep underground that could
hold tiny populations for a century or more. We're pretty confident Elon Musk will eventually
start building shelters that will definitely not be used to conduct unethical human experiments.
Musk, after all, will need to ensure a portion of humanity survives to fight Mark Zuckerberg's army
of cyborgs for the ultimate fate of planet Earth. If you want to be a spoil-sport, then
click here for “How to actually survive a nuclear attack,” or click
this other video instead!
