MAD is the new sane

[Doc]

With the advent of designer Bio Weapons Mutual Assured Destruction is dead and therefore is the new sane

[noddy]

sounds like we will be locking the border to keep the rest of you lot out again soon.

[Doc]

sounds like we will be locking the border to keep the rest of you lot out again soon.

And when the CCP sees that Australia is set to be dominate in the world and decides to put an end to that with its nukes?

[noddy]

I was just making a covid joke.

if their is a new plague and
if we lock our borders and
if we are somehow then successful and
if china decides to nuke us.

the usual policy is to carbonize/vapourize.

[Doc]

I was just making a covid joke.

if their is a new plague and
if we lock our borders and
if we are somehow then successful and
if china decides to nuke us.

the usual policy is to carbonize/vapourize.

How can you have green energy if you don't vaporize your carbon?

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Brings this passage to mind:

One of the main role’s of a Naval Commander is the faithful execution of American nuclear policy. In the event of a catastrophic disaster - ranging from biological, nuclear, to straight up existential - the Navy is very likely to be the last one left to turn off the lights of the American way of life. Many of our SSBs and SSBNs are purposefully isolated in deep sea missions lasting up to 6 months with zero comms. The idea being that if anything happens while they are in deep sea incommunicado, they can be the final decision arbiters when they come up for air.

Consider for a moment, a doomsday scenario. Perhaps America’s nuclear codes are hacked or stolen, or perhaps some new weapon ensures our ICBMs fail to launch. America is wiped out by Russia, or China, or aliens, or whatever. Everyone is celebrating for 6 months, and then up comes an Ohio class god of death to find rads coming from home port. They launch a salvo and become the great equalizers. Even one of these little Shivas houses 11,400 kT worth of nuclear heat. For comparison’s sake, that is 1,036 Hiroshima bombs, crammed into 170 meters of hull.

This is something akin to America’s dead-hand switch.

However, for some time now the United States has been aware that its navy serves an unusual secondary, or perhaps tertiary or lower role: Succession. Let us suppose for a moment an Ohio-class SSBN comes up after doomsday and discovers neither America, nor her enemies, are left. Most of the northern hemisphere of the planet is now smoldering ruins, and the southern hemisphere is desperately re-arranging itself around the lack of trading networks. In this scenario, why launch at all? You’d just be hitting ruins. What remains of the United States Navy would then constitute the most powerful military force on Earth. Not that it wasn’t already, but now it is without question. The captain of that SSBN can virtually hold any nation hostage with the threat of nuclear annihilation (Mind you, any surviving Russian or Chinese subs could also). For all intents and purposes, the fate of America’s refugees and the continuity of civilization after a nuclear war would rest on what those surviving ships decide to do. Where to rebuild and move surviving American citizens to. It will no doubt be a brutal struggle to establish order.

The fun starts after the northern hemisphere is glass and the gods of death arise from the sea.

[noddy]

I can see how they threaten folks from the sub at first, but the practicality of the ongoing situation seems amusing.

[Parodite]

Don't those subs need maintenance... where will they get it. I'd give them 5 years to function and then they end where all tech ends; the scrap heap. Which brings in the most likely scenario: WW4 will be sticks and stones again.

The restart of society maybe just follows patterns that exist as best practices already for millions of years. Nature doesn't seem to make sane-mad distinctions.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I can see how they threaten folks from the sub at first, but the practicality of the ongoing situation seems amusing.

How Panglossian!

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

...I'd give them 5 years to function and then they end where all tech ends; the scrap heap. Which brings in the most likely scenario: WW4 will be sticks and stones again.

The restart of society maybe just follows patterns that exist as best practices already for millions of years. Nature doesn't seem to make sane-mad distinctions.

One doesn't need more than five years to use a nuclear pirate navy (among the US, Russia, China) in charge of the rump of whatever remains of the armed forces (I think they will prefer 'horde' at that point.) Though I imagine that Australia/the South Pacific wouldn't be as enticing to fight over in an apocalypse as, say, South Africa with a place in South America a very distant second.

If I needed to move my horde around with the best chance of survival, I wouldn't want to face the trained, experienced and well-armed Australians in a fight over their desert continent-- coupled with the headache of the alliance of the other islands...Indonesia is 200 million people right? That's a lot of meat grinding. The build up/resources wouldn't be worth the fight.

Don't those subs need maintenance... where will they get it.

That same substack had this article about the SSRB crises facing the US:

In the 1980s, building an SSRB - a submarine capable of deleting an entire country - cost something in the $3B USD range, by 2020 dollars. The United States built 18 Ohio-class submarines, most of them of the SSRB type, and their role is something of a psychological curiosity to me. For the past 40 years, these subs have patrolled the oceans in prolonged subsurface incognito waiting games. The whole idea is that no one knows where the subs are - sometimes, not even the United States. Every 6 or so months, they come up to remind America they are still alive. If the subs discover an irradiated wasteland where once stood the United States, their job is to go to America’s enemies and nuke them just to be sure nothing survives. By and large, this is the job of an SSRB crew: America’s Dead Hand Switch.

Of course, 40 years is a long time, and many of these ships are nearing the end of their life cycle. Back in the mid 2000s, the US became all-to aware of this, and thus began the planning of a replacement. With the first Ohios launched in 1981, they settled on beginning the replacements in 2029 just shy of their 50th birthday. Called “Columbia”, this new generation of SSRBs got an initial estimated budget of $4B. Of course, that was back in 2010, before the global trade strains started from wars and diseases. More on that in a bit.

Although the first Ohio started construction in the 1970s, the concept of the Ohio was first drawn up between 1966 through 1967, making the Ohio a product of that incredible technological sprint the United States underwent on the way to the Moon. When the first Ohio was ordered, it took 7 years to complete it, first taking sail late in 1981. These are fairly complex and challenging machines to make, after all. Current projections say each Columbia will take 9 years to build, and procurement of the technology needed to operate the machine is increasingly strained. The price tag has gradually gone up from $4B, to $6B in 2017, to $9B in 2021, to a now whomping $15B in the post-pandemic economy of 2022. That would be a program comparison of some ~$40B for all Ohio to some ~$347B for all Columbia, though I do not know the cost for all Ohio off-hand. But in simple terms, that means just one Columbia will cost 5 Ohio class craft. The obvious impracticalities for a 1:1 parity has resulted in a scheduled 11 Columbia to replace the current 18 Ohio. Though it is worth mentioning, the 18 Ohio class replaced what was originally 41 vessels that were quickly put together to create a make-shift Ballistic fleet. In many ways, this marks something of a continuation of that downtrend.

The Navy simply does not have the resources to foot a 10x bill for new SSBNs, and although no announcements have been made, it's almost certain the Navy will fail to build even half of these subs. This will inevitably leave a gap in naval ballistic capacity down the line that cannot be avoided. Let's consider this little factoid: due to delays in the construction, the first Columbia, originally intended to replace the first Ohio retirements, will fail to meet that 2029 deadline and cause a 3 year gap where we will have a declining fleet presence - assuming no further delays. Can we say with confidence this trend will not exacerbate into the future? I do not think so. Furthermore, due to the cost the first Columbia is projected to remain in service until 2085, even longer than the Ohio class. In 2029, when the first Ohio retires, it will have been sailing for 47 years! Columbia will have to last 55! If We assume the last Columbia to be built will be sometime in the 2050s, it will have to remain in service until the next century! Are you confident this overpriced can reliant on increasingly rare metals and microchips will last half a century? I'm not. Can we even project technological viability that far along? Doubtful.

Just this past year, the manufacturer chosen to build the first Columbia had a total software upgrade flop that set the construction back months, if not years. As an added funny detail, the vessel had to be renamed to "District of Columbia", as the ship currently named Columbia was delayed from retirement due to being needed at sea for longer than expected - no doubt due to these delays. The first ship won't even bare the name of the class.

When discussing SSBNs one must understand the 1980s were the height of their development, with films like Red October celebrating the awe of these machines. Submarines are by far the most advanced ship on the planet today, with even carriers having lagged behind in their prominence due to their vulnerability to hypersonic strikes - A submarine still has an ocean coat to protect it. But those glory days near the end of the Cold war seem firmly behind us, and the US looks likely to have a crises in SSBN supremacy sometime in the 2030s as the Ohios start to retire and the capacity to build Columbias starts to decline. It's possible the existing 18 Ohios will end up being retrofitted up to Columbia standards rather than building new fleets entirely.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s just more hints of the wall we face maintaining our current level of civilization. We seem doomed to hit it, and likely to deny ever noticing it was there when we do.

[noddy]

Id be way more scared of Indonesia than any of the rest , their economy and capability has been slowly growing for quite some time now - completely under the radar - their GDP is on track to being on par with Russia within the next few years and their army does not genuflect around at all.

Things that dominate the headlines for months in AUS/USA in regards army atrocities are tuesday afternoon to the Indonesian army.

Their demographics are really healthy and their economy is growing via economic reform as much as it is debt burden.

https://georank.org/economy/indonesia/russia

Australia - provided they landed in Sydney not Melbourne, would probably welcome the american stragglers with open arms.

[noddy]

accoridan too Wiki their is a whole bunch of lurking death merchants to look forward to when the northerners get glassed!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic ... _submarine

• France

• China

• India

• North Korea (suspected)[43][44]

• Russia

• United Kingdom

• United States

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Grimmer still.

The wildcard will be the Brits. There's nowhere to hide on the Isles, so there won't be horde-ability.

Fall in line with the rump US? Do the remnants of the British navy suddenly fold into some commonwealth contingency plan? Perhaps pair up with the French and side with whatever remains of western europe.

Maybe some of these admirals just goes to the highest bidder. Even if the subs as death machines may not have much utility (or a smart idea) with only half a habitable planet, I'm sure there is plenty of tech on board worth a peak or two.

[Typhoon]

Yt | On the Beach

[Typhoon]

With the advent of designer Bio Weapons Mutual Assured Destruction is dead and therefore is the new sane

Please elaborate as to what is meant by "designer bioweapons".
COVID-19 may have been an genetically enhanced version of a common virus,
but it was not a designer bioweapon as it caused as much damage to the producing nation, if not more so, as to any other.

No one is close developing a bioweapon that would, for example, target only people of Japanese ancestry.
Now, or in the foreseeable future. That's the problem with bioweapons, they pose as much risk to the deploying nation as to the intended target.
Not to mention the risk to nations not involved the conflict.

By any measure, nature is still the great designer:
the Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 50 to 100 million people;
the Black Plague wiped out about 1/3 of Europe's population;
etc.

Anyways,

In Japan, every year there are calls, from the PM on down - understandably, for nuclear weapons to be abolished globally.
I don't share this view.

In my alternate, admittedly speculative, view, it is MAD that prevented a prolonged and completely ruinous conventional WWIII between Soviet-Russia, Maoist China, and the US. Most of us, instead of being able to engage in armchair nuclear strategy on the internet, would have been drafted and met our violent end on some foreign soil.

This is a view that I keep to myself. Naturally.

[Doc]

With the advent of designer Bio Weapons Mutual Assured Destruction is dead and therefore is the new sane

Please elaborate as to what is meant by "designer bioweapons".

Designed Bioweapons. That may or may not be genetically enhanced to target specific population groups. COVID for Example is known to have a larger effect on some population groups but not some much on others.

COVID-19 may have been an genetically enhanced version of a common virus,
but it was not a designer bioweapon as it caused as much damage to the producing nation, if not more so, as to any other.

No one is close developing a bioweapon that would, for example, target only people of Japanese ancestry.
Now, or in the foreseeable future. That's the problem with bioweapons, they pose as much risk to the deploying nation as to the intended target.
Not to mention the risk to nations not involved the conflict.

Whether or not COVID-19 was designed as a weapon and given that it is known that the Wuhan lab is part of the CCP's bio-warfare and genetics programs It mean that it is very possible that there be designed bio-weapons targeted at specific population groups. Though they may not target as well as the designers expect them to. Plus the lab did not know how to do gain of function, very well at least, until it was explained to them by US scientists. Not sure who exactly but I have an idea.

By any measure, nature is still the great designer:
the Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 50 to 100 million people;
the Black Plague wiped out about 1/3 of Europe's population;
etc.

Anyways,

In Japan, every year there are calls, from the PM on down - understandably, for nuclear weapons to be abolished globally.

I don't share this view.

In my alternate, admittedly speculative, view, it is MAD that prevented a prolonged and completely ruinous conventional WWIII between Soviet-Russia, Maoist China, and the US. Most of us, instead of being able to engage in armchair nuclear strategy on the internet, would have been drafted and met our violent end on some foreign soil.

This is a view that I keep to myself. Naturally.

COVID-19 may have been an genetically enhanced version of a common virus,
but it was not a designer bioweapon as it caused as much damage to the producing nation, if not more so, as to any other.

That presumes that the nation that develops a Bio Weapon does not develop a cure.

Not to mention the risk to nations not involved the conflict.

You assume that such a nation actually cares. A good rule of thumb on that is: "does that government care about its own people?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOfpcIdBfXo

[Typhoon]

Nuclear MAD has worked because the ruling classes would be left with nothing to rule, should they survive the immediate conflagration.

The same logic applies to biological MAD, hence the BWC.

[Doc]

Nuclear MAD has worked because the ruling classes would be left with nothing to rule, should they survive the immediate conflagration.

The same logic applies to biological MAD, hence the BWC.

I would assert at this point the "A" is uncertain in the minds of the ruling classes.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

[NapLajoieonSteroids]