Cipheron on 4/5/2022 at 00:19
Given recent events, can we even rule out that they fire a nuke and it doesn't work because someone stole the insides of the nuke?
Putin goes "haha nuclear war, eat radiation bitches!" as his last hurrah but all that happens is empty missile casings drop around everywhere, and the world is just looking at it with jaws on the floor and asking "wtf was that even?"
They had that tank regiment where half the tanks didn't work because they stole the engines, and you know they're going to find out by driving the tanks sooner or later. But nuclear missiles are a thing that you NEVER want to use, and by the time it's come down to needing to use them, it's kinda a bit late for them to get upset about the fact that you stole the insides of the warheads.
At this point, what are the odds that all the warheads HAVEN'T been stolen already?
Pyrian on 4/5/2022 at 00:50
Two comments:
Selling radioactive products isn't so easy. The warheads and missiles are more likely to suffer from a simple lack of maintenance. Same result, though; a substantial portion of them almost certainly don't work. That being said, the more recently made ones probably still work.
If Russia starts launching en masse on Western countries, we're not supposed to wait around to see if they work. We'll fire back before most of them land (their short-range high-speed missiles could very well land first, though).
Cipheron on 4/5/2022 at 01:21
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Two comments:
Selling radioactive products isn't so easy. The warheads and missiles are more likely to suffer from a simple lack of maintenance. Same result, though; a substantial portion of them almost certainly don't work. That being said, the more recently made ones probably still work.
If Russia starts launching en masse on Western countries, we're not supposed to wait around to see if they work. We'll fire back before most of them land (their short-range high-speed missiles could very well land first, though).
Of course, but we'll notice they were duds after that so it's still Russia's problem.
As for theft of nuclear materials, the question isn't if, it's how much.
(
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/2/18/moscows-struggle-to-protect-nuclear-material)
Quote:
A 2009 report for the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, an academic journal of international relations, estimated the US Departments of Defense, State and Energy spend about $1.4 billion annually to help Russia dismantle and secure its nuclear materials. Even so, Matthew Bunn, a former White House science adviser who co-authored the report, said the money hasn't ensured complete safety. The International Atomic Energy Agency has documented 18 cases of theft or loss of plutonium or highly enriched uranium, he said.
“A key question is: How many other cases may have occurred without being detected?” he wrote. “It is sobering to note that nearly all of the stolen [highly enriched uranium] and plutonium that has been seized over the years had never been missed when it was originally stolen.”
In January, a Nuclear Threat Initiative report found Russia's control of materials was in the bottom third of nuclear states, and its overall score remained unchanged from 2012. The report said Russia has the second-highest risk factors of any nuclear state, ahead of only Pakistan. Those risk factors include political instability, ineffective governance, pervasive corruption, and the presence of groups determined to obtain nuclear materials.
So almost all the known stolen uranium and plutonium we only know about because it was
recovered and only then the Russians admitted "oh, yeah, seems we lost that bit". Which kind of tells you everything right there: zero detection of the thefts from the actual locations they were stolen from.
Starker on 4/5/2022 at 06:00
Nuclear missiles aren't quite the same thing as tanks, though. They have far higher standards of maintenance and far more security associated with it. I would wager a guess that the likelihood of a technician cannibalising the insides of a missile in order to make another missile work, because somehow the money for spare parts went missing, is much lower compared to a tank. (not that missiles have all that many moving parts needing maintenance to begin with, of course)
And even then, if the situation was as bad as with tanks, half of the tanks still worked.
demagogue on 16/5/2022 at 19:44
This is making the same point my first meme in this thread was making, but I still find it funny.
It's still about the central paradox behind Putin's mania.
Inline Image:
https://i.ibb.co/J3JybKS/small-281665365-10166373218375483-5733508522954319302-n.jpgFirst version was too large: (
https://i.ibb.co/PFTWnVL/281665365-10166373218375483-5733508522954319302-n.jpg) https://i.ibb.co/PFTWnVL/281665365-10166373218375483-5733508522954319302-n.jpg
Edit: It's also funny for me to note -- and this may be because I don't really know many other Finns or Swedes, at least that I see in person or whose voice I ever hear semi-regularly -- but I couldn't help but hear Swedeball's last sentence in Henke's voice... "Yeah, uh, <some really obvious point spoken in a calm but slightly alarmed manner>", keeping in mind the times I've heard him speak most often were when we were under, or about to immanently be under fire by enemy forces of one sort or another. XD
lowenz on 16/5/2022 at 20:16
Russian people must remove Putin.
Cipheron on 17/5/2022 at 16:51
Yeah that's what I was thinking. It'll end up being the same broken system but with a new face.
However, by making everything about Putin, Putin, Putin, the west has given them that avenue as a way out of the mess. Which is probably smart in the long run, because being staunchly anti-Russian from top to bottom isn't a position which gives the Russians much way to extricate themselves from the mess.
The main downside is that this course of events sweeps a lot of atrocities under the carpet and nobody ends up taking any blame for it.
Azaran on 19/5/2022 at 13:15
Oh man this is gold
[video=youtube;cTaI4e5twz0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTaI4e5twz0[/video]
