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On August 11 2012 01:16 rei wrote:dude, rights are not real, rights are made up by a group of owners so that they can own the rest of the people in their country. Take USA for example, somehow slavery is left out? oh wait that's not a surprise since the founding fathers of the USA are slave owners, they just wanted to keep on owning after they fought for freedom against the British oppressor. If you think your country will uphold it's rights when it matters to most look no further than The japanese Americans during WW2USA calling anyone else in the world lacking of human rights is the biggest hypocrisy of all time in a global magnitude.
Might it be a small difference that the US regrets the internment whilst other nations, like North-Korea just to name one, continues to this day to imprison, torture, and murder its own citizens for crimes such as:
Being the child of someone that owns a radio able to receive South-Korean transmissions?
The US has has the moral authority to demand that other nations step up their human rights record. There are people rotting away in prisons for no crime other than expressing an opinion. You make light of human right violations across the world when you attempt to portray their plight as similar to the US.
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Theres nothing to worry about.....America would rape China in war.
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Im a bit uneducated on military happenings... but, hypothetically, what is the process behind actually nuking a country? Like does Obama just order some high ranking general to press a big red button? Would it be voted on by a military council? Congress? What would be the process?
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On August 11 2012 02:31 Rice wrote:
Im a bit uneducated on military happenings... but, hypothetically, what is the process behind actually nuking a country? Like does Obama just order some high ranking general to press a night red button? WouldWould it be voted on by a military council? Congress? What would be the process?
currently all nations adopt a don't fire until fired upon rule for nukes. The us president has a person carrying the nuclear launch codes in a brief case next to him at all times, called the football.
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On August 11 2012 02:09 zalz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2012 01:16 rei wrote:dude, rights are not real, rights are made up by a group of owners so that they can own the rest of the people in their country. Take USA for example, somehow slavery is left out? oh wait that's not a surprise since the founding fathers of the USA are slave owners, they just wanted to keep on owning after they fought for freedom against the British oppressor. If you think your country will uphold it's rights when it matters to most look no further than The japanese Americans during WW2USA calling anyone else in the world lacking of human rights is the biggest hypocrisy of all time in a global magnitude. Might it be a small difference that the US regrets the internment whilst other nations, like North-Korea just to name one, continues to this day to imprison, torture, and murder its own citizens for crimes such as: Being the child of someone that owns a radio able to receive South-Korean transmissions? The US has has the moral authority to demand that other nations step up their human rights record. There are people rotting away in prisons for no crime other than expressing an opinion. You make light of human right violations across the world when you attempt to portray their plight as similar to the US.
It's easy to claim the US regrets the internment half a century after the fact when Japan is a staunch US ally. They obviously don't regret the torture and internment of many Middle Eastern and African jihadists considering they are still actively torturing, imprisoning, and shipping them to other countries to be tortured.
A country that's assassinated democratically elected leaders, propped up dictatorships, and supplied weapons to genocidal regimes does not have any moral authority.
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On August 11 2012 02:15 SarR wrote:
Theres nothing to worry about.....America would rape China in war.
Just like America rape Vietnam?????
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On August 11 2012 02:31 Rice wrote:
Im a bit uneducated on military happenings... but, hypothetically, what is the process behind actually nuking a country? Like does Obama just order some high ranking general to press a big red button? Would it be voted on by a military council? Congress? What would be the process?
It isn't exactly clear how each country has its own chain of command, but the US president has acces to the nuclear launch codes at all time, reffered to as the nuclear football.
In theory, the US president could call a nuclear strike, though in practice it is highly unlikely that a US president would order a first-strike.
There is actually a school of thought that revolves around nuclear warfare and how a large scale nuclear exchange would work in practice. Most people agree that MAD is the only outcome, but some people argue that there are first-strike scenarios where the counter-attack can be limited.
The problem is mostly in escalation.
Some nuclear exchange scenarios can be expected to remain regional, like North/South-Korea, India/Pakistan, Israel/middle-east, whilst others are global nuclear exchanges like Russia/America.
Whilst it is true that there are enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire earth, a realistic scenario would most likely spare regions that are of little strategical or economical value. This is pretty much limited to areas with a low people/square mile.
It is possible to target every part of the world, but in practice, it would not be an effective way to use nuclear weapons.
For example, a nuclear weapon at the heart of NY city would not only kill millions of people, it would also inflict infrastructural damage, kill an extreme amount of important people, and break moral. The loss of New York alone would send America in an economical crisis that it would not recover from for decades.
Now, to cover every part of the earth, you need to spread the nukes out evenly, but that isn't a smart move to do, because you don't know:
1) Which nukes will fail
2) Which nukes are taken out before they can be deployed
Adding onto this uncertainty is the fact that not all nuclear strikes are of equal value.
A nuclear strike on the Trinity nuclear testing grounds would not inflict any damage on the US, nor would many heartland strikes.
Regions have numerical values based on various factors like economical, strategical or number of citizens. Taking out major cities or infrastructures can make relief impossible, thus contributing to more deaths and destruction.
As such, it is unlikely that the entire would would ever be destroyed in a nuclear war. High-value targets like New York would most likely receive multiple strikes, whereas areas of low value might not be targetted at all, simply because they would not survive the aftermath anyway.
Regional values are different depending on first strike, reactionary strike, or simultanious strike.
For example, high value first-strike targets are enemy nuclear bases, crippling the possibility of a counter-attack, whilst reactionairy strikes are aimed at destroying the enemies country altogether, because your own loss is already unavoidable, thus prioritising governmental and economic hubs, like Washington.
Further down the list of priorities are capitals of nations that are thoroughly aligned with the target nation, so for example in a Russia/America exchange, Tokyo would undoubtedly be attacked.
The largest threat in a full nuclear exchange is the escalation. During the period in which the nuclear missiles are in the air, the realization will occur to either parties that once the strikes are finished, neither side will be a super, or even regional power.
Long-term planning, of the machivallian kind, shows that firing on unrelated super powers is a smart move. After all, if America and Russia exchanged nuclear strikes, but avoided China, the winner of that war would undoubtedly be China.
Thus, the biggest fear is the involvement of other super and regional powers, which will trigger even more nuclear strikes on more or less all major nations, purely in the hope of assuring a strong post-nuclear world position.
If you want to avoid the nuclear holocaust, you would be best off living in the following regions, going from best to worst:
1) Central-Africa
2) Central-Asia
3) Eastern Russia
4) Western China
5) Heartland-America
Europe would most likely suffer the highest number of casualties %-wise, largely due to most of the population living in urban regions, the total living space being very small, and the close proximity to Russia, which not only makes the impact-time short, but also makes it a crucial target for destruction for the post-nuclear world.
Which government has the best chance of survival, that remains to be seen. The question mostly comes down to whether any nation will be able to rally the forces in time to keep people from "seceding" from their respective nations.
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You cvould say they represent alleged extreme opposite sets of ideals which is why they both have a place in the world
At least china is fairly obvious about what its doing the Us is scary
The Us historically used to be the guys that helped out the people getting bullied.
Now you have the vietnam war memorial building whos claim to fame is that it would of been the tallest building int he world, but the terrorists won. What does that tell you about a countries psyche?
You will find us and china are symbiotic or at least dont need to resort to bombs to fight, its all about economy and information now.
Also deterrant arguments have been shown to be logically flawed, and flawed through many many evidence based studies.
Let me put it this way ,.... you can get any pacifist to hit you if you try hard enough (if *you* cant then you clearly arnt as annoying as me)
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Zurich15362 Posts
On August 11 2012 03:22 zalz wrote:
1) Central-Africa
2) Central-Asia
3) Eastern Russia
4) Western China
5) Heartland-America
Rural Australia, Oceania, South America, Central America?
I would argue anything Asia, Europe, or NA would be a bad idea for chances of fallout and billions of people seeking refuge from fallout.
To enforce the point that major cities would be leveled: Receiving multiple hits doesn't mean several single nukes on Manhatten. Major cities would be targeted by MRVs / MIRVs, meaning that the entire area would be leveled by a dozen or more nukes. It would not look like Nagasaki. There would be literally nothing left but nuclear desert for miles and miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle
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What i'm saying is two things, first USA has no moral high ground to look down on anyone about human right.
and second, the whole idea of human right is created by human trying to control other human being by listing things that others can and can not do, which often than not, does not apply to the ones who came up with their so call human right to begin with, there lies the hypocrisy.
When it comes down to it, honestly, people are going to do, and have been doing "whatever they can get away with" for their own benefits, regardless of any installed rules or ideas of moral. History has shown this over and over again all around the world.
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On August 11 2012 03:42 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2012 03:22 zalz wrote:
1) Central-Africa
2) Central-Asia
3) Eastern Russia
4) Western China
5) Heartland-America Rural Australia, Oceania, South America, Central America? I would argue anything Asia, Europe, or NA would be a bad idea for chances of fallout and billions of people seeking refuge from fallout. To enforce the point that major cities would be leveled: Receiving multiple hits doesn't mean several single nukes on Manhatten. Major cities would be targeted by MRVs / MIRVs, meaning that the entire area would be leveled by a dozen or more nukes. It would not look like Nagasaki. There would be literally nothing left but nuclear desert for miles and miles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle
Fallout would most likely be a global effect, and could reasonably be ignored, simply because it is unlikely that any place not be affected by it. Perhaps some areas are better due to favorable wind patterns, but in general it can be expected that every region will suffer fallout, all to such an extent that people will suffer from early-age cancer for many generatios to follow.
Central Australia would probably go unharmed.
South and Central America would probably suffer similar destruction as super-power areas. They would probably receive more intensive nuclear strikes by America, for the same reason that Europe would be a prime target for Russia, to establish a favorable post-nuclear position.
Ideal places would have acces to fresh water, low people/square mile (reducing risk of direct strike), and ideally poor infrastructure, which would make it impossible or difficult for other refugees to reach.
Food would be the main problem, considering the majority of people cannot hunt. Canned food is relatively safe from radiation, making it probably the ideal food of choice for any post-nuclear survivor.
Nomadic peoples probably have the best odds, like people living on the Mongolian steppes. Their areas are often largely uninhabitted, making them unlikely targets for direct strikes, and their population already has a source of food at hand, and experience surviving.
As for the MIRV's, they would still be targetting high-value targets multiple times. Deploying multiple nukes on a high value target is more valuable than using some to target low-value regions, just for the sake of full-nuclear extermination.
During a nuclear exchange, there is no chance to fire, wait for results, fire again. Multiple nukes need to be fired on high value targets, simply because allowing a city like New York to survive because of a faulty nuke would be catastrophic in a post-nuclear war, whilst not targetting one of the heartland states would be of trivial importance.
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Two nations that depend on each other for their economic prosperity probably would not declare war on each other. There would almost certainly have to be a major rift in China and the USA's economic situations and policies that polarize each other before a war can start.
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On August 10 2012 21:24 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2012 21:01 Shady Sands wrote:
To recap: the argument here is that the new US naval warfare plan relies upon blinding the entire Chinese land-based command network even if the Chinese haven't launched a single nuclear weapon, meaning that the Chinese will have an incentive to launch their nukes in the event of conventional war with the US, as they will lose the capability to launch nukes at all, or detect a US launch, if the US blinding effort is successful. I am not entirely sure what you want to discuss. As the linked article prominently features, the "blinding" part of the AirSea strategy is at this point entirely hypothetical (outside of the use of nuclear weapons), and would require, to quote the article, "disproportionately costly (and vulnerable)" investments, and further: "[..] the cost of AirSea Battle is likely to be prohibitive. [..] it remains a largely notional concept". The idea of an conventional anti naval access denial system is ludicrous and as realistic as SDI was in the 80s. I understand your argument of a risk of escalation into nuclear use. However the reasoning appears to be way too complicated. Rather than a hypothetical, ridiculously sophisticated conventional anti denial system, a comparatively much cheaper nuclear strike in space is more likely to escalate a possible conventional war.
Paradoxically, nuclear attacks in space are actually the least likely nuclear action for escalation, because most rockets have limited fueled ranges, which means that if you launch a rocket on any trajectory that doesn't fly on an optimal path towards the other country, it's very easy to see (within 20-30 seconds of launch, in fact) that the strike is not directed at the other country.
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On August 11 2012 03:22 zalz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2012 02:31 Rice wrote:
Im a bit uneducated on military happenings... but, hypothetically, what is the process behind actually nuking a country? Like does Obama just order some high ranking general to press a big red button? Would it be voted on by a military council? Congress? What would be the process? It isn't exactly clear how each country has its own chain of command, but the US president has acces to the nuclear launch codes at all time, reffered to as the nuclear football. In theory, the US president could call a nuclear strike, though in practice it is highly unlikely that a US president would order a first-strike. There is actually a school of thought that revolves around nuclear warfare and how a large scale nuclear exchange would work in practice. Most people agree that MAD is the only outcome, but some people argue that there are first-strike scenarios where the counter-attack can be limited. The problem is mostly in escalation. Some nuclear exchange scenarios can be expected to remain regional, like North/South-Korea, India/Pakistan, Israel/middle-east, whilst others are global nuclear exchanges like Russia/America. Whilst it is true that there are enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire earth, a realistic scenario would most likely spare regions that are of little strategical or economical value. This is pretty much limited to areas with a low people/square mile. It is possible to target every part of the world, but in practice, it would not be an effective way to use nuclear weapons. For example, a nuclear weapon at the heart of NY city would not only kill millions of people, it would also inflict infrastructural damage, kill an extreme amount of important people, and break moral. The loss of New York alone would send America in an economical crisis that it would not recover from for decades. Now, to cover every part of the earth, you need to spread the nukes out evenly, but that isn't a smart move to do, because you don't know: 1) Which nukes will fail 2) Which nukes are taken out before they can be deployed Adding onto this uncertainty is the fact that not all nuclear strikes are of equal value. A nuclear strike on the Trinity nuclear testing grounds would not inflict any damage on the US, nor would many heartland strikes. Regions have numerical values based on various factors like economical, strategical or number of citizens. Taking out major cities or infrastructures can make relief impossible, thus contributing to more deaths and destruction. As such, it is unlikely that the entire would would ever be destroyed in a nuclear war. High-value targets like New York would most likely receive multiple strikes, whereas areas of low value might not be targetted at all, simply because they would not survive the aftermath anyway. Regional values are different depending on first strike, reactionary strike, or simultanious strike. For example, high value first-strike targets are enemy nuclear bases, crippling the possibility of a counter-attack, whilst reactionairy strikes are aimed at destroying the enemies country altogether, because your own loss is already unavoidable, thus prioritising governmental and economic hubs, like Washington. Further down the list of priorities are capitals of nations that are thoroughly aligned with the target nation, so for example in a Russia/America exchange, Tokyo would undoubtedly be attacked. The largest threat in a full nuclear exchange is the escalation. During the period in which the nuclear missiles are in the air, the realization will occur to either parties that once the strikes are finished, neither side will be a super, or even regional power. Long-term planning, of the machivallian kind, shows that firing on unrelated super powers is a smart move. After all, if America and Russia exchanged nuclear strikes, but avoided China, the winner of that war would undoubtedly be China. Thus, the biggest fear is the involvement of other super and regional powers, which will trigger even more nuclear strikes on more or less all major nations, purely in the hope of assuring a strong post-nuclear world position. If you want to avoid the nuclear holocaust, you would be best off living in the following regions, going from best to worst: 1) Central-Africa 2) Central-Asia 3) Eastern Russia 4) Western China 5) Heartland-America Europe would most likely suffer the highest number of casualties %-wise, largely due to most of the population living in urban regions, the total living space being very small, and the close proximity to Russia, which not only makes the impact-time short, but also makes it a crucial target for destruction for the post-nuclear world. Which government has the best chance of survival, that remains to be seen. The question mostly comes down to whether any nation will be able to rally the forces in time to keep people from "seceding" from their respective nations.
I'd replace the American heartland with South America/Carribean in that example. The US Heartland is where most American command/control assets, large airbases, and nuclear launch facilities are located.
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On August 11 2012 00:22 StorkHwaiting wrote:
I think the most obvious issue here is that there would be no conflict if the US didn't insist on being a global hegemon. That being said, there are plenty of times where two nuclear powers can go to war and NOT use nukes on each other. It's not like people are insane here. There are degrees of conflict.
Also, missile shield defense is so bogus. Just another way to funnel off taxpayer money.
Tbh, I could care less about a war though. I'm more worried about the economy and QE3
Well the flip side of that logic is that there would be no conflict if China decided to cede any pretense of regional hegemony to the United States, and accepted the US security umbrella (a la Japan.)
The thing with this sort of logic is that there is no "moral imperative" on either side. In international relations, particular as it relates to hard power calculations, the only rule of thumb is that "might makes right".
What I would feel really sorry for is the SE Asian countries and Australia. They have the misfortune of being caught up in this game. How do they actually maintain even a semblance of sovereignty?
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On August 11 2012 03:00 StorkHwaiting wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2012 02:09 zalz wrote:On August 11 2012 01:16 rei wrote:dude, rights are not real, rights are made up by a group of owners so that they can own the rest of the people in their country. Take USA for example, somehow slavery is left out? oh wait that's not a surprise since the founding fathers of the USA are slave owners, they just wanted to keep on owning after they fought for freedom against the British oppressor. If you think your country will uphold it's rights when it matters to most look no further than The japanese Americans during WW2USA calling anyone else in the world lacking of human rights is the biggest hypocrisy of all time in a global magnitude. Might it be a small difference that the US regrets the internment whilst other nations, like North-Korea just to name one, continues to this day to imprison, torture, and murder its own citizens for crimes such as: Being the child of someone that owns a radio able to receive South-Korean transmissions? The US has has the moral authority to demand that other nations step up their human rights record. There are people rotting away in prisons for no crime other than expressing an opinion. You make light of human right violations across the world when you attempt to portray their plight as similar to the US. It's easy to claim the US regrets the internment half a century after the fact when Japan is a staunch US ally. They obviously don't regret the torture and internment of many Middle Eastern and African jihadists considering they are still actively torturing, imprisoning, and shipping them to other countries to be tortured. A country that's assassinated democratically elected leaders, propped up dictatorships, and supplied weapons to genocidal regimes does not have any moral authority.
One thing I consistently don't understand is how people can give moral authority to any state or government at all.
People have morals, because they are capable of making moral decisions. States, like corporations, are not programmed to have morals at all. States pursue interests for the welfare of their citizens; corporations pursue profits for the benefit of their shareholders. From a moral standpoint, they are no different from computers programmed to do certain tasks.
Furthermore, given how the world, viewed from the standpoint of these large institutions, is an anarchy, then nations/corps that stray from the programmed objectives are quickly eliminated. Over time, only the nations that can best play this game survive. Sad, but true.
Hence, it is incorrect, as citizens, to expect our governments to behave in a moral fashion. The most we can hope for is that our governments uphold our interests, in whatever manner is most efficient. If that means adopting a veneer of morality to engender soft power, then so be it; however, we must not mistake that pursuit of morality as anything more than a means to the ends the greater national interest.
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On August 11 2012 07:17 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2012 03:00 StorkHwaiting wrote:On August 11 2012 02:09 zalz wrote:On August 11 2012 01:16 rei wrote:dude, rights are not real, rights are made up by a group of owners so that they can own the rest of the people in their country. Take USA for example, somehow slavery is left out? oh wait that's not a surprise since the founding fathers of the USA are slave owners, they just wanted to keep on owning after they fought for freedom against the British oppressor. If you think your country will uphold it's rights when it matters to most look no further than The japanese Americans during WW2USA calling anyone else in the world lacking of human rights is the biggest hypocrisy of all time in a global magnitude. Might it be a small difference that the US regrets the internment whilst other nations, like North-Korea just to name one, continues to this day to imprison, torture, and murder its own citizens for crimes such as: Being the child of someone that owns a radio able to receive South-Korean transmissions? The US has has the moral authority to demand that other nations step up their human rights record. There are people rotting away in prisons for no crime other than expressing an opinion. You make light of human right violations across the world when you attempt to portray their plight as similar to the US. It's easy to claim the US regrets the internment half a century after the fact when Japan is a staunch US ally. They obviously don't regret the torture and internment of many Middle Eastern and African jihadists considering they are still actively torturing, imprisoning, and shipping them to other countries to be tortured. A country that's assassinated democratically elected leaders, propped up dictatorships, and supplied weapons to genocidal regimes does not have any moral authority. One thing I consistently don't understand is how people can give moral authority to any state or government at all. People have morals, because they are capable of making moral decisions. States, like corporations, are not programmed to have morals at all. States pursue interests for the welfare of their citizens; corporations pursue profits for the benefit of their shareholders. From a moral standpoint, they are no different from computers programmed to do certain tasks. Furthermore, given how the world, viewed from the standpoint of these large institutions, is an anarchy, then nations/corps that stray from the programmed objectives are quickly eliminated. Over time, only the nations that can best play this game survive. Sad, but true. Hence, it is incorrect, as citizens, to expect our governments to behave in a moral fashion. The most we can hope for is that our governments uphold our interests, in whatever manner is most efficient. If that means adopting a veneer of morality to engender soft power, then so be it; however, we must not mistake that pursuit of morality as anything more than a means to the ends the greater national interest.
Great analysis of realpolitik. Got to admit, I've quite enjoyed everything you've written on this site so far.
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On August 11 2012 03:42 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2012 03:22 zalz wrote:
1) Central-Africa
2) Central-Asia
3) Eastern Russia
4) Western China
5) Heartland-America Rural Australia, Oceania, South America, Central America? I would argue anything Asia, Europe, or NA would be a bad idea for chances of fallout and billions of people seeking refuge from fallout. To enforce the point that major cities would be leveled: Receiving multiple hits doesn't mean several single nukes on Manhatten. Major cities would be targeted by MRVs / MIRVs, meaning that the entire area would be leveled by a dozen or more nukes. It would not look like Nagasaki. There would be literally nothing left but nuclear desert for miles and miles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle
Carpet nuking, as you state, is the correct way to perform a counter-value strike. But most (about 90%) of global nuclear arsenals, are, comfortingly, aimed at each other as counter-force options. For example, worst hit area in America would probably be Cheyenne Mountain, followed by the Vandenburg, Whiteman, Malmstrom, Minot, Warren, Offut, and Barksdale Air Force Bases.
For example, the standard assumption is that Russia has between two hundred to five hundred nuclear warheads aimed at Cheyenne Mountain alone. Each warhead is between 220kt to 3MT of yield, for a total tonnage of 40MT to 1.5GT in yield, delivered within what is likely a two hour window. That means that, on average, in those 2 hours, Cheyenne Mountain will be hit with about one nuke every thirty seconds, with each nuke being at least 10 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.
A glassing of NYC would not even come close to the absolute moonscaping that will occur to most of Colorado.
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One physicist in the 80s remarked that the Russian plan for dealing with Cheyenne Mountain would be literally to melt the entire granite mountain into radioactive glass.
We can probably assume that the United States has similar plans for dealing with Russia's Mount Yamantau and China's Taihang Mountains.
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EPT
