Experiment: Nuclear Exchange between the US and Russia

By the Intel Drop

Fear of nuclear war has risen sharply since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. This is reported by the British newspaper Financial Times, referring to the opinions of experts and studying various scenarios for the development of events.

The publication notes that currently on the planet there is a terrible psychological dance of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear powers regularly hint to each other about their potentials and immediately declare that they are not going to use them unless they are attacked. And the nervousness is not reduced.

At the same time, American scientists and national security experts have developed a virtual simulation of a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. Moreover, this experiment was based on the US protocols for launching nuclear weapons.

300 nuclear missiles are roaring towards the USA. This is probably a Russian preemptive strike to destroy all ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile silos. Missile defenses cannot shoot down many of the incoming missiles, which means 2 million Americans will die. You have 15 minutes to answer. And three options, each of which involves retaliatory strikes on Russia, as a result of which, according to forecasts, from 5 to 45 million people will die
– the publication says.

The first option is a limited retaliatory strike against Russian intercontinental ballistic missile sites, the main submarine and aviation bases, which will lead to the loss of 5-15 million people. The second is strikes against all nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, as a result of which 20-25 million people will suffer. The third option adds the main industrial facilities and the leadership of the Russian Federation to the list of targets, which will lead to losses of up to 45 million people.

In a controlled experiment involving 79 participants, 90% chose to retaliate with a nuclear strike, i.e. people were given a conditional opportunity to press the “red button” and they took advantage of it. But there are powerful activists advocating a modernization of the decision-making process that could potentially end life on earth. One of them is Moran Cerf, a 45-year-old American-French-Israeli neuroscientist, professor of business (at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management), investor and former hacker Moran Cerf, who believes in the need to rethink the entire policy of national security.

Cerf is increasingly alarmed by the shortcomings in the protocols of nuclear launches of the nine nuclear powers of the world (USA, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). He is campaigning to rewrite these rules for nuclear launches. Over the past 18 months, Cerf has interviewed dozens of nuclear weapons experts, military leaders and politicians from around the world on how to reduce the risk of a nuclear catastrophe and produced the documentary Mutually Assured Destruction.

Several design changes could be made to the decision-making process to make it safer, he said. First, remove the 15-minute response time, which forces the President of the United States to act on a warning. Cerf argues that this instant response procedure is “a thing of the past” given that the US will retain the ability to launch a second air and sea strike even if all of its land-based ICBMs are destroyed.

Cerf also believes that key decision makers should constantly practice emergency drills and analyze their actions in order to learn from their mistakes. They will analyze the worst outcomes and work on how they can be avoided. Another change should be the appointment of one member of the decision-making team to counter the consensus.

We remind you that in October 2022, an interesting video appeared on the Web, which showed the simulated consequences of a nuclear winter. According to him, because of the soot that has risen into the air for decades, billions of people will die – 99% of the inhabitants of the United States, Russia, Europe and China.

Jonas E. Alexis, Senior Editor

Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.

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