As a Russian, I hope that nuclear weapons still provide enough deterrence to avoid large-scale war between superpowers.

However, this might not be the case, as said superpowers can just decide to avoid nuclear confrontation (because of immediate counterstrike) and still fight conventionally — just like chemical weapons weren’t used on large scale in WW2, compared to WW1.

What worries me is that the mechanics of MAD may be approaching their end. With increasing space technology, perimeter defense against ICBMs have become feasible (albeit still very expensive). Thinking this forward a couple of decades, I think that defense may become cheaper than offense, even with multiple warheads per ICBM. In a way that's good, as nuclear annihilation might be averted, on ther other hand it could also lead to nations feeling cornered to strike first (before defense is built up sufficiently), and also we might be seeing a rebirth of conventional industrial warfare like in WW2.

I don't have such a feeling at all. It is my understanding(and please correct me if I'm wrong) that even with the best technology there is little to no defense to ICMBs. We have tech to stop some missiles, but with the sheer number of them in existence and the fact that every ICMB carries 12-16 warheads which split off early in descent stage, I think you can quite safely say that whatever target needs destroying it would be destroyed. Then there are weapons like the Russian System-6 torpedo which launches from a sub and detonates off shore to cause a gigantic tsunami destroying any coastal city(and if that wasn't bad enough, it can be salted with cobalt so that any area flooded by the tsunami is uninhabitable for at least few hundred years).

I don't know what sort of confidence level you'd need to have in your defence systems to even start thinking of actually using nuclear weapons against another superpower - the risk is just too great.

Hypersonic cruise missiles are an "interesting" development to the equation as well. Much harder to shoot down but also more sneaky so harder to have the mutually assured part.

Still probably impossible to fire enough sneaky missiles to disable enough ICBM silos. I think they are an interesting development, but I don't think they are meant as first strike weapons against another major nuclear, at least not without excepting a full lobby back.

They are terrifying against a state without a "nuclear umbrella". A few of these sneaky nukes could take out any ability to strike back conventionally. (Thinking of Sweden. Not that it longer could strike back anyway since about 1992.)

As long as nuclear subs are a thing there is no possibility to take out the other side's ability to attack first.

Think about how quickly drone technology will evolve. The amount of explosives needed to destroy a sub is fairly small I presume. That means it should be feasible to mass produce underwater drones to cover coastal area, such that missiles launched from subs should be outside the zone that's too close to defend. I think AI / drone technology will completely change the military landscape fairly soon, as producing them will be cheaper than defending against them.

Idk. I think we’re facing a different kind of MAD. Nations are full of sensitive spots that could utterly cripple their economies. Satellites, data centers, energy plants...

Or just send some hackers to cause as much chaos as they can with rewards instead of consequences.

Imagine the impact of deleting all financial records at a big bank.

> Imagine the impact of deleting all financial records at a big bank.

As the crisis management consultant for trading companies, I can say what the impact will be -- about two weeks of sleepless nights and endless phone calls for the likes of me, grabbing all the data they can find from old backups, other counterparties, clearing agencies, and other guys and girls from the banking tech mafia, and plugging it back to the databases while the executives make their best poker faces and try to convince everybody that everything is all right.

Stuff like that (maybe with less scale, but still quite a lot of damage) happens occasionally... by accident, and thankfully stays unknown for the general public.

This is fascinating

But modern firepower between two nuclear nations only requires a few nuclear facilities, not the sort of industrial complex that made the difference in ww2. Good intentions of not using nukes don't really matter, as the conflict would invariably escalate as one of the parties takes over. Which is why this noise of direct war between US and Russia or US and China isn't really credible.

A supply chain war is more credible, China refusing to ship certain products to the US in a conflict. But it is self-destructing too. The world pulling its supply chain out of China would be the end of the Chinese economy.

in my other comment I'm kinda replying to the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=m_mueller#19672286

> The world pulling its supply chain out of China would be the end of the Chinese economy.

I'm not so sure this is true. China has a huge domestic market, and even more potential to build it up more. It's also likely that in such a scenario, a whole block of nations would form, replacing some if not much of China's output with war efforts as it happens in a WW.

Let's just hope it never comes to this, really, for the sake of our daughters and sons if not ourselves.

There are more than a billion people in China, most of which don't have a particularly great standard of living. The domestic market in China is massive and has huge potential for growth. I think China would be fine without the rest of the world.

Not if there is a massive loss of jobs an rioting in the streets.

Didn't they already try that?