1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place

Re:1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all li... by dh2022 on Thursday September 12, 2024 @09:01PM (#41527194)

In 1967 US had something like 30,000 nuclear warheads deployed and USSR had 6,o00. Today both countries have around 1,500. Both countries had bombers with nuclear payload continuously up in the air. The risk was much bigger then.

[1] https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/transparency-us-nuclear-weapons-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_sto...

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Re:1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all li... by roenxi on Thursday September 12, 2024 @09:15PM (#41527250)

The bulk of the risk wouldn't really scale with number of warheads though would it? I was thinking it is more of a binary. There is some number of warheads that is enough.

The experience in the Cuban Missile crisis suggests that the number deployed on submarines is probably more of a concern when it comes to miscalculation than the total. And for deliberate attacks the militaries have probably calculated that the number currently deployed is reasonable to wipe out a major power.

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Re:1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all li... by stickfigure on Friday September 13, 2024 @01:24PM (#41533235)

The risk of an accident or otherwise unintentional initiation goes up with the number of warheads deployed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_B-59#Nuclear_...

(or of course Dr Strangelove)

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