It is very likely that there is no working nuclear arsenal.

It's very likely that some of it doesn't work. Maybe even a lot. But I would not care to test how much in a war!

So you will do anything, trade away everything, and capitulate at the slighted provocation to avoid the faintest possibility of war?

If not, where do you draw the line?

Because this isn’t the first time this has been analyzed, and the math is clear: the only winning strategy with terrorists not negotiate under any circumstances. You call their bluff, and you make known that you will always call their bluff in the future, and never back down. Do anything else and the terrorist can manipulate you into anything they want.

No, I certainly would not. You make a lot of assumptions.

However, the idea that a conventional force would obliterate the capital of a nuclear armed power without escalating into full-on nuclear war seems unlikely to me.

I live in a nuclear armed country too.

Exactly. The size of the Russian arsenal is such that - even if 80% of it is broken and entirely useless - it still has about twice as many warheads than the two European nuclear powers, France and the UK, combined.

This is a ridiculous statement

It is an informed statement. The Russian military had ALWAYS operated on grift and cronyism, all the way back to the napoleonic wars. When shit hits the fan, as in Crimea, WW1, WW2, and Ukraine, it turns out all those paper capabilities don’t exist. Even in the height of the Cold War, ICBM silos in Russia were often flooded and inoperable.

Nuclear weapons are extremely sensitive and maintenance heavy devices. They have parts that need to be regularly checked and replaced or else the bomb will fissile. These parts are EXTREMELY precise and very high purity. The rockets have similar needs or else the engine will as likely blow up on launch.

Maintenance cycles are on the order of 10-15 years. We are now 35 years out from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the nuclear and space industries have experienced massive brain drain and almost complete elimination of operational and maintenance budgets.

The likelihood that these strategic weapon systems have been adequately maintained is indistinguishable from zero.

Russia has its own satellite network, its own rockets, the most advance missiles in the world (and demonstrated usage), has continually bombed Kiev and other parts of Ukraine .. but sure, let's listen to you spout your detached-from-reality comments about nuclear war.

Contrast this with many "advanced" nations such as UK, EU, Australia etc. that can't even get a rocket into space. There was a period recently where the US was relying on Soyuz rockets to get into space.

Civilian rockets and military/strategic rockets are not even remotely similar. Totally different technology driven by vastly different needs. Russia hasn’t had a technological edge in military rocketry since the 1950’s.

I believe they used a hypersonic missile before the US has fielded theirs?

No, that's wrong.

The Kinzhal is just a normal ballistic missile. If it is "hypersonic", so were the missiles the US has sitting in bunkers.

China has the first real "hypersonic" weapon.

Besides, Russia's super awesome hypersonic missile that will totally kill the west is regularly intercepted by the Patriot platform. Because it's just a normal ballistic missile, which is what the Patriot is designed to intercept.

I was referring to the Oreshnik, not the Kinzhal. But I'm no missile expert.

All long and medium range rockets are hypersonic, simply by virtue of falling from space fast enough. From any country. So the "reached speed" metric is kinda pointless. Lately people tend to call rockets hypersonic is they can be controlled at the hypersonic flight stage. Oreshnic is an old ballistic missile, whose only innovation is removing third stage from an existing rocket, and can't be controlled with precision. This is why there was no significant damage and hits were all over the place with hundreds of meters of error. It is 80 million dollar equivalent of a single Smerch or Uragan shot, which is a pretty dumb and useless idea, considering price and complexity of a rocket.

>the most advance missiles in the world

Uh, by what metric?

>has continually bombed Kiev and other parts of Ukraine

Yeah, with primarily low sophistication weapons invented by a country that has to build everything from scratch in bunkers. This is only possible because Ukraine does not have much in terms of anti-air missile systems and cannot police its airspace.

Meanwhile, Kyiv is giving back plenty of half-assed weapons systems, including multiple jury-rigged light sport aircraft that Russia was unable to keep out of their airspace.

Both combatants are basically children playing with toys right now.

>There was a period recently where the US was relying on Soyuz rockets to get into space.

At no point was the US relying on Soyuz rockets to "get to space". The entire time the US was using Soyuz to ferry astronauts to the collaborative space station we were launching unmanned payloads with multiple launch vehicles, and the military has at no point lost the ability to put payloads into orbit.

Meanwhile in Russia:

>Despite the Russian claims that the missile is on 'combat alert', since its 2022 flight test, it [Sarmat] has experienced four failed tests, the most recent on 21 September 2024.

Russia is not the Soviet Union.

In terms of their nuclear vehicles, I'd bet on enough of them working to be a deterrent, but there's lots of open questions about what percentage. Russia has been running even their Rocket Force on a remarkably small budget compared to the number of warheads they are supporting. Unless they have magical efficiency, they are likely skimping somewhere, and in a military rife with outright fraud and every step of the chain pocketing money that is supposed to be used for procurement, why should we believe the Rocket Force is free of that behavior?

Russia couldn't even bomb Kyiv reliably, before buying a drone manufacturing line from Iran, of all places. The sanctioned to the gills Iran apparently can produce a flying junker with a gas prop and a 100 kilos of explosives strapped to a planer, while Russia can't. This can tell us something. Russia can't even produce trucks from which to launch these drones, they are all western made on official photos.

While all of this is true, all it takes is literally one nuke that works.

It takes a lot more than one nuke that works. They would need hundreds of strikes, probably thousands to ensure they aren’t immediately annihilated in response. There is a game theory to nuclear warfare, and dropping one city buster on a nuclear armed adversary is the sovereign equivalent of suicide-by-cop.

If this is the case, do France and the UK even have a nuclear deterrent? They have just over 500 weapons total between them - is there any chance that they are able to “ensure that they aren’t immediately anihalated” by a Russian response?

Probably not. But we do not have a first strike doctrine. There is enough to ensure that attacking us would be a very, very bad idea.

Uh yes?

For reference, that number of nuclear weapons is where China decided to draw the line as a nuclear deterrence against the US until recently.

A hundred modern nuclear weapons is plenty to fucking ruin a country, but no, it doesn't not take "just one". Most western countries would survive say, a smuggled terrorist nuke (or 4) just fine. Angry and mourning, but fine.

France alone has enough deterrent in their nuclear weapons. The UK has theirs in submarines, to ensure even if you magically erased the entire British Islands, you still take tens of nukes up the ass.

Nuclear deterrence is not complicated, and it's pretty well understood in public. I don't know why so many people here are so wildly off base.

Meanwhile, all this was always intended to be roughly "backup" to the US's absurd stockpile, including tons of literal gravity drop nukes so we can cosplay Dr Strangelove as the world ends. And the ending of the IRBM treaty means the US has recently told our defense industry that it gets to play with the cool rockets again.

France has a nuclear arsenal as well, making Moscow's kind of useless unless they want to provoke retaliation.

France has about 290 nuclear missiles in its arsenal compared to Russia's ~5500. This is an order of magnitude of difference.

Could you please come back to reality?

It really doesn't matter if you could cause 10x apocalypse or 100x apocalypse. At some point it just becomes a dick measuring contest.

Only two are needed to end Russia as it exists today, that's the reality of nuclear threats.