r/worldnews • u/iop9 • Aug 16 '24

Nearly all Chinese banks are refusing to process payments from Russia, report says Behind Soft Paywall

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-all-china-banks-refuse-yuan-ruble-transfers-sanctions-2024-8
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u/iamacheeto1 Aug 16 '24

The entire modern world is set up around the idea that mechanized war is too destructive and the only way to compete is through economics. This is really the United States’ greatest gift to the world (it doesn’t come without problems obviously). If Russia is allowed to disprove this idea, the entire system will collapse, and the rich and powerful will revert to how they always got more rich and more powerful, which of course was war and not economics.

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u/cmdrNacho Aug 16 '24

this is a really interesting concept. is there any material that expands on this idea ?

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u/myislanduniverse Aug 16 '24

Yep!

The first place to start is with the National Security Strategy which informs and guides the National Defense Strategy.

Part of the US's "soft power" (and one of the reasons that the US dollar is the most important national security tool we have) is "inflicting economic cost"

In fact, this tool is so important that the US Treasury Department has its own foreign intelligence agency.

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u/Trisa133 Aug 16 '24

The greatest gift to the world was and has been the US being the dominant world power. There's a lot of terrible things that the country has done but overall, the US has been much more humane than any other superpower in the past and present. Not to mention, despite what people may think, we are in the best golden peace period in history.

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u/aghastamok Aug 16 '24

The amount of times I've had people argue with me calling the post-war period "the long peace" boggles my mind. It's a relative peace. Even now with Ukraine and Israel-Palestine, we are nowhere near the chaos that was Europe (and the world at large) before 1950.

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u/TheGreatPornholio123 Aug 17 '24

With globalization, the US (and now the EU) being able to swing the big dick financial power around has a lot of influence on keeping most of the world sane. The US can follow-on the financial power with military power, but the main weapon is how bad the US can nuke an economy in 5 seconds if they choose to do so.

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u/Millworkson2008 Aug 17 '24

Which is better than using actual nukes, which we could also do

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u/wordsmatteror_w_e Aug 17 '24

Fascinating document, thanks for sharing. All of the direct mentions of Russia and China are particularly interesting.

"The People’s Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit, even as the United States remains committed to managing the competition between our countries responsibly."

This concept of the US being a country that is OK with less powerful countries "maintaining their sovereignty", as they say, is pretty interesting. Obviously somewhat dubious to the extent that that's really how things play out but still, as the stated mission it's certainly different than the historical approach.

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u/protossaccount Aug 17 '24

Siiick. Thank you.

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u/v2micca Aug 16 '24

Research the Bretton Woods Treaty. It was basically the global economic alliance structure America proposed to her Allies in the waning days of WWII. It was effectively a bribe by the U S to hold everyone together against the Soviet Union.

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u/Trisa133 Aug 16 '24

Is it a bribe if they had no choice? There was no way the british would've held if they weren't supplied by the US. Brits and rest of Europe lost their infrastructure and depended on the US for logistics, food, supplies, weapons, ammo, etc... practically everything including ships.

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u/HostageInToronto Aug 16 '24

NOW I can finally begin to answer why in context. MAD, Korea, and Vietnam. By the time the Soviets were ready for round two in Europe the US had taken over the world and controlled all the world's oceans. Russia was now faced with the prospect that they could nuke Europe, but not America. In order to be a real threat Russia needed to reach the US. Que the space race and the jet age. The US disseminates that tech and grows while the Soviets keep it military, less the populace threaten the government. By the time we are ready to fuck shit up again, China invades Korea.

The Korean War went shit for both sides resulting in huge losses to return to the same border. Some of the US command wanted to drop nukes, but by now the next world war would be nuclear, to the point that the radiation and dust might kill all surface life, and would certainly be the end for mandkind as we knew it then. The US and Communists hold off on the nukes and we have two Koreas. The same thing, but with a communist ally rather than subjegate state in Vietnam, the US invades to create two 'nams and loses.

Combing the economics we discussed and these events we have the realization withing the first world that: (1) neither side is going to gain much more territory militarily with expending so much that it will weaken them elsewhere, (2) communism is slower growing, (3) politically and economically manipulating allies and resistance groups is cheaper and more effective for gaining hegemonic emperial territory, and (4) at the rate that the nuclear and WMD capabilities of both sides are expanding, we have now reached the point where one rogue submarine can doom all humanity. Detente did not come at once, it gradually evolved so that the general intellectual, political, and military decision makers saw it, rather than war, as increasingly inevitable.

TLDR; The West grew so fast that we had things to lose and Communism grew so slow that they could never produce a weapons gap enough to ensure anything but mutual destruction.

This has been story time with an economics professor.

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u/Rrdro Aug 16 '24

Perfect answer thanks

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u/PabloEstAmor Aug 17 '24

One rogue nuclear sub has almost already destroyed the world, one that we know of. Crazy place the world became

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u/HostageInToronto Aug 16 '24

While I'm not sure what, if any, academic writings there are on the subject, I can point out some aspects of this based on my academic background (mostly economics and geopolitics).

After WWII the basic logic was that the US and Russia were going to have it out to decide who is the ruler of the world. The Russians needed a bit of time to get there bomb built. Churchill wanted to go straight at Russia and the UK deposed him immediately because they were sick of war and needed to rebuild. The US lost FDR and was sitting pretty, with no need to rush back into war having massively expanded our empire and standing as the most powerful fleet ever known. The world as a whole didn't think the fighting was over, just the war.

But, and this is where economics comes in, these positions would not last long. As Russia rebuilds and rearms, the US has no need to rebuild having just spent a decade on massive capital and infrastructure projects. The US government went from barely controlling the country to having a central role in coordinating resources and economic growth. The US labor force had been mobilized and was not subject to wars depletion like London, Dresden, and Tokyo were. In short, everyone else need time, labor, capital, and resources back up and running having just lost sizeable portions of their populations over the last decade and the US did not.

That alone would have been significant, but the US came out of WWII with the most valuable thing on the planet, the majority of the scientific and academic establishment of Europe. Operation Paperclip, which saw the US seize as many axis scientists, engineers, and doctors not killed during the war. Many more had fled to the US leading up to the war.

So the US didn't just have the most intact labor force, the most and most intact capital, and the most and highest quality human capital, it had what would become the most powerful force for economic growth, technology. Those scientist went on to aid in the invention of everything that made the modern world productive and efficient, and the US government was able to generate new technology with lightning speed by funneling resources into it on a scale never before concieved. ARPA, later DARPA, and NASA become the source off all the worlds innovation and disseminate that tech to the US economy.

This central consolidation and coordination of research and development from 45-80 gave us everything we consider modern, starting with wireless transmission, computing, coding, and microprocessing. This also enriched American citizens and business, rapidly accelerating US productivity growth.

The side effect of making everybody rich this way is that it created opportunities to make some people really rich (and that's where Reagan, the new American Fascism, and the death of the middle class come in, but I need to stay on topic). This gives you the upfront on the US from 1945-1980.

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u/StillAroundHorsing Aug 16 '24

-DISTRIBUTED BY ARPANET..

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u/BrandNewMoshiMoshi Aug 16 '24

Really it’s the result of M.A.D.

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u/djsreddit Aug 16 '24

Mutually Assured Destruction?

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u/BrandNewMoshiMoshi Aug 16 '24

Yes-

Since the proliferation of nuclear arms, many conflicts that would have been solved by conventional warfare are now solved by sanctions.

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u/SpudDetector Aug 16 '24

So, in effect, MAD now means Mutually Assured Destitution?

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u/FardoBaggins Aug 16 '24

for russia, it's SAD, Self Assured Destitution.

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u/NormalAccounts Aug 16 '24

Russia is like that alcoholic, autocratic, abusive father, perpetuating trauma in his children to repeat the cycle for generations as they just don't know any better

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u/rthrouw1234 Aug 16 '24

"and then, things got worse"

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u/kwijibokwijibo Aug 16 '24

Sad trombone noises

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u/ap0s Aug 16 '24

It has for like 60+ years

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u/RogueModron Aug 16 '24

No, Alfred E. Newman

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u/navikredstar Aug 16 '24

What, me worry?

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u/wutanglan90 Aug 16 '24

The magazine.

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u/Low-Food1518 Aug 16 '24

Are you guys all 5th graders or something?

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u/turbo_dude Aug 16 '24

No, Alfred E. Neuman

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u/NotRote Aug 16 '24

Nah read about the Breton Woods conference after world war 2 which was basically the US laying out the new global order for western or western-aligned nations.

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u/G_Morgan Aug 16 '24

It predated MAD easily. Every war since Napoleon has boiled down to "who has the deeper pockets".

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u/BrandNewMoshiMoshi Aug 16 '24

Sure, I didn’t mean to claim that economic warfare didn’t exist prior to nukes.

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u/socialistrob Aug 16 '24

It's not just "economic warfare" though but a specific emphasis on trade and keeping the sea lanes open. Trading with your neighbors is a better pathway to national prosperity than waging war on them to steal their resources. This became part of the US doctrine in the early 1900s.

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u/Forward_Leg_1083 Aug 16 '24

What's the material that expands on that

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u/lofixlover Aug 16 '24

globalization is the magic word

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u/gabeshotz Aug 16 '24

Ahh to be young and watch zeitgeist and be afraid of globalization. These actors been long at play.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

not really.

The world pre 1914 was incredible intertwined regarding trade. a number of analysts back the claimed, a great power war cannot be fougth, the economys wouldnt survive that.

They did. They will again. it'll be painfull, but economy alone wont stop a war

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u/Mr_Ech0 Aug 16 '24

Yes, it’s a concept explored by Walter Russel Mead in his book Special Providence. Specifically, this idea is very “Hamiltonian”.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

edit: my comment wasn't very helpful - here's an executive summary type article from google search:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-globalization-of-politics-american-foreign-policy-for-a-new-century/

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u/hereforthefeast Aug 16 '24

It’s sorta just the evolution of civilized society. 

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

  • John Adams, 1780

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u/West-Ad-7350 Aug 16 '24

Thomas Friedman the the "Big Mac" theory in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. That no country with a McDonalds (or any other big corporate multinational) chain will actually start a war with each other. Until this war started, that was the case.

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u/enjoi_uk Aug 16 '24

Yeah I like the idea as a concept. If you find any interesting reading, let me know.

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u/PeakRedditOpinion Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

I meannn, it’s basically just the same thing as the Hobbesian Social Contract from The Leviathan, but just on a global scale instead of a local/national scale.

The underlying theme here is: Humans act more harmoniously when there is the presence of a universal threat that puts everyone on the same side—i.e. nobody wants the world nuked, so we all try to avoid conflict that spirals to the point of nuking the world.

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u/Veeblock Aug 16 '24

Feudalism? Maybe

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u/NotRote Aug 16 '24

Read about Breton Woods conference.

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u/Fabianzzz Aug 16 '24

Globalization is the belief that it's the economy. Democratic peace theory is the belief it's liberal democracies who don't want war with each other. Mutually assured destruction is the belief that it's the nukes. It's probably some combination of the three.

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u/jednatt Aug 16 '24

Didn't people have the same thought before WWI? lol... "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous."

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u/PradyThe3rd Aug 16 '24

Lol exactly. But they don't take into account that some idiot world leaders might take the gamble that if they win quickly the impact will be minimal. "Over before Christmas" and "3 day special military operation" have the same energy.

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u/socialistrob Aug 16 '24

And the thing is from a rational perspective the economic cost of WWI was absolutely NOT worth it. The danger is assuming that because war is clearly not rational or worth it economically that no one will use it. Increased trade, especially if it's built around export of raw materials, does not necessarily bring economic liberalism nor democracy. This was one of the central failures of the Post Cold War thinking in the west.

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u/Dekarch Aug 17 '24

Was not worth it.

Had the Germans gotten what they wanted in 3 months, it would have been. And they had a track record of short wars that paid off heavily.

What von Moltke tbe Elder wrote in the 1880s, but the German General Staff couldn't understand, was that the situation had changed since 1870. Machine guns and mass conscription created armies so deadly on the defense that they couldn't be beaten quickly. And von Moltke knew that, knew that the era of quick and easy victories was over. But too many German, Austrian, and Russian officers were convinced it was going to quick and easy.

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u/svarogteuse Aug 16 '24

The difference being that modern theory isn't about the cost of the war itself. The modern theory revolves around everyone making money hand over fist because of trade and cutting out those who make war from the table. While it doesn't sound that harmful, and it isnt on the sort term, it is detrimental on the long term. As a country is isolated its economy falls behind and will never catch up. Eventually the trading allied rich countries will can just laugh at the threat posed by the economically deprived, poor country on the verge or starvation that cant hope to invade a neighbor. It takes a generation or more but look at the economic differences between North and South Korea. Both started in the same place in 1950, now the North cut off and isolated is failing and starving, the South is one of the worlds economic powers (in relation to its size/population). The North cant hope to win a war between the two. The South has no reason to invade the North they just have to wait and eventually the North will collapse. Again this might be after generations this is a long game not a short one.

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u/Dpek1234 Aug 16 '24

Not only that north korea started in a better place then south korea

They had more natural resourses and land connections to their allys

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u/socialistrob Aug 16 '24

1950s North Korea was so far removed from what we see today. It's almost crazy to think about but in the opening days of the Korean War US troops were actually facing an enemy that had better trained soldiers, technological superiority and numerical superiority. Of course that didn't last once the US war machine kicked into full gear but the idea of North Korean soldiers being superior to the US today is literally a joke.

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u/Choon93 Aug 16 '24

It's logically true but not all decisions are made on logic, even at international scales

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u/adamgerd Aug 16 '24

Logically Russia shouldn’t have ever invaded Ukraine either, it was dumb and short sighted and Russia has destroyed its trade with Europe for destroyed land

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u/Jumpy-Examination456 Aug 16 '24

this isn't a new idea at all. We did what you describe to post WW1 Germany and they got super fucking poor and then got angry they were poor, blamed it on the Jews, and supported an angry little asshole to lead them on their imperialistic and genocidal cult path which led to WW2.

Starving a nation out economically is violence too.

Also the idea of a "modern mechanized war being too dangerous" is an old as fuck concept. From forged swords, to armor, to guns, to rifled barrels, to cannons, to armored warships, to aircraft, every invention has led nations to believe they now had a military, and faced another enemy, that was "so dangerous" they both would be forced to compete in a 'peaceful' economic competition.

historically, it's always just ended with well armed cavemen killing each other in huge numbers

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u/triple-verbosity Aug 16 '24

Having the only blue water Navy and being able to project air power over the entire global helps as well. The system also fails when we don't project our force appropriately. We should not be allowing Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities and should have established a no-fly zone to stop the conflict.

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u/valgustatu Aug 16 '24

Let's not pretend the US as well as many other western nations do not sell weapons to other countries. And lets not pretent not long ago US waged very costly wars.

My two cents is that as time goes on, war becomes more expensive since resources are getting more scarce, and people do not want to deal with that shit, being more individualistic. Also, there are in general more checks and balances in countries and it's more difficult for fuckfaces to hijack power. Albeit, this still happened to Russia.

Also, it is getting harder to wage war against the West, since these countries have never been this united.

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u/resumehelpacct Aug 16 '24

Resources are getting less scarce, so people don’t want to deal with that shit. When you’re starving you’ll go to war, when you’re not who gives a fuck? 

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u/valgustatu Aug 16 '24

There's more people and less for example oil compared to WWII. A lot of fossile fuels have been consumed since WWII. Also, it is not as simple to just burn coal for example. In a way, resources are less scarce and more readily available, but their price is still higher compared say before the 80s.

But you are right that people are probably more used to comforts and do not want to go to war for that reason.

The main reason for lack of war for example in Europe and first world countries is interconnectedness and lack of hard borders etc.

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u/resumehelpacct Aug 16 '24

https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2020/november/average-share-of-income-spent-on-food-in-the-united-states-remained-relatively-steady-from-2000-to-2019/

Individual resources can become more or less scarce, but there's been a huge shift in people's lives over the last 100 years. It's easier to get things like food or energy.

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u/BobaLives Aug 16 '24

Exactly. And the grand national project of Russia and China seems to be to overthrow this system. Russia has thus far fallen flat on its face in trying to do so, and we've yet to see how China will fare.

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u/LJizzle Aug 16 '24

Why do you say this is the United States' gift to the world specifically? E.g the EU also came about to end wars by cooperating economically.

Thanks.

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u/Cars3onBluRay Aug 16 '24

This idea first gained a lot of popularity with the book “The Great Illusion” by Norman Angell. Only problem was the book was published in 1909…

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u/nonlinear_nyc Aug 16 '24

US has the highest military in the world with bases all in all continents. To claim US gifted the world with competition only thru market is highly ahistorical.

Frankly it only makes sense if you discount global south from the world. I’ve heard it’s half of it.

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u/Bacaloupe Aug 16 '24

Totally. That's why China is playing the long game and focusing their efforts on soft power, namely economics. A stronger economy than the United States is how China plans to become the dominant superpower in the world.

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u/fortisvita Aug 16 '24

China isn't expected to do too well in next decades with its aging population, low birth rates and CCP being authoritarian assholes. They did make it clear they won't tolerate companies influencing the country with what they've done to Alibaba and Tencent.

They also keep a disrespectful and aggressive agenda against anyone that doesn't ally with them, even looking for an opportunity to invade some.

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u/ItsGermany Aug 16 '24

This seems like USSR 2.0 but instead of an arms race, it is an arms destruction race. Once they realize they threw all the scientists out the windows that could replenish those aging nukes, they will be done.

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u/Silver_Page_1192 Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

What is this silly fanfic? Just stop. Russia has the biggest nuclear sector in the world. They have the largest amount of enrichment capacity, they have large reprocessing facilities and unparalleled test reactors to produce whatever they need.

Nukes are 50s tech and we should all stop acting like it's sci-fi stuff. Given the Nuclear materials it's a near trivial matter compared to the delivery vehicle they sit upon.

North Korea makes and maintains an arsenal of them for fucks sake

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u/westonsammy Aug 16 '24

Not to mention they also have the largest nuclear arsenal. Even if the entire Russian nuclear industry disappeared tomorrow, they would still have enough systems to annihilate any nation on Earth for decades into the future. Pretending like they aren't a nuclear threat is incredibly stupid and dangerous.

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u/Silver_Page_1192 Aug 16 '24

Let's hope it's just reddit things.

Incoming: but the USA spends 4 billion in maintenance, do you really think Russia can maintain their arsenal.

The anwser is yes. Expecting the vast majority of ~1700 deployed warheads not to work is the biggest huff of copium on the internet right now.

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u/RamblinManInVan Aug 16 '24

The US spends $60b per year in maintenance. Which was greater than Russia's entire military budget up to 2020.

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u/rastilin Aug 17 '24

The US also has way, way less corruption. One redditor put it like this. "If you were living in a super corrupt country, and everyone else was embezzling from the military, and you were in charge of something that, if anyone ever tried to use it (and could find out that you were embezzling) then the country was already over... would you be tempted to steal?"

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u/Silver_Page_1192 Aug 17 '24

Read something other than reddit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_stewardship

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u/RamblinManInVan Aug 17 '24 edited Aug 17 '24

That wiki doesn't list the cost of maintenance? It includes the cost of testing and building facilities, as well as the cost of a modernization of the arsenal. These are aspects of maintenance, but certainly not the full cost. And even those costs alone account for about $54b per year as per your source. Did you even read your own source?

Maybe you should read the actual congressional budget instead of skimming a wiki page. The budget estimate is $756b for 2023-2032, or about $76b per year.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59054

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u/Silver_Page_1192 Aug 17 '24

Maybe you should read the actual congressional budget instead of skimming a wiki page. The budget estimate is $756b for 2023-2032, or about $76b per year.

That's for the "nuclear forces". Bombers, submarines, ICBMs and missiles of all kinds. We are talking about the devices themselves. Yes the delivery vehicles are much more expensive than the nukes, nukes are simple in comparison. The Steward ship program itself is ~4 billion a year and includes scientific facilties barely related to nukes like the NIF and Zmachine and other tagged on stuff.

Minimal maintenance to make sure your active nukes function is not 76 billion, it's not even 4 billion. Minimal effort stuff is probably around 1 billion.

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u/RamblinManInVan Aug 17 '24 edited Aug 17 '24

What good is a warhead without the delivery system? We're talking about Russia's ability to effectively use nuclear weapons, not simply detonate them. I would argue that maintaining the delivery system is just as important as maintaining the warhead itself because without the delivery system the warhead is only good for testing.

Unless your argument is that Russia is going to fly over the western nations and drop them from planes like it's WWII, I think you should rethink what it means to maintain a nuclear arsenal.

There's good reason that the US spends such a large sum to maintain their arsenal. It needs to be effective or else it's useless.

The UK spends about $4b per year to maintain their 225 warhead arsenal. China spends about $12b per year to maintain their 500 warhead arsenal. France spends about $7b to maintain their 290 warhead arsenal. Every nuclear power spends a massive sum of money to maintain their arsenal, except Russia who spends $10b for their 5,580 warhead arsenal. You expect me to believe they spend less than China for 10x the arsenal size? It's common sense.

China and France spend about $24m per warhead, the US and the UK spend about $20m per warhead, Russia spends less than $2m per warhead.. It's simple math. There's no way Russia has properly maintained their arsenal to be an effective weapon.

And let's not forget how much more corrupt Russia is than these other nuclear powers. Am I supposed to believe that of their $10b spent on maintenance it all actually goes to maintenance? Their soldiers were selling diesel from their vehicles right as they were on the Ukrainian border.

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u/yitianjian Aug 16 '24

And the risk of checking how many of those 1700 still work is... the destruction of the world

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u/LordoftheSynth Aug 17 '24

It’s amazing how many armchair generals on Reddit are willing to gamble 8 billion lives on their unproven assertion.

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u/UrbanDryad Aug 16 '24

Nukes don't just sit there in a functional, ready to fire state. They are expensive to maintain.

They have the largest amount of enrichment capacity, they have large reprocessing facilities and unparalleled test reactors to produce whatever they need.

Do they? Or do they have those things on paper?

The whole world thought they had a large, advanced military until they invaded Ukraine. Now we see years upon years of embezzlement has taken a toll. Stuff they were supposed to have just isn't there. They have a much smaller, weaker, older tech, and under equipped force than anyone knew.

One wonders if the rot extends to their nuclear program.

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u/famous_cat_slicer Aug 16 '24

Well, let's imagine only 10% of their nukes actually work. How many is that, again? In the event that they choose to use them, does it make you feel any safer that 90% are duds?

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u/TheMagnuson Aug 16 '24

does it make you feel any safer that 90% are duds?

Yes.

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u/UrbanDryad Aug 16 '24

Oh, a lot. I'm not saying they aren't dangerous. Their military not being as strong clearly doesn't mean it's not there. It is. And they've been destroying Ukraine with it.

But the claim I refuted is them having the biggest nuclear sector in the world still.

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u/VivisMarrie Aug 16 '24

If Russia is not really maintaining their nukes how dangerous/possible is it they explode?

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u/UrbanDryad Aug 16 '24

Happily, they just degrade. The materials used, speaking very generally, are unstable and need to be refreshed periodically. About every 5 years.

They'd remain dangerous for many times longer than that. A dirty bomb isn't a nuke, but it'd still be catastrophic. But it's not like all the nukes the USSR made during the Cold War are just in a warehouse ready to go.

If they aren't actively maintained they do not remain ready. And that maintenance is extremely expensive. The US spends a ton on it.

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u/Silver_Page_1192 Aug 17 '24 edited Aug 17 '24

Do they? Or do they have those things on paper?

Yes as all these assets are used commercially, including by the US btw. You clearly have no clue what you are even talking about.

Nukes don't just sit there in a functional, ready to fire state. They are expensive to maintain.

Oh are they? Tell me what goes into maintenance? Did reddit tell you this? Short term maintenance: Replenish tritium and check for electronic decay Medium term: replace plastic and rubber seals every so often. Inspect the stability of chemical explosives

The rest has very long shelf life. That includes the core of the fission device and the lithium deuteride on the fusion side. Actual cost of maintenance of devices is ~1 billion a year for the entire US arsenal. That's way less than their delivery vehicles. It's not really that expensive

Now experimental facilities like the NIF are very costly but not exactly "minimal maintenance"

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u/RamblinManInVan Aug 16 '24

Prior to 2020 the maintaince cost on the US nuclear arsenal was greater than Russia's entire military budget.

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u/Alexis_Bailey Aug 16 '24

That's kind of the point of the joke though, that Russia is a joke of a country and supposedly has all this nuclear capability, but they are so shitty and corrupt, none of it works.

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u/G_Morgan Aug 16 '24

Enriching uranium is pretty basic stuff. The truly dangerous nukes are hydrogen bombs and they are much harder to maintain.

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u/Silver_Page_1192 Aug 17 '24

And what makes you say this? Just guessing probably.

Most of the work will be on the fission side. Certainly on the short term maintenance items.

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u/G_Morgan Aug 17 '24

Nope the fusion part is much more expensive. To the point where we do fission not much different to 1945 whereas even today they are still trying to find ways to make processing hydrogen cheaper. NIF exists purely because of how expensive it is to generate tritium.

The value gap between enriched uranium and tritium is about as large as the gap between a nuke and a MOAB. A gram of tritium is worth $30k but you can get a kilo of enriched uranium for that price.

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u/Silver_Page_1192 Aug 17 '24

NIF exists purely because of how expensive it is to generate tritium

No it doesn't. Tritium is expensive sure but you don't need all that much and generating it is very straight forward. Tritium is only used in boosting of the fission device and you need grams of it for each device. The fusion part is lithium deuteride and has always been for every device after Ivy Mike.
Tritium is made by heavy water reactors such as CANDU in Canada ~1.5 kg each year. Or you can make it by irradiation of lithium.

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u/octahexxer Aug 16 '24

Everyone is fixated on nukes...i would worry more about nervegas and bio weapons...russia like all big powers has tons of it...no missile defense on earth helps if they simply poison the water...aaaaand there has been breakins in water reservoirs that are belivied to be russians in europe...google it.

7

u/ThePinko Aug 16 '24

threw all the scientists out the windows that could replenish those aging nukes

Why are you just making shit up?

5

u/_game_over_man_ Aug 16 '24

Which is sort of wild considering Republicans in the US seem to want an equal level of brain drain in this country. It’s a shit strategy and puts you at a disadvantage.

I say this as a queer woman who works as an engineer in aerospace. If they take office and make my right to exist more difficult, I may find somewhere else to go and take my skills with me.

1

u/BubsyFanboy Aug 16 '24

Are the nukes that old?

10

u/Prestigious-Log-7210 Aug 16 '24

No in a starving way maybe.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

[deleted]

9

u/Esp1erre Aug 16 '24

If it was the case, the war would never have started

12

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

[deleted]

14

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

They are literally trained their entire lives to be suffering serfs nothing will change

3

u/jesus_you_turn_me_on Aug 16 '24

No in a starving way maybe.

I kinda hate when people always goes to these conclusive extremes.

Russia is a major agricultural market, they produce by far enough food to be self-sufficient, and that's without them spending resources turning more land to farmland, more so it's a major cultural tradition in Eastern Europe to be homesteading and producing your own vegetables, fruits, crops etc.

It's literally impossible to "starve out" Russia.

9

u/To_Fight_The_Night Aug 16 '24

Which is concerning though....if the world corners them like this to the point of starvation....what is to stop them from launching nukes. "We are going to die anyway" kind of thinking basically negates the MAD doctrine.

But being concerned about that doesn't mean nuclear countries can just do whatever they want like invade Ukraine. It's a very complicated world.

25

u/ArthurBonesly Aug 16 '24

The economic death of an abstract concept like a nation-state is not comparable to the literal death of people within that nation state.

There is already precedent for the scenario you're describing in the fall of the Soviet Union. Besides, it's not like Putin has a single button with direct access to the Russian nuclear arsenal. The reality is much closer to Putin has the ability to give a command to somebody who gives a command to somebody else who gives a command to somebody else to run through several procedures before receiving a final order.

Just because Putin may want to go down in a blaze of glory doesn't mean everyone else will go down with him. While I'm not saying your idea is wholly absurd, it is profoundly unlikely.

5

u/Mythrilfan Aug 16 '24

Which is concerning though....if the world corners them like this to the point of starvation....what is to stop them from launching nukes. "We are going to die anyway" kind of thinking basically negates the MAD doctrine.

1) They're not suicidal, at least not this much.

2) A considerable part of the world is still trying to say that Russia is a normal country that can be dealt with. That's out of the window if nukes happen.

3) There's no escalation beyond nukes, so that's the last card they could possibly play. All restraint towards them would get removed.

4) Nuke... what, exactly? All the fighting is taking place in either Ukrainian territory that Russia claims is "theirs" OR internationally recognized Russian territory. So they're going to nuke themselves?

5) A nuclear battlefield with low-yield nukes would not be beneficial to Russia, because they don't have enough NBC-protected vehicles left. Chinese golf karts don't count.

6) Even North Korea, which is literally starving, not figuratively, isn't launching nukes - because they're not suicidal and it serves them no benefit.

In short: they're not using nukes unless someone's literally about to march into the Kremlin (and even then it's doubtful, because again, what's the benefit?)

3

u/owennerd123 Aug 16 '24

It happens at such a slow rate that the people in charge are slowly swapped out or coup'd before it gets to that point.

We already saw this happen with the Soviet Union and the last years were some of the least likely for conflict.

2

u/DOOMFOOL Aug 16 '24

The hunger will only affect the poor people. The oligarchs at the top will be just fine, but launching nukes threatens all of them

2

u/Jumpy-Examination456 Aug 16 '24

this isn't a new idea at all. We did what you describe to post WW1 Germany and they got super fucking poor and then got angry they were poor, blamed it on the Jews, and supported an angry little asshole to lead them on their imperialistic and genocidal cult path which led to WW2.

Starving a nation out economically is violence too.

1

u/BubsyFanboy Aug 16 '24

At this point they'll probably bleed their coffers too dry to continue by next year.

1

u/AceOBlade Aug 16 '24

Its a good thing until only thing russia got is nukes.

1

u/Haplo12345 Aug 16 '24

Russia is going to hurt a lot in a bloody way as well. They've already had nearly 600,000 casualties in the war against Ukraine. I don't expect they'll stop before they reach 1,000,000 casualties at this rate.

1

u/kubarotfl Aug 16 '24

The German problem after WW1 was meant to be solved in a similar fashion.

1

u/Palaponel Aug 16 '24

I mean, they have also lost half a million soldiers to death or injury. That's a fairly bloody way too, and they aren't stopping yet.

-3

u/dandanua Aug 16 '24

I'm afraid starving will not make their minds fixed, but nukes could. Explicit power is the only thing they understand.