cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31683994

Fox News reports that Donald Trump may consider using nuclear weapons to eliminate Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility

The U.S. military has reservations regarding the success of using a bunker-buster bomb, a non nuclear weapon, to eliminate Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility, buried deep in a mountain. Two defense officials were reportedly briefed that only a tactical nuclear weapon could reach the facility.

  • charade_you_are@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    What a great precedent that would set. Seems like humans are moving towards ending all life on earth. Just another dead rock in an infinite vacuum.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      0·
      11 days ago

      Not to say that nuclear war isn’t bad, but we literally don’t have enough bombs available to do that.

      • charade_you_are@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        11 days ago

        I just very much believe that a chain reaction after a nuclear war will kill everything alive on it. Almost certainly all humans would be gone pretty soon.

        • FaceDeer@fedia.io
          0·
          11 days ago

          You can believe it all you want, the numbers just aren’t there. There are only ~3800 nuclear warheads that are ready for launch, across all countries that possess them. That’s not enough to put a permanent dent in the human population even if you launched all of them targeted to inflict maximum casualties. Which isn’t how they’d be launched, of course - most of them would be aimed at military targets, such as ICBM silos and airstrips that are out in the middle of nowhere.

          I expect you’ll propose nuclear winter as the actual killing effect. Nuclear winter has been drastically overblown, often for this very reason - to scare people into an anti-proliferation stance. We know a lot more now than we did when the first wild predictions were made.

          Again, not to say that nuclear war isn’t bad. But if one is to make good decisions one should strive for realistic understanding of the world. It wouldn’t literally cause human extinction.

            • FaceDeer@fedia.io
              1·
              10 days ago

              I’m responding to someone who said:

              Seems like humans are moving towards ending all life on earth. Just another dead rock in an infinite vacuum.

              That’s the context.

              My point is that this is not true, and I’m explaining why it’s not true.