The history behind Japan is far more complex. No one can tell what would have been the worst outcome but there were worse outcomes than the two bombs.
Though one interesting thing is that we only had 30 years between WW1 and WW2, both being horrible wars, and it has now been almost 80 years without WW3. What was the big change between the first two that made us so scared of a third?
I have no doubt that had they not been dropped on Japan, they would have been used in Korea. All the theory in the world wouldn’t be enough to instill the rightful existential terror nukes cause.
The difference being that with Korea, it would have already had a fusion booster, which even in early designs increased the yield by a factor of 20-100 (Edit: depending on which pure-fission generation you compare to).
Edit: Also, I feel we need some tests again that get recorded with modern equipment - the old footage seems like from another world. People should be able to see it in 8K and VR to get properly scared of them.
MAD (mutually assured destruction) that nukes kill 70-90% of your population in 24-48 hours then kills most of the rest in a 4 year global nuclear dust driven winter. The UN has stopped 100% of the scenarios where Ww3 aka MAD happens.
The highest casualty rate I’ve ever seen published for nuclear war was somewhere around 40 to 50% of the population of the US. Interestingly, despite a nuclear strike of over 25,000 nuclear weapons, Russia was expected to win that one with less than 25% of their population killed.
And there is no proven scientific basis for a nuclear winter to be the results of nuclear war. Even less so today, considering that the United States and Russia have far far fewer nuclear weapons then they did in the past. Russia only has a few thousand functional nuclear weapons, most of which are not in a state that could actually be deployed in a war.
Russia likes to say they have a big and powerful military. The us likes to say “we have a weak military, please more congress money”. Based in Ukraine, I think the us would win (if you can call it that) in MAD.
Also you are right that the anti ICBM capabilities has increased in each nation. Also each nation is increasing the ICBM nuke speed to render the anti ICBM ineffective. I hope we never have to find out beyond “theory”
The history behind Japan is far more complex. No one can tell what would have been the worst outcome but there were worse outcomes than the two bombs.
Though one interesting thing is that we only had 30 years between WW1 and WW2, both being horrible wars, and it has now been almost 80 years without WW3. What was the big change between the first two that made us so scared of a third?
I know your question at the end is rhetorical but for anyone who didn’t get it, the change that made us so afraid is nuclear/atomic weapons.
I have no doubt that had they not been dropped on Japan, they would have been used in Korea. All the theory in the world wouldn’t be enough to instill the rightful existential terror nukes cause.
The difference being that with Korea, it would have already had a fusion booster, which even in early designs increased the yield by a factor of 20-100 (Edit: depending on which pure-fission generation you compare to).
Edit: Also, I feel we need some tests again that get recorded with modern equipment - the old footage seems like from another world. People should be able to see it in 8K and VR to get properly scared of them.
There is no footage of modern tests because they have been conducted underground since the 60s in order to reduce contamination of the biosphere.
MAD (mutually assured destruction) that nukes kill 70-90% of your population in 24-48 hours then kills most of the rest in a 4 year global nuclear dust driven winter. The UN has stopped 100% of the scenarios where Ww3 aka MAD happens.
The highest casualty rate I’ve ever seen published for nuclear war was somewhere around 40 to 50% of the population of the US. Interestingly, despite a nuclear strike of over 25,000 nuclear weapons, Russia was expected to win that one with less than 25% of their population killed.
And there is no proven scientific basis for a nuclear winter to be the results of nuclear war. Even less so today, considering that the United States and Russia have far far fewer nuclear weapons then they did in the past. Russia only has a few thousand functional nuclear weapons, most of which are not in a state that could actually be deployed in a war.
Russia likes to say they have a big and powerful military. The us likes to say “we have a weak military, please more congress money”. Based in Ukraine, I think the us would win (if you can call it that) in MAD.
Also you are right that the anti ICBM capabilities has increased in each nation. Also each nation is increasing the ICBM nuke speed to render the anti ICBM ineffective. I hope we never have to find out beyond “theory”