Who could effectively win in a nuclear war. US or Russia.

i wonder who could effectively deliver their nuclear missles. personally i think it depends. correct me if im wrong but dosent russia have a better land based nuclear weapon arsenal. on the other hand we have a better sea based nuclear weapon arsenal. we also have better air based delivery arsenal. but russia may have the upper hand on us when it comes to intelligence i belive they have nukes in america now and we dont know about them. we also probably have nukes in russia(the nukes are probably unmarked in case they are ever found) but probably not to the extent the russians have. and they also have the better intelligence agency if u ask me and probaly a better trained special forces.

No one wins in an all out nuclear exchange. No one. The US arsenal is technicaly surperior in term of survivability and CEP, but from a realistic standpoint both sides still have enough missiles to burn the world down to bedrock.

Even a limited exchange of say less than 100 warheads would devestate the environment not to mention the human toll.

true but nukes have fail safes we haves mislle defense systems and so do they. if contact is made between the two they will explode harmlesely. who will be able to actually hit the other if need arises. we have technology that they dont know about but they also have soome we dont know about. are systems are better but they have more mobile missles not as accurate but still deadly. there are other ways of shotting down missles like lasers, microwaves, and o ther directed ebergy weapons. so if there is 100,000 nukes in the world and all but i think is 6 are not owned by either of the two superpowers there could be 1000 nukes fired and all of them could be downed. we also have stealth bombers but to believe that russia does not have their own stealth program up and running with 1 plane in working order or close to being in working order we are kidding are seleves. russia is very good with keeping secrets and they are allowed to use better interrogation techiiches to get the info they want from our spys.

Define exactly what you mean by the word "win".

Is that last country with one surviving person standing?

Originally posted by Karl Toussaint
true but nukes have fail safes we haves mislle defense systems and so do they. if contact is made between the two they will explode harmlesely. who will be able to actually hit the other if need arises.

Hmm, the missile system is limited in scope and can only really protect aginst 1 or two missiles launched from say North Korea. Yes they will kill the incoming missile using lasers, explosives or a direct hit (also called a kinetic kill) but you would have alot of weapons grade plutonium spread around in the process.

Russia does not have an active ABM program going right now.

You .. actually speaking this is quite an interesting question..
No one (none of us at least) has considered that what might be the scenario after a nuclear exchange..
People go underground for how long?? 2/3 years??
NBC suits can allow certain mobility on the ground..
What abt the rest of the world..
We talking nuclear winter over the ENTIRE globe??

by the word win i mean who still has a more stable government, more ppl, and more milatary force.

no offense to canada. but if russa launches a strike we would strike bak. the nukes would travel over the north pole. if we were to destroy them over canada the fallout would be over canada. no offense to canada once again i like u guys. plus canada probably has some sort of of missle defense system like the patriots the army uses.plus all of nato would go against russia including the UN. and they could also destoy missles as well.
plus i heard of a succesful program that uses some type of signal that wen projected out from the source like a radio signal would wirelsesly reprogram the guidance system of any missle that was selected.

Originally posted by Karl Toussaint
by the word win i mean who still has a more stable government, more ppl, and more milatary force.

All out nuclear exchange means there is no government, its pretty much small enclaves of surviors trying to stay alive in a wrecked environment. Even places not directly hit will get radioactive fallout and the ensuing nuclear winter will kill off crops. No one wins, everybody loses. thats why they were never used during the cold war.

everybody thinks nuclear fallout will spread thouseamnds of miles.IT WONT. at the max 100 miles 200 miles if ur lucky. farther if it hits the water supply.if it hits the water supply it will effect everyone in the area surrounding it. for example if u hit the florida water aquifer u will effext 3 staes water supplies. 3 staes that can get supplies from the ocean and still suevive. and u would have to be luky to get a nuke that far. and past all those defenses. wen chernobyl happened it affected an area around it not a large one but still of decent size. the effects from the fall out in the water water will be as if the water was ploutted.

Turginson: We would therefore prevail, and suffer only modest and acceptable civilian casualties from their remaining force which would be badly damaged and uncoordinated.

Muffly: You're talking about mass murder, general, not war.

Turginson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say... no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh... depended on the breaks.

Dr. Strangelove: Mr. President, I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy... heh heh... rolls forward into the light at the bottom of ah ... some of our deeper mineshafts. The radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep. And in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in dwelling space could easily be provided.

Crazy world..but Dr.Strangelove is a great movie to watch btw.

Originally posted by Karl Toussaint
everybody thinks nuclear fallout will spread thouseamnds of miles.IT WONT.

Karl, your assurance makes me feel better already. We can just put you charge of the nuclear aresenal. Launch when ready.

Karl... read 'Strategic Nuclear Targeting' by Ball & Richelson (Cornell University). It was put togther in the late '80s but will give you a very accurate idea of what the government would do in the event of a significant nuclear engagement. It ain't pretty. And I believe your fallout predictions are overly optimistic. Multiple ground and airbursts (which would be the case in any significant exchange) would create both low and high altitude winds that would disseminate vast quantities of contaminated material over huge distances. Updrafts form these explosions would carry material into the high altitude where it would be carried in the jet stream. Look at how far contamination spread from the Chernobyl accident --- several hundred miles. And that was a very limited event at low altitude. Sorry, things would be far worse than you are imagining I'm afraid.

Originally posted by FredT
Russia does not have an active ABM program going right now.

The last test of the system was in december 2004 - and it was a success

russianforces.org...

so it IS fully operational - unlike safeguard which was shut down only months of becoming operational!!

the goverment is so unpredictable they would probbaly go into bunkers and thats it but there would still be a weak but intact goverment.

There was a movie, made in 1983, called "The Day After". It will give you an excellent incite into who wins a nuclear war. I'll give you a hint, it isn't the average joe (or the average ivan in Russia's case).
I'm not kidding- if you think a nuclear war can be won, I really do want you to go to blockbuster and rent The Day After. It's a first class horror show, and I'd say more than a bit optimistic. Get a good look at two hours of people crying for their dead lovers, staggering through the country side in search of a city still standing and some place where the food isn't contaminated, most of them burnt, blind, and dying with their hair and teeth falling out.

There are too many nukes, too many ways of delivering them, too much to be lost from even a few hits. Life after "winning" a nuclear war would be a thousand times worse than life after losing a conventional one. I'm about as cyncical and hawkish as they come, but even I know that you NEVER launch even one nuclear weapon unless you KNOW, not think, not have strong reason to believe, but KNOW that your enemy WILL NOT fire one back.

Originally posted by Raideur
Turginson: We would therefore prevail, and suffer only modest and acceptable civilian casualties from their remaining force which would be badly damaged and uncoordinated.

Muffly: You're talking about mass murder, general, not war.

Turginson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say... no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh... depended on the breaks.

Dr. Strangelove: Mr. President, I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy... heh heh... rolls forward into the light at the bottom of ah ... some of our deeper mineshafts. The radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep. And in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in dwelling space could easily be provided.

Crazy world..but Dr.Strangelove is a great movie to watch btw.

You can't fight here! This is the War Room.

[edit on 6/8/05 by D]

Who in Gods name would want to win a Nuclear war? Its called MAD for a reason mate. Its the reason only 2 bombs have ever been dropped. No-one in their right mind would do it.

Oh and about the day after, Ive seen clips and they were enough for me. This is a silly post. There would be no winners. If I survived, Id envy the dead.

Originally posted by FredT
No one wins in an all out nuclear exchange. No one. The US arsenal is technicaly surperior in term of survivability and CEP, but from a realistic standpoint both sides still have enough missiles to burn the world down to bedrock.

Even a limited exchange of say less than 100 warheads would devestate the environment not to mention the human toll.

My thoughts exactly! Stupid question.

Originally posted by df1

Originally posted by Karl Toussaint
everybody thinks nuclear fallout will spread thouseamnds of miles.IT WONT.

Karl, your assurance makes me feel better already. We can just put you charge of the nuclear aresenal. Launch when ready.

I gotta agree, you cant realistically predict fallout spread, if it got high enought into the atmosphere global winds would/could carry it around the globe, two areas of mass pollution at once pouring up into the skys? At what time of year? so much could affect it. And a global nuke war with every nuke capable nation involved? pfft forget it!

Nobody truelly wins, it is that simple. I always think about the absurdity of Dr. Strangelove when thinking about Nuclear war, because as Stanley Kubrick discovered, the idea is just so idiotic that you cannot take it seriously.
The film "Threads" is another nuclear war film made during the cold war, supposedly it freaked a lot of people out in the 80's when it was made. Worth a look!