[FRIAM] Through a Screen Darkly

Fri Mar 11 13:39:34 EST 2022

Thanks, Steve.  One my favorite group process things now, as you know, is
engaging in idle speculation through play.

On Fri, Mar 11, 2022 at 11:26 AM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> Marcus -
>
> For whatever reason, the map image you attached  doesn't show any radii
> but I (think I) appreciate the link to the calculator.
>
> <darkness alert>Too Dark Don't Read (TDDR)
>
> I did a demonstration study for DHS circa 2002 using Keyhole (pre-google
> earth) to provide a more visceral (first person POV) of what suitcase-sized
> nukes could do in a city (like DC).   The nuclear effects code was
> unclassified and provided mainly radii for about a dozen effects starting
> with blast/overpressure, thermal pulse, visual system damage, direct
> radiation, fallout, etc.   We then coupled that with infrastructure and
> population models and the cascading effects.    10kt is very ugly in any
> population center.  Conventional weapons are almost purely blast/thermal
> harm, the rest is a bonus on nuclear.   Fallout and cascading effects are
> by far the worst at those scales.
>
> I didn't learn anything new exactly except maybe the one detail that if
> you are going to be looking toward a nuclear detonation from far enough
> away to survive the thermal effects and the overpressure and building
> collapses that come with it, then you are better off staring at it at the
> point of ignition, because the "flash blindness" it causes will keep you
> from then staring raptly at the fireball (as everyone in the movies do)
> because this will cause permanent retinal burns.  This reference minimizes
> the likelihood of retinal burns, but I was informed otherwise, I think
> simple logic is on my side?
> https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/effects/flash-blindness.html
>
> Just imagine the effect of all the airliner pilots on approach to
> BWI/Reagan when both pilot and copilot are in their seats who might go
> blind for 2 minutes if the EMP doesn't take out their fly-by-wire
> controls?   We still had 9/11 images in our heads a that point, so one
> suitcase nuke and some percentage of aircraft on takeoff-landing coming
> down... hell...
>
> Energetically nuclear weapons are fairly trivial on a global scale
> (1000W/square meter flux from the sun across the dayside surface for
> example), I think the whole arsenal of all the countries is on the order of
> one major hurricane.  Non-trivial but not biosphere disrupting.   It think
> Mt. St. Helens was 400MT energetically (order 10 "supers")...  but the
> stratospheric particulates (nuclear winter) were a fraction of the
> equivalent in nukes.
>
> Yes, the "green glass lined holes" left in the top 10-100 meters of the
> earth surface would be trivial by some measure.   But poison fallout and
> stratospheric particulates would ramp up fast with anything more than a few
> "surgical" theater-scale strikes.   This is part of the reason for
> developing "neutron" weapons, to enhance battlefield casualties with
> limited infrastructure damage and latent radiation... "clean nukes" I think
> they called them.  Just as wicked as the "vacuum bombs" people have talked
> about.   Suck the air out of human's lungs without knocking down the
> buildings they are hiding in.  Pretty.   On the other end are the
> cobalt/salted weapons designed to *enhance* fallout and latent radiation
> harm to living things.   Not unlike the Roman's habit of "salting" the
> enemies fields so they can't recover their agriculture in less than years,
> decades, generations.
>
> This whole discussion puts a harsh spotlight on the worst in human nature
> captured well by Thomas Lux's poem The People of the other Village
> <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48485/the-people-of-the-other-village>
> .
>
> 10,000 brutal, beautiful years,
>
>  Darkly,
>
>  - Steve
> On 3/11/22 10:06 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> Steve writes:
>
>
>
> < If you are suggesting that the use of nuclear weapons by NATO or Russia
> in this conflict would be limited to "a handful" (1, 2, 3 digits?)
> exchanged from each side, and the result of *that* would result instead in
> Glen's "tacit demonstration". >
>
>
>
> Here's 50 kt yield in the context of the country.   (Courtesy of
> https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)
>
> I’m just saying it could go on a while.   I think Putin doesn’t give a
> damn about his armed forces, and would not treat a battlefield exchange the
> same way he would treat an attack on Moscow.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
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-- 
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

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