Seems like they've been doing it since 2008. Is there a ten year statute of limitations or something?
The reality is that if Russia launched nuclear missiles at the U.S., the U.S. would wipe them off the map.
What appear ignorant of is that during the cold war the US/NATO defense of Western Europe depended on immediately using nuclear weapons against a conventional invasion by the Warsaw Pact. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union could wipe the US off the map. That is why when Gorbachev and Reagan agreed that "a nuclear war cannot be won and much never be fought", they also acknowledged that a conventional war involving the Soviet Union and NATO was equally unacceptable. Reagan was not agreeing we wouldn't use nuclear weapons to defend Europe against a conventional attack.
Lets be clear, Russia using nuclear weapons in Europe is not "suicidal". As De Gaulle allegedly pointed out when the US complained about France developing their own nuclear capacity, "Are you going to sacrifice Washington to punish an attack on Paris? If De Gaulle was uncertain of the answer then, Russia is likely willing to take the risk that the answer is "No" if the stakes are high enough. But if US unsuccessfully responded by attempting to "wipe Russia off the map" before it could launch its missiles, that would be all but suicidal.
I was explicitly talking about what would happen if Russia launched nuclear weapons specifically at the United States, not an arbitrary non-nuclear NATO country.
NATO would still be obligated to retaliate in an attack on other NATO countries, whether nuclear or otherwise, and Russia's military would still almost certainly lose very badly and very quickly, given their current levels of force depletion, but I do agree that it would probably not involve a nuclear response. It wouldn't need to.
We don't even think about the possibility of that outcome, because we know that they know that nobody in Russia would survive if they tried.
Again, you are ignorant of the reality and there is no point in this discussion.
The reality is that if Russia launched nuclear missiles at the U.S., the U.S. would wipe them off the map. If you honestly think otherwise, I have a bridge to sell you. And if you're really that detached from reality, you're right. There's no point in this discussion.
On the one hand, the idea of an iPad with two large-ish screens sounds tempting. Lots of people I know use 12.9-inch iPad Pro displays for reading music, but it is challenging if you can only see one page at a time. It's a lot better if you can show two.
On the other hand, 18 inches arguably isn't *quite* big enough. Two iPad Pros would be a little over 20 inches, and those are really on the small side.
And knowing Apple, it would be a $3500 tablet. Meanwhile, I'm doing it with a 24-inch wall-mount Android tablet that cost me something like $450.
Some of the NAND chips were ripped off and were not found. The ones that weren't ripped off were shattered - cracks in multiple directions. The dies inside were almost certainly exposed to sea water.
Exposed to sea water, the cells probably lost all charge very rapidly.
I had been hoping that someone would have made the attempt anyway. I'd have liked to read that report.
An artillery shell is subjected to one acceleration along a single axis of propulsion. It is a big acceleration, but not that big, and you mostly just need to organize the parts such that everything is supported along that axis.
Dealing with an implosion is different. Water with the density of concrete, moving around the speed of sound, bouncing everywhere and coming from all directions.
The SSDs look like someone put them in a pillowcase and beat them with hammers.
Not even slightly. America has nuclear-capable cruise missiles with a range of up to 1550 miles. There is not a single target anywhere in Russia that could not be reached by those missiles when fired from out in the ocean.
On that note, lets end this conversation since you obviously don't know what you are talking about. Because while what you say is accurate, your conclusion contradicts every lesson of the cold war.
My conclusion that there's no reason NATO needs Ukraine is backed up by the fact that NATO hasn't let Ukraine in. If it were a meaningful strategic military advantage, it would have happened long ago. NATO doesn't want Russia to be its enemy, and is wary of taking on countries that are actively at war with Russia. Committing arms in a proxy war is one thing. Outwardly engaging Russia except in defense is quite another.
At the same time, a lot of countries near Russia often want to be in NATO because they regard Russia as their frenemy at best, and a loose cannon just waiting to go off in their direction, and being part of NATO strongly discourages Russia from doing so. Georgia, Ukraine, now Finland. It would not surprise me if Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan or Mongolia pushes in that direction within the next few years. All because they have seen what Russia has done and are afraid that they will be next.
The only way Ukraine would be a strategic advantage would be if it just happened to provide some path with low population where missiles could strike before anyone sees them. But either way, Russia has dead man's switches and stuff, so if the missile silos aren't 100% taken out before anybody notices, it's over. It's a suicide mission even without committing actual troops. NATO wouldn't be crazy enough to do that. And Russia fearing that sort of outcome is just plain bats**t crazy, because there's no rational reason for them to do so.
The U.S. hasn't cowered in fear of Russia nuking us since the Cuban Missile Crisis. We don't even think about the possibility of that outcome, because we know that they know that nobody in Russia would survive if they tried. Russia badly needs to reach the same level of trust. They may not agree with NATO or trust it, but they should at least be able to trust that NATO won't behave in an irrational, ridiculously self-destructive fashion. And if they can't get to that level of trust, the problem isn't NATO or the things that NATO does. The problem is that their government is paranoid delusional, and their people have been led to be similarly paranoid delusional through limited access to non-state-run media and widespread brainwashing by government propagandists. And the only way to fix that is by getting Russia to open back up.
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." -- George Carlin
