Comments by "Tim Trewyn" (@timtrewyn453) on "How a nuclear war starts: Second-by-second timeline | Annie Jacobsen and Lex Fridman" video.

  1. Get out.
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  2. I suppose you have to read the book to figure out what happens in places like Madagascar, New Zealand, and other countries not usually the focus of Russian or American ire. The nuclear winter does come to an end. If China isn't reduced by the war, then it comes out ahead.
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  3. More than once I have read that the Russians feel that escalating political events that occur over days would be the more likely scenario than "out of the blue". If Ukraine ever starts seriously pushing Russia back out of its territory, that will be a possible scenario for a nuclear scorched earth retreat. I think this is a reason among others why General Hodges talks about making an oblast like Crimea "untenable" for the Russians rather than outright taking it back under Ukrainian control. The Russians don't have to retreat, but nor can they make profitable use of the territory they have seized. Scorching that earth would just be hurting themselves more. Nuking areas of Ukraine they do not control invites Jake Sullivan's "catastrophic response". That would probably involve other nations repelling any further advance of Russian forces in Ukraine with conventional weaponry and further destruction of the logistical support of all Russian forces in Ukraine. None of this response need occur outside Ukraine in its early phases. An Allied nuclear weapon(s) may be a suitable way to take out the Kerch Bridge. It need not result in high collateral damage like taking out the Russian HQ for Ukrainian operations in Rostov on Don, and it is somewhat less provocative than doing that. Nuclear weapons can also inflict more enduring damage to the Russian rail network that supports the war. Detonations could occur in less populated stretches of the rail lines. Russian forces would be significantly weakened by the dramatically reduced supply of ammunition. They would also lose air superiority and begin to see their remaining holdings increasingly untenable. The fate of the Zaporizhya Nuclear Power Plant would seem to be a wild card. There is a very tense scenario ahead of us, but the plan seems to be to continue to weaken Russia and strengthen Ukraine to reach a point of culmination in the conflict. The slow boiling frog method may still be the way to go, that is, small Ukrainian gains over time, none of which seem to Putin to merit a nuclear escalation. You keep him thinking he is winning here and there, letting his troops move ahead while he doesn't care that most of them are lost in the process. He just takes the land gain as a win and forgets about the people. Seems to be his MO so far.
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