Iranian officials urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants, as U.S. President Donald Trump warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not meet his latest deadline.
The US never had the stated goal to wipe those cities off the planet. This guy is a lunatic and will use far more than 1 nuke. He doesn’t care about consequences or the effects spreading to surrounding nations. It’s best to assume those making the calls are shortsighted and will do anything to meet immediate short term goals.
Imagine if every city in Japan was hit at once. Would those 2 cities have been rebuilt?
Also let’s not forget those bombs used in WW2 are a fraction of the strength of modern nukes.
That’s not how radiation spreads. It will be bad for the surrounding countries, but modern bombs were designed to have lower radiation. Mostly so troops can go and occupy shortly afterwards. Plus the mountainous geography of Iran will contain a lot of the radiation.
Then there’s the question do you have to kill all 90 million? If they destroyed all cities over 100,000 that effectively ends the society overnight. It’s not the full 90 million, but there’s nothing left to rebuild with.
That alone limits the number of bombs dropped.
Plus we’re still forgetting that a deranged lunatic is in charge.
Su;pposing they do that, Iran still has missile launchers and missile production in hardened underground bunkers. They won’t get them all. As soon as the nukes go off, and for quite a while after, the missiles will continue to strike at every target Iran has been holding out on: desalination plants and oil/gas production facilities. Israel and the gulf states will be destroyed.
A plurality of the world’s oil and half the world’s fertilizer comes from the middle east so we will have a global depression and a global famine. We will all go down together.
Radiation typically spreads through weather as its lifted into the atmosphere. Mountains notably break-up and can contain weather fronts. It will also inhibit the aresolization of radioactive dust.
Look into how mountains impact weather and the movement of air. I’m not claiming it will 100% contain radiation spread but it will help limit it.
Remember it is a function of time as radiation naturally decays over time. This isn’t Chernobyl, nukes are designed around isotopes that degrade faster.
But yeah Pakistan and Russia would likely feel the effects to some degree. Is Saudi Arabia a nuclear state? They would feel it too.
I’m not saying this is unlikely, I just think he’s blood drunk enough to do it. Our understanding of the effects of dozens of modern nuclear bombs on an urban center is theoretical, thankfully, but even with Iran’s geography, it’s going to cause huge problems with oil production, causing downstream food distribution issues etc.
I guess it depends on your definition of society- they wouldn’t have a functioning government for a while, but the people surviving would still be Iranian and depending on whether they’re Kurdish, Persian, or other, might still have loyalty to the idea of an Iranian state.
I don’t think you can do enough damage to the people that there’s no Iranian (or Persian) state in 100 years without damaging the rest of the world irreparably. It’s not 100% clear what the death of a civilization entails, but it feels closer to wiping out the culture to me than destroying the big cities.
I guess it depends on your definition of society- they wouldn’t have a functioning government for a while, but the people surviving would still be Iranian and depending on whether they’re Kurdish, Persian, or other, might still have loyalty to the idea of an Iranian state.
Okay this one is fun and much more my area of expertise. You’re getting at the core because it is something that is very difficult to determine. The Roman Empire is a great example, we can talk about just the west for now. Roman Britain was abandoned by the Roman’s, and yet archaeological evidence shows that they still tried to live like Romans or at least the elites did. Historical records show a clear point at which the Roman Empire left, but when did the elites and people stop considering themselves Roman? They did eventually stop, and that was due to being cut-off from the empire.
Then you can look at the Bronze age collapse where whole civilizations just ceased to exist. Certainly the people persisted, but few states survived in tact. People still lived their but their civilizations ceased. They spoke the same languages still, but many cities across the Mediterranean region stop inhabited. By the time written record returned new states had formed and material culture changed. We know logically the people themselves existed in continuity but their societies ceased.
Maybe this is getting to into the weeds and not appropriate here, but this is my field and I’ve dedicated a lot of time to it. So the short answer is it is nearly impossible to draw a line, but societies do collapse even when the people persist
No, it is an interesting question. I suspect that with such an old culture, it would probably stick around longer than the Roman one did in Britain. Maybe it would be more like the Roman culture in Germany or maybe it would be entirely unique.
Of course, to your point that it’s not a hard and fast line, I’ve seen the argument that the Roman Empire still exists in Turkey or Russia. I don’t agree, but I can see what they’re getting at.
The US never had the stated goal to wipe those cities off the planet. This guy is a lunatic and will use far more than 1 nuke. He doesn’t care about consequences or the effects spreading to surrounding nations. It’s best to assume those making the calls are shortsighted and will do anything to meet immediate short term goals.
Imagine if every city in Japan was hit at once. Would those 2 cities have been rebuilt?
Also let’s not forget those bombs used in WW2 are a fraction of the strength of modern nukes.
My point was, if he throws enough nukes at Iran to kill 90 million people, we’re all going down together.
That’s not how radiation spreads. It will be bad for the surrounding countries, but modern bombs were designed to have lower radiation. Mostly so troops can go and occupy shortly afterwards. Plus the mountainous geography of Iran will contain a lot of the radiation.
Then there’s the question do you have to kill all 90 million? If they destroyed all cities over 100,000 that effectively ends the society overnight. It’s not the full 90 million, but there’s nothing left to rebuild with.
That alone limits the number of bombs dropped.
Plus we’re still forgetting that a deranged lunatic is in charge.
Su;pposing they do that, Iran still has missile launchers and missile production in hardened underground bunkers. They won’t get them all. As soon as the nukes go off, and for quite a while after, the missiles will continue to strike at every target Iran has been holding out on: desalination plants and oil/gas production facilities. Israel and the gulf states will be destroyed.
A plurality of the world’s oil and half the world’s fertilizer comes from the middle east so we will have a global depression and a global famine. We will all go down together.
That’s not how radiation spreads but that sounds like a good way to trigger some mutually assured destruction from Iran’s allies
Radiation typically spreads through weather as its lifted into the atmosphere. Mountains notably break-up and can contain weather fronts. It will also inhibit the aresolization of radioactive dust.
Look into how mountains impact weather and the movement of air. I’m not claiming it will 100% contain radiation spread but it will help limit it.
Remember it is a function of time as radiation naturally decays over time. This isn’t Chernobyl, nukes are designed around isotopes that degrade faster.
But yeah Pakistan and Russia would likely feel the effects to some degree. Is Saudi Arabia a nuclear state? They would feel it too.
I’m not saying this is unlikely, I just think he’s blood drunk enough to do it. Our understanding of the effects of dozens of modern nuclear bombs on an urban center is theoretical, thankfully, but even with Iran’s geography, it’s going to cause huge problems with oil production, causing downstream food distribution issues etc.
I guess it depends on your definition of society- they wouldn’t have a functioning government for a while, but the people surviving would still be Iranian and depending on whether they’re Kurdish, Persian, or other, might still have loyalty to the idea of an Iranian state.
I don’t think you can do enough damage to the people that there’s no Iranian (or Persian) state in 100 years without damaging the rest of the world irreparably. It’s not 100% clear what the death of a civilization entails, but it feels closer to wiping out the culture to me than destroying the big cities.
Okay this one is fun and much more my area of expertise. You’re getting at the core because it is something that is very difficult to determine. The Roman Empire is a great example, we can talk about just the west for now. Roman Britain was abandoned by the Roman’s, and yet archaeological evidence shows that they still tried to live like Romans or at least the elites did. Historical records show a clear point at which the Roman Empire left, but when did the elites and people stop considering themselves Roman? They did eventually stop, and that was due to being cut-off from the empire.
Then you can look at the Bronze age collapse where whole civilizations just ceased to exist. Certainly the people persisted, but few states survived in tact. People still lived their but their civilizations ceased. They spoke the same languages still, but many cities across the Mediterranean region stop inhabited. By the time written record returned new states had formed and material culture changed. We know logically the people themselves existed in continuity but their societies ceased.
Maybe this is getting to into the weeds and not appropriate here, but this is my field and I’ve dedicated a lot of time to it. So the short answer is it is nearly impossible to draw a line, but societies do collapse even when the people persist
No, it is an interesting question. I suspect that with such an old culture, it would probably stick around longer than the Roman one did in Britain. Maybe it would be more like the Roman culture in Germany or maybe it would be entirely unique.
Of course, to your point that it’s not a hard and fast line, I’ve seen the argument that the Roman Empire still exists in Turkey or Russia. I don’t agree, but I can see what they’re getting at.