It is estimated that Russia has about 350–625 working nuclear warheads – but don’t know which of their 6,257 warheads actually work and which don’t. (China has about 350 nuclear warheads, so Russia is probably comparable to China).
So Russia has enough nukes to do significant damage to NATO and Europe, but I doubt that they can “wipe out NATO in just half an hour”. And that assumes that the delivery systems for all of those functioning nuclear weapons work, too.
On the other hand, every one of Britain’s, France’s and the U.S’s nuclear weapons have been maintained, and will be used in response to an attempted Russian strike – and their first targets will be every Russian missile base and platform.
The U.S. has 5,428 nuclear warheads, the United Kingdom has 225, France has 290, Israel has (approximately) 90, India has (approximately) 190, and Pakistan has (approximately) 165.
While I doubt that India, China or Pakistan would get involved if Russia launched, Israel might.
That is a lot of guaranteed-to-work nuclear weapons heading Putin’s way the second he launches his nukes.
Putin has realized that the Russian Army is not the mighty Russian Bear that he believed it to be.
Instead it is riddled with graft, the equipment is shoddy, the troops are untrained and the General Staff is 80 years behind on military theory.
So he rattles his nuclear saber in order to intimidate NATO – only most of Russia’s nuclear weapons are leftovers from the Soviet Union, and the same levels of graft that have crippled the army has undoubtedly kept those warheads from receiving the very necessary and very, very expensive, maintenance needed to keep those warheads functioning.
Every nuclear warhead needs about $250,000 USD worth of Tritium gas alone plus other equipment every maintenance cycle.
Each maintenance cycle is supposed to be 4 to 6 years, but can be stretched to 10 years in a pinch. After that the nuclear yield (the amount of damage the bomb can do) starts to drop.
But after about 15+ years without maintenance, the warhead is unable to achieve nuclear fission – and instead of a nuclear bomb capable of destroying a city, it degrades into a “dirty bomb” that might damage a single city block and then spread radioactive waste over a wider area.
That pot of maintenance money is a very tempting target for a greedy Oligarch or army officer – and the Tritium gas can easily be sold on the black market so even low-level technicians can get in on the action.
Those mega-yachts and luxurious dachas don’t just buy themselves, you know. And who is going to confess to Putin that “I didn’t maintain those nukes over there but I did maintain these”? Nobody, that is who.
And while Putin might be willing – or even eager – to go out in a blaze of nuclear fire (on the belief that “if I can’t win, then everybody loses”), the General staff at the Kremlin is much less likely to be suicidal.
Putin can give the launch order, but it has to be carried out by men down the line, and they are aware of what NATO’s response will be – and may be aware that some of Russia’s nukes aren’t, shall we say, reliable.
Dying to take out the enemy might be viewed by some as glorious, but dying when you aren’t sure if your weapon is a dud or not is another thing.
So, can Russia really wipe out NATO in half-an-hour? No, it can do a tremendous amount of damage in exchange for turning itself into an uninhabitable wasteland, but NATO will fight on.
NATO will probably fight on even harder afterwards because of civilian casualties, and Russians will suffer terribly even if the Kremlin surrenders immediately afterward.
It is very true that it doesn’t take long to destroy the world. MAD–Mutually Assured Destruction used to keep the peace in the days of the Soviet Union, when Russia and neighbours acted in their rational self-interest.
Should the nuclear be detected, then NATO would have to answer a nuclear strike with a nuclear reprisal.
