nuclear attack on britain- how likely

[blackbunny]

Posting this in AIBU for traffic.
With all the current unrest in the world, I've found myself obsessing today about the possibility of Britain being attacked.
Now, I suffer from depression and anxiety that is controlled by ADs. My husband has serious health issues, undergoing chemo atm and I'm naturally worried about the outcome. Till today, I've been coping with my feelings and emotions well. But today, seemingly out of the blue I'm haunted by the fear of a nuclear attack, can't seem to shake off the feelings of dread and fear.
I know in my head the reality is remote, but I suppose what I need to hear is that that is right.
Can anybody reassure me? Please help.

No need to worry, it won't happen.

Yes but the trouble with that would be...there's got to be a winner and a loser, what happens when one side starts losing, it would then turn nuclear surely, unless they agree to an immediate ceasefire.

BillSykesDog

Unfortunately that doesn't hold true. Wars cost a fortune. We were on our knees after WW2. The USA who did all of the supplying of armaments were even running out of gold and couldn't buy more oil from the Arabian peninsula. That said, their economy recovered much more quickly than Europe and they had no one to trade because we were so poor so they implemented the Marshall Plan which was effectively a free gift of material goods to the UK.

Also a losing side in a war will always revert to weapons of mass destruction or terror weapons if they can. Remember recently Saddam rained Scuds down on Saudi Arabia and Israel.

We were on our knees after WWII because the USA wanted us to be because they wanted to subordinate the UK and break up the British Empire to establish their supremacy as a world super power.

The USA also took part in that war and certainly wasn't on it's knees. War also has a habit of redistributing wealth when it becomes too concentrated in a few hands. That was a result of WWII.

And lots of wars don't have a clear cut winner or loser. I suspect that Russia, China and the US would all have reasons to want an air based war in third party countries. I suspect they could all go into it knowing a few years of sabre rattling could transform the world economy.

when does people following the rules and starving become people breaking the rules and taking things?

When there's a war

for those that haven't seen it I recommend www.amazon.co.uk/Mouse-That-Roared-DVD/dp/B0000695JU?tag=mumsnetforum-21

Dated now but still very good for the over anxious

I have a theory that the powerful elite know that our destruction is imminent because of climate change and the only way to reverse that now is to kill off at least 70% of all polluters (people). They're going to do this with a huge world war. We're watching the start of that now. In reality world Putin, Trump etc are all mates with the same intentions.

It is just a theory.

*world leaders

Name changer : yes, it's just a theory ....

What a scary theory

Same age as Salmo, nightsky, and hare. Growing up in the 60s and 70s must give one a certain blasé approach to the threat of nuclear war - it simply isn't going to happen, even mad men like Kim Il, Trump, and Putin aren't stupid enough to press the button. It's all sabre rattling posturing imo.

I think that theory is right.

Its the force that we used to call 'god' , but really its just the overall regular corrections and adjustments you see from the combined psychologies around resources.

The slightly odd thing humans do is that they have an insulating layer called money that is also malleable, so that resource pinch points can be moved and manipulated to be artificial - ie so a l ot of the population now are feeling the exact same way as they would do in ties of scarcity, but that scarcity is artificial because the abundance of the whole is phenomenal.

If you look at youtube videos of ant colonies, you will see stagnation of activity and death as resources get pinched, and resume very quickly as new resources are added.

The interesting thing here will be what will give first? A freeing up of the system to share resources to remove the artificial feeling of resource scarcity, or elimination of the population to do the same.

The odd thing is that with the war scenario, without revolution of money supply, distribution and access/devaluation of physical resources, it may not reduce the feeling of scarcity. In the US, continued wealth growth and availability has not resulted in lack of scarcity at all. There might be manhattan islands, and aspirational TV but there are huge areas of grinding poverty all over the country, with people lifetime disabled from what we would consider routine injuries eg hernias, eye injuries, broken arms, etc. In some poor areas in the US its genuinely a third world country, with volunteer doctors bringing free medicine in for poor people to travel miles just to get basic antibiotics and stitches.

So you can see how that model pans out.

Why bother with the build up then, if that was the case why wouldn't they just start launching their missiles at each other. But apart from that can you see Putin and Trump being that selfless. to create a world for future generations, because it wouldn't be a world they could inhabit.

Mind you, its not individuals that are polluters actually, its business competing with itself, and its really debatable whether its necessary at all. People do shout 'market forces' but really I don't demand that my lettuce gets flown in from the USA, or that my clothes are manufactured overseas in sweatshops, its business that demands that be the case, business, and lack of money supply.. which is demanded by business.

Or to put it another way, if my cheapest t-shirts were £600 each because they came from the UK and we paid workers £50 an hour, I'd be fine with that, as I would likely be able to get work at £50 an hour. Because business takes all the money out of the equation so that both ends have nothing, I have to make low margin choices, yet I know that 'my share' of the hive's money is probably £50,000 or so and so I could easily make higher margin choices were my income closer to that.

In the US GDP shared equally per person is roughly $50,000 a year.

The trouble is that everyone wants the population that dies not to be their population - in democracies because thats sort of who votes for them, and in other regimes because thats who they have the most control over/whose influence they still need to dominate to remain in power.

Smaller countries always get fucked around with first because of the bigger game. Luckily we are so tied in to Europe that.. oh wait..

Egomaniacs cooperating?
No, that's just oxymoronic,
I don't buy it

Certainly there are corrupt and powerful groups who exploit and manipulate, but the idea that they successfully work together to orchestrate world events just isn't plausible in my opinion.
There are just too many variables, every action has unintended and unforseen consequences, we are talking about dynamic non linear systems, outcomes cannot be predicted or directed

The elite would would be perfectly happy (and make sure it happened) to have millions of us killed off as they did in the previous world wars, they must be gutted by knowing the next one would leave them without a planet to enjoy their obscene wealth. That's the way i'm hoping thinking anyway.

yes they do. just not in a collaborative way - that's why the power game is so curious.. If people won't collaborate in the true sense, and must fight, the arms race and power games will end up in an allegory of collaboration - with an overall pattern that looks like cooperation in the end..

Imagine two guys who hate each other wanting to fight to get food.. eventually if they stay as strong as each other, they will either both not eat (collaboration with negative outcome) or both eat (collaboration with positive outcome) - may be with snatched pieces from each other or raids on the food. Of course the outcome by proper collaboration would be less wasteful on food and resources as no energy would be lost in achieving the share, but non-collaborative people are sometimes locked in just being like that whatever.

The outcome from a bigger distance is the same anyway - food unit divided between two competitors results in two competitors consuming one food unit whichever way you look at the outcome, apart from the most drastic, ie you see the resource share in win-lose, lose-win, win-win, just not in lose-lose. So overall, lots of competitive interactions end up looking and acting like lots of cooperative or collaborative actions.

Thats why power game people end up with standoffs that sort of preserve a status quo more often than they'd like. .. the problem i have with power people is that they deplete psychological and physical resources in getting to a balanced, but often sub-optimal collaboration. .. Again, the power people are like nodes of fighting on a saturday night out, with everyone else not knowing what the fuck they are doing. They are all consumed in their game, thinking they are running the manor or whatever, but everyone else is just manoeuvring around them.

Game theory and prisoners dilemma etc

Eh, I live in the shadow of a nuclear power station, which is right next door to a massive petrochemical complex and a big oil tank farm. I figure I'm fucked if people start dropping bombs so I'm not going to worry about it.

Scaryclown Not being tied into the EU is a non issue. We are firmly within NATO, we have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, we have one of the two sets of fully functioning Armed Forces within the EU, and we have nuclear weapons. Apart from France, who has the other set of fully functioning Forces within the EU, nuclear weapons and the UN Security Council seat, which other EU Member State has all that?

If it comes to war, then the EU needs us far more than we need it. In fact, if it comes to war, the EU cannot take a role, apart from supporting NATO and wanting the shelter of the nuclear umbrella thereof.

oh yes NOW we do.. but when countries need picking off we are fucked man. We are an island, so we can be sunk.

The fact we are an Island means anyone who wants to invade is going to have to do it by sea or air, as the Chunnel will have been blown up well before. We are quite a big island, so not quite sure how we'd be sunk. We would not be fucked.

www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=14468&cataId=nk00300
Ordinary North Koreans are reportedly commenting on the senselessness of developing nuclear weapons, mainly due to the country’s economic stagnation, as well as the influx of external information.

Until the US withdrew its strategic nuclear weapons from Korea in the early 1990s, the regime told the population that the US was planning to attack the North. Another point often emphasized during political lectures targeting residents was that “there is no clear victory or defeat in a nuclear war.”

North Korea’s change of tack to double down on nuclear development thus caused confusion, prompting some cadres and residents alike to wonder, “Why continue building them, then?”

The people of North Korea are becoming increasingly hostile toward the Kim family's obsession with nuclear weapons, as it harms the country’s economic development and the people’s livelihoods.

we have one of the two sets of fully functioning Armed Forces within the EU, and we have nuclear weapons. Apart from France, who has the other set of fully functioning Forces within the EU, nuclear weapons and the UN Security Council seat, which other EU Member State has all that?

Agree, again something that has been pointed out repeatedly. If shit hits the fan they - ie EU will be heavily reliant on us for army and also intelligence.