My preferred fictional outcome is Putin orders a full launch, but almost all the missiles just do a small fart in their tubes as no maintenance was done, and the ones that launch end up reaching escape velocity and disappearing because the people in charge of the silos had long since sold the payloads for yacht money…
Unfortunately, the US has a launch on warning policy.
So even if every warhead Russia has is a dud, or doesn’t even re-enter the atmosphere, they’ll still be nuked into a fine mist of concrete and carbonized human dust about 20 minutes after we realize their bombs don’t work.
And then the rest of us get to live through nuclear winter.
As long as no one’s nuclear trigger fingers get itchy, I’ll be happy.
My preferred fictional outcome is Putin orders a full launch, but almost all the missiles just do a small fart in their tubes as no maintenance was done, and the ones that launch end up reaching escape velocity and disappearing because the people in charge of the silos had long since sold the payloads for yacht money…
This is the timeline I want.
Unfortunately, the US has a launch on warning policy.
So even if every warhead Russia has is a dud, or doesn’t even re-enter the atmosphere, they’ll still be nuked into a fine mist of concrete and carbonized human dust about 20 minutes after we realize their bombs don’t work.
And then the rest of us get to live through nuclear winter.
Putin knows that if he’s gonna press any big red buttons, it better be all of them because gloves are gonna be taken off against him.