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The first atomic bomb used in war — dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 killed about 140,000 people. The second atomic bomb used in war — dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 — killed a similar number. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima had an explosive yield equivalent to about 15-20,000 tons of TNT.

Castle Bravo, shown above, was the first test of a deliverable hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb — a bomb small enough to be launched on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) over the poles to strike Russia or any other target. The Castle Bravo bomb had an explosive yield about one-thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, with a yield of about 15 million tons of TNT (15 Megatons).

As this article is written, the United States and Russia, the two major nuclear powers in the world, are engaged in their most direct, extensive military confrontation in Ukraine ever. Tens of thousands — probably hundred of thousands — have already died. In the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, generally considered the closest approach to global thermonuclear war previously, only one person — U2 pilot Major Rudolph Anderson — died.

Cuba was about one thousand miles from Washington D.C. and separated from the mainland United States by an ocean. Ukraine is about five-hundred miles from Moscow and shares a harder to defend land border with Russia.

The United States and Russia are probably the closest to global thermonuclear war ever. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, founded by Albert Einstein and colleagues in the 1940’s agrees. They have placed their so-called Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, where midnight represents global thermonuclear war, the closest ever — even closer than during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

The Soviet SS-18 ICBM that terrified people during the 1980’s at the peak of the Cold War could carry one giant 10-25 Megaton bomb, similar to the Castle Bravo weapon. Usually the SS-18 carried ten 550 Kiloton hydrogen bomb warheads.

A single 10 Megaton thermonuclear bomb detonated on Moffett Field in Northern California would completely destroy all building and kill everyone within a ten mile radius shown above. This would kill about 1.75 million immediately just in the zone of total destruction. Radiation and blast effects would cause injuries, deaths, and incomplete damage well beyond the red circle total destruction region shown above. Detonation of the bomb during the California dry season (late spring — early fall) would likely cause massive fires in the mountains circling the San Francisco Bay.

A global thermonuclear war between the United States and Russia would probably involve thousands of thermonuclear bombs on both sides. Hundreds of millions would probably die immediately. The war could exterminate the human race due to nuclear winter, large scale radioactive fallout, or unknown effects from detonating thousands of thermonuclear bombs nearly simultaneously — within hours or at most days.

Russia has been upgrading its nuclear force, both ICBM’s and probably warheads, over the last few decades. The modern force is almost certainly more powerful, faster, and more destructive than the SS-18 arsenal of the 1980’s. All or most of the post-Cold War nuclear disarmament agreements between the US and Russia have expired or been suspended.

What is the United States Doing in Ukraine?

What is the goal of confronting Russia in the Ukraine? What is the exit strategy? What is the benefit to the United States or the World of risking global thermonuclear war in a direct military confrontation half way around the world?

The strategy seems to be to bleed, weaken, Russia, perhaps in analogy to the Afghan war in the 1980’s, using the theory that the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in the 1980’s caused the end of the Cold War.

The end of the Cold War was an exceptional event, unprecedented or almost unprecedented in world history. Everyone was caught off guard by the end. Almost no one anticipated the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, let alone the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with many republics like Ukraine becoming separate nations.

It is probable that the Afghan war contributed to some degree, but it is quite unlikely it was the primary cause. The old Soviet Union was not defeated in battle. There was no hot war like Ukraine. Rather the Soviet Union was seemingly “defeated” in the realm of ideas. The Soviet Union decided to implement a range of reforms, with mixed results, and abandon hard core communist ideology.

Afghanistan is about 2,000 miles from Moscow, separated by mountain ranges and several non-Russian speaking regions. Ukraine is only 500 miles from Moscow.

Gambling with global nuclear war with a military confrontation in Ukraine based on a single flukish event, the end of the Cold War, is insane.

Time to Talk

We should talk now. Every day that the conflict in Ukraine continues, the United States, Russia and indeed the world are gambling with global thermonuclear war which would almost certainly kill hundreds of millions of people immediately and could cause the extinction of the human race.

Good fences make good neighbors. We’ve faced this before. In 1953, newly elected President Eisenhower went to Korea, talked with the Koreans, Chinese, and Russians and ended the disastrous Korean War which cost hundreds of thousands of lives, settling down into a bloody stalemate. The agreement established a wall, the Korean DMZ, between the North and South Korea. Certainly not an ideal solution, but it has kept the peace for seventy years.

If we can spend $100 billion on offensive weapons to kill Russians in Ukraine, we can spend $100 billion or more if needed to establish defensive fortifications and other methods to prevent either side, Russia or the Ukraine, NATO, and the United States from cheating on the peace agreement, as Hitler infamously did in Czeckoslovakia in March of 1939 after occupying the Sudetenland.

Most likely Russia will end up in control of the Crimea and other predominantly Russian speaking regions — a national divorce not unlike the breakup of Czeckoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the end of the Cold War.

We should talk now and eliminate the risk of global thermonuclear war as soon as possible. Such a war would likely destroy the United States and Russia — and possibly mankind.

Think about it. Contact your President, Senators, and Congress-persons: email, phone, in-person if possible.

(C) 2023 by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.

About Me

John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).