“5,000 nuclear warheads and the ability to kill everyone in this country within an hour?”
- I’d say the US and its allies are pretty competent in the nuclear war department too.
The only chance a nation like Russia has of defeating the US and Western Europe is by a conventional war and their chances of triumph in such a conflict are very, very slim.
Nuclear wars can’t be won. At least not on the scale that would happen if the US and Russia went toe to toe. Maybe, one of these days, if we ever get a hardcore missile defense system going. But it would have to be hardcore, taking out 5000 missiles out of the atmosphere and with few of them going off (even out of the atmo that much release radiation could pose a problem) is a significant task.
This is why proxy war was invented. This is why we absolutely positively will never enter direct conflict with Russia. Both of us know that if the other side starts to lose a conventional war it will go nuclear, and we both know nobody wins a nuclear war, so instead we arm puppet countries to throw at each other, safer that way.