serenity
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Because they can. If we believe that Russian maximum launch capacity is 1000 warheads in the best hypothetically possible scenario. It's not a lot for US alone, and if you take the whole of NATO, it's near nothing.
Remember, Russian missiles are targeted on US, some on China, some on Europe. Russian missiles in the far east can't target Europe, and their missiles in Europe can't reach most of USA besides Alaska. 550 of Russian warheads are 2nd strike only: submarines, and road mobile. They will out themselves when they stop to erect the TEL, or raise to the surface and wait for the launch command.
At most, 450 warheads will be heading for North America, and Europe, with 3:1 split, if they don't want to save anything as a reserve.
Not accurate. Russia's eastern based missiles can reach Europe through the poles. They can reach north Africa even.
Russia's western based missiles can reach USA again through poles. Shortest distance between Valdivostok and London is not as far as on a 2D map as you cannot project 3D spherical geometries onto 2D and with globe it is particularly misleading nearer to the poles.
Russia has over 2000 nukes.