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RS-28 Satan 2 nuclear missile

Russia unveiled its new super-heavy, MIRV-equipped ICBM this week. The 'Satan-ii' (that's its NATO codename), has a reported throw-weight of 10,000kg, and tin bear upward to fifteen separate warheads. MIRV is an acronym that stands for Multiple Independently targeted Reentry Vehicles. MIRV-equipped missiles can deliver multiple nuclear weapons to a single target area, or blanket a large expanse with separate detonations. Historically, MIRVs have been seen as potentially destabilizing because they requite a decisive advantage to the country that can strike kickoff and eliminate its opponent'south land-based missile silos.

The stats on the RS-28 demonstrate this is a missile that means business organisation, and media outlets controlled by the Russian government accept stated that a single missile is large enough to destroy Texas or France. We could quibble with the definition of "destroy," but nosotros won't — any time a government drops 50MT of nuclear weapons on y'all, you're going to accept a really bad mean solar day.

To put some historical figures on this we turned to Nukemap, a fascinating (if macabre) nuclear weapon simulator. According to Nukemap'south information, detonating Little Boy, the same weapon we dropped on Hiroshima, directly over Manhattan would impale 263,560 people and hurt some other 512,000. The worst furnishings would be concentrated on lower Manhattan, every bit would the devastation. Increase to a 50MT weapon, and the casualties ascent to 7.63 1000000 dead and another 4.19 million injured.

NukeMap-Manhattan

Nukemap'southward estimated boom radius and fallout zones for a 50MT warhead detonated over Manhattan.

The RS-28 is slated to replace the much-older R-36 (aka, Satan). Similar the United States, Russian federation undertook multiple programs to modernize its ICBM weapons since the R-36 deployed in 1970. After the autumn of the Soviet Spousal relationship, Russian federation sharply reduced its total number of missile silos and re-purposed a number of ICBMs into launch vehicles for lightweight satellites. At that place'due south likewise been talk of using some one-time R-36 missiles to destroy small asteroids.

Obviously it's a significant development when i of the earth's nuclear powers deploys new, advanced technology. Merely there'southward no reason to believe that the RS-28 fundamentally alters the residuum of power between the US and Russia. Both countries maintain what's known as the "nuclear triad" — a combined force of missile silos, manned bombers, and submarine-launched ICBMs. During the later on years of the Cold War, Russia relied heavily on its fixed silos, while the Usa focused on submarine deployments. Russia is idea to have shifted some of its nuclear launch capability to submarines since the fall of the USSR. Despite mutual reductions to our nuclear stockpiles, both Russia and the US remain capable of wiping the other off the map.

At the same time, however, it's difficult to miss the fact that Russia is showing off its newest military machine hardware at present, as Election Day in the US draws nearly. To say Russia has taken an unprecedented and very public interest in who the Usa elects in 2022 would be understating the state of affairs. The US intelligence customs and independent security researchers institute decisive evidence the DNC hack was perpetrated by hackers affiliated with the Russian FSB and GRU. In September, Russian federation complained to the UN when Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the Un high commissioner for human being rights and a Jordanian citizen, criticized Trump. On October 12, longtime Putin ally Vladimir Zhirinovsky openly threatened nuclear state of war if Hillary Clinton is elected, saying:

Americans voting for a president on Nov. eight must realize that they are voting for peace on Planet Earth if they vote for Trump. But if they vote for Hillary it's war. Information technology will exist a curt film. There will be Hiroshimas and Nagasakis everywhere.

America and Russia used to substitution this kind of rhetoric, but more often than not accept not done so since the early 1980s. Zhirinovsky fabricated no equivalent remarks in by election cycles, even when he expressed disapproval of which candidate had been elected. Multiple 2022 manufactures paint Russian leaders and the public equally interested in whether Romney or Obama would win the election, but not overly so.

In 2022, Russian-owned Tv and news networks are reported to have taken a decisively pro-Trump stance. Unveiling a new nuclear missile fits the pattern of behavior nosotros've seen from Russia — Putin has a singled-out preference in this race, and he'south pulled out all the stops to sow FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) between both Sanders and Clinton supporters, and between Clinton and Trump over the supposed risk of nuclear war. There is no proof that Putin acted in concert with Trump, but that doesn't make Russia'due south willingness to invest heavily in such a public FUD campaign any less unusual. What was normal (if unsafe) rhetoric during the Cold War isn't what's been normal for the last several decades.

Simply FUD is all it is. Vladimir Putin is a cunning and ruthless political opponent, but he'southward also keenly enlightened of the humanity-ending disaster that could be triggered in a quickly escalating nuclear exchange. Hillary Clinton has frequently been criticized for being overly hawkish, only there is goose egg indication she would approve or support a showtime-strike initiative against Russian federation. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction has kept diplomatic crises and full-scale wars from going nuclear at much more than dangerous flash points than anything we confront today. While relations with Russia have been chilly of belatedly, there's no sign of nuclear conflict — Zhirinovsky's comments notwithstanding.

At present read: Explaining the unimaginable — how exercise nuclear bombs work?

(Top prototype credit: Makeyev Rocket Design Agency)