@Overly Serious
I also agree with your point that the current global situation has us too close to nuclear war - even it's only a 1% probability, that's too high of a chance and we're definitely closer to global nuclear war than we ever were during the cold war because at least then we weren't dumb enough to get into a hot war with Russia.
There goes the world!
I think three things need to happen before the nukes start flying.
1) Putin is about to be ousted by a US-backed revolution.
Russian leadership aren't going to leave it even close to the point that they're going to be deposed by US-backed interests. And frankly, the notion of Russian leadership being deposed by US-backed interests is horrifying in the context of nuclear war probability. When the US forment unrest the result is seldom a neat and well-ordered friendly country. Instead we have examples such as Libya, Syria, Iran... Ukraine. So far none of the countries the CIA have turned into a failed state have been nuclear powers. Do you really want Russia to be the first? Supporting US-led insurrection there is one of the worst things you might do for reducing the chance of nuclear war.
2) Putin is petty enough to give the order to launch the nukes as a retaliation.
You mean for a conventional war defeat in Ukraine? Russia wouldn't regard that as retaliation but necessary forestalling of further efforts to destroy their country. One of their primary motivations in invading the Ukraine is to stop NATO troops on their border. Russia regards this as an existential threat and given US foreign policy, statements by US officials to that effect and multiple previous examples, they're right to regard it as such.
I'm not saying that they would launch nuclear weapons as retaliation for defeat in Ukraine, I'm saying defeat in Ukraine would not only be that but is inextricable from being a stepping stone for the USA to break up Russia like they openly say they want to. You're arguing "Russia wouldn't do this just because of X". I'm saying (and they're thinking) that X only exists as a step towards Y and Z.
3) The order isn't ignored anywhere in the chain of command.
You are thinking of this in terms of 'most people would not press the nuclear button, many would baulk at it'. You're missing a selection bias. The people chosen to be in charge of nuclear weapons are very, very much picked from that segment of people who WILL follow orders. Even if someone in that chain of command is reluctant they would be replaced immediately in such a situation. It goes like this: "senior officer says do this immediately. junior officer says no. junior officer is removed immediately and another told to do it'. They've thought about this, they have designed the chain of command to handle this, I assure you.
Since they're such a PR nightmare to use, I frankly can't think of a scenario in which the US launches them first.
The USA is literally the only country which ever has launched a nuclear first strike. And they did it twice. Because, and this really is their logic, 'we would be forced to invade otherwise'. Exactly who could force the USA to invade anywhere, I don't know but it sounds like some serious "she was asking for it" shit to me. Of course you mean that they wouldn't do it now because of the threat of reprisals? Take a look at the paper I attached to this thread. The USA has been pursuing a policy of Nuclear Primacy. I said this earlier and I also clarified exactly what it meant but I don't think it registered. Seriously, read the attached or at least skim enough of it. The USA has sufficient nuclear weapons for deterrence. This is beyond question and widely accepted. What they have been doing is trying to develop Nuclear Primacy - the ability to strike first so as to make retaliation impossible. They have been spending billions in pursuit of the capability of doing exactly what you say without those billions serving any other purpose. I'll stress that - it is not necessary for deterrence. Seriously, read the paper I've attached.
And also let me put it another way. The USA knew that hundreds of thousands of people would die from invading Iraq. They knew for certain that Iraq was in no way a threat to them or European allies. They chose to take action knowing that all those people would die, for the sake of oil riches and contracts for their buddies at Halliburton. They
destroyed the country of Libya knowing perfectly well it would happen and there would be massive loss of life not only directly but in the chaos that followed and that it would spread - which it has. They did this (along with France) to prevent economic independence. I don't know how much you need to fully demonstrate that these people are willing to sacrifices lives in the hundreds of thousands or millions for profit and power. What makes you think they wouldn't kill a million more for the sake of same? And even more so to stave of the consequences of their countries thirty trillion in debt? You think they wouldn't because the tool would be
nuclear rather than something else? They've already demonstrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they view nuclear weapons as a convenience.
Psychopathy is optimised for individual success, not the success of the group. In the USA it's been a closed system and psychopathy has promoted itself to many leadership positions within that system. But psychopathy is a terrible trait in leadership when one system encounters another system of comparable size. What is rational for gaining power individually ceases to be rational for preserving power as a union. But psychopaths don't stop being psychopaths when it's inconvenient. The pathology by definition precludes it.
So to bring this back to your opening point, I think it's not 1 in a 100. Who knows what it is, I just know that it's getting likelier by the month and that it is entirely on the table if there becomes direct war between NATO and Russia. And we're nearly there.
The US has way more to lose than Russia (both in terms of GDP and international standing) and the US is also financially benefiting from the war (well, at least the oligarchs that matter are financially benefiting).
Beyond a certain point, "more to lose" has no meaning. If a country is destroyed and millions dead, by that point you've stopped counting. The human ability to comprehend it has reached it's limits.
