How A Nuclear War Will Start – Minute by Minute YouTube Video
How A Nuclear War Will Start – Minute by Minute YouTube Video Description
This video was made possible through a grant by Open Philanthropy.
Sources & further reading: https://sites.google.com/view/sources-mr-president/
Join us over on Discord to discuss and share your thoughts: https://kgs.link/Discord
Mr. President! Nuclear missiles will strike our country in 14 minutes. I know itβs your first day in office so Iβm going to walk you through it, but youβre the only one who can authorize our nuclear retaliation in response and youβve only got a few minutes to make a decision!
OUR CHANNELS
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
German: https://kgs.link/youtubeDE
Spanish: https://kgs.link/youtubeES
French: https://kgs.link/youtubeFR
Portuguese: https://kgs.link/youtubePT
Arabic: https://kgs.link/youtubeAR
Hindi: https://kgs.link/youtubeHI
Japanese: https://kgs.link/youtubeJA
Korean: https://kgs.link/youtubeKO
HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT US?
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
This is how we make our living and it would be a pleasure if you support us!
Get Products designed with β€ https://shop-us.kurzgesagt.org
Join the Patreon Bird Army π§ https://kgs.link/patreon
DISCUSSIONS & SOCIAL MEDIA
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
TikTok: https://kgs.link/tiktok
Reddit: https://kgs.link/reddit
Instagram: https://kgs.link/instagram
Twitter: https://kgs.link/twitter
Facebook: https://kgs.link/facebook
Discord: https://kgs.link/discord
Newsletter: https://kgs.link/newsletter
OUR VOICE
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
The Kurzgesagt voice is from
Steve Taylor: https://kgs.link/youtube-voice
OUR MUSIC β¬βͺ
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
700+ minutes of Kurzgesagt Soundtracks by Epic Mountain:
Spotify: https://kgs.link/music-spotify
Soundcloud: https://kgs.link/music-soundcloud
Bandcamp: https://kgs.link/music-bandcamp
Youtube: https://kgs.link/music-youtube
Facebook: https://kgs.link/music-facebook
The Soundtrack of this video:
Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3qwPJBT
Bandcamp: https://bit.ly/45EdTsL
If you want to help us caption this video, please send subtitles to subtitle@kurzgesagt.org
You can find info on what subtitle files work on YouTube here:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734698?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=7296214
Thank you!
π¦π§π€ PATREON BIRD ARMY π€π§π¦
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
Many Thanks to our wonderful Patreons (from http://kgs.link/patreon) who support us every month and made this video possible:
Mason & Sophia Green, KEZACO, Mitchell Grenier, Merlin, Sage, Morry Kolman, Riomura_Dev, Nidhoegger, Julian Nowak, Rayyrawr, Arthur Robillard, Christian, Raphael Seffers, Sim Slim, David Manzanarez, cicero4, Domenic Rigling, AlZe, Jonas Brodesser, Peter Roth, Tobias, Nuno SerΓ©n, Adam W, David Bank, Charles Brown, Winston White, Dustin Davis, Hassan Taher, Eduardo OmeroviΔ C., Juan Arturo Drew P., Glacier, marin, Jae Darl, Scott & Sora, Andoriol, Piero Acevedo, Isimo, West Stringfellow, Driaon, Simon Goller, Tom Bonarewitz, Amelie BΓΌttner, Ma. Jimena, Kury Sama, Marco Grotemeyer, Bao Truong, Chrispy, Nigggo, Sivarama Pokala, jonas meinberg, Cheese, David Walsh, Jan, Philipp Laube, Sinje Brandt, Lit, Paul, Junipal Witt, Rhodii Rodiles, Jamarr Mays, Andre Vianna, Flemming H., Nick Elvis, Snake4you, Midokin, Mario Tutzer, MetroTM, CheezeNuggies, MΓ€ddin, Nils Scholz, Samsa, Kaine Shadory, TNT TV Gaming, Kevin Kaufmann, Florian Arndt
How A Nuclear War Will Start – Minute by Minute Automated Transcript By Speak
Mr President, nuclear missiles will strike our country in 14 minutes. I know it’s your first day in office. So I’m going to walk you through it. But you are the only one who can authorize our nuclear retaliation in response.And you’ve only got a few minutes to make a decision as you know, tensions have escalated rapidly in the past few days. Today’s joint allied aerial defense exercise began just minutes before we detected the launch. A simple misunderstanding. Maybe we assume the sudden attack is meant to neutralize as many of our nuclear forces as possible. But that doesn’t matter. Now, missiles
are in the air and we can’t shoot all of them down. Why?
Because intercontinental ballistic missiles are
basically rockets
launched into space before re entering the atmosphere over their target and releasing many different warheads higher and faster than anything you can send after them. We need to get you to the bunker. Here is what we know. Four minutes ago, our new infrared monitoring satellites detected 112 bursts consistent with launches from the enemy’s inner territories. For some reason, only 20 of their 80 underground nuclear silos seemed to have fired. So we suspect most of them were transporter erecta launches, you know, trucks with big missiles on them. It’s unclear why they didn’t use all their silos. They might just not
work after more than 30 years or they might be keeping them in reserve. The fog of war is keeping many things
unclear. Aerospace command thinks the ICBM S are targeting our nuclear command centers silos and major air force and navy bases ending this war before we have a chance to act the enemy’s
strategic doctrine prioritizes military targets and our nuclear weapons systems. But their secondary targets are our industry and infrastructure, all refineries, power stations and deep water
ports, all
located near or in major population centers.
We won’t know the exact casualty count for a few weeks. Deaths from the blast and burns may be a few million today. It’s morning rush hour and there’s not much to be done for people stuck in traffic. People in major metro areas can’t really evacuate but emergency broadcasts are being sent out to shelter in place and away from windows. Radiation
exposure for intact population centers is highly dependent on the weather. Over the next week,
we might be looking at dozens of millions of deaths by the end of the month. For the next few minutes,
we can still respond but you need to decide
we’ve got 1500 warheads across our silos, bombers and submarines. The 400 in silos need to be launched. Now, before they get taken out, 46 nuclear capable bombers on high alert could be ready to take off in two minutes though. We need to transmit the order right away to get them out of the blast radius. If you want to consider using them of our 40 nucleus, our marines five are presently at sea while they’re submerged, they’re undetectable. So that’s our back up for a nuclear retaliation. If we lose our silos and bombers, we could try to use them to bomb out their remaining silo fields before they can launch them. The sooner you commit to it, the better the chance we have of preventing a further exchange after our retaliation updates, we have radar confirmation that the enemy ICBM S have completed their burn and deployed their warheads. Our best guess is that each missile will deploy at least six re entry vehicles about 600 in total, which is the part that carries a warhead back into the atmosphere during its terminal descent onto the target. And with many more decoys on top of that inflatable balloons meant to waste any anti missiles. We are now tracking nearly 4000 potential targets. Our anti ballistic missiles have been launched and we will begin their intercept in another minute. We will do our best to protect the capital.
Although there really is no defense. Wait, confirming a partial radar blackout. Our systems seem to be glitchy. The enemy must have anticipated. We’d launch our interceptors and pre detonated a few warheads at high altitude that ionizes the atmosphere and creates radar interference.
Our interceptors should still
operate. Ok. They’ve had a 55% success
rate in tests but never with this many decoys or with radar interference this intense, we might shoot down 50 objects but there’s no guarantee their warhead. It looks like most bombs are going to get through. This is our last chance to counter attack. We’re out of time. Our solar launch sequence takes five minutes. We have to transmit and confirm a launch order and the missile needs time to clear the blast radius of the incoming bomb. This is a lot to take in. But the war plan is made, you just need to enter the launch authorization codes and push this button to transmit them. You can’t do anything else to save more of
our people. If you don’t launch now, then this war will be over
before it even begins. You understand, this is our one chance, right? The effect enemy civilian casualties are hard to estimate but should be similar to ours. A few million right away, perhaps a few tens of million. By the end of the month, the total fallout from their attacks
and ours might trigger a nuclear winter, potentially killing billions around the world. But that might happen even if we don’t retaliate,
I’m sure you have questions, but you have to give orders without expecting answers
right now. With an
attack of this scale. There’s no guarantee communications or assets will be intact in a few minutes. We’re out of time. We need a decision, sir. Can we launch nuclear wars? Aren’t regular wars? They only last minutes and in times of crisis, small conflicts can rapidly spiral out of control. Anything from small communication links to sensor errors, to just uncertainty
in the fog of war. Mean that no leader will ever have a complete
idea of what’s happening as a crisis unfolds when tensions are high accidents or misunderstandings can steer leaders. Even those with good intentions to launch a nuclear attack, confused and with incomplete information, a single person, yes, it’s really just one single person who decides can literally make civilization ending decisions, killing hundreds of millions of people in the
time. It takes to watch
a youtube video. This story is fiction
but the world came very close to this several
times. In 1995 Russian radar detected a submarine launched missile and their nuclear forces went on full alert except it was actually a scientific rocket to study Auroras. In 1979 US, computers reported a full scale Soviet attack with only minutes to
respond except
it was a training tape being incorrectly loaded into a computer. In 1983 the Soviet satellite alert system showed five is launched from the US
but it was a false
alarm caused by sunlight reflected on clouds during the Cuban missile crisis. A
Soviet submarine with no contact to Moscow for several days,
concluded that nuclear war had begun and decided to launch a nuclear torpedo. Luckily, the authorization of three officers was required one of them Vasily Aipo
opposed it.
But what if he hadn’t any safeguard can fail no matter how carefully designed it might be. And decisions are being made right now to build new weapons and missile systems that commit the world to another century
of nuclear stalemate. Complicated further
by China’s emergence as a new nuclear superpower. Simply accepting that the existence of nuclear weapons is
inevitable, might mean their use is inevitable.
But the world doesn’t have to be
this way.
Even incremental steps taking apart one bomb at a time will eventually result in a world with none. During the Cold War, the world had over 70,000 nuclear weapons through arms reduction treaties. That number is now about 12,500 progress is not guaranteed but it’s also not impossible.
Governments and militaries are not separate from their nations, they’re part of them just like you, you have the power to make
demands of your leaders.
And often this begins with just being aware of an issue. If you want to learn more. We’ve compiled a number of resources for you in the video description and our sources.
This video was supported by open philanthropy. Did you know that there are countless more zar videos that we upload on tiktok youtube shorts and Instagram reels, bite sized information, animated facts and inspiring thought experiments. After all, you also need videos you can watch quickly in a bathroom break.
Our longer more in depth videos are happening here on youtube. Short form is a completely different challenge that we’re trying to do as well as possible. Check them out if you’re curious and if you want to discuss and share your thoughts about science with other like-minded people, why don’t you check out our discord community with over 80,000 burbs? We have channels where you can chat about stem topics, participate in events and the academic question of the week and we have the best of emotions. After all, we want to spark your curiosity, but it’s always more fun to be curious together. See you over there. Wait.
How A Nuclear War Will Start – Minute by Minute was transcribed automatically by Speak. We apologize for any inaccuracies in the transcript. All rights and credit are given to the creator of the video.
Want to transcribe and analyze your own video and audio files? Sign up using this link for a 14-day trial of Speak and get 30 minutes of free audio and video transcription and analysis.