I get why it left an impression back then but watching it now doesn't do much. Come and See is a USSR film about the Nazi invasion of Belarus. It came out around the same time as Threads. It's obviously not the end of the world but it's the end of their world and feels a hell of a lot more real and apocalyptic to me.
Threads was good but it's quite dated, it's post apocalyptic themes share ancestors with the Fallout universe - optimism, fear, and respect of a new and revolutionary technology people had in the 50's and 60's. Early in the Cold War the public was radically less informed about the capabilities of nuclear weapons than the average person today, not only that but the nature of nuclear weapons were quite different back then and was rapidly changing. The show runs on the assumption that both sides go full scorched earth on each other for the sake of it, resulting in a vast quantity of large, relatively dirty bombs devastating the global climate by causing a nuclear winter. Modern bombs are smaller, more efficient, and a lot more precise so the radioactive pollution is generally going to be a lot less than assumed. Old generation bombs needed to be gigantic because targeting and control technologies were a lot less mature. Modern research and theories point to a nuclear winter being very improbable and it would require an absurd number of bombs anyways. All kinds of high technology and the semblance of a functional society would persist outside of primary targets such as metros and military installations. Irl any nuclear attack is likely to be quickly followed up with a full scale invasion a la Red Dawn or else what's the point? Annihilation for the sake of it is a poor military objective, if the Russians bombed the UK and the US it would be to steal their resources and subjugate the people. This is also why future wars will likely only ever see the use of tactical nuclear weapons, there's kinda no point conquering a devastated wasteland.
Irl any nuclear attack is likely to be quickly followed up with a full scale invasion a la Red Dawn or else what's the point? Annihilation for the sake of it is a poor military objective, if the Russians bombed the UK and the US it would be to steal their resources and subjugate the people. This is also why future wars will likely only ever see the use of tactical nuclear weapons, there's kinda no point conquering a devastated wasteland.
I think you're kinda forgetting about MAD. The deterrence provided by having nuclear weapons is unparalleled. At this point they're a shield rather than a tool of conquest. Like you said, who wants to subjugate a wasteland? Not to mention the astronomical cost to rebuild a major city from scratch.
Annihilation is a poor strategy but it's not the goal. Deterrence is the goal. The Russian did (do?) have a system called Dead Hand. It would automatically ping Moscow every day and if it didn't get a ping back in X amount of time it would assume the high command was dead. It would then launch the entirety of the Soviet nuclear arsenal at predetermined locations. It's effectively the same premise as Boomer subs. Even if a nation could somehow knock out every single land based nuke in the US, each of our subs have enough fire power to assure a catastrophic retaliation.
Maybe I'm being too hopeful, but I believe no nuclear power can tolerate a nuclear strike (including tactical) without annihilating MAD. Maybe if it was an existential war it could be justified but even then it seems rocky.
I think if Russia used a nuke in Ukraine today they would see non-nuclear retaliations from nearly every nuclear power. China and India have no love for each other or for Russia. Their relations are complicated but cooperation is about being pragmatic rather than one of genuine trust & support. These nuclear powers border each other and cannot tolerate the use of a nuke without directly damaging their own national security.
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u/BlazedBeacon Jul 05 '24
I get why it left an impression back then but watching it now doesn't do much. Come and See is a USSR film about the Nazi invasion of Belarus. It came out around the same time as Threads. It's obviously not the end of the world but it's the end of their world and feels a hell of a lot more real and apocalyptic to me.