The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the most famous scientific center of world importance and actively collaborating with the Pentagon, released a 3-minute video in which it showed what would happen as a result of a large-scale nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia.
The video is made in a dry, “computer” style, without naturalism, and does not impress with either visual effects or novelty: absolutely everything that is shown there has been discussed and repeated for forty years already.
Who strikes whom is not directly stated, but from the context it is somehow immediately clear that Russia attacks first. France and Great Britain immediately get involved in the conflict, because they are obliged to protect the United States by NATO’s Article 5. Actually, the whole role of old Europe is to become a victim of the clash of superpowers.
The first nuclear explosions produce a powerful electromagnetic pulse that disables communications and equipment. At the moment of the explosion, the fireball descends directly onto the streets of large cities, its temperature is like in the depths of the Sun; asphalt turns into a liquid hot sea. Large cities are becoming an obligatory target for strikes, and there are two reasons: there are military installations there, and the enemy seeks to hinder the reconstruction of the economy after the conflict.
It seems that the creators of the video do not really believe in air defense as in the video, missiles fly nearly freely and create havoc. There is no salvation, as the authors of the video clearly tell us.
But, of course, all the worst will begin after. Nuclear ash rises. Large cities burn fiercely and smoke is extremely harmfull. In about two weeks, the entire Northern Hemisphere of the planet is covered with a black cloud, through which the sun’s rays cannot penetrate. It gets colder by an average of 20 degrees. It is clear that no plants, no animal husbandry – and no food exists anymore. People start dying of hunger. 99% of the inhabitants of the US, Russia, Europe and China will not survive a nuclear winter and it can last for years.
The struggle for peace
The struggle for peace is a long tradition at the Massachusetts Institute. So, back in 1968, a group of teachers from this research center wrote a letter against the Vietnam War. In the letter, 50 signatories pointed out that science has given man incredible power, but the invasion of Vietnam demonstrates that this power was in the hands of a bad government, and that irresponsible politicians will not lead to anything good. Subsequently, the signatories formed the backbone of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who tried to reason and stop the war.
Interestingly, in the same 1968, MIT received more money from the Pentagon than any other US research center – $ 110 million a year. This was due to long-standing ties: for example, during World War II, it was MIT that developed the most modern weapons for the army. As far as we know, concerned scientists and other peace initiatives have not changed anything here. Nowadays, the Massachusetts Institute is part of a consortium of scientific and manufacturing companies that are forging something deadly for the NATO military – along with Apple, Boeing and many, many others.
The Institute for the Future of Life, whose website published the video, is also the “external press service” of MIT: it was founded in 2014 by Massachusetts professor Max Tegmark, but also attracted scientists from other universities. The notorious Elon Musk walks in advisers, who dreams of sending “extra population” to Mars, and so that the settlers will certainly fight with each other for scarce resources, and, of course, does not disdain contracts with the Pentagon either. The institute called for action against “lethal nuclear weapons” back in 2018, and this year became famous for demanding a six-month freeze on artificial intelligence work. Experts then, not without reason, decided that the action was not aimed at the benefit of mankind, but to taunt the Open AI company, because the same Elon Musk was seriously behind it, so a head start was needed.
The consequences of a nuclear conflict were studied at MIT even in the quiet years of the 2000s, when no one seriously thought about this. Thus, MIT held exhibitions and conferences at which certain space was given to the victims of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The last such exhibition was held, as far as we know, last summer.
MIT scientists are constantly being asked “what if” questions. So, at the end of last year, Max Tergmak, a specialist from Massachusetts, estimated the likelihood of a nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia as one in six.
“It’s like the probability of losing at Russian roulette. That’s a lot,” he emphasized.
At the same time, the professor considered the conflict scenario given in the video only as one of the possible, and the worst. Indeed, who said that a nuclear collision would certainly be global, with the launch of all missiles and the exchange of all combat potential?
Nevertheless, Tergmak said that with a probability of 80% NATO will intervene in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The professor estimated the probability that Russia will be destroyed by NATO’s response with nuclear weapons at 70%. Summing up these percentages, as is customary among mathematicians, he deduced the probability at one to six.
MIT scientists receive first-hand information, because, as we have seen, they are very well provided by the Pentagon. If a large scale war between the superpowers is even remotely as bad as this study predicts, it has no winners, merely losers.
