>white swan event
Nuclear war, the black swan we can never see
By Seth Baum | November 21, 2014
Several centuries ago in England, the black swan was a popular symbol for the impossible because no such creature had ever been seen. Then came the surprise: Black swans were discovered in Australia. Since then, the bird has symbolized that which seems impossible but can in fact occur. The black swan reminds us that believing something cannot happen is often just a failure of imagination.
Parts of society today hold the same view of nuclear war that society in England did of black swans centuries ago: No nuclear war has ever been observed, so it may seem impossible that one would occur. Though nations possess some 16,000 nuclear warheads, deterrence just seems to work. And so, especially with the Cold War a fading memory, attention has shifted elsewhere. But it is just as much of a mistake to think that nuclear war couldn’t happen now as it was to think that black swans couldn’t exist back then.
It is true that, in any given year, nuclear war is unlikely, but the chance of it happening is not zero. Stanford professor emeritus Martin Hellman has a great way of explaining the risk. He compares it to a coin of unknown bias, flipped once a year for every year since the first Soviet nuclear weapon test in 1949. For 65 years, the coin has always landed on heads. If the coin had always landed flat on heads, we might think the probability of tails was close to zero. But in some years, the coin has teetered on its edge before falling on heads. Given this, should we still think the probability is near zero?
We have, after all, witnessed many teetering-on-the-edge moments. On October 27, 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, the United States targeted the Soviet submarine B-59 with depth charges. Two out of three Soviet officers wanted to launch the submarine’s nuclear weapons in response, but launch procedures required agreement between all three. On January 25, 1995—after the Cold War—Russian radar detected the launch of a scientific weather rocket over the northern coast of Norway, and radar operators suspected it was a nuclear missile. Yeltsin and his associates decided not to launch a nuclear weapon in retaliation, correctly guessing that the rocket was not actually an attack. And from May to July of 1999, India and Pakistan fought a war over the Kargil district of Kashmir. Both countries already had nuclear weapons, which might have been used had the war escalated.
https://thebulletin.org/2014/11/nuclear-war-the-black-swan-we-can-never-see/
Russia’s Tu-160M2: Next-Generation Bomber Armed with Hypersonic Missiles
April 18, 2024
By: Brandon J. Weichert
Summary: The Russian Tu-160M, known as the “White Swan” or by its NATO reporting name “Blackjack,” is undergoing a significant upgrade to the Tu-160M2 variant. This upgrade aims to modernize the bomber with state-of-the-art electronic warfare systems and next-generation radio equipment. First introduced in 1987, the Tu-160 is the world’s fastest, heaviest, and largest nuclear-capable bomber. The Tu-160M2 will enhance these capabilities by incorporating the ability to launch hypersonic missiles, including the Kh-101 and its nuclear version, the Kh-102. As of 2023, four of these upgraded bombers have been delivered, with plans to construct up to 50. The Tu-160M2’s enhanced offensive capabilities pose a formidable challenge for Western defense strategies, particularly with its potential to deploy multiple hypersonic weapons simultaneously, making it a strategic asset for the Russian military.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-tu-160m2-next-generation-bomber-armed-hypersonic-missiles-210641