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RS-28 Satan 2 nuclear missile

Russia unveiled its new super-heavy, MIRV-equipped ICBM this calendar week. The 'Satan-2' (that's its NATO codename), has a reported throw-weight of 10,000kg, and can carry upward to 15 separate warheads. MIRV is an acronym that stands for Multiple Independently targeted Reentry Vehicles. MIRV-equipped missiles tin deliver multiple nuclear weapons to a single target surface area, or coating a big area with separate detonations. Historically, MIRVs accept been seen as potentially destabilizing considering they give a decisive advantage to the land that can strike start and eliminate its opponent's land-based missile silos.

The stats on the RS-28 demonstrate this is a missile that means business, and media outlets controlled by the Russian government have stated that a single missile is large enough to destroy Texas or France. We could quibble with the definition of "destroy," but nosotros won't — any time a government drops 50MT of nuclear weapons on y'all, you're going to have a actually bad day.

To put some historical figures on this we turned to Nukemap, a fascinating (if macabre) nuclear weapon simulator. Co-ordinate to Nukemap's data, detonating Little Boy, the same weapon we dropped on Hiroshima, directly over Manhattan would impale 263,560 people and injure another 512,000. The worst effects would be concentrated on lower Manhattan, every bit would the devastation. Increment to a 50MT weapon, and the casualties rise to seven.63 million dead and another 4.19 million injured.

NukeMap-Manhattan

Nukemap'due south estimated blast radius and fallout zones for a 50MT warhead detonated over Manhattan.

The RS-28 is slated to replace the much-older R-36 (aka, Satan). Like the Us, Russia undertook multiple programs to modernize its ICBM weapons since the R-36 deployed in 1970. Later on the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia sharply reduced its full number of missile silos and re-purposed a number of ICBMs into launch vehicles for lightweight satellites. In that location'due south also been talk of using some old R-36 missiles to destroy small asteroids.

Obviously it's a significant development when one of the globe's nuclear powers deploys new, advanced applied science. But there'due south no reason to believe that the RS-28 fundamentally alters the residuum of power between the US and Russia. Both countries maintain what's known as the "nuclear triad" — a combined strength of missile silos, manned bombers, and submarine-launched ICBMs. During the later years of the Cold State of war, Russia relied heavily on its fixed silos, while the Usa focused on submarine deployments. Russia is thought to have shifted some of its nuclear launch capability to submarines since the fall of the USSR. Despite mutual reductions to our nuclear stockpiles, both Russia and the U.s. remain capable of wiping the other off the map.

At the same fourth dimension, withal, it's hard to miss the fact that Russia is showing off its newest military hardware now, as Election Twenty-four hours in the US draws near. To say Russia has taken an unprecedented and very public interest in who the Us elects in 2016 would be understating the situation. The U.s. intelligence community and independent security researchers found decisive evidence the DNC hack was perpetrated by hackers affiliated with the Russian FSB and GRU. In September, Russia complained to the Un when Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the Un high commissioner for human rights and a Jordanian citizen, criticized Trump. On Oct 12, longtime Putin ally Vladimir Zhirinovsky openly threatened nuclear war if Hillary Clinton is elected, saying:

Americans voting for a president on Nov. 8 must realize that they are voting for peace on Planet Earth if they vote for Trump. Only if they vote for Hillary it's state of war. Information technology will exist a short movie. In that location will be Hiroshimas and Nagasakis everywhere.

America and Russia used to commutation this kind of rhetoric, but generally have not washed so since the early 1980s. Zhirinovsky fabricated no equivalent remarks in past ballot cycles, even when he expressed disapproval of which candidate had been elected. Multiple 2012 articles paint Russian leaders and the public as interested in whether Romney or Obama would win the ballot, but not overly so.

In 2016, Russian-owned Idiot box and news networks are reported to have taken a decisively pro-Trump stance. Unveiling a new nuclear missile fits the design of behavior nosotros've seen from Russia — Putin has a distinct preference in this race, and he'south pulled out all the stops to sow FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) between both Sanders and Clinton supporters, and betwixt Clinton and Trump over the supposed risk of nuclear war. In that location is no proof that Putin acted in concert with Trump, but that doesn't brand Russia'south willingness to invest heavily in such a public FUD campaign whatever less unusual. What was normal (if dangerous) rhetoric during the Cold War isn't what'due south been normal for the final several decades.

Simply FUD is all information technology is. Vladimir Putin is a cunning and ruthless political opponent, only he'south too keenly aware of the humanity-ending disaster that could be triggered in a chop-chop escalating nuclear exchange. Hillary Clinton has often been criticized for being overly hawkish, but in that location is nil indication she would approve or back up a first-strike initiative against Russia. The doctrine of mutually bodacious destruction has kept diplomatic crises and full-calibration wars from going nuclear at much more unsafe flash points than anything nosotros face today. While relations with Russian federation take been chilly of tardily, there'south no sign of nuclear disharmonize — Zhirinovsky'southward comments notwithstanding.

Now read: Explaining the unimaginable — how do nuclear bombs work?

(Summit prototype credit: Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau)