You are safe after US strike on Iran - it can't start a world war - nobody will support Iran - Iran can't do anything - less risk than Trump's 2018 attack on Syria's chemical weapons factory
That metaphorical hailstorm in summer I mentioned has happened in my last blog post. Trump has authorized the strikes as you likely now know. As I said in my last blog post
The US strike did NOT target Iranian civilians.
There are NO RUSSIAN SOLDIERS in Iran and never have been - the Ayatollah is supported by his own military and is NOT propped up by Russia
There are no Russian soldiers left now in Syria either or anywhere in the Middle East.
Nobody in the mainstream media has EVER suggested that Russia or China would respond as far as I know, it is more something that gets shared virally on the internet.
New idea: I’m going to do short videos throughout the blog post like this:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Why you are safe - basic facts that almost nobody tells you amongst the always on click bait news and political rhetoric
This is far less of a conflict than the Iraq war, only fought by air strikes, no combat in the sea or on land or even in the air - just strikes - and NOBODY ELSE WILL COME IN ON IRAN'S SIDE except the Houthi rebels in Yemen
Russia - will NOT help Iran militarily
Iran is NOT in Russia's nuclear umbrella
USA supported Israel with a single mission
Israel
Israel only attacks Iran by air, can't reach it on the land of in the sea
Iran only fires ballistic missiles back with many of its launchers gone
Israel has complete air control over Iran
Russia has NO MILITARY BASES LEFT IN THE MIDDLE EAST and NEVER HAD SOLDIERS IN IRAN and NEVER helped the Ayatollah control his country
Houthi rebels - only Iranian proxies left able to help
China - will NOT help Iran militarily
Russia and China refused to sell Iran a single air defence system or a single fighter jet after Israel destroyed its air defences in October 2024 even if it offers them billions of dollars
How is this supposed to "spiral" into a larger war?
there is no risk of Iran sponsoring ISIS type terrorist attacks on civilians
Iran fought ISIS in Syria and doesn’t do terrorist attacks on civilians (only on opposition figures abroad)
[Iran’s backing of Hamas is rather surprising given their strong opposition to ISIS-style attacks on civilians and is based on politics with major differences in ideology - and Hamas also only targeted Israel, not other countries]
Nobody will get drafted
to take an example, new recruits can't fly B-2 bombers or service them! They need very highly skilled soldiers.
It takes six months to train foot soldiers so and US has over a million soldiers so it is not going to need the draft for anything short of a new Vietnam war which Trump won’t do
Trump presents this as “Peace through strength” as a way to end the war and bring Iran back to the negotiating table. Israel continues with its campaign but says it expects to end it in days as a result of the US strikes. The war can then end after Iran stops any retaliatory strikes.
Trump only did this after a period of 24 hours with no ballistic missiles by Iran fired at Israel - so likely they assessed that ALL Iran’s ballistic missile launchers are now destroyed.
Iran did have some ballistic missile launchers left, which it used the next day but Israel would have destroyed most of those too soon after.
Many assume that Russia has soldiers in Iran and supports the Iran regime or think that Russia is as close to Iran as it was to Assad’s regime in Syria.
NONE OF THAT IS TRUE.
Russia has no defence pact with Iran, just a mutual non aggression pact
Under this pact, Russia only promised that it wouldn’t supply weapons to an aggressor like Israel or the US to help it attack Iran - which it wouldn’t do anyway
Iran is NOT in Russia’s nuclear umbrella. Nor was Syria.
Russia does NOT support Iran’s nuclear weapons program only its civilian nuclear program
Russia doesn’t want Iran to have nukes and was a member of the JCPOA.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Why you are safe after the US strike on Iran
nobody will support Iran - and Iran can't do anything
Far less risk than for Trumps 2018 attack on a Syrian chemical weapons factory**
US dropped 6 bunker buster bombs on the same spot Secret underground facility in desert No risk to Iranian civilians US Fordo mission Secret facility is 80 to 100 meters below the ground (260 to 330 feet) No radiation hazard (visited by IAEA atomic inspectors)
Russia and China refused to sell Iran fighter jets or air defences against F-16s Never mind B-2s, Iran's air defences are gone. No defence pact or nuclear umbrella with Russia.
Trump must have dropped the bunker buster bombs from the B-2 bomber's maximum altitude of 15 kilometers for maximum penetration.
Russia and China have done NOTHING to help protect Iran from F-16s and will NOT protect it from B-2s.
The Israelis report no Iranian ballistic missile strikes on Israel for 24 hours
US bases have extensive Patriot air defences, also THAAD and marine air defences
Less risk than for the attacks on the chemical weapons factory in Syria in his first term - Iran's air defences are gone and a manpad has no chance.
In this diagram Person A and Person B are second cousins three times removed of each other
Trump is extraordinarily risk averse - with his pledge of no new foreign wars, if just one American soldier or civilian is killed in reprisals everyone they know will be on US TV, even [comic exaggeration / hyperbole] their second cousin three times removed might be on TV about it 😜
Trump would not have authorized this unless he thought the risk to US citizens was 0%
Based on his past history, the only way this makes sense if Trump thought this could end the war.
If it doesn't I don't think he'd continue supporting Israel with direct involvement for long. It wouldn’t go down well in the USA if he does.
Israel expects to end the war in days (as of June 23, 2025)
Wall Street Journal reports:
Israel has told Iran via mediators that it is in the process of wrapping up its bombing campaign after the US mission
Iran still feels it has to respond to the Sunday bombings
Israeli officials hope Iran wil agree to restart diplomacy
According to the WSJ:
Israel hope the American and Israeli strikes will push Iran back to the negotiating table
Hopes Iran will ultimately accept an end to its nuclear program.
If Israel determines that Tehran is trying to rebuild its program, Israel will send the air force in to strike again.
Channel 12 reports:
Israel can unilaterally declare it achieved its waraims and Iran will later end its missile strikes, OR
US can announce that both sides agreed to a ceasefire - Israel sees this as less desirable.
Times of Israel was told by an Israeli official:
“It depends on Iran, not on us. We are happy to wrap it up now; if there’s an agreement at the end, Israel will be content with the result.”
President Netanyahu said:
“When the objectives are achieved, then the operation is complete and the fighting will stop… we are moving step by step towards achieving these goals. We are very, very close to completing them.”
All of this based on reporting from Times of Israel which provides an Israeli perspective but is reliable on reporting things like this.
This is not surprising because Iran has been firing ballistic missiles every day at Israel.
However Israel would have discovered where these were fired from and can then destroy many of those launchers too.
The main question is what happens longer term - does Israel stop and does Iran stop?
Did US have some secret intelligence we don’t know?
This is my own speculation.
Trump’s move seems at first not to make a lot of sense - because he seems to have given up the one lever he had over the Iranians. He could say to them that he would destroy their Fordov facility if they don’t return to negotiations.
But interestingly he warned them that there are several other targets.
Could it be that the US knows of additional secret sites in Iran that Iran has not disclosed even to the IAEA that its bunkerbusters could reach, and importantly - that Iran knows that the US knows?
This is just a thought. I didn’t expect Trump to do something as dumb seeming as this, said it was like hailstorms in summer if h e did. But perhaps if he had extra secret intelligence it could change it.
Iranian civilians are very safe from the US strikes because they are so precise and targeted at military targets
The Tomahawks are incredibly precise. They can even fly along corridors . They might have even flown into the tunnels if they were able to get in.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
The B-2 bombers were dropped on a spot in a desert 17 km from the nearest hamlet.
Fordo is over 16 km from the nearest hamlet
No radiation hazard from enriched uranium - only gets highly radioactive after a chain reaction in a reactor or nuke.
No risk to civilians whatsoever of the bunker buster bombs
The Tomahawks are also incredibly precise, even fly along corridors
The US is not like Israel. They are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties.
As for the Israeli attacks, Trump is presenting this as the strike to end the war so long as Iran doesn't retaliate. They probably can't retaliate in any significant way since it seems almost all their ballistic missile launchers are destroyed.
No radiation hazard from enriched uranium underground
If US strikes Fordov there is no radiation hazard becuase they just make nuclear fuel. It is only highly radioactive after a chain reaction in either a nuke or a power plant.
You can handle enriched uranium with just paper thin protection which is enough to block out alpha particles.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC At Harwell in the 1950s the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth was handed a lump of plutonium in a plastic bag and invited to feel how warm it was.
The plastic was enough to block alpha particles.
Plutonium in the form of a ring.
Enriched uranium is the same almost no radioactivity. Becomes intensely radioactive after a chain reaction in a nuclear bomb or nuclear reactor.
Here Elina Charatsidou a Ukrainian nuclear physicist handles natural uranium and nuclear fuel pellets with no special precautions. The fuel pellets have a few % of uranium 235. Her gloves are mainly to protect the pellets not her. Your skin can block out the alpha particles from even highly enriched uranium or plutonium and even a thin sheet of paper can stop them.
Queen Elizabeth was handed plutonium in a bag in 1935 and was invited to feel how warm it was. It was plated in gold. In 1945 Philip Morrison drove 210 miles with enough plutonium for the Trinity test explosion in two hemispheres on his lap and he lived to a very old age too.
QUOTE STARTS
On Thursday 12 July 1945 a US Army sedan drove Philip Morrison the 210 miles from Los Alamos to Alamagordo with the plutonium core of the world’s first nuclear weapon on his lap. At dawn four days later the priceless hemispheres the physicist had helped forge, then assembled, vanished in the highly successful Trinity nuclear test. The scientists who witnessed the test estimated the energy released equivalent to 18,600t of TNT.
,,,,
Morrison, like many intimately involved in the debut of this new metal, lived to a ripe old age. He died earlier this year, aged 89. Hans Bethe, who led the physicists who had conceived the new weapon, died in March, aged 98. Glenn Seaborg, the radiochemist who discovered plutonium in 1941 and wrote the rules for working with it, lived to 87. Edward Teller, who used plutonium to trigger a thermonuclear reaction for his H-bomb, died aged 94.
So prevalent was this mythology by 1977 that Mr Justice Parker, inspector at the Windscale Inquiry into an expansion of plutonium separation in the UK, listed seven “misunderstandings” in his report. Some prevail to this day.
As the late John Fremlin, professor of radioactivity at Birmingham University, famously advised that public inquiry, plutonium can be sat upon safely by someone wearing only a stout pair of jeans.
At Harwell in the 1950s the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth was handed a lump of plutonium in a plastic bag and invited to feel how warm it was. Morrison had been protected from alpha rays from his hemispheres by nickel plating. The Aldermaston scientists used gold foil.
You shouldn’t eat or breathe in plutonium or uranium but that’s mainly because both are toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium or mercury. You’d only be affected by the radioactivity if you ate vast amounts of either. We all eat a minute amount of natural uranium every day and an even minuter almost infinitesimal amount of plutonium every day and it is harmless to us. Both can be safely handled in a plastic bag with no other precautions.
What to do if you are in Tehran and can’t leave your home
This is advice for civilians in Israel:
QUOTE STARTS
e. If there is no such space [DEDICATED BOMB SHELTER IN THE HOUSE], go into the building stairwell.
In the protected space, sit on the floor, below window level, against an inner wall, but not opposite a window.
2. If you are outside in a built-up area, go into the nearest building or sheltered spot. If you are out in the open country, lie down and protect your head with your hands.
3. If you are in a car, stop by the side of the road, get out of the car and go into the nearest building or sheltered spot. If you cannot reach a building or sheltered spot in the allotted time, get out the car, lie down on the ground and protect your head
Iran’ says it is keeping its subway system open 24/7 as an improvised bomb shelter. That’s the same thing the Ukrainians did in Kharkiv and other cities.
Israel can’t drop large multi-ton bombs on Iran without refueling air tankers - its F-16s can only carry smaller precise bombs
Israel is not targeting Iranian civilians intentionally but it is less precise than the US. Also Iran is much further away than Gaza Strip which reduces the number of runs they can do and it reduces how many bombs and how heavy bombs they can carry each time. Israel can’t drop its large multi-ton bombs on Iran that it used so devastatingly in Gaza Strip and Lebanon
Only the Americans can drop large multi-ton bombs on Iran not Israel, it's too far away for their F-16s without airborne military refueling which Israel doesn't have.
It is about a difference of focus here, focusing on what Iranians and those with friends in Iran need to know rather than on the ethics of the Israeli strike.
Even with the few strikes that Israel is able to do, it does harm a level of civilians that would likely not be acceptable to American forces.
It’s actually killed more civilians in a week in Iran than the Russians did in a month in Ukraine
By comparison Iranian civil casualties for just one week
263 killed
335 injured
According to the figures here it's 263 civiliand killed in a week and 335 injured. So more deaths than in a month in Ukraine, fewer injured than in a month in Ukraine.
So it does continue the pattern of the Israelis tolerating high levels of civilian casualties and for anyone in Iran to protect themselves. But compared to the population of Iran the numbers are low.
Over 300 Iranians were killed in traffic accidents in one week in 2024.
The numbers of civilian deaths from the missiles are roughly comparable to the number of traffic accidents in a busy holiday week.
The safest place in Tehran is likely the underground which is open 24/7 during the war.
Israel has total air control over the capital Tehran of Iran and has destroyed all the Iranian air defences
Few of the panicking people I help seem to realize: The Israeli air control of Tehran means Iran's own fighter jets can't even fly over its own capital Tehran.
The idea of Iran fighting the world in a global war makes NO SENSE
How can this "spiral out of control"?
It can't
Trump may be bluffing, with main aim to encourage Iran to negotiate, but if he does bomb Iran - it still CAN'T become a larger war - because it is so one sided with nobody going to help Iran
Israel has air control over Tehran
This means Iran's own fighter jets can no longer fly over its own capital city
Iran has a few hundred ballistic missiles that can reach Israel.
They can't reach Israel from the furthest away part of Iran.
Only a mutual non aggression pact with Russia.
No possibility of either army reaching the other on the ground.
Nor can either army fight in the sea, only air strikes
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Why you are safe - understanding levels of confidence
Why it is okay to be confident about some things such as that Iran can't fight a world war and China and Russia wouldn't defend Iran from the US Summer Winter Night Day: 100% predictable high confidence Hail in spring / summer Hard to predict but unlikely in most places
Impossible for anyone to predict: Rain in Britain 4 weeks from now
Similar certainty to day / night and winter / summer:
Iran hasn't got ICBMs
Iran can't attack the US or Europe
Iran can't fight a world war
Also very certain:
Russia and China are NOT helping Iran in any way to protect itself and WQNT' help it if US strikes Iran
Like hail storms - hard to predict but seems unlikely:
Trump is risk averse and wants a peace treaty and is unlikely to strike the Fordo facility when he can use it to pressure Iran to talk
As unpredictable as rain in UK:
when Israel will stop its strikes
what precisely Israel will target next
But can't be as intense as Gaza strikes because of the distance to fly to get there
Why Iran is very unlikely to close the Hormuz Strait - and not much happens if it does
Ayatollah has veto - Iran not likely to block Strait of Hormuz - wouldn't do much
It’s just the Parliament voted to close the strait, and the Ayatollah can veto everything and is pretty sure to veto this.
The US Navy constantly patrols the area and has its 5th fleet based in Bahrain which would likely stop Iran before it can lay mines.
Worst case that it's 1 week of mine clearing.
But the UAE can send 75% of its oil by pipeline now if needed, Saudi Arabia can send a lot of its oil overland too.
It would cut off Iran's own oil revenue too.
US can release its strategic oil reserves like Biden did - got vast oil reserves can easily compensate for a few weeks but reluctant to use them.
OPEC countries are no friend of Iran and would gladly increase their own oil production in response if it went on for a long time.
If it actually did become a conflict between the US 5th Fleet and the Iranian navy with only 3 frigates - it's no contest - Iran would likely lose its navy almost entirely - it's not that much of a navy by US standards but important to Iran - and Israel has left it alone so far.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Kids develop impulse control aged three and a half to four
This little guy needs to learn impulse control if he wants to become a KGB spy or leader of a country.
Nobody gets to be leader of a country if they got to adulthood without developing this basic skill.
Putin is the opposite, very controlled and ultra risk averse.
Graphic of three kids sitting at their desks and one kid doing a somersault throwing stuff around made with Bing Chat.
See:
QUOTE STARTS
Impulse control is the ability to resist an impulse, desire, or temptation and to regulate its translation into action (APA)
When kids lack impulse control, they tend to act hurriedly and without adequate reflection on the possible consequences.
Impulse control is also known as response inhibition.
Response inhibition is one of an important set of skills known as executive functions. These executive skills are cognitive processes (or brain-based skills) that we use in our everyday life and allow us to perform tasks: planning, problem-solving, decision-making, or remembering instructions, just to cite some examples.
Impulse control is one of the first executive skills to develop (between 6 and 12 months) and one of the last to reach full maturation in early adulthood.
Although kids have some impulse control early it only really starts to mature between ages 3 and for most kids.
QUOTE STARTS
Why do young children have so little self-control? The part of the brain responsible for exerting control over the emotional, impulsive part of the brain is not well-developed in children under 3. This is why toddlers are much more likely to act on their desires, such as yanking a toy out of a friend’s hand, rather than saying to themselves, “I really want that toy, but it’s not right to grab, so I am going to go find myself another toy.”
…
When parents were asked at what age children have the ability to resist doing something that parents have forbidden:
56 percent of parents said children could do this before age three (including 18 percent of parents who believed children possessed this ability by six months of age)
44 percent of parents said children could do this at age three years or older
Children don’t actually develop this kind of self-control until 3.5 to 4 years of age, and even then they still need a lot of help managing their emotions and impulses.
It’s not surprising so many parents have an ‘expectation gap,’ especially with so many 2-year-olds who are so verbal and able to repeat many of the rules parents have laid out. It can be very confusing. But being able to repeat a rule or expectation is not the same as being able to follow it.
However for most adults this skill is well developed and especially for world leaders and others in executive positions. Adults who teach or who run a business etc may sometimes seem to lose control but in reality they do not.
For instance a teacher with an unruly class may raise his or her voice and sound angry - but it’s simulated to get the attention of the class. A teacher who does that just because they feel angry and have inadequate impulse control wouldn’t last long in the teaching profession. The anger is most likely just acting as for actors in a movie or play - or it may be like method acting - which means that the actors evoke some version of the emotion itself in themselves order to play the role more convincingly - but either way it is intentional and not because of a lack of impulse control.
When Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine it was NOT a lack of impulse control - it was extraordinary levels of control from early 2021 or 2020 through to the invasion in February 2022
Everyone says to me: But what about when Putin invaded Ukraine. Wasn’t that just an act of emotion showing that he has no impulse control?
But that’s NONSENSE.
We now know that Putin first decided to invade Ukraine in early spring 2021, possibly earlier. He may have decided already in 2020.
He had the previous experience of taking over Crimea in 2014 almost effortlessly with very little combat.
He thought he had a perfect plan to take over all of Ukraine just as easily.
He then did his military exercises in the spring of 2021 in order to test how Ukraine’s allies would respond to exercises that go all the way up to an invasion but don’t invade.
He then sent his spies to Ukraine to gather data about how the Ukrainians would respond if he suddenly took over the Kyiv government by surprise. The spies told him FALSELY that the generals would just transfer allegiance to Putin and that Ukrainians are oppressed and would welcome his army with flowers.
Based on that appealing but false intelligence - his plan was to send his soldiers in an all out attack to the North, West and South of Ukraine. This was just a feint so he didn’t tell his generals what the plan was and they never prepared for it.
The real plan was only known to a select few including some elite forces whose job was to fly in to Hostomel airport airport near Kyiv, take it over quickly and while the government was distracted and the army far away fighting the army in all directions except to the West, it would drive into Kyiv with airlifted tanks and then take over the government swiftly before it had time to respond.
This plan failed. The Ukrainians got wind of it at the last moment, just enough time to have small reinforcements at Hostomel airport, they were not very experienced but they managed to delay the helicopters landing just long enough. Also just a week or two before the invasion Latvia and Lithunia gave Ukraine manpads to shoot down low flying planes.
The plan was to fly low along the Dnipro river to evade radar. But the Ukrainians had some success shooting down the planes. Putin had to call off the operation and he was so confident his plan woudl succeed that he had no plan B.
This shows someone with an immense amount of impulse control - able to simulate an interest in peace negotiations with Macron for weeks, and to persuade the rest of the world that Russia wanted peace and had no plans to invade Ukraine possibly all the way from 2020 to 2022.
You expect that from him as a trained KGB spy.
Despite all his bluff and bluster he is very risk averse as the Institute for the Study of War so often puts it. Here is one of its tweets.
“Putin is a very risk averse individual. He is extremely calculated, and he oftentimes really prefers not to make urgent, rash political decisions that would specifically impact the health of his regime,” said ISW’s Russia deputy team lead @ KatStepanenko
Russia will NOT help Iran - it only signed a mutual non aggression pact - a promise for instance not to supply US or Israel with weapons during an active war with Iran
Russia agrees not to attack Iran and not to supply any country with weapons in the middle of a war with Iran.
So
Russia can't supply Israel or the US with weapons to attack Iran for as long as the conflict continues.
That's all that Russia has agreed to. It was never plausible that it would support Israel or US anyway so it was a rather pointless pact from Iran’s point of view.
This is the relevant clause:
QUOTE 3. In the event that either Contracting Party is subject to aggression, the other Contracting Party shall not provide any military or other assistance to the aggressor which would contribute to the continued aggression, and shall help to ensure that the differences that have arisen are settled on the basis of the United Nations Charter and other applicable rules of international law.
Apart from that Russia raises issues in the UN Security council and says everyone must stop fighting - that's all it will do.
Russia’s official response:
"no matter what explanations those who planned, developed and carried out the attack on Iran may use to justify it, the crisis around the Iranian nuclear program cannot be resolved by military force and can be settled exclusively through peaceful, political and diplomatic means.
… We hope that this is the approach that will ultimately prevail. We call on the parties to exercise restraint in order to prevent further escalation of tensions and the region's slide into full-scale war. In this regard, we recall the US readiness to hold another round of talks with Iran on its nuclear program in Oman,
Tass is accurate on Russia's own official statements.
Russia offers to mediate:
Putin: “We are not imposing anything on anyone; we are simply talking about how we see a possible way out of the situation. But the decision, of course, is up to the political leadership of all these countries, primarily Iran and Israel,”
Interesting that they run a story about it from Israel and not from Iran.
Iran is NOT in Russia’s nuclear umbrella and will never be - the umbrella doesn’t even protect Crimea or protect Russia itself from massive drone attacks by Ukraine - never mind on again off again political and commercial allies like Iran
Iran is not and has never been and will never be in Russia’s nuclear umbrella.
Russia’s nuclear umbrella doesn’t even cover Crimea. That is clear from the way that Russia has to let Ukraine attack Russian forces in Crimea.
QUOTE STARTS
Since the early months of the war, Ukraine has been attacking Russian forces in Crimea with every available weapon, including those provided by the country’s Western allies. Western-supplied missiles have played a central role in the Battle of Crimea, enabling Ukraine to methodically deplete Russian air defenses throughout the peninsula and sink numerous Russian warships. The most eye-catching attack of all came in September 2023, when Ukraine used Western cruise missiles to bomb and partially destroy the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. If Kherson was an embarrassment for Putin, this was a very personal humiliation. Crucially, it did not lead to World War III. Instead, Putin withdrew most of his remaining warships from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.
Clearly, no responsible Western leader can afford to completely disregard the threat of nuclear war. At the same time, it is increasingly apparent that Russia’s relentless nuclear saber-rattling is losing its potency. By engaging in regular nuclear threats that never lead to action, the Kremlin has weakened the entire concept of nuclear deterrence and left Russia looking toothless.
Based on the experience of the past two years, it now seems safe to conclude that while carpet-bombing the Kremlin might force Putin into some kind of drastic response, targeted attacks on Russian military bases and firing positions across the border from Ukraine are highly unlikely to fuel any kind of major escalation.
The Kremlin’s obvious reluctance to treat “annexed” regions of Ukraine as fully Russian directly contradicts Moscow’s own efforts to portray the occupation of Ukrainian lands as irreversible.
…
Far from being set in stone, Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine are largely opportunist and will expand or contract based on the military situation. Putin and his colleagues often call on Ukraine to accept the “new territorial realities” created by the current front lines of the war, but their actions send an unmistakable signal that the future of the “annexed” Ukrainian regions is still very much up for debate. Meanwhile, the multiple retreats from “historically Russian land” conducted by Putin’s invading army since 2022 suggest the chances of a nuclear apocalypse have been wildly exaggerated. This should help Kyiv’s Western partners overcome their self-defeating fear of escalation, and encourage them to finally provide Ukraine with the tools, along with the free hand, to finish the job of defeating Russia.
As for Putin’s new nucler doctrine document - it is so vague as to be useless. His press secretary Peskov clarified that though theoretically it would seem to say that Russia’s nuclear umbrella is to protect even against drone attacks by a non nuclear neighbour Uraine, in practice Russia will ignore the document.
Putin’s spokesman Peskov explained that massive drone attacks on Russia are not grounds to use Russia’s new nuclear doctrine.
Which makes the whole thing pointless.
Duly noted.
[Paraphrase: Putin's press secretary Peskov says Russia's new nuclear doctrine does NOT apply to massive drone attacks by Ukraine]
Peskov (Putin's press secretary):
…
“Frankly speaking, there is no need to appeal too much to this document”
So the nuclear umbrella doesn’t cover strikes on Russia, or strikes on Crimea unless the intention is to overthrow the Russian Federation or similar.
Never mind strikes on loose allies like Iran which only has a mutual non aggression pact with Russia.
Far less risk than Trump’s raid on the chemical weapons facility in Syria in his first term - no Russian soldiers left now anywhere in the Middle East
This is far lower risk even than the US attack on the chemical weapons plant in Syria in Trump’s first term. That flew past Russian air defences but the Russians agreed not to shoot it down with an arranged mutual deconfliction corridor.
In this case there is nothing Russian anywhere within range, not even in Syria.
The Iranian fighters had to leave Syria when Assad was toppled and the Rsusian fighters did too.
Assad’s regime was toppled by rebels fighting mostly in open top trucks - and the Russians didn’t stay behind to fight, they focused on removing their soldiers and equipment from Syria as fast as they could.
Russia abandoned its only foreign port outside of the former Soviet Union in Tartus.
It now has no military presence left anywhere in the Middle East.
And Russia does NOT support the Ayatollah AT ALL. Just commercial / political relations.
Russia bought the Shahed drones from Iran which made a big difference to Russia earlier in the war. But now it makes its own Shahed drones and is no longer dependent on supplies from Iran. It’s already got Iran’s plans and knows how to make them.
Russia is extraordinarily reluctant to help Iran AT ALL.
When the Israeli bombing run on Oct 26th 2025 knocked out ALL the Russian S-300 air defences, Iran wanted to buy newer air defences from Russia.
Russia refused.
Russia did promise to sell Iran some of its foreign export Su-35s which are roughly equivalent to the US F-16s. There were stories claiming they were already in Iran.
But these stories turned out to be false.
When Israel attacked Iran it didn’t have any Su-35s to defend itself.
So Russia is refusing even to supply Iran with equipment.
China stopped supplying Iran with military equipment in 2022 and will NOT sell it anything to help it protect itself from Israel or the US
As for China, it used to supply some military equipment to Iran through to 2022 but it stopped in 2022 and before then was selling almost nothing.
There's a false story about Chinese transport planes landing in Iran, not true, the planes in question avoided Iran which has closed its air space to commercial traffic.
The cargo planes never even flew through Iranian air space. Which makes sense as the Iranian air space is currently closed to civilian flights.
That is to avoid the risk that Iranian anti-aircraft or Israeli fighter jets shoot down civilian aircraft.
It is wrong to call Iran an ally of China
It is just a commercial partner.
This is a good summary from New York Times:
QUOTE STARTS
China has much to lose from a runaway conflict. Half of the country’s oil imports move in tankers through the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s southern coast. And Beijing has long counted on Tehran, its closest partner in the region, to push back against American influence.
But despite those strategic interests, China, which has little sway over the Trump administration, is unlikely to come to Iran’s defense militarily, especially if the United States gets involved.
“The reality is they don’t actually have the capability to insert Chinese forces to defend Iran’s installations,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “What they would prefer to do is very quietly provide some material support, some rhetorical support and maybe some humanitarian aid.”
...
Despite China’s close relationship with Iran, its rhetoric about the current conflict has been strikingly measured at the highest levels. After its top leader, Xi Jinping, called for a cease-fire during a call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday, a summary of the call released by the Chinese government did not overtly criticize Israel for violating Iran’s sovereignty.
Mr. Xi also refrained from directly urging the United States not to attack Iran, saying only that the “international community, especially major powers that have a special influence on the parties to the conflict, should make efforts to promote the cooling of the situation, rather than the opposite.”
...
When China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, called his counterpart in Israel, he expressed Beijing’s opposition to Israel’s attacks, according to the Chinese summary of the call. But he stopped short of saying that China “condemns” them, as he had in a call with Iran.
In another call, with the foreign minister of Oman, Mr. Wang said that “we cannot sit idly by and watch the regional situation slide into an unknown abyss,” according to a Chinese government statement. But it is unclear what, if any, specific efforts China has made to find a diplomatic solution. In any case, Israel would likely be skeptical of China’s neutrality as a mediator because of its alignment with Iran and engagement with Hamas, the Palestinian ally of Iran that attacked Israel in October 2023.
China’s efforts, at least in public, have been focused on evacuating more than 1,000 of its citizens from Israel and Iran.
...
Discussions of the conflict on China’s heavily censored online forums have largely centered on the poor performance of Iran’s military and security apparatus, though some participants have noted the limits of China’s support for Iran.
Zhu Zhaoyi, a Middle East expert at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said in a post that China could not provide Iran with “unconditional protection” and confront the United States and Israel militarily. He said Beijing could only exert pressure through the United Nations Security Council, of which China is a permanent member.
...
China’s tempered response resembles that of its like-minded partner, Russia, which has done little more than issue statements of support for Iran, despite having received badly needed military aid from Tehran for its war in Ukraine. Both Beijing and Moscow were also seen as bystanders last year when their shared partner, the Assad regime, was overthrown in Syria.
...
Their relative absence raises questions about the cohesiveness of what some in Washington have called the “Axis of Upheaval” — the quartet of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which have drawn closer diplomatically and militarily around a common opposition to the U.S.-dominated world order.
Of the four nations, only China is deeply embedded in the global economy, which means it has much to lose from turmoil in the Middle East. It buys virtually all of Iran’s exported oil, at a discount, using clandestine tanker fleets to evade U.S. sanctions. And its ships depend on safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz to transport additional oil from Gulf states.
...
That unwillingness to apply pressure on its partners undercuts China’s standing in the Middle East, said Barbara Leaf, a former assistant secretary of state for near Eastern affairs at the State Department who is now a senior adviser at Arnold and Porter, a Washington-based law firm.
“Nobody is saying, ‘We better call up Beijing and see what they can do here,’ because Beijing has played a purely commercial and economic role,” Ms. Leaf said, describing the attitudes of Middle Eastern officials with whom she has spoken over the years.
“They just sort of take it as a given that China is going to look out for China,” she said.
So why do politicians say this risks spiralling into a larger war? Ask them - it makes NO SENSE
I don’t pretend to understand how and why politicians talk as they do but what they are saying about Trump’s possible strike on Iran makes no sense.
Iran doesn’t even have proxies any more that can do anything
The Houthis in Yemen are even further away
Hezbollah in Lebanon are no longer a factor
The Lebanese army don’t support Iran.
Hamas can’t do anything
Syria is no longer an ally - all the Iranian soldiers had to leave Syria when the rebels took over
Nobody else does either except a few rebels in Iraq which is supported by the US
Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - they will not be upset by this at all, Iran hasn’t been a good neighbour for them
And as we’ve seen Russia and China wouldn’t touch this with a barge pole [Won’t come anywhere near supporting Iran]
None of Israel’s neighbours except Hamas would support Iran and Hamas is no longer able to do much.
Iran is NOT involved in international terrorist attacks on civilians - it fought against ISIS and would NOT do a terrorist attack like 9/11 - only assassinations of Iranian opposition figures abroad
This is another thing so many people I help don’t know. They worry that Iran would attack US or UK with a secret terror attack like ISIS did or Al Qaeda.
But those Jihadist terrorists were acting directly against the most central beliefs of Islam.
It’s a bit like thinking that the Klu Klux Klan is representative of Christianity.
Iran fought against ISIS in Syria and it’s partly because of the efforts of Iranian soldiers that they were eliminated.
Iran is militant, and it counts as terrorist because of its assassinations of opposition figures and it confusingly supports Hamas even though it is opposed to ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Iran says it didn’t know what Hamas planned in Israel and it certainly wouldn’t have authorized something like that.
It supports Hamas for political reasons but it does NOT deliberately attack civilians like Hamas. It tries to distance itself from the Hamas atrocities.
Hezbollah don't attack civilians.
Of the Iranian proxies, only Hamas has attacked civilians and Hamas only attacked Jews in Israel.
There's a political and a militant wing of Hamas, and only the militant wing did those atrocities.
The militant wing of Hamas is pretty much eliminated.
Most of the actual militatns that did those things, their leaders anyway - have already been killed by Israel.
Israel tries to paint its attacks on Israel as targeting civilians. But really it’s the very imprecise Iranian missiles which are only accurate to within hundreds of meters. There is no evidence that Iran is directly targeting civilians in Israel.
I know Iran have a connection with Hamas but it's an uncomfortable association with very different ideology. Hamas conducted atrocities against Jews. Not against any other countries.
Iran is also Shia rather than Sunni (though of course ordinary Sunni Muslims are also very opposed to atrocities or any attacks against civilians)
They support Hamas because of joint political opposition to Israel but they would not have been involved operationally in what Hamas did and it's not their mode of action. They are oppressive especially towards women, militant, but don't conduct terrorist atrocities against civilians.
I am NOT saying this to support the Iranian regime which is very harsh in many ways especially in its treatment of women in Iran and which has sponsored terrorist attacks against the state of Israel.
Rather it is just to help people scared that Iran would attempt something like 9/11 - no - that is not their style AT ALL.
Nor would any of their sympathizers or allies try anything like 9/11.
Fordov is very hard to damage - only US has a chance and likely many strikes with its biggest conventional bomb with 15 metric ton of explosives - hitting the same spot over and over for days or weeks
It's far harder to destroy the facilities themselves.
Israel can’t get to the deepest enrichment facilities only US can
This is why the US might get involved, to bomb the deepest Uranium enrichment facilities in Fordov.
However it makes far more sense for the US to BLUFF about doing this than to actually do it.
The US bombs are the only ones that can penetrate to reach them.
Iran likely already has some secret deeper facilities for a stash of uranium / centrifuges
RUSSI says that there is no way for the US to enforce zero enrichment through military action as Iran would just bury the centrifuges deeper below the range of whatever missiles it uses.
Iran knows that it's Fordov facility is potentially vulnerable to repeated strikes by the largest US bomb and has likely already constructed secret facilities even more deeply buried. It wouldn't be difficult to build a facility hundreds of meters deep under a mountain - like building the underground railway tunnels through the Alps. Iran is very mountainous, many places it could do it. Mount Damavand, it's highest mountain, is around 5,600 meters high.
Also Iran doesn't depend on foreign expertise any more to restart enrichment. It's got all the knowledge it needs now, so the most could be done with even the US doing a bombing campaign is to force it deeper underground, after assessing how deep the US bombs were able to penetrate and then do a new campaign in secret facilities.
Darya Dolzikova from UK military thinktank RUSSI says the US can usefully THREATEN to destroy Iranian facilities to encourage negotation - but it can’t accomplish much by destroying them
With that background - Darya Dolzikova from the UK military expertise think tank RUSSI says that
threatening to destroy the nuclear facilities could be a useful bargaining tool,
to actually do it would likely not achieve the US goal to stop the Iranian nuclear enrichment program
would just force it deeper underground
The threats of strikes so far have probably already pushed some of it deeper underground in undisclosed secret sites to protect it from precisely this scenario as a result of the build up of threats over the last several weeks. .
This is why Trump is likely just bluffing - unless we hear he actually has attacked Fordov.
If he does attack it, then it would be unlikely not to achieve much by way of diplomacy but it’s not going to lead to any kind of spiral!
He did attack - does this mean he has other leverage through secret intelligence?
Iran is rapidly getting weaker, fewer ballistic missiles evey day
Iran did nothing that even hit the news last night - its strikes on Israel led to no casualties and it is firing fewer missiles every day - never mind something that would be remembered for centuries. On Tuesday it did three barrages of missiles, the first fired 20 missiles, the second fired 10, the third fired 2. This is likely due to Israel destroying its ballistic missile launchers.
The total so far fired is 370 ballistic missiles.
It likely had from several hundred to 2000, various estimates. But an unknown number of those missiles have been destroyed and others are in underground silos with all the tunnels to the surface blocked by Israeli missile strikes on the entrances that would take days to a week or two to clear, longer if the Israelis managed to partially collapse the tunnels.
At any rate those stockpiles are out of action for the duration of the war.
So it has an unknown possibly small number of missiles it can use.
And whenever it fires ballistic missiles at Israel, then Israel is flying over Iran and it can detect the ballistic missiles being fired and destroy the launchers.
This also shows why NATO is very safe - if Ukraine had the NATO F-35 fighter jets it would quickly have air control over all occupied Ukraine, including Crimea and neighbouring regions of Russia - and Russia would likely decide to leave Ukraine in days
So as Iran continues to do these strikes it loses the mobile ballistic missile launchers - those are trucks with ballistic missiles on the back of them that can drive around and then stop somewhere and fire a missile at Israel and then drive off again. LIke HiMARS but with longer range.
This also shows why experts say the Ukraine war would end very fast if Ukraine had access to the NATO F-35 fighter jets - if its allies gave them a few dozen and ten gave them permission to use retired F-35 fighter pilots to fly them from the many countries globally that now have them.
If Ukraine had the F-35s it would quickly have air control as Russia has nothing like them. Not long after the Russians would have to leave Ukraine. Because they are not fighting for their own homes, they are fighting for a reason they don't even understand themselves and wouldn't stay and keep fighting if their army was destroyed from above.
Which is why Russia would never attack NATO because NATO would have air control as soon as it started fighting.
No risk of the conflicts joining up
There is NO RISK of the conflicts "joining up". Iran has no interest in attacking Ukraine it is just a commercial opportunity especially with the sanctions and an opportunity to improve its weapons. Russia has no interest in attacking Israel. China has no interest in either and neither of those have any interest in Taiwan. North Korea has no interest in Israel or Ukraine - it is a quid for quo exchange much like mercenaries with Russia. China is not close to Russia at all and gouges it for all it can economically.
None of these are allies with each other in the NATO sense. In theory Russia and North Korea have some kind of mutual defence pact but so also does North Korea and China, in reality neither would defend North Korea against South Korea and North Korea is only interested in South Korea.
None of these countries have navies or air forces able to operate at a distance thousands of miles away either. Russia lost its only port outside of the former Soviet Union in Tartus. China's only foreign port is in Djibouti a country it shares with many other bases from countries like Japan, US, UK etc.
This is not at all likely to become an all-out war between Iran and Israel. The main risk is of extended Israeli strikes as are already happening - and then Iran responding in some way to Israel. They used to talk about a regional conflict in the Middle East. That meant Iran together with Lebanon, Syria, and some support from subversive militants in Iraq and the Houthi rebels firing cruise missiles from thousands of miles away - and minute contribution from the Houthi regels. All fighting Israel with US supporting Israel.
Now it is just Iran exchanging missiles with Israel with 1000 km between their borders at the closest point and no way for the land army in either country to reach the other country. And Houthi rebels could join in with more missiles from even further away, greatly depleted. That is not a world war.
Iran has no force projection at all outside the Middle East it would have to set off with three frigates, a few diesel subs that need frequent refueling on a quixotic mission to try to invade the US or UK makes no sense. Russia and China wouldn't join in.
So no there is no possibility of a world war from any of this.
Russia can't fight a world war either it just doesn't have the military capability to do that. Only firing missiles at a distance which would turn out very badly for Russia not invade anywhere on the ground or from the sea or air. Except the Baltic States - but NATO is far too powerful for it to try that. Or Georgia. Once it is no longer totally caught up in Ukraine Georgia sadly may be at risk but that's about it.
And India and Pakistan can't fight a world war either.
The only country that plausibly could fight a world war is the US, with the help of UK and France. If they wanted to fight a war against the rest of the world they have the capability apart from the nuclear deterrents of Russia, China, and Inda but they have absolutely no expansive intention despite Russia's claims.
NATO's expansion has been through countries joining it voluntarily and they can only join after first ensuring they have no territorial disputes that NATO will need to enter into and support on their side.
Short summary of why there is no risk of a world war from Iran - Iran can’t fight the world and doesn’t want to
Video:
Perhaps I can help explain why there is no risk of a world war by sharing three graphics. This is the conflict (not really a war) that everyone is tweeting about etc today:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
Not the remotest risk of a regional war or a world war!!
No Iranian proxies left near Israel
Approx. 1,500 Kilometers
Israel is NOT able to drive up to Iran on the ground Iran is NOT able to fly to Israel
by the geography this can only be a VERY limited exchange
Iran's only proxy: the Houthis 2000 km from Israel to the South
Israel didn't have help of the US
didn't have in flight refueling
flew the short way over Syria and Iraq
only possible because of fall of Assad
used F-16 fighter jets with three external fuel tanks each and two bombs each It couldn't fly over Jordan Iraq also objected to the US but the US didn't stop the flights
No help from the US, only weak involvement is that the US didn't prohibit flight over Iraq.
US did NOT authorize it.
US refuses Israel's request to destroy the high enrichment facilities in Fordow
Nobody will join Iran US says it will only defend Israel
It’s Israel v. Iran, they can’t drive up to each other’s borders so the most can happen is that they fire missiles at each other from a distance until they decide to stop. Israel started it and Iran will stop responding when Israel stops.
This is the Gulf war in 1991.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Wars in the Middle East always STAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
1991 Gulf war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq.
42 other countries from every continent except Antarctica fought against Iraq in the Gulf war - NOT A WORLD WAR
UK’s biggest foreign war since WW2. ALL THESE COUNTRIES fought Iraq - NEVER COULD BE A WORLD WAR.
42 countries from every continent except Antarctica fought Iraq on the ground, in the air and in the sea
And this explains why there can’t be any world war from Iran.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Mainland US is at no risk of being attacked by ANY Middle East countries - and Russia and China would NOT get involved.
Nobody in the Middle East opposed to the US or Israel is able to fire weapons to another continent. The longest range Iranian missile is 2000 km. It needs most of the range to reach Israel. Its diesel subs and three frigates are no threat to the US or Europe and its military planes can't get there either.
Why there is NO RISK EVER of a world war from yet one more conflict in the Middle East of many (basic geography few seem to know on social media)
Shortest distance from Iran to USA 8,400+ km.
Iran can't shoot further than here (2000 km)
Iran’s missiles can’t get here
Iran is NOT able to attack the US
US often fights in the Middle East - e.g. Iraq, Gulf war, Syria etc.
NONE OF THESE COUNTRIES CAN EVER HIT THE US.
Russia is resolutely neutral on Israel / Iran - it only agrees not to supply Israel with missiles to attack Iran.
This time the US is not even supporting Israel
Iran with its 3 frigates and a few diesel subs CANNOT REALISTICALLY TAKE ON THE WORLD IN A WORLD WAR and won't try.
Iran needs its 2000 km missiles just to hit Israel, closest point 1000 km
Iran and Israel are 1000 km away at their closest
Iran can (or could) put small satellites into orbit. What it can’t do though is the ICBM re-entry. If a satellite re-enters without an aeroshell it just burns up like a fireball with very little reaching the ground.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
Iran does not have ICBM re-entry technology
Without re-entry technology anything fired at intercontinental range will just burn up on re-entry
Iran does have the ability to put small satellites in orbit
But they would just burn up on re-entry
(Image: Apollo capsule re-entering Earth's atmosphere)
Apollo 11 re-entry – skipping on atmosphere for controlled landing – comparatively simple to design
(Image: Minuteman III ICBM re-entry vehicle)
Minuteman III ICBM re-entry minimizes time in the atmosphere and maintains precise targeting – an extreme challenge requiring many tests and specialist materials
Iran hasn’t even developed aeroshell re-entry and it hasn’t got the slightest interest in ICBM re-entry – range is 2000 km to reach Israel from most of Iran.
Iran simply doesn’t have the capability to attack Western Europe or the Americas even if that was its wish which it is not. There is no way for its planes, or its diesel subs or its missiles or its three small frigates to get to Western Europe or the Americas and it’s not even interested.
And Russia and China won’t get involved.
Iran is in the Non Proliferation Treaty and doesn’t have nukes
There’s a lot of confusion in the stories. None of the sources are saying Iran has WMDs. Israel claims to be acting pre-emptively to degrade its nuclear program so it can't develop a nuke quickly. Even Israel doesn't say that Iran is trying to make a nuke but it claims it is developing the ability to be able to make one quickly if it chooses to do so.
Iran is NOT keen on developing nukes either. Few in the media explain it properly.
Iran ALREADY has ratified the Non Proliferation Treaty and has atomic inspectors.
The problems recently with the IAEA are likely becaues of Iran wanting to protect some of its enriched uranium and centrifuges from Israeli strikes - not to hide them from the IAEA (except as far as Iran thinks the IAEA is not secure enough to keep some of its most highly classified secrets)
It's the other way around. It is Israel that refuses to even disclose to the IAEA that it has nukes, the only nuclear weapon state to refuse to disclose nukes.
Second, Iran would only have them for deterrence if it did develop them.
Third, however
Iran’s long standing position is that it wants all countries to give up nukes as fast as possible. Every year it calls on the UN General Assembly to arrange this. [add cite]
In particular, Iran wants Israel to declare its nukes and give them up to establish a Middle East nuclear free zone.
Iran's uranium hexafluoride is 60% enriched with Uranium 238. They could turn it into weapons grade Uranium Hexafluoride in a week using centrifuges. But that is NOT A NUKE. You can't make a nuke from uranium hexafluoride.
If Iran decided to make a nuke - it’s likely two years before it can fit them in a missile and be useful as a deterrent for Israel
It wouldn’t take that long, months, to develop a nuke that can be delivered on a bomber, but that’s no use for an Iranian deterrent because it’s bombers can’t fly to Israel, it’s main adversary that it needs to deter with nuclear threats.
It’s likely two years before it could have a nuke that can reach Israel.
QUOTE Timeline. The time needed to revive and recreate a production-scale nuclear weapons production complex is estimated as two years, at which point Iran would have produced its first missile-delivered nuclear warhead and created the infrastructure for the serial warhead production of many more.
With this background, Iran wouldn’t have a nuclear deterrent for two years probably. Saudi Arabia could have a nuclear deterrent in weeks because it bankrolled the Pakistan government’s program and Pakistan is likely to be willing to help it back.
And Israel could take over its air space permanently during the period it was trying to make a nuke, which would likely destabilize the regime eventually.
So it’s not very plausible Iran does this.
Try talking to your older relatives and friends who lived through the Cuban missile crisis - or through the cold war - if WW3 didn’t start then it won’t start now
Here is one of our group members talks about what his Grandad said, whose 83 and was alive during the formation of NATO and was a young boy during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Here is his post shared with his permission:
Guys!
I spoke to my Grandad today about the threat of having a WW3 happening, he said not it will NEVER HAPPEN! He was alive during the formation of NATO, he was a young boy during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and he says NOTHING happening today in the Middle East and Ukraine compare to what he lived through! He also mentioned so many wars he witnessed on the news in his 83 years of living that are much worse!
If WW3 hasn't started then, it won't start now, NATO is doing it's job, being a defensive organisation, and live your life as normal!
So - if you are scared of a world war - try talking to any of your relatives or friends who may be of my generation or his generation and you may get a better perspective on it all.
Countries that have agreed never to develop nukes - and nuclear free zones
Many people I help have absolutely no idea that almost the entire global South is in a nuclear free zone or how many countries want to rapidly eliminate all nukes.
121 countries joined India to call for a convention to prohibit all nukes in 2024 - majority vote for this every year - 49 against - 12 abstain
India has nukes but wants to very rapidly eliminate all nukes. Every year it brings a resolution to the UN to quickly eliminate all nukes globally as soon as is pracically possible and a majority of countries vote for it every time.
Nuclear free zones (in blue) - almost the entire global south
The ones shown as blue are in nuclear weapon free zones. Nobody can even bring a nuke into those zones. The ones shown in yellow are Non Proliferation Treaty states. They pledge not to make nukes themselves and have regular atomic inspectors to make sure they don’t produce them. But some of them are in nuclear umbrellas of other states, especially the yellow ones in NATO such as Canada, Norway, Spain etc.
Mongolia is the only single country nuclear weapon free zone. The other big blue area in the northern hemisphere is the central Asian nuclear weapon free zone.
Hans Blix is a former nuclear weapons inspector, former head of the IAEA and chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.
He says that despite blips like Gaza Strip and the Ukraine war that
the world is moving in the direction of less conflict.
He foresees an end to all wars
As a species we are surely only fully civilized once war ends, replaced by non lethal competition such as the Olympics. We will find promising signs that this may even happen this century.
This century may end with us eventually:
scrapping not just most nukes but nearly all missiles.
For a first overview look at the graphics, read the bullet points summary, and read the section titles in the contents list - then dive into more detail in any section of interest. If you are on the laptop you can also navigate to any section by clicking on the column of horizontal dashes you see to the left of this page.
Polls in our Doomsday Debunked group about what to focus on in this debunk:
I used polls to try to find out what I should focus on most of all. I’ve been asked to cover all of these but some got many more votes than others.
I was astonished to find that many wanted me to explain that Iran is not in Russia’s nuclear umbrella.
Didn’t even mention that in my last debunk as it never even occured to me that anyone would think that. I only added that poll question as an afterthought.
No, Iran is not and has never been and will never be in Russia’s nuclear umbrella.
Russia’s nuclear umbrella doesn’t even cover Crimea. Never mind loose allies like Iran which only has a mutual non aggression pact with Russia.
Iran generally
Russia is NOT even selling Iran air defences and will NOT support Iran 18%
Iran's missiles can't reach Europe or the Americas 16%
Iran doesn't have nukes 15%
Iran's airforce can't even fly over its own capital city 7%
If Iran tests a nuke, this has no effect on the world 7%
The radioactivity from a nuclear test doesn't spread far and most of it is soon gone 6%
Iran's navy can't even reach the Mediterranean 5%
If US bombs Fordov it's not even a radiation hazard locally 5%
Nothing in the Middle East will lead to World War 3 5%
Iran doesn't have ICBM technology 4%
Enriched uranium only becomes highly radioactive after a chain reaction in a nuclear reactor or bomb 3%
The entire global South is in a nuclear weapons free zone 3%
Iran is running out of missiles and missile launchers 3%
Iran votes every year for a nuclear weapon free Middle East and world 1%
Iran is the only country in the world that votes against a nuclear weapons free Middle East 1%
Israel tells its citizens they can go back to work as it can shoot down all incoming missiles 1%
Wars in the Middle East stay there and even when 42 countries from all continents except Antarctica fought Iraq, it was only a local war 0%
Iran's ballistic missiles have maximum range 2000 km to be able to reach Israel from central Iran - none can reach it from Western Iran 0%
China is not interested in this conflict 0%
Middle Eastern wars won't upset oil prices and world is rapidly eliminating its dependence on oil 0%
Worries that Russia could get involved:
Russia's pact with Iran only commits Russia to stop supplying weapons to its enemies during an active war 53%
Iran is NOT in Russia's nuclear umbrella and they have no nuclear weapons pact 15%
Russia is NOT even selling Iran air defences after it lost almost all its Russian air defences in one attack by Israel on October 26, 2024 11%
No possibility of any Russia / China pact to help Iran - Russia doesn't support Iran against Israel - China has no interest in the conflict 7%
Russia does not assist Ayatollah militarily like it did for Assad and has no Russian soldiers in Iran to help him 3%
Israel has complete control of the airspace over Tehran, capital of Iran, and Russia does nothing to help Iran protect itself 3%
Russia frequently offers to mediate between Israel and Iran and calls for both sides to stop fighting 3%
Russian fighter jets could engage in combat with Israeli fighter jets (though no match for the best US fighter jets) and it's doing nothing 1%
More Jews have immigrated to Israel from Russia than any other country and there are 1.5 million Russian Jews there (including their familie 1%
Russia promised to sell Iran Su-35 fighter jets which would be able to fight the Isaeli F-16s but they never got there in time 1%
US F-35s are far advanced over Russian fighter jets - could establish air superiority over occupied Ukraine as easily as Israel did for Iran 1%
Russia couldn't protect Assad's regime in Syria from rebels mostly in open top trucks and evacuated Russian soldiers and equipment instead 1%
Russia lost its only sea port in the Med. or outside the former Soviet Union because it couldn't protect Assad from the Syrian rebels 0%
There are no Russian soldiers in Iran and Russia never supported the Ayatollah in the way it supported the Assad regime in Syria 0%
Russia doesn't have any ports or military bases in the Middle East any more after its withdrawal from Syria 0%
So - hopefully this new debunk helps address some of the main reasons people get unnecessarily scared about what’s happening in Iran.
More details in my earlier debunk which covers these and other points in a different way. It didn’t clearly cover the main reason people are scared because I didn’t know what they were back then but it became clear after many private messages, posts and comments in the group and those two polls.
This is a short debunk focused on helping people who are scared of a world war and to explain clearly why it is utterly impossible. From anything in the Middle East and utterly impossible for Iran. I won’t go into the broader picture - for that see my previous debunk.
Amusing anecdote that may help those who gets scared of AI because it seems so capable - Chatbot glitches trying to get them to draw the second cousin twice removed tree for this blog post
For that joke about the second cousin three times removed - I couldn’t find an online diagram that I could share so I tried using chatbots to create one for me. Eventually with lots of tweaks I got that Perplexity AI tree, but I needed to actually tell it how to tweak the Python code before it could do it.
Eventually by getting it to tweak its Python code directly, I finally got it to produce this which shows the correct tree:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
In this diagram Person A and Person B are second cousins three times removed of each other
Trump is extraordinarily risk averse - with his pledge of no new foreign wars, if just one American soldier or civilian is killed in reprisals everyone they know will be on US TV, even [comic exaggeration / hyperbole] their second cousin three times removed might be on TV about it 😜
Clearly chatbots are nowhere near capable of drawing family trees quite yet :).
CONTACT ME VIA PM OR ON FACEBOOK OR EMAIL
You can Direct Message me on Substack - but I check this rarely. Or better, email me at support@robertinventor.com
Or best of all Direct Message me on Facebook if you are okay joining Facebook. My Facebook profile is here:. Robert Walker I usually get Facebook messages much faster than on the other platforms as I spend most of my day there.
Scared and want a story debunked? Post to our Facebook group. Please look over the group rules before posting or commenting as they help the group to run smoothly
I do many more fact checks and debunks on our facebook group than I could ever write up as blog posts. They are shorter and less polished but there is a good chance you may find a short debunk for some recent concern.
I do the short debunks more often but they are less polished - they are copies of my longer replies to scared people in the Facebook group.
I go through phases when I do lots of short debunks. Recently I’ve taken to converting comments in the group into posts in the group that resemble short debunks and most of those haven’t yet been copied over to the wiki.
If you have got scared by any of this, health professionals can help. Many of those affected do get help and find it makes a big difference.
They can’t do fact checking, don’t expect that of them. But they can do a huge amount to help with the panic, anxiety, maladaptive responses to fear and so on.
Also do remember that therapy is not like physical medicine. The only way a therapist can diagnose or indeed treat you is by talking to you and listening to you. If this dialogue isn’t working for whatever reason do remember you can always ask to change to another therapist and it doesn’t reflect badly on your current therapist to do this.
Also check out my Seven tips for dealing with doomsday fears based on things that help those scared, including a section about ways that health professionals can help you.
I know that sadly many of the people we help can’t access therapy for one reason or another - usually long waiting lists or the costs.
There is much you can do to help yourself. As well as those seven tips, see my:
The reason is I often can’t respond to comments for some time. The unanswered comment can scare people who come to this post for help on something else
Also even an answered comment may scare them because they see the comment before my reply.
It works much better to put comments on other topics on a special post for them.
It is absolutely fine to digress and go off topic in conversations here.
This is specifically about anything that might scare people on a different topic.
PLEASE DON’T TELL A SCARED PERSON THAT THE THING THEY ARE SCARED OF IS TRUE WITHOUT A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE OR IF YOU ARE A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE YOURSELF - AND RESPOND WITH CARE
This is not like a typical post on substack. It is specifically to help people who are very scared with voluntary fact checking. Please no politically motivated exaggerations here. And please be careful, be aware of the context.
We have a rule in the Facebook group and it is the same here.
If you are scared and need help it is absolutely fine to comment about anything to do with the topic of the post that scares you.
But if you are not scared or don’t want help with my voluntary fact checking please don’t comment with any scary material.
If you respond to scared people here please be careful with your sources. Don’t tell them that something they are scared of is true without excellent reliable sources, or if you are a reliable source yourself.
It also matters a lot exactly HOW you respond. E.g. if someone is in an area with a potential for earthquakes there’s a big difference between a reply that talks about the largest earthquake that’s possible there even when based on reliable sources, and says nothing about how to protect themselves and the same reply with a summary and link to measures to take to protect yourself in an earthquake.
The reason is I often aren't able to respond to comments for some time and the unanswered comment can scare people who come to this post for help on something else
Also even when answered the comment may scare them because they see it first.
It works much better to put comments on other topics on a special post for them.
It is absolutely fine to digress and go off topic in conversations here - this is specifically about things you want help with that might scare people.
PLEASE DON’T TELL A SCARED PERSON THAT THE THING THEY ARE SCARED OF IS TRUE WITHOUT A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE OR IF YOU ARE A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE YOURSELF - AND RESPOND WITH CARE
This is not like a typical post on substack. It is specifically to help people who are very scared with voluntary fact checking. Please no politically motivated exaggerations here. And please be careful, be aware of the context.
We have a rule in the Facebook group and it is the same here.
If you are scared and need help it is absolutely fine to comment about anything to do with the topic of the post that scares you.
But if you are not scared or don’t want help with my voluntary fact checking please don’t comment with any scary material.
If you respond to scared people here please be careful with your sources. Don’t tell them that something they are scared of is true without excellent reliable sources, or if you are a reliable source yourself.
It also matters a lot exactly HOW you respond. E.g. if someone is in an area with a potential for earthquakes there’s a big difference between a reply that talks about the largest earthquake that’s possible there even when based on reliable sources, and says nothing about how to protect themselves and the same reply with a summary and link to measures to take to protect yourself in an earthquake.
i am so greatful for this thread, as someone who suffers from intense anxiety from the news, i have been reading and using your words for over a year on reddit and just now downloaded this app to hear more. Thank you so so much! you have done so much for my mental health
PLEASE DON'T COMMENT ON THIS POST WITH POTENTIALLY SCARY QUESTIONS ABOUT ANY OTHER TOPIC:
INSTEAD PLEASE COMMENT ON THE SPECIAL SEPARATE POST I SET UP HERE: https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/post-to-comment-on-with-off-topic-940
The reason is I often aren't able to respond to comments for some time and the unanswered comment can scare people who come to this post for help on something else
Also even when answered the comment may scare them because they see it first.
It works much better to put comments on other topics on a special post for them.
It is absolutely fine to digress and go off topic in conversations here - this is specifically about things you want help with that might scare people.
PLEASE DON’T TELL A SCARED PERSON THAT THE THING THEY ARE SCARED OF IS TRUE WITHOUT A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE OR IF YOU ARE A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE YOURSELF - AND RESPOND WITH CARE
This is not like a typical post on substack. It is specifically to help people who are very scared with voluntary fact checking. Please no politically motivated exaggerations here. And please be careful, be aware of the context.
We have a rule in the Facebook group and it is the same here.
If you are scared and need help it is absolutely fine to comment about anything to do with the topic of the post that scares you.
But if you are not scared or don’t want help with my voluntary fact checking please don’t comment with any scary material.
If you respond to scared people here please be careful with your sources. Don’t tell them that something they are scared of is true without excellent reliable sources, or if you are a reliable source yourself.
It also matters a lot exactly HOW you respond. E.g. if someone is in an area with a potential for earthquakes there’s a big difference between a reply that talks about the largest earthquake that’s possible there even when based on reliable sources, and says nothing about how to protect themselves and the same reply with a summary and link to measures to take to protect yourself in an earthquake.
Thanks!
i am so greatful for this thread, as someone who suffers from intense anxiety from the news, i have been reading and using your words for over a year on reddit and just now downloaded this app to hear more. Thank you so so much! you have done so much for my mental health