Comparing Ancient and Modern Nuclear Warfare

• Did our old precursors have very trend-setting innovations matching the atomic abilities of today? There is proof from remnants in India supporting that guarantee.
• Countless ancient texts describe fascinating accounts that many authors believed, occurred thousands of years ago on Earth. Take the incomparable Sanskrit epic from India called the Mahabharata. It recounts the fate, devastation, and repercussions of an atomic war.
• Hypersonic weapons fly at speeds of at least Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable and able to change course during a flight, and the United States, Russia, and China are all developing hypersonic weapons.
• The ‘Doomsday Clock’ metaphor thicking, which is used to “warn the public” about how close we are thought to be to the worst-case scenario, and the latest assessment for 2022 keeps the clock in the threatening position, just at 100 seconds to midnight.

Is the man on the threshold of a new world or merely stuck on a circular treadmill repeating the doomed lessons from history that he never seems to learn? A growing number of scholars believe the world’s macabre fascination with nuclear war is just the latest repeat of a series of blunders human technology seems obsessed with repeating. Writings from a great many years prior appear to contain what could be deciphered as precise portrayals of atomic blasts, practically identical to the one in Nagasaki in World War II.

Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military struggle or political scheme in which atomic arms are used. Compared to conventional warfare, atomic warfare is immensely more destructive in scope and extent of harm. A major atomic exchange could hold terrible long-run effects, chiefly from radiation release but besides from possible atmospheric pollution taking to atomic winter, that could last for decennaries, centuries, or even millenary after the initial onslaught. Nuclear war is considered to bear an experiential hazard for civilization on Earth.

The Ancient Nuclear Warfare

Countless ancient texts describe fascinating accounts that many authors believed, occurred thousands of years ago on Earth. While many ancient civilizations across the globe have left a mark in history with countless ancient scripts, monuments, and objects that force us to reevaluate what we know about history, many of these accounts are perceived with a notion of disbelief by mainstream scholars. Some call these accounts mythology, and some refer to them as folklore, but the truth is that there are countless ancient texts that indicate how ancient civilizations around the globe experienced incredible things, and they made sure to document them as well as they could.

Take the incomparable Sanskrit epic from India called the Mahabharata. It recounts fate and devastation, with entries that appear to precisely portray the impacts and repercussions of an atomic war. There are grounds that the Rama imperium was devastated by the atomic war. The Indus vale is now the Thar desert, and the site of the radioactive ash found west of Jodhpur is around that place. Among those historical texts, we see a story of a devastating event that occurred thousands of years ago. This event, incomparable to any other historic event in ancient history, sounds very familiar to events that rocked modern history.

Historian Kisari Mohan Ganguli (an Indian translator known for being the first to provide a complete translation of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata in English), argues that the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are full of descriptions of large nuclear holocausts that are apparently of incredibly higher proportions than those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When a student asked Dr. Oppenheimer (wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the “father of the atomic bomb” for their role in the Manhattan Project) if the first nuclear device that went off was the one at Alamogordo. during the Manhattan Project, Curiously he responded… “Well … yes. In modern times, yes, of course“. So, what does that ancient text say? And how can you be sure it actually describes a nuclear event, unfolding on Earth thousands of years ago?

Consider these verses from the ancient Mahabharata:

“Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful Vimana,
hurled a single projectile
charged with the power of the Universe.

An incandescent column of smoke and flame,
as bright as ten thousand suns,
rose with all its splendor.

It was an unknown weapon,
an iron thunderbolt,
a gigantic messenger of death,
which reduced to ashes
the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

The corpses were so burned
as to be unrecognizable.

Hair and nails fell out;
Pottery broke without apparent cause,
and the birds turned white.

…After a few hours
all foodstuffs were infected…
…to escape from this fire
the soldiers threw themselves in streams
to wash themselves and their equipment.”

A second passage:

“Dense arrows of flame,
like a great shower,
issued forth upon creation,
encompassing the enemy.
A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts.
All points of the compass were lost in darkness.
Fierce wind began to blow
Clouds roared upward,
showering dust and gravel.

Birds croaked madly…
the very elements seemed disturbed.
The sun seemed to waver in the heavens
The earth shook,
scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon.

Elephants burst into flame
and ran to and fro in a frenzy…
over a vast area,
other animals crumpled to the ground and died.
From all points of the compass,
the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely.”

The above verses describe a violent and terrible event, one that many authors argue can only be compared to a nuclear bomb detonating on Earth. In addition, there are many other references in the Ramayana which seem to be very similar to those described in the above verses. But is there evidence, other than the texts supporting the theory that a nuclear device detonated on Earth thousands of years ago?

Scientists have unearthed evidence that shows an atomic blast, which destroyed most of the buildings and probably a half-million people dating back thousands of years(8,000 to 12,000 years) in the ancient city of Rajasthan in India. One researcher estimates that the nuclear bomb used was about the size of the ones dropped on Japan in 1945. A heavy layer of radioactive ash in Rajasthan covers a three-square-mile area, ten miles west of Jodhpur. For some time the site has been established that there is a very high rate of birth defects and cancer in the area under construction. The levels of radiation there have registered so high on investigators’ gauges that the Indian government has now cordoned off the region. The Mahabharata clearly describes a catastrophic blast that rocked the continent.

“A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe…An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race… The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white… After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river.“

These few extracts from the Mahabharata have caused uncertainties in the heads of historiographers, bespeaking the possibility of atomic arms being used in the Mahabharata war or post-war. This fire of intuition has further been fuelled by the recent finds of green glass and many radioactive samples in certain diggings, in India, which seemingly were associated with the Mahabharata war. Green glass is said to organize when sand thaws at really high temperatures prevalent in Nuclear Explosions.

Another mark of an ancient nuclear war in India is an elephantine crater near Mumbai. The nearly circular 2,154-metre-diameter Lonar crater, located 400 kilometers north-east of Bombay and aged at less than 50,000 old ages old, could be related to atomic warfare of antiquity. No hint of any meteorologic stuff, etc., has been found at the site or in the locality, and this is the universe‘s merely known “ impact ” crater in basalt.

Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

The ancient archaeological sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro are treated as another important piece of evidence. The excavation of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa started in the late 1820s. Almost a century later, excavation work for the discovery of Mohenjo Daro also began; the site experienced noteworthy unearthings from that point forward. Both of these archaeological sites prove that the north-western region of South Asia, which is now Pakistan, remained a home of the Indus Valley Civilization from 3,300 BC to 1,900 BC. When excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro reached the street level, they discovered skeletons scattered about the cities, many holding hands and sprawling in the streets as if some instant, horrible doom had taken place. People were just lying, unburied, in the streets of the city. And these skeletons are thousands of years old, even by traditional archaeological standards.

What could cause such a thing? Why did the bodies not decay or get eaten by wild animals? Furthermore, there is no apparent cause of physically violent death. These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on par with those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At one site, Soviet scholars found a skeleton that had a radioactive level 50 times greater than normal. Other cities have been found in northern India that show indications of explosions of great magnitude. One such city, found between the Ganges and the mountains of Rajmahal, seems to have been subjected to intense heat. Huge masses of walls and foundations of the ancient city are fused together, literally vitrified! And since there is no indication of a volcanic eruption at Mohenjo-Daro or at the other cities, the intense heat to melt clay vessels can only be explained by an atomic blast or some other unknown weapon. The cities were wiped out entirely.

Certain zones of the site additionally indicated expanded dimensions of radioactivity. The English Indian analyst David Davenport observed proof of what gave off an impression of being the impact epicenter: a 50-yard sweep at the site, where all articles were found to have been intertwined and glassified—rocks had been dissolved by temperatures of around 1500 degrees C and transformed into a glass-like substance. Scientists Davenport and Vincenti put forward a theory stating the ruins were from an atomic blast as they found a large stratum of clay and green glass. High temperature melted clay and sand and they hardened instantly afterward. A similar stratum of green glass can besides found in Nevada comeuppances after every atomic detonation.

In his book “Conundrums of Ancient History,” A. Gorbovsky says that no less than one skeleton found at the site contained in excess of multiple times the dimension of radiation that it ought to have had, and a huge number of “dark stones,” which were once mud vessels, were discovered combined because of extraordinary warmth. Davenport additionally clarified that what was found at Mohenjo-Daro emulates precisely the impacts of the fallout that occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the twentieth century.

All things considered, different researchers have refuted these discoveries with proof recommending that the bodies found at Mohenjo-Daro were entire of a mass grave of the sloppiest, most contemptuous kind. Some have noticed that the straightforward mud-block structures ought to have effectively been obliterated by an atomic impact, while a portion of those structures stayed remained at a tallness of 15 feet.

However, there is by all accounts enough proof for us to contemplate: could there be more to our mankind’s history than we once thought? What could have caused this radioactivity? Could there have been people a great many years back who had atomic abilities?

Old ages have rolled by since India detonated its first Nuclear arm to fall in the conference of the alleged “Nuclear Power”. However, small research on the Mahabharata indicates that India could have been holding a Nuclear Power millenniums before the remainder of the world even came to cognize of the being of atoms. Incidentally, Oppenheimer, the discoverer of the atom bomb, on being interviewed by the media, gave a surprising answer mentioning the atom bomb which he had merely invented.

The designer of the modern atomic bomb who was in charge of the Manhattan undertaking was asked by a pupil after the manhattan detonation, “ How to make your experience after holding exploded the first atomic bomb on Earth ”. Oppenheimer‘s answer to the inquiry was, “non-first atomic bomb, but first atomic bomb in modern times ”. He strongly believed that atomic warheads were used in ancient India. what made Oppenheimer believe that it was an atomic war was the accurate descriptions of the arms used in the Mahabharata war in the heroic poem which lucifer with that of modern atomic arms.

History of Modern Nuclear warfare

The United States is the lone state to hold of all time used atomic arms during war, utilizing two atomic bombs on the Nipponese metropolis of Japan in 1945. Near the terminal of World War II, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. At the clip of those bombardments, the United States was the lone state to possess atomic arms. Immediately after the bombardments of Japan, the position of atomic arms in international and military dealings was ill-defined. Presumably, the United States hoped atomic arms could countervail the Soviet Union‘s superior conventional land forces in Eastern Europe, and perchance be used to coerce Soviet leader Joseph Stalin into grants. Despite Stalin‘s tangible fright of the bomb, he was prosecuting his ain atomic capableness through scientific research and espionage against the American plan.

The Soviets believed that the Americans were improbable to get down another universe war with their limited atomic armory and the Americans were non-confident they could forestall a Soviet coup d’etat of Europe, despite their atomic advantage. After World War II, atomic arms were besides developed by the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and the People‘s Republic of China, which contributed to the province of struggle and tenseness that became known as the Cold War. In the 1970s, India and 1990s, Pakistan, states openly hostile to each other, developed atomic arms. Israel, North Korea, and South Africa are besides known to hold developed atomic arms, although South Africa later abandoned them.

Who owns the world’s nukes?

Despite progress in reducing nuclear weapon arsenals since the Cold War, the world’s combined inventory of nuclear warheads remains at a very high level: nine countries possessed roughly 12,700 warheads as of early-2022. Approximately 90 percent of all nuclear warheads are owned by Russia and the United States, who each have around 4,000 warheads in their military stockpiles; no other nuclear-armed state sees a need for more than a few hundred nuclear weapons for national security.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, globally, the overall inventory of nuclear weapons is declining, but the pace of reductions is slowing compared with the past 30 years. Moreover, these reductions are happening only because the United States and Russia are still dismantling previously retired warheads. In contrast to the overall inventory of nuclear weapons, the number of warheads in global military stockpiles––which comprises warheads assigned to operational forces––is increasing once again. The United States is still reducing its nuclear stockpile slowly. France and Israel have relatively stable inventories. But China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, as well as possibly Russia, are all thought to be increasing their stockpiles (see map):

Of the world’s 12,700 nuclear warheads, more than 9,400 are in the military stockpiles for use by missiles, aircraft, ships, and submarines.  The remaining warheads have been retired but are still relatively intact and are awaiting dismantlement). Of the 9,440 warheads in the military stockpiles, some 3,730 are deployed with operational forces (on missiles or bomber bases). Of those, approximately 2,000 US, Russian, British, and French warheads are on high alert, ready for use on short notice.

The Game Changer: Hypersonic Weapons

Hypersonic weapons fly at speeds of at least Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable and able to change course during a flight. They are different from ballistic missiles, which can also travel at hypersonic speeds (of at least Mach 5) but have set trajectories and limited maneuverability. There are two different kinds of hypersonic weapons: hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles. Hypersonic glide vehicles are launched from a rocket. The glide vehicle then separates from the rocket and “glides” at speeds of at least Mach 5 toward a target. Hypersonic cruise missiles are powered by high-speed, air-breathing engines.

The United States, Russia, and China are all developing hypersonic weapons. Additional countries are conducting research on weapons, while others have made claims about testing hypersonic weapons that cannot yet be verified. Here is a closer look at some of the countries developing these weapons:

United States

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is currently developing hypersonic weapons under the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program, which is intended to provide the U.S. military with the ability to strike hardened or time-sensitive targets with conventional warheads, as well as through several Air Force, Army, and DARPA programs. Those who support these development efforts argue that hypersonic weapons could enhance deterrence, as well as provide the U.S. military with an ability to defeat capabilities such as advanced air and missile defense systems that form the foundation of U.S. competitors’ anti-access/area-denial strategies. In recognition of this, the 2018 National Defense Strategy identifies hypersonic weapons as one of the key technologies “[ensuring the United States] will be able to fight and win the wars of the future.” Similarly, the House Armed Services Committee’s bipartisan Future of Defense Task Force Report notes that hypersonic weapons could present challenges to the United States in the years to come.

The US recently completed a successful “free flight” test of a hypersonic missile, according to the Pentagon, but reportedly kept the test quiet in an effort to avoid escalation with Russia over Ukraine. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the test today, calling it the “second successful flight in DARPA’s HAWC [Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept] program.” According to DARPA, in the new test the missile was released from a “carrier aircraft,” was boosted by a scramjet engine, and then “\quickly accelerated to and maintained cruise faster than Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) for an extended period of time. The vehicle reached altitudes greater than 65,000 feet and flew for more than 300 nautical miles.

According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, unlike programs in China and Russia, U.S. hypersonic weapons are to be conventionally armed. As a result, U.S. hypersonic weapons will likely require greater accuracy and will be more technically challenging to develop than nuclear-armed Chinese and Russian systems. Indeed, according to one expert, “a nuclear-armed glider would be effective if it were 10 or even 100 times less accurate [than a conventionally-armed glider]” due to nuclear blast effects.

The U.S. military requested $3.8 billion for the development of hypersonic weapons for the fiscal year 2022 and another $246.9 million for hypersonic defense research. Most U.S. hypersonic weapons are still in the development or testing phase, but at least one system is expected to reach early operational capability this year. U.S. hypersonic weapons are armed with conventional warheads.

Russia

Russia has been pursuing hypersonic weapon technology since the 1980s and in just the past several days has become the first nation to deploy hypersonic weapons in combat, launching at least one such missile against a target in Ukraine, according to a Western military official. Russian military officials claimed on March 19 that they fired hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine to target what they said was an underground weapons storage site in the west of the country. Russia is pursuing two hypersonic weapons programs—the Avangard and the 3M22 Tsirkon (or Zircon)—and has reportedly fielded the Kinzhal (“Dagger”), a maneuvering air-launched ballistic missile.

Avangard

Avangard is a strategic intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that is composed of a high-performance ballistic missile and an HGV to maneuver and engage with ground targets at hypersonic speed, giving it “effectively ‘unlimited’ range.”After entering the atmosphere, it can fly on an unpredictable trajectory and engage a target at a maximum speed of Mach 20. It constantly changes its course and altitude as it flies throughout the atmosphere, attempting to defeat any missile defense system. Avangard is currently deployed on the SS-19 Stiletto ICBM, though Russia plans to eventually launch the vehicle from the Sarmat ICBM. Although Sarmat is still in development, it was successfully tested in April 2022 and is scheduled to be deployed by the end of 2022.

Kinzhal

Kinzhal is a hypersonic missile system capable of escaping any missile defense system. It is a nuclear-capable weapon that has an operating range of over 2,000 km. Russia has fielded Kinzhal, a maneuvering air-launched ballistic missile modified from the Iskander missile. Russia reportedly fired Kinzhal from a MiG-31 interceptor aircraft in Ukraine and additionally plans to deploy the missile on the Su-34 long-range strike fighter and the Tu-22M3 strategic bomber, in order to expand its range, taking into account the carrier’s battle radius and missile range. The smaller size of the missile will be transported with the Su-57. Kinzhal’s top speed is Mach 10, when launched from the MiG-The Kinzhal is reportedly capable of maneuverable flight, as well as of striking both ground and naval targets, and could eventually be fitted with a nuclear warhead. Russia has successfully tested an air-to-ground hypersonic missile with the MiG-31 fighter several times and is currently building a Tu-22M3 bomber.

Tsirkon

In addition to Avangard and Kinzhal, Russia is developing Tsirkon, a ship-launched hypersonic cruise missile capable of traveling at speeds of between Mach 6 and Mach 8. Tsirkon has a unique feature and is a specific missile. Russian experts said Tsirkon was very hard to intercept for both the current air defense capabilities and currently designed perspective interceptors. It will have both a radar target seeker and an optical-electronic complex in order to track and detect targets even at hypersonic speed as well. Tsirkon is reportedly capable of striking both ground and naval targets. Tsirkon has a range of between approximately 250 and 600 miles and can be fired from the vertical launch systems mounted on cruisers Admiral Nakhimov and Pyotr Veliky, Yasen-class submarines, and other platforms. Tsirkon was successfully launched from a Project 22350 frigate in January, October, and December 2020 and from a Project 885 Yasen-class submarine in October 2021.

China

Beijing launched a hypersonic nuclear-capable missile from a near-orbital trajectory in August, amid an intensifying race for the next generation of long-range weapons that are harder to detect and intercept. The missile is designed to travel in low orbit to dodge missile detection and defense systems, allowing China to strike virtually anywhere on the planet with little or no warning. China’s testing of a 25,000mph hypersonic missile, which flew through space before launching an attack on its target, took analysts by surprise and indicated Beijing’s missile program is more advanced than previously thought. The missile’s range appears to be unlimited as it can be launched into orbit before coming back into the atmosphere to hit its target. 

Chinese military launched the Long March rocket in August carrying a ‘hypersonic glide vehicle’ into low orbit. It circled the globe before descending towards its target, which it missed by about two dozen miles. The system would be able to overcome US anti-ballistic missile defense systems that are based in Alaska and set up to shoot down projectiles coming over the North Pole – the Chinese system would be able to strike the US from the south. China now appears to be pursuing the technology anew, while coupling it with a new ‘Hypersonic Glide Vehicle’ (HGV to carry the warheads.

Currently, only China and Russia have operational hypersonic weapons. Last year, China conducted a hypersonic test in which the missile went around the world at five times the speed of sound or Mach 5 and narrowly missed the target. Later, the missile also fired a sub-munition into the South China Sea, a revelation that rattled the world. The Chinese military is increasingly convinced that hypersonic weapons will alter the nature of warfare, and it is aggressively investing to gain a technological advantage over its rivals.

Heat-Seeking Capability For Pin-Point Accuracy

The Chinese scientists noted in a research published in the Chinese peer-reviewed journal ‘Infrared and Laser Engineering’ that, since a superfast missile may traverse enormous distances in a split second, a small error in the positioning and guiding system can result in a huge miss of the desired target. They explained that a small moving target’s infrared signal “constitutes just a few pixels without detailed information such as shape, texture, and structure” across a long distance, making identification and tracking “extremely difficult.” The heat sensor requires a very cold environment, but the missile’s surface temperature can reach thousands of degrees Celsius, generating a lot of background noise.

However, with the new heat-seeking technology, the Chinese military will be able to remove high-value targets from vast distances at unprecedented speeds, allowing them to “significantly expand the scope of application of hypersonic weapons in a regional war,” according to Yang.

Heat-seeking, also known as infrared homing, is a passive missile guidance system that uses electromagnetic radiation in the infrared spectrum to track and follow a target. Since infrared lies just below the visible spectrum of light in frequency and is emitted powerfully by hot substances, missiles that use it are known as “heat-seekers.”

To combat this problem, China developed a new method of identifying and tracking the target as it approaches it. A classic heat-seeker analyses the images produced by infrared sensors frame by frame. The new hypersonic missile will employ motion sensor data to alter every pixel, ensuring that the majority of items in the new image are consistent with those in previous photos in terms of viewing angle, illumination, and size. This calibration method is complicated, but it generates a crisper, more consistent background that lets the target stand out sharp

North Korea

North Korea claims to have successfully test-fired two hypersonic missiles so far this year — one on January 5, and the latest on January 11, according to the state-run Korea Central News Agency. U.S. officials have so far not confirmed the claims, describing the launches only as ballistic missile tests. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said hypersonic missiles would greatly increase his country’s nuclear “war deterrent,” a position that many experts say puts South Korea at risk.

100 Seconds to Doomsday

Since 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been tracking world events and assessing how close we are to “destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making“. Originally focused on the threat posed by nuclear weapons, the scope has since been broadened to include the effects of climate change (first considered in 2007). The Doomsday Clock metaphor is used to “warn the public” about how close we are thought to be to the worst-case scenario.

In 1947, the clock was started at 7 minutes to midnight – midnight being the point at which it is all too late and the world being destroyed. This assessment was driven mainly by “the prospect that the United States and the Soviet Union were headed for a nuclear arms race“. By 1953, this had been reduced to just two minutes, with the publication proclaiming, somewhat dramatically: “The hands of the clock of doom have moved again. Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western Civilization.“

Seven years later though, the clock had turned back to 7 minutes again and the hands were not to tick as far as in 1953 again until 2018. Then, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists wrote “Major nuclear actors are on the cusp of a new arms race, one that will be very expensive and will increase the likelihood of accidents and misperceptions. Across the globe, nuclear weapons are poised to become more rather than less usable because of nations’ investments in their nuclear arsenals.”

Since then, however, the global situation has apparently become even direr. The latest assessment for 2022 keeps the clock in the same threatening position that it has been in since 2020 – at just 100 seconds to midnight. The main reasoning, without getting to the role of climate change is as follows:

“U.S. relations with Russia and China remain tense, with all three countries engaged in an array of nuclear modernization and expansion efforts. The push to develop hypersonic missiles; and the continued testing of anti-satellite weapons by many nations, If not restrained, could mark the start of a dangerous new nuclear arms race. North Korea’s unconstrained nuclear and missile expansion and the (as yet) unsuccessful attempts to revive the Iran nuclear deal contribute to growing dangers. Ukraine remains a potential flashpoint, and Russian troop deployments to the Ukrainian border heighten day-to-day tensions.”

Source

• Statista
• Federation of American Scientists
• Beyond the Horizon
• Breaking Media, Inc
• Tracking Ancient Man