(June 5, 2017 at 12:37 am)CapnAwesome Wrote:(June 4, 2017 at 10:26 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: I think there is much higher chance you will see a nuclear strike within your lifetime than you will die from a car accident, a plane crash, or a natural disaster.
The us may not be the only country to have nuclear weapons, but the US is the only country that is likely to think it has such geopolitical and technological advantage that if it were to use nuclear weapons, it would be spare of the consequences that all other nuclear powers can count on to suffer if they were to use it.
It is no secret that the US had been prepared to use nuclear weapons on a number of occasions during the last 70 years explicitly before the opponent has used nuclear weapons, or when the opponent didn't even have nuclear weapons, and at a time when the US homeland is in no way threatened at all.
The first clear example was in Korea. The US was prepared to nuke the Chinese should china drive UN forces out of Korea when china didn't have nuclear weapon nor had in any way threatened any territory or possession of the US. The second obvious one was during operation Desert Storm, when the US explicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iraq if iraq used Chemical weapons against coalition forces, even though Iraq had no nuclear weapons and posed no threat to the US, US possessions, or any real US allies.
I think no other nuclear power is likely to use nuclear weapons unless its home territory is directly threatened, or in the case of North Korea if the regime's survival is in grave danger, or if nuclear weapons have first been used against it.
This comes back to my original assessment that the US is the only power in the world that is likely to use nuclear weapons electively as a tactical asset, even when its home territory, its possessions, or its truly key allies are not under threat, as oppose to the ultimate weapon of very last resort either because of existential threat to homeland, or as a response to nuclear weapon having been used first against its forces.
This is because the US is unique in having a doctrine to win a nuclear war during the Cold War, and has the nuclear and conventional propounderance to insulate itself from the consequences in most nuclear release scenarios against a lesser power in the post Cold War scenario.
You make a lot of good points. However the Russians almost launched a nuke at the US by mistake in the 1980s, I just listened to it, and two times we almost nuked the Russians first earlier than that. http://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/...-calls.htm so I would say it's not unlikely they could strike something first too. Also the US would definitely suffer political and economic consequences if they nuked anybody. Every country on the planet would boycott the US if they dropped a nuke. So I think if a nuke goes off, it's at most only 50% likely to be the US. Consider who even has control of the nukes in Pakistan? How long is that regime going to last? I think most of my life I haven't even really thought about nuclear war as a possibility, growing up post cold war, until recently.
(June 4, 2017 at 10:24 pm)ignoramus Wrote: Who thinks that the first nuke will be used by terrorists?
In other words, due to an incompatibility between Islam and Western civilisation?
Oh well, God giveth life, God can taketh away....
Yeah, what is the United State's and Europe's response if say, Madrid is nuked by terrorists. Who gets nuked in return?
In 1984 The USSR almost launched an all out nuclear strike because a combination of technical difficulties with their satellite warning network, and misinterpretation of the purpose of a series of unusually aggressive NATO exercises as a cover for war mobilization, thought an American all out preemptive strike was already underway.
Which goes back to my point that all other nuclear powers perceive nuclear weapons as a tool of the last resort to be used only in case of imminent existential threat.
Note throughout the Cold War, Soviet policy was to wherever possible wage war on foreign territory and not to use nuclear weapon first, whereas American policy is to wage war only on foreign territory but quickly escalate to tactical nuclear weapons in the case of a land war in Europe, regardless of whether the soviets had used nuclear weapons.
India and Pakistan's nuclear arsenals are not quite tools of MAD for the both of them. Existing Pakistan nuclear arsenal will severely wound India but is likely insufficient to deal a mortal blow. Pakistan's nuclear weapons are a last resort against overwhelming India conventional superiority and even larger superiority in overall national war making potential by making the cost of India victory so high it won't be worth it. It again is not a weapon to be used electively.
India's nuclear arsenal not directed primarily against Pakistan. Instead it is directed at china to offset China's greatly superior military power and war making potential. Neither china nor India are believed to have their nuclear arsenals on hair trigger.
