RE: Will there be a nuclear strike in your lifetime?
June 5, 2017 at 2:41 pm
(This post was last modified: June 5, 2017 at 3:19 pm by Anomalocaris.)
That depends on whether the information about the impending attack is credible and independently verifiable by other major nuclear powers. For now the most important other power that must be privately (although not necessarily publically)convinced is Russia. Soon it will also be china.
The typical American attitude might be I do what I need to do and screw those others who don't understand. This is fine when the others are marginal players like the U.K. But for countries with a large nuclear arsenal and whose reaction and whose perception ofbown security can have existential consequences for the US, that would be totally self destructive.
The one country able to launch a truly devastating preemptive attack on the US is Russia. At current rate china can do so as well within 10 years or so.
Considering America's recent track record of fabricating evidence to justify an attack on Iraq in order to aggrandize itself in the region, I think if United States launches an nuclear strike based on claimed information about a threat that others can't independently verify, then the stink of an elective attack for own aggrandizement can never be removed from the act, and the attack would certainly put other nuclear powers on the extreme edge, and make the option of a true preemptive strike against the US more attractive in their eyes.
The typical American attitude might be I do what I need to do and screw those others who don't understand. This is fine when the others are marginal players like the U.K. But for countries with a large nuclear arsenal and whose reaction and whose perception ofbown security can have existential consequences for the US, that would be totally self destructive.
The one country able to launch a truly devastating preemptive attack on the US is Russia. At current rate china can do so as well within 10 years or so.
Considering America's recent track record of fabricating evidence to justify an attack on Iraq in order to aggrandize itself in the region, I think if United States launches an nuclear strike based on claimed information about a threat that others can't independently verify, then the stink of an elective attack for own aggrandizement can never be removed from the act, and the attack would certainly put other nuclear powers on the extreme edge, and make the option of a true preemptive strike against the US more attractive in their eyes.
