Will there be a nuclear strike in your lifetime?

[vorlon13]

Lets bring back air raid drills with duck and cover. That was such a fun time in grade school.

my grade school had frequent sonic booms from jet fighters on training

rattled the kids, staff, and the building good

[Anomalocaris]

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.

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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.

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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.

[Isis]

Here's an interesting question for you all:

Let's say you were President of the United States and you received word that a foreign country (I don't know, say Russia, for example) was planning to launch an attack on your country with nuclear weapons. Would you have any problem with striking them first knowing that so many civilians would die?

[vorlon13]

assuming intel has a good idea if mostly red or mostly blue areas are targeted, I'm thinking it would turn into a political thing

[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.

[Aoi Magi]

I still have a little bit of faith remaining in human intelligence so I don't think we will nuke each other, besides they are so oldskool. We will most likely screw up each other with something a bit more futuristic, like some runaway genetic experiment, or skynet

Seriously though, I am more afraid of weaponized viruses in the hands of terrorists than nukes in the hands of our bureaucrats...

[The Valkyrie]

There will IF someone will give me just a few nukes!

Though the bio agents I'm developing may work sometime soon...

[Anomalocaris]

There will IF someone will give me just a few nukes!

Though the bio agents I'm developing may work sometime soon...

Those are too high tech for me. I want to throw a couple of 10 mile rocks at the earth.

[The Valkyrie]

There will IF someone will give me just a few nukes!

Though the bio agents I'm developing may work sometime soon...

Those are too high tech for me.  I want to throw a couple of 10 mile rocks at the earth.

Just remember to hit the right areas: Middle East, Sahara, Pakistan, White House.

[Anomalocaris]

Anywhere is the right area if the rock is 10 miles across.