Colinism said:
Also sorry but we had too many quotes going here.
To the first point, of course we can spread them over half a continent and through the oceans, however that simply ensures that the enemy needs that many more nukes to try and destroy our capability of a return strike, and vice versa.the fewer nukes the more the likely hood that an enemy does the calculations and decides that the losses from your return strike are acceptable. That is the theory anyhow.
Yes. Question is, is losing one city to a nuclear weapon acceptable? Look at Katrina. A low casualty rate, and not much property damage. (Only in the billions.) I am not convinced that any country can accept the consequences of any nuclear weapon use.
Which suggests to me that the UCS position is correct. America has far too many nuclear weapons; a few hundred would be plenty.
As to the second part, a terrorist nuke is almost inevitable at this point Nuclear technology was born of tech from the 40's. The deterrent comes in the fact that any group who then uses one will be hunted to extinction by the majority of world governments, the last thing you will want to be is the hiding place for such a terrorist or organization. The thing about nukes is once you have them it's almost assured that you will launch them in retaliation once one has been used against you. If you don't then they are not a deterrent at all.
Oh indeed. There are two problems with that, IMO.
- That leaves the deterrence system wide open to people who believe that killing them all and letting God sort them out is a good idea. If it's possible to trigger an exchange of that sort, then God will have to do the sorting out, right? It isn't possible to deter an attack designed to kill indiscriminately.
Deterrence assumes you can deter the other guy. After 9/11, does that look possible?
- Accidental launch can kill everyone. We know that there have been accidents of various sorts with nuclear weapons; B-52 crash in Spain, for instance. None have yet involved a weapon detonation or a missile launch. But rapid launch doesn't take account of the capacity for things just to go wrong; it doesn't leave any capacity for talking. And it plays into the hands of the urge for vengeance, which can only make matters worse.
Both of those argue that existing policy is counterproductive and may constitute an active threat to the security of the USA.
I'm don't dissagree with you exactly, but at the same time it's one of those things where I can see both modes of thinking and understand them.
Dropping a nuke from space won't cause it to detonate so other than a minor radiation spill from the material inside thats not so much a threat to society. The reason for Rapid launch is that it takes under an hour from launch to detonation anywhere in the world. You can't evacuate cities, you cant get people to shelters there simply is not enough time, in a few days your entire nuclear arsenal could be destroyed if you did not launch them immediately.
I understand the reason for it. I think it's obsolete thinking, and I think it was obsolete thinking from the start; partly because I don't believe any nation can dare allow even one loss of an entire city.
Japan did in WW2, the first atomic bomb did not cause an immediate surrender, the second did not either, it was the threat of being invaded by the soviets that finally caused the surrender. Cities can be rebuilt people give birth to more people life goes on my friend.
The thinking is not old your just putting too much value on human life.
Source, please.
Assuming you are correct, which I doubt:
- There's a difference between "just another American firebombing" - which is surely what it was, by that stage - and losing a city, completely by surprise, when you know in advance what a nuke is.
- Where is your deterrence theory? If Japan couldn't be persuaded to surrender by actually nuking Japanese cities...
And your sense of humour is going to get you killed, one of these days.
I'm honestly having trouble understanding the first part of what you said there.
Deterrence comes in because the point is not that you lose a city or cities but the whole country.
Colinism said:[spoiler]
Also sorry but we had too many quotes going here.
To the first point, of course we can spread them over half a continent and through the oceans, however that simply ensures that the enemy needs that many more nukes to try and destroy our capability of a return strike, and vice versa.the fewer nukes the more the likely hood that an enemy does the calculations and decides that the losses from your return strike are acceptable. That is the theory anyhow.
Yes. Question is, is losing one city to a nuclear weapon acceptable? Look at Katrina. A low casualty rate, and not much property damage. (Only in the billions.) I am not convinced that any country can accept the consequences of any nuclear weapon use.
Which suggests to me that the UCS position is correct. America has far too many nuclear weapons; a few hundred would be plenty.
As to the second part, a terrorist nuke is almost inevitable at this point Nuclear technology was born of tech from the 40's. The deterrent comes in the fact that any group who then uses one will be hunted to extinction by the majority of world governments, the last thing you will want to be is the hiding place for such a terrorist or organization. The thing about nukes is once you have them it's almost assured that you will launch them in retaliation once one has been used against you. If you don't then they are not a deterrent at all.
Oh indeed. There are two problems with that, IMO.
- That leaves the deterrence system wide open to people who believe that killing them all and letting God sort them out is a good idea. If it's possible to trigger an exchange of that sort, then God will have to do the sorting out, right? It isn't possible to deter an attack designed to kill indiscriminately.
Deterrence assumes you can deter the other guy. After 9/11, does that look possible?
- Accidental launch can kill everyone. We know that there have been accidents of various sorts with nuclear weapons; B-52 crash in Spain, for instance. None have yet involved a weapon detonation or a missile launch. But rapid launch doesn't take account of the capacity for things just to go wrong; it doesn't leave any capacity for talking. And it plays into the hands of the urge for vengeance, which can only make matters worse.
Both of those argue that existing policy is counterproductive and may constitute an active threat to the security of the USA.[/spoiler]
I'm don't dissagree with you exactly, but at the same time it's one of those things where I can see both modes of thinking and understand them.
Dropping a nuke from space won't cause it to detonate so other than a minor radiation spill from the material inside thats not so much a threat to society. The reason for Rapid launch is that it takes under an hour from launch to detonation anywhere in the world. You can't evacuate cities, you cant get people to shelters there simply is not enough time, in a few days your entire nuclear arsenal could be destroyed if you did not launch them immediately.
I understand the reason for it. I think it's obsolete thinking, and I think it was obsolete thinking from the start; partly because I don't believe any nation can dare allow even one loss of an entire city.
Japan did in WW2, the first atomic bomb did not cause an immediate surrender, the second did not either, it was the threat of being invaded by the soviets that finally caused the surrender. Cities can be rebuilt people give birth to more people life goes on my friend.
The thinking is not old your just putting too much value on human life.
Source, please.
Assuming you are correct, which I doubt:
- There's a difference between "just another American firebombing" - which is surely what it was, by that stage - and losing a city, completely by surprise, when you know in advance what a nuke is.
- Where is your deterrence theory? If Japan couldn't be persuaded to surrender by actually nuking Japanese cities...
And your sense of humour is going to get you killed, one of these days.
I'm honestly having trouble understanding the first part of what you said there.
Deterrence comes in because the point is not that you lose a city or cities but the whole country.
The first part? By April 1945 Tokyo was being firebombed something like two or three times a week, along with many other Japanese cities. The difference with Hiroshima was the effort needed to do it; one aircraft, not a couple of hundred.
And the Japanese didn't know what it was. We do. We've spent the last sixty years desperately trying to avoid the thing.
So the psychology of the effect is different.
And what I'm trying to tell you is that losing a city, nowadays, probably will lose you the whole country.
Colinism
Atlanta, GA
July 2005
MAY 20, 2008 04:40 PM