Rumsfeld and Nuclear Weapons

[alva]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'm actually for this program. The best way to prevent people from bothering to build deep hardened structures is to make sure everyone knows we can bust them any time we feel like it.

And we wonder why the whole world doesn't love you. What was that about bullying again?

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by GePap
Again, who cares if they spend their money building bunkers- stuff in bunkers is hardly of use.

Wha?

[korn469]

First off I think that researching bunker busting nukes isn't a half bad idea. We don't need to build them right now, but having the know how could come in useful at some point. Of course I do have a cavet, that we shouldn't break the nuclear test ban treaty. Secondly, Senator Fienstien says that their is no bomb known to man that can go far enough underground. Well 50 years ago they could have said the same thing about stealth bombers. So I don't think her argument holds up very well.

It is fairly disturbing that Rumsfeld wants to work around Congress; however I think the way Congress currently funds the military is highly flawed. I wish that Congress would simply say hey we are going to give you x amount of dollars and let the a nonpartisan group of generals (approved in their position by the senate) devised how to best allot the money to achieve military goals set forth by the President. Congress seems to let its own interests (read: pork barrel politics) override the requests of the pentagon.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That just means you won't be able to drink the ground water for a few hundred thousand years.

Still beats plenty of radioactive fallout over a large area.

Originally posted by dannubis
would you be as forgiving towards a nation that would use it in your neighbourhood ?

Forgiving? What the hell does noting that an underground nuclear blast makes less of a mess than an above-ground one have to do with being forgiving?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Jaakko
So, the US is the only country in the 21st century that has invaded another nation. It is also the only country that openly wants to initiate the use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear targets.

Tell me again, why is the "axis of evil" such a big threat?

Four years and two months does not a century make. Also you may notice there were several other countries in the Coalition not just the US. Lastly, please show ANYTHING proving the US "openly want to intiate the use of nuclear weapons".

I'm thinking Jaakko is the new Fez of BAM.

[Urban Ranger]

If you don't want to use them, why build them?

[Commy]

It's called overwhelming force. The fact that we DO have them is in hope that nobody is stupid enough to attack us, knowing that we WILL nuke them if necessary, but we don't want to, which is why we have them...

Just start asking about the IRS and american taxes, and I'll bet you'll get even more confused...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
If you don't want to use them, why build them?

The same reason we built the other types. They make really nice deterents to convince people not to do things we don't like.

[Admiral]

As far as I can see, the only case wherein bunker-busting nukes could be used without violating international law and making those associated with their use war criminals would be to bust a bunker that is being used to launch a nuclear attack.
(The passage, from the world court, states, "However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake.")
However, and I am just speculating here so correct me if I'm wrong, but any bunker being used as a silo would be close enough to the surface that special bunker-busting weapons probably would not be necessary.
The broader point, for me, is that almost any use of nukes, even in a retaliatory fashion, is completely immoral. I mean, I don't think we can really imagine the results of a nuclear strike. Hence, I don't really like the idea that the US is building weapons that they cannot use in a moral and legal fashion. Maybe that makes me a hippy, but if it does, it is an epithet that I can live with.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Oerdin


The same reason we built the other types. They make really nice deterents to convince people not to do things we don't like.

What is the current nuclear arsenal of the USA detering people from doing, and what has it detered them from doing in the past?

[Dinner]

Ask one of our Russian or Chinese friends.

[General Ludd]

Well, Comrade Tassadar? Urban Ranger? What are you detered from doing by the USA's nuclear weapons?

[Urban Ranger]

Taunt it mercilessly? Hmm... no. Beats me.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The same reason we built the other types. They make really nice deterents to convince people not to do things we don't like.

That just makes other people want to make their own nuclear weapons. Good move

[Admiral]

The deterence factor is essentially meaningless. It is ironic, in fact. We finally developed a weapon that is so terrible, it cannot be used. Therefore, it doesn't matter, and various people still went and were expansionist. Think about it, if nuclear weapons actually were effective as deterents, China would not have intervened in Korea (though, admittedly, there was talk of using nuclear weapons in Korea, so perhaps this doesn't fit the pattern), the North Vietnamese wouldn't have continued operations in the South, Russia wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan, etc. The Cuban Missile Crisis doesn't apply, as the Soviets could have, at that point, wiped out most of America, using ICBMs, and so the decisive factor was the capability of the US fleet in home-ish waters. I mean, you can argue that nuclear deterrence prevented a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, but I singularly doubt that, certainly after Stalin's death, they would have tried it under any circumstances (Stalin was just insane enough to have attempted it). As to China, China didn't try to take Taiwan, but I do not believe that we were offering a nuclear umbrella, but that the Chinese were (and really still are) capable of mounting an amphibious attack against a modern and well defended island fortress. As to the Spratly's, the US navy would pwn China any day, preventing China from expanding in that direction. And overland, China had its complications with the USSR, but both had powerful land forces, and neither saw potential. And in the South, there were natural boundries preventing expansion into India, and Russia was preventing China (I believe) from expanding through Indochina.
The point of all of the above, is that nuclear deterence didn't really seem to deter anything. The only thing it could do would be to prevent a nuclear first strike, and since my position is not a unilateral de-nuclearization, that is essentially a non-argument.