Are nuke weapons a good thing?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wezil
The whole 'nukes vs Japan' debate is based upon the assumption invasion of the Japanese mainland was necessary to end the war. This is the better debate.

The question was are they a good thing, not should they have been used vs strategy X. AFAICT the plan WAS to invade, rather than to do a a sub campaign, or pursue alleged negotiation possibilities - if that is the case, then the Japan question trumps, for me at least, the question of how you defend Germany in 1978 without nukes. If you want to tailor the question to avoid the time nukes were actually used, and either focus on the cold war, or on the post cold war world, I would think it possible to do that.

[Whoha]

no they suck, we need to research merculites quick.

[Wezil]

I was simply responding to Lancers "old standby".

In regards to the post WWII era - I think it is undeniable that MAD worked in keeping the superpowers in check and limiting conflicts to proxy wars for the most part. The problem, as others have pointed out, is the proliferation to other powers in the last couple decades.

[Agathon]

They're terrible. We have come close to a nuclear holocaust a number of times. If you want to know how bad a holocaust is, ask a Jew (but don't mention Israel's nukes ).

[General Ludd]

The world would be better of had they never been invented.

[Pekka]

Verres, loathe to agree with me? BACK TO BASEMENT you dirty hippie!

Lancer, speculations speculations. Means nothing. There are lots of what ifs. We are very familiar with SU and what ifs. Doesn't matter. It didn't happen and we can never point explicitely it was because of a or b.

Nukes are an object. If you want to determine if object is good or bad, well that's already sidetracking. Nukes can be used to killing millions of people. That's not good. Or you can use them as deterrent.. deterrent for others nuking you . That's kind of fly logic. Millions of flies like poo. It doesn't make poo good.

And even then, all we are talking is speculations. As if we wouldn't have a telephone now if it wasn't for Bell etc etc etc.

Besides, US considered Finland to be some weird SU backrounds ANYWAY until the 80s. That's a fact. Kind of like light remote satellite country. Had SU attacked in the 70s or 80s, there would have been NO NATO intervention what so ever. It's so clear, that it shouldn't even be a subject of any kind of debate. Because all the indicators point to it. We would have been another Afghanistan or something similiar, and that's a fact. Few other western countries would have had a dilemma with it, and US would have been concerned about it, but that is all. So no, nukes didn't save us. US didn't save us. NATO didn't save us. Yeltsin didn't save us. Gorbie didn't save us. Nukes the least.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
as the son of a US naval gunnery officer whose assignment in the event of an invasion of Japan in 1945 was to land secretly, in advance of the invasion and act as a spotter for naval gunfire, a task with an estimated survival rate only marginally above zero, I must disqualify myself from this discussion.

My dad to was set to invade Japan. I doubt he'd have come back.

Japan was effectively defeated at that point, cut off from their supplies by our submarine attacks, their cities destroyed by our fire bombing. But the Japanese were fanatical and were determined to fight on.

What the A-Bomb did was to give them a reason to accept the unacceptable and to endure the unendurable.

Post-war, I agree with Lancer:

Nukes and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) kept us out of WWIII.

But eventually, terrorists will get their hands on one, and then we are so screwed. And North Korea has shown a willingness to sell its military technology to anyone who'll pay.

[Proteus_MST]

As for the Nukes on Japan:

No, I don´t think that it was justified to A-Bomb 2 Japanese cities.

They should´ve been used on more isolated military bases if possible (which I think, was).
IMHO one of the reasons the american HQ chose the cities as targets was, because they were considered good "testing grounds", where you could clearly calculate the power of the A-Bombs by checking the grade of destruction of the houses around ground zero (something which would´ve been more difficult to assess in a non urban area where you wouldn´t have so much indicators for the destruction caused within certain radii around ground zero)

[Spiffor]

They prevented WW3. It's a fairly good news IMO.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Zkribbler

Post-war, I agree with Lancer:

Nukes and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) kept us out of WWIII.

But eventually, terrorists will get their hands on one, and then we are so screwed. And North Korea has shown a willingness to sell its military technology to anyone who'll pay.

Why is it that I was the first person to respond to this thread, I said this, Lancer agreed with me, and now everybody "agrees with Lancer." What am I, invisible?

[Lancer]

I still agree with you Rufus.

Anyway, I think that the US should have nuked a patch of ocean off of Tokyo. If the Japanese didn't give in, then nuke a city.

Regarding the conventional defense of europe against the Sovs, the US was the nation most dedicated to it. We spent roughly double on defense as a percentage if GDP than most of our european NATO partners we were defending. I never did understand this. It's as if they stuck their heads in the sand and just wished it would go away. Which of course it eventually did. Very dangerous game they were playing though. Plus, the Germans insisting on holding em at the border was just incredible considering the order of battle.

The lack of ground forces was the reason that the US turned tactical nukes over to German control, though it was considered joint control. Nobody believed that the US would use nukes to defend europe, and by so doing bring retaliation down on US cities. Germans with nukes scared the Sovs though, according to my understanding of the times.

The lack of NATO ground forces also made the release of nukes inevitable if the Sovs were to be stopped. In every exercise at the time commanders used nukes as a last resort to avoid losing europe. Still, the europeans refused to put up the $ needed to build the ground force needed to prevent nuke release. Go figure. Yet, in hindsight maybe they were right. The Sovs never came, the nukes did their job. It's all good now.

[techumseh]

Did nukes prevent WWIII? Certainly the aquisition of the A-bomb by the USSR did restrain the US and it's European allies. There is no evidence that the USSR planned to attack the west in the face of a US nuclear monopoly, or later. On the other hand, it was the US monopoly of nuclear weapons which allowed the Pentagon to dream of a war of aggression against the Soviets.

So I'd say it wasn't the existence of nuclear weapons per se, since in the hands of only one side they increase the chances of war. In the hands of both sides, in rough balance, they probably work against the outbreak of war. But not for sure, and that's the big problem. We would be far better off without them.

[Lancer]

techumseh, we all believe what we choose to believe. I've learned when presented with amazing statements just to enjoy them, wonder at them, and realize that none of it really matters.

Nukes saved the Sovs from US & european aggression.



Okally dokally, thanks for that.

[Saras]

In SP:WAW, when I play BAOR vs Sovs in 1949 I whip their azzes BAD with hands tied

[Saras]

IS-4's are tough nuts, though.