Are nuke weapons a good thing?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Saras
Oh, I also assume US has 10 armored divisions poised to take what needed to be taken in 1776-1812?

Get a grip.

Is this your best effort to substantiate your assertion?

[Saras]

teh clulezz

[Lancer]

When are the Chinese going to take Mongolia back UR? Historicly there's more of a Mongolian connection to China than Russia certainly.

[Commy]

After doing some reading on nuclear weapons, it appears that the nuclear bomb might be responsible for the fall of the USSR...not a gun was shot, not a bomb was dropped, rather, it was the cost of building a bomb that killed the Soviets...

The Manhattan project started with a $6000 research grant, but eventually the total cost reached over 5.8 trillion dollars...this is more than any other single project done by the US government except for Social Security...

In fact, the current GDP of the US is around 11.7 trillion dollars...the Manhattan Project cost about half that...add on the fact that 60 years ago the US GDP wasn't even close to this, and 5.8 trillion dollars is quite a lot...in fact, with the exception of china, that is more than the GDP of any other country in the world...in the end, 2 bombs (or rather 3, technically) cost more than most countries...

While I don't know the exact economy of the former USSR, it would seem that the US and NATO had a larger economy and better combined industry...

The cost of the "Manhattan Project" that the Soviets undertook at Arzamas 16 is not exactly known, but given how much the Americans spent, it is very likely the Soviets spent a comparable amount...

Add on the fact that the Soviets had a much larger nuclear complex and larger nuclear production, more than likely, the Soviets spent much more than the Americans did on a nuclear arsenal...

Obviously, other factors contributed to the fall of the USSR and Russia, but a costly nuclear program could very easily have been a major factor, tipping the scales towards total political and economic breakdown...

[Imran Siddiqui]

King or Deity, it makes no difference. Besides, only people who are losing a debate resort to personal comments such as these.

Comments like that are so silly... it means Fez won every debate he was in .

Faulty logic. Nixon wasn't even in Stalin's league. Apples and oranges.

Of course he was. They were both as paranoid as you can be and still function enough to run a country. What evidence do you have that Stalin was more paranoid than Nixon? Because he killed more people? What makes you think that Nixon wouldn't have done the same in Stalin's situation? This was the man who created the "madman doctrine" and walked around the White House muttering. His tapes just show that he was far more paranoid that anyone actually thought he was.

[Commy]

As far as WWII with Japan...

The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, created by Truman, estimated that around 200,000 died from both the atomic bombs...estimates vary, as local records of populations were destroyed by the bombs, but all the same, most estimates, including cancer victims, all fall in the 6-digit range...

No one knows for sure, and no one will ever know, but there are some estimates that, had a land invasion on Japan occured, as many as 2 million could have died, some American marines, but mostly Japanese civilians...in fact, most of the Japanese were issued pistols, swords, spears, and knifes to fight off such an invasion...

http://www.doug-long.com/

This site has much information on the topic...although I will admit some of the information is probably one sided...

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Lancer
Vince, shheeesh! If I tell these guys there were three of us they'll know we were ready to invade, eh?

[Mr. Harley]

I had not considered Commie's comment before, but historically expensive military technolgy has bankrupted many great and not-so-great countries through history. Whether it's armor for the nobility in the late middle ages (either the armor or a horse could consume one year's income for a noble) or dreadnaughts prior and during WW1, these costs have always come at the expense of the economy. Then again, the damage WW2 and the Cold War did to the US Economy may have set the seeds for our own econmic decline, much like WW1 and WW2 did to the Brits.

[Vince278]

True. It certainly contributed to the Soviet Union's decline.